Why doesn't anyone make attractive womens safety shoes???

Now technically this post is a bit irrelevant whilst I am at home for the rest of the year on maternity leave, but now I am at a point where I need to re-assess my wardrobe, the issue has raised its ugly head again.

I would like to try and trim my wardrobe a bit, put in some good pieces, get rid of the bad and retain those things that I love to wear (while making sure that it doesn't consist entirely of tracksuits) Yes I am now a mummy, but I wish to be a Yummy Mummy. I want to wear good clothes whether I am at work or home, and there are some clothes that I can't wear when I return to work. Some of those occur for reasonable reasons (shorts for example don't count as office wear) but some are out of the question simply because of my limited footwear choices. 

Now although I work in Sales, I do have to go out onto our factory floor on a daily basis, normally quite a few times and never at the same time of day. So I need to wear my safety shoes all day long, all week long. I have now got 3 pairs. One horrible pair of loafers, one pair of typical safety boots and one pair of Mary-Jane style shoes. Compared to some of my other Mary-Jane shoes, they are ugly in the extreme. But when put alongside most of the steel-toed shoes on offer for women, they are very presentable. Which is ridiculous. 

I do understand the need for safety shoes and would never jepordize my safety just for wearing some pretty shoes (and frankly our H&S department wont let me either) but there are some styles of shoes that would be very easy to make in a STC variety, and still look attractive.

Knee high booths are a classic example. It is actually possible to buy some, but only if you are happy looking like you are going to a BDSM club, which isn't a look I want to go for at work. All of my STC shoes are round-toed, and I have a very nice pair of knee high boots with a round toe and a small heel. So why can I currently only buy boots with a million zips and massive platforms on them.

And as an extension of that idea, what is wrong with nice ladies ankle boots. Its the same thing as a knee high boot, just cut some off the top? As a staple collection of shoes for work, I would say that I needed 1 pair of flats, 1 pair of ankle boots and 1 pair of high boots. And all of those could quite easily be made with STC. I am also happy to pay for these shoes as they will get the wear. I wore my Mary-Jane shoes Mon-Thursday for a year and they are only in need of a polish to put them back to new. 

This might seem to some as a trivial matter, but I believe that how good you feel in your clothing is important to how good you can feel in yourself. Its not the be all and end all, more like the chocolate in a cake. We all like any cake, but would prefer it to be chocolate. Nor do I think that I am in a unique position here. There are several industries where women are taking a more active roll on site; Engineering and Architecture for example, or those who frequently need to visit factories and worksites and those women must therefore also need safety footwear that fits in with their working wardrobe. 

So if there are any safety shoe manufacturers out there, please take pity on us poor women and make just a few really nice pairs of Steel toed shoes.

Thank you

Elliefantasy

PS for those who were expecting a more crafty post, I apologise, but this may well end up as journaling for a scrapbook page about my shoes.

JYC 2011 5th Dec

No picture today which is symbolic as I have no advent calendar. That's right, no calendar. None, zilch, zippo, none whatsoever. A tragedy in chocolate form.

The problem actually is the chocolate. I looked in Tesco and Sainsbury and could only find ones for children. I'm far too old to be counting down to Christmas with Thomas the Tank Engine or Peppa Pig. And those advent calendars tend to run high on licence cost and low on chocolate quality. I like Cadbury's. Well like is an understatement. I will accept Mars chocolate, Malteasers, Thorntons, any proper chocolate but not cheap nasty chocolate for 24 days on the trot.

The Cadbury factory shop had run out of Calendars when I went on 30th, which was probably a little too late to start shopping. And now I am not having one on principle. Though I feel like the only person I am hurting is myself. And I am sure if I see a suitable one I will jump on it and open the first 5 doors with gusto.

Love Elliefantasy xx

JYC 2011 4th Dec

I am trying to make this year's stories about the present day as last years stories ended up being about past Christmas's. Thankfully today we finally rounded out a lot of our plans and we're all set for a pretty perfect Christmas. I want a slightly different type of Christmas day this year, one that focuses more on relaxation than frenetic activity. I am happy to be spending the day with family, but also happy that its not the whole family so it wont be too overwhelming. I'm looking forward to giving my nephew his present, but this year seeing him be able to open it himself, rather than showing him how to do it. And a small part of me is looking to enjoy this last Christmas where our family is just OH and I.

And in the spirit of perfection, this is the new lovely craft desk that OH & FIL made for me. I still need to find places for everything and the pursuit of a perfect craft room layout is still nowhere within my reach.

Love Elliefantasy xxx

JYC 2011 3rd Dec

Here are this years Christmas cards. I quite enjoy writing them, even if I only get a few words down for each person. I went through the whole rigmarole of writing them and addressing them last year but I never got around to posting them, so this year I am determined to get them done and out early. The actual cards I made last  year but only got round to designing envelopes for them in October. I have some small black ones from 2009 to send to work, which also need envelopes doing but work cards don't take as long to sort and deliver as the ones for friends and family. 

JYC 2011 2nd Dec

Weather for the South West  -Slightly colder than before but generally cloudy, no rain. Temp at time of writing - 7 dgC

Which doesn't sound too bad, except we have the window wide open in the room next door trying to get rid of the smell of paint and white spirit. My lovely Winnie the Pooh mural is no more than a slightly darker shadow, but the wooden area is now a lovely clean white all the way over. 

