crafty Archives - Page 7 of 8

I made my own advent calendars…

December 2, 2015January 16, 2016crafty, illustration4 Comments

Dweeb that I am, I have, on three occasions over the years taken the time to make my own advent calendars. It can take a while to make one as I have to use scary things like “Maths” to work out how to align images and where to do the cutting. Not to mention coming up with 24 weeny Christmassy pictures that I like. I don’t remember when I made my first one but it was definitely pre-babies. There is a way I can date them all; each one has a picture inside that is representative of where I am in that time. (Above is last year’s calendar)

This one makes me laugh, it’s so bad. I’m still fond of it though and at least I can see I’ve improved.

Embarrassingly bad pictures inside too. Gotta start somewhere. See, pre-babies, just me and Husband. I don’t even know if we were married when I made this. Maybe it’s around 2006/2007?

I made the second one to represent the fact that we now had a baby. So it’s 2009. And I’ve tried harder with the drawing too. I was very proud at the time. I know I’m not the best drawer in the world but I have my own silly illustrative style…

We’re looking a bit tired in this picture. I like my attempt at Mary on a donkey ha!

And then, because I had done that, I had to make a third to show that baby now had a brother. I quite like it here, before I finished it. Right at the end I added the dark blue for sky and I stopped liking it as much. I think I ran out of steam.

The illustrations have definitely improved but I am not often satisfied so maybe next year I’ll make another one and include the cat.

I’m using this one again this year. It’s mine, the boys are not allowed to open the doors, they have their own. The doors have been closed again and I’m interesred to see what’s on the other side. Apart from these two photos (from last year), I have forgotten what they all look like complete.

My Eldest had a go at his own too but I didn’t want to slice into it, it’s too lovely as it is.

And, just before I go. This is a picture of my stall on Saturday! It was lovely to have a go. The PTA made lots of money for the school. The felt decorations I made were my most popular items. I sold all of them apart from four lonesome doves. I guess they just weren’t festive enough. I have lots of things leftover but that isn’t a problem. I have plans for them…

HO HO HO.

Playing with felt for Christmas.

November 25, 2015crafty, felt18 Comments

For the last two weeks I have been crazy busy cutting and stitching felt. I’ve pretty much been knee deep in the stuff. Amazingly, I’ve really enjoyed it, I’ve not once become fed up with the cutting or the stitching. Most of the time I make something once and then get immensely bored if I have to do it again. Something must be wrong with me because I had this little production line going and got addicted to seeing how much stuff I could churn out. I’ve had fun anyway.

I made brooches (not really my cup of tea).

I made Christmas trees.

Boots for elves.

Peaceful little doves.

Lots of these.

I came up with a new robin design.

And I improved upon a prancing reindeer pattern that I originally made two years ago (can’t photograph the old one as that fella is in the loft with all the other Christmas stuff).

They might be my favourites. They’re so fancy!

And more gingerbread men!

On Saturday I’m taking them to the school Christmas Fayre. I hope people like them. I do! Glad I’ve finished them really because little, near invisible stuffing fibres kept trying to live in my eyes.

Sewing and crochet this week. Hopefully I will feel like getting the sewing machine out once the kids have gone to bed but I’m well behind on Dr Who episodes and everyone is talking about Clara!

The Middle of November, Already.

November 18, 2015November 18, 2015crafty, crochet, felt, garden, sewing11 Comments

I’ve been mega busy over the last couple of weeks, getting my craft on and all that. The weekend after next I will be busy trying to make people buy my wares at the PTA Christmas Fayre. I am not going to blather on today because I’m going to plonk myself down on the sofa in a minute and start some more stitching.

Anyway, before I add a few pictures of what I’ve been doing with my crafty ways, I’m just going to squeeze in some garden pictures. It’s all very well being smug about the prettiness of it in spring and summer [it was hard to choose those links as there are betweeny posts with lovely summery flowers in, I just looked in the garden category!] but I shouldn’t hide the tattiness out there come late autumn.

This morning looked very promising but it’s since greyed over and is threatening rain. Again.

Only mildly depressing.

And I should get over myself because in other years there is no way I’d still have flowers in the garden at this time of year. The little purple flowers are a summer annual, Nemesia. Beyond the wall you can see flecks of orange, which is the nasturtium, still going strong.

The blue sky didn’t last. The pumpkins are still resisting the urge to disappear. I chucked them in the runner bean grave after Halloween. Sadsack leeks are sharing the space. Just blinkin well grow, please.

View from above. Bottom left is where I lobbed all the twigs from the Halloween decorations. The kids have played with them in their funny games.