Back to the weather again today and we had another pregnancy fail. I parked my car too far to the left and so struggled to get between it and neighbours car to scrape the ice off the window. For the last few days it was just condensation but this morning, it was definately icy. So sent OH out with instructions to buy de-icer as well as paint. 

However I did enjoy once again using the heated seats in the car, which work much quicker than having the fan on. 

Picture above is this years mitten and hat combination. Last year I went for a tasteful cream woollen hat. Which OH tumble dried and shrank. Also I had understated black mitten gloves for driving. Which unravelled at the thumb. This year I have gone for childish and fun. Much better. 

Love Elliefantasy (& Bumpy)

JYC 2011 Dec 1st - Manifesto

Its the 1st of December again! But I find myself in remarkably different circumstances than I was expecting. Not that I wasn't expecting to be "expecting" but I wasn't expecting to be so far along. Or so big.

Some other changes from this year to last year include a new car for baby and having to change my craft room 2 or 3 years earlier than expected. Whilst most will be doing Xmas shopping or putting up their decs, my poor OH will be painting and building me a new craft room so that I can move into the smaller room and let Bumpy have my nice big one. (I will be putting up the tree and whatever other decs I can manage as I am banned from going upstairs on Saturday unless bringing cups of tea. Which is fair. Overall I am happy with the changes but I feel like I have really underestimated just how exhausting and imposing pregnancy can be on all aspects of life. All the energy that I normally have to put into being excited about Xmas is  just not there and if I don't get a shift on, neither will some presents.


For those who are interested, after last years success for blogging but lacking of album, I took a totally new approach some time in June this year. My 2010 album was sat on the desk with no end in sight because it was far far too small. At that time I seemed to take notice of American Crafts albums and WRMK divided page protectors, mainly through some of my fav bloggers, Shimelle of course, and Laura over at Lazy Dynamics certainly spring to mind as being very taken with these albums. So I have come up with a nice, small but on-going idea which I shall show later in the month. But it means that all I have to do for moment is worry about blogging. Which I can do from my PC or my phone so it doesn't matter if I'm away from home. Or if I miss a few days.

Lastly a look at the Welcome Message mail today. I have the following to add.

I will believe in .... Santa (cos I always do!)

I will be grateful for ...... some time to rest

I will always remember.....Being pregnant for the first time and the differences it brings.

Love Elliefantasy (& Bumpy)

Mid Octoberly Post of an Updating nature

So, epic, epic fail with LSN again. I can't seem to remember to do it, but I have no problems with doing JYC? Maybe this is something that I need to learn?? I have a pile of purple, paper, album and embellishments still sat on my desk in a very accusatory nature which I need to find a space for out of my sight.
I have actually not been doing too badly with the whole crafty stuff, especially as Bumpy is limiting my craft time by making me very very sleepy after work days and making my posterior sore after sitting for too long at the weekends. I have a pillow and a cushion but after a while its just not enough. So what have I been doing? (warning, epic post with pics to follow)

Well, whilst the world is starting to gear up for Christmas, I have been gearing up for weddings. Well one wedding in particular where I will be making the stationery. I haven't done this since my own wedding, but its proving a fairly un-daunting task so far. Mainly because we are scraplifting a design from somewhere else, using the very popular english rose/Cath Kidson theme. I am not a fan of this style myself, and making a design using a style that you don't like is a bit of a challenge, but hey, its not my wedding and therefore not my problem. So we now have a design, some rather nifty blanks from Craft Creations and all I need to do is find vast quantities of cream and pale blue card.

So what am I doing about the big "C" word that we mentioned earlier. Surely as a crafter, I should be sat slaving over a pile of barely started cards. Well I've actually finished some that I made a couple of years ago, that needed special envelopes. I've designed them, printed and folded them and they are ready if I need them. I've also done the same for another set of teeny cards I made. But my actual, sort of cheaty plan for the year is to make a digital image from our 20 week scan photo (that we get next week) and get photobox to print my cards for me. Only OH isn't that impressed with the idea of Bump with a santa hat on. I haven't pressed the issue, as I need to see if I can do it first. If it doesn't work then I've got a load in backup so my time is relatively free.

The project I should really be starting soon though is the baby book. I've cut out a lot of 6x6 squares of apricot, pale yellow/green/blue card and put the apricot through the bind it all. I now love my bind-it-all (the key for this was reading the instructions properly and then then having a play. I've also got a 3/4 finished book done for nephews 1st xmas, all punched, just waiting for more pics)
The original plan was to have 1 book but I don't think that I'll get wires big enough. So I'm going to do 4 books, each a different colour card, 1 for the pregnancy, 1 for the labour story, 1 for general info (family tree, what happened on d.o.b, general worldy info) and the last for the 1st year story. I haven't yet printed any photos of the pregnancy, and tbh haven't taken many at all, even bumpy photos. There didn't seem to be much point when there was no bump but as I've now "popped" I might start to take a few. OH and I have planned a "baby-moon" so my aim is to get the photos taken and printed to work on the first part of the book then, colour to be decided when we know the sex of the baby.

So that's me for a bit. I'll try to take a few pics and do a post later in the week for my JYC pre and post planning, the result of a rather good idea.

Love Elliefantasy xx