This is what I’m working on at the moment. Lots of felt decorations. Some I’ve made before, some I’m just making up as I go. I’ve designed them all myself, if you can call it that. Not sure how hard it is to draw a Christmas tree really (not very?). And it’s a big lie anyway because my eldest boy drew out the Elf boot last year and I helped modify it. That one, he is the designer of.

I rummaged through the fabric drawer for any green and red fabric I had. Mostly it is just scraps but I reckon I can work something out. There is new stuff there too; the reindeer fabric and the stuff above it is a recent impulse buy.

And then there are these jobbies. To ensure I had a lot of them I have done away with the colour changes that made me thing of these as Granny owls. Making them up in just one colour was a lot quicker and they still look nice.

I did blathering when I didn’t want to. Wasting precious making time…. And I’m also trying out a C2C crochet blanket, which I forgot to take a picture of. It’s mainly for stash busting purposes and I wanted to try something new. Any way, I”m off!

An easy diy Halloween tiara

October 28, 2015crafty1 Comment

I’m still not 100% certain of what my costume will be on Saturday but I know it will involve this tiara doodah I made today. It’s still wet, which is why this isn’t going to be a fancy tutorial. And I’ve rushed the pictures because I’m running out of Halloweeny time. Apologies for the carelessness.

So, things you will need should you wish to give this a go are:

Garden wire or similar. Masking tape. Cheap headband. Pva glue. Black tissue paper. Glitter glue.

Get your headband and the wire.

Do some twiddling of the wire around the headband.

I think it helps to do a couple of feet of wire at a time, to avoid tangles. Bend the wire into crookedy shapes.

Get busy with some masking tape. This creates a better shape without over doing the paper mache stage.

Mix pva glue with some water and glue torn up bits of tissue paper to the tiara. This might not strictly be paper mache but it’s what I call it.

I blasted mine with a hair dryer to dry it more quickly. I’m not sure sure if this is a good idea but I did it anyway. Splodge on some glitter glue and leave to dry. Job done.

Happy Halloween!!

I made stuff pre-blog too; pretending to be a crafting blogger. When you’re not. Yet.

October 23, 2015blanket, crafty, crochet, felt, sewing17 Comments

I’ve spent years being inspired by other bloggers work. It became something I really wanted to do too. It looked fun and it looked like a good way to keep on track of what I was doing creatively. I was lazy and procrastinatey and used several excellent excuses as to why I hadn’t just done it. I’m still so new to it all, but if I had started when I first I had the notion then I would have been being bloggy for six or seven years by now! In my head, I have been doing it for six years or seven years. I’ve spent much time taking pictures of crafty projects and each time I’ve thought that maybe they would end up as a blog post. So, I’m going to put up some pictures of work that was done in the six months prior to hitting Publish for the first time. (I was going to write a post about yeasterday’s [relevant unwitting typo, that applies] kitchen endeavours but that was such a disaster that I need a few days to recover :/).

I went through a mandala phase. These two are both Made in K Town using Rico Creative Cotton. Cheap cotton, very splitty, lovely colours. This has led me towards doilies, which I still need to make more of. Soon.

I made my eldest boy an Attic 24 Ripple for his bed. It’s Stylecraft Special. Everyone loves a bit of Stylecraft rippling.

The boy chose the colours. So off I went. It was reasonably speedy once the first few rows were out the way. A repeating colour pattern was a weeny bit boring though. Next time, it’s random colours, like it’s supposed to be.

I made teeny niece the mini version for her dolly. I didn’t use the same pattern. This version has more ripples so looks better scaled down. It’s actually adapted from a cushion cover pattern from Cute and Easy Crochet by Nicki Trench. When I say “adapted” I mean “added a few more rows”. The edging, I think is the one that was on the Granny Stripe made by Lucy at Attic 24.

This one was a special request for a baby blanket. My Sister in Law chose the colours. It’s Stylecraft alpaca DK. The blocks were from 200 Crochet Blocks by Jan Eaton. Don’t go thinking that all the blocks end with the same stitch count though. They really don’t. Hmm. I really liked how this one turned out but I only blocked the edge (which is from Edie Eckman’s Crochet Borders book) and not the individual squares. Next time, I will try super hard to block stuff.

One of the quickest little blankets ever. It was so much fun. The squares were done in a few days and it was the first time I used a continuous-join-as you-go. This was for a baby girl born in early spring. I’d make one of these again for sure. It was inspired by a picture I saw on Pinterest and it led me to Katie’s Kitchen.

There are six handmade things in the picture above. Six! I am responsible for five of them but the cream knitted blanket is a Mother in Law job. Three blankets, two cushions and a dolly. Huzzah.

Sewing has been worked on too. I’m better than I was but there is definitely room for improvement too. Having said that, the cherry blossom needlecase is one of my favourite felty sewn things I’ve done.

And a Mermaid’s purse! Well, another needlecase… She was lovely to make. After Christmas I plan on making more of these sorts of things and giving them a go on Etsy. I’m not entirely sure what the demand is for needlecases and such, I guess I’ll find out. I will obviously shout very loudly on here if these sorts of things head towards my Etsy shop.

Phew, I feel a bit better now. I’m off to have yesterdays’ leftovers for lunch, which thankfully, taste better than the experience that I had in the kitchen.

A crafted, cat themed birthday present.

October 19, 2015October 20, 2015crafty, fabric, felt, sewing2 Comments

I’ve been waiting to use this fabric for ages. Yesterday morning I snipped off a small rectangle to line a teeny purse I was making. I’ve still got loads left. I’m wondering if I could Halloweenify it somehow. I bought it at Fabricland, less than £4 a metre.

I was in a rush and have made many errors. Dodgy blanket stitches and misaligned fabric lining got to me a bit but I only had a couple of hours to hastily chuck something together. Initially, I wasn’t going to do anything but that would be mean. How could I not give my awesome friend a birthday present?! Anyway, I usually like last minute ideas the best.

I’m pleased with the little nose and whiskers.

I can’t decide if this cat is brilliant or awful. It’s freehand, can you tell? Miaow.

To go with the so-bad-it’s-good present there was an card equivalent. Me, Husband and six and a half year old all had an opinion on how the card design should be. In the end I thought we were all winners and all our ideas were included.

Upcycling those old books, a quick project.

October 9, 2015October 9, 2015crafty, illustration, vintage8 Comments

I cut up a lot of books. Usually they’re ones that have been scribbled on, which puts a stop to any guilty feels. This is most of what I’ve got shoved in my crafty drawer, some may have fallen down the back.

I’ve got a lot of birthdays in October and my collection comes in handy when I haven’t got the time to draw a card design. You upcycle those old pictures into something new like a card!That’s another thing to feel bad about; If you make a birthday card just by sticking a picture onto some card, is that cheating? Well, it’s what I do when time is an issue.

Here is my favourite box of pens and things. I have a scalpel in there wrapped in a tatty masking taped protective thing (Husband made it a long time ago and I have stolen it along with the blade), it’s the dirty thing on the left, next to the brown pencil. We’ve tried to find those Stylo pens but they don’t make them any more. This one is used sparingly, it is lovely to draw with.

Anyway, I use that scalpel to slice up my old pictures and then just bung them on some card with a bit of glue. Easy!

Leftovers.

See? Easy! A bit more slicing and done.

Lazy, or what? I regret not having made the effort to do some drawing but I have been so busy that I haven’t had time to think of ideas. I really don’t like drawing something if the idea doesn’t please me greatly. Which reminds me, it is another birthday tomorrow…. Husband’s… I have lost my thinking cap. (The fabric in the background is for a project I did at the beginning of the week. I’ve taken pictures, so it will deffo become a blog post soon.)

Not forgetting to sign “your work” after. Sorry to everyone who gets these. I do try to match the picture to the person but it isn’t always possible.

Fairy helper for a day: A birthday party.

September 14, 2015crafty7 Comments

Saturday saw the birthday party of a little girl I know. It was brilliant. My birthday present to her was to help with decorations. And so I did. I went a bit crazy, and together, with her mum, we covered the house in pom poms, streamers and fairy magic.

Unfortunately my photography skills haven’t improved much over the last few months so my interior shots are dull and fuzzy. I’ll post the pctures anyway because they show what we got up to. I just hope the host doesn’t mind me showing pictures of her lovely house!

Half a tonne of tissue paper pompoms were made in all different sizes. We stuck to green and pink colours, which worked well together. The small pompoms got threaded together to make garlands.

The decorations came from everywhere. It was a big and happy collaboration with lots of friends lending little things, big things, colourful things, all of which came together to create a delightful fairyland.

A handmade fairy throne of hazel. It’s amazing (even if it does have woodworm)!

All of these potion vessels were gathered from the local junk yard for pretty much nothing.

Sadly I didn’t see any fairies flit past this dodgy handmade teepee (old duvet cover). The flowers were pinned on and sticks cut from nearby.

I think a lot of the cushions and rugs were found in charity shops but I did do that so I’m not sure.

It rained in the morning but ten minutes before kids arrived, the sun came out and we rushed outside to put up all the tricks.

I love this secret fairy garden. It has reminded me that, I was told an actual fairy had moved into the garden. I heard that a little tiny door had appeared at the foot of one of the trees. I completely forgot to go and find it. It’s better not to disturb them I suppose.

I think this was definitely the most popular game. A magic potion table.

It was mostly vinegar, bicarbonate of soda and food colouring. There was also soap and shaving foam, stuff like that. It was loads of gloopy, stinky fun. There was also a wand making table, which I didn’t have a go at. I was too busy floating around being a fairy.

Everyone’s favourite was the food table. My paper mache toadstools popped up amongst the leaves and cakes. There was more food than this it just hadn’t been put out yet!

Nothing was expensive, a bit of imagination was all that was needed.

It all looked beautiful. The evening before, the birthday girl and her brother helped their mum to make the fairy cakes. I’m told they enjoyed making little fondant roses to go on top of the icing. Loads of fresh fruit and leaves were used to decorate the table: blackberries, hazelnuts and ferns from their garden and figs with their leaves from mine.

The vintage cake stands worked really well with all the foliage. I’ve seen loads of them in charity shops recently. The back drop of netting is an old net curtain from my living room (we got a kitten last week and using her sharp claws, she tore a giant hole in it). It was recycled into a gauzy backdrop for the butterflies to settle upon.

The location was perfect too. It was just so much fun. I don’t really know what else to say about it. Well, I could reveal my costume I suppose…

My fairy shoes. Lots of felt cut with pinking shears stuck on to old shoes using my trusty glue gun. To add a bit of detail I stitched in some leafy veins. I also wore some green fairy wings and a garland of leaves in my hair. I smudged eyes, cheeks and brows in bright green eye shadow too. There are a couple of photgraphs of me but I look yuck so I’m not putting them up 😛

Encouraging fairies; I made paper mache toadstools!

September 10, 2015crafty8 Comments

I spent the weekend making these toadstools and I love them! In my head they were expertly crafted and beautifully painted. In real life they’re not quite as perfect looking as in my head but I reckon I did a pretty good job. As usual, I was religiously trawling Pinterest when I saw some that I knew I had to make.

At the weekend I am helping with a friends birthday party. Her daughter is turning four and is having a fairy themed party. I think I’ll be able to squeeze these in there somewhere. If they survive, I’ll also work them into my Halloween celebrations!!

Any way, I thought I’d share my pictures of how I made mine. The original tutorial is really good and it’s a proper tutorial whereas, I’ll just show the various stages of the makings of them. I recommend checking out the original if you fancy having a go.

Actually this was an addition to the tutorial; I added coppers to the bottoms of the stems to add weight. They stand up nicely.

For the larger toadstools, I made a disc of foil and put three pennies on top.

Then I wrapped that in more foil and squidged it together.

Twisty twisty with the foil.

The caps were made separately from the stems.

Following the tutorial, I covered it all in masking tape so that the paper mache has something to grip. I don’t know if this was necessary but it also helped to shape everything.

Once I had covered it all, I left them for a couple of days to dry naturally. In April, I was playing with paper mache and thought I’d put my creation out in the hot sun to dry. It was too intense and it did annoying crinkly things to what I was working on (Ice King pinata-it was so cool).

I’ve ruined my tray as I was too lazy to get a separate doodah for the paint. I did two coats of acrylic paint. Three would have been better.

I love playing with my glue gun. Stems got stuck to caps. And fingers.

I thought too much about dot placement. Not the worst thing to worry about, I guess.

Now, er, where to put them? I don’t know and I don’t care, they’re so cute!

I skipped the stage of using paper mache to smooth out the seal between cap and stem. I shouldn’t have done. It would’ve have looked so much better with lovely neat gills.

Any way, that is what I did at the weekend! I also squeezed in a couple of crochet squares for the fireplace blanket (nearly all squares done). And I’ve fun over the last two days making half a tonne of tissue paper flowers and other exciting fairy party related things. Really, I should have my own fairy party. It’s all too exciting.

A Leibster Award: Discover new blogs.

August 27, 2015April 17, 2018crafty7 Comments

Many thanks to Alida at Buttercup and Bee for my nomination.

A Liebster Award (Google it to find out more) is an award for new bloggers (with less than 200 followers) as a way to get to know each other and introduce some fresh and exciting blogs. I don’t think I’ve stuck to those who have fewer than 200 followers or those that are new to blogging but it turns out that it’s quite tricky to stick to the criteria. These are a selection of blogs I like, some I’ve only recently discovered.

I was a right stick-in-the-mud the other time I got a nomination for a new blogger award (when I had only written a handful of posts). I never got round to completing the task. Tsk. This time I thought I’d make the effort because it does seem like a friendly way of spreading communications between bloggers. And it is fun! However, I do understand if this isn’t something you want to partake in.

Here’s how it works:

Make a post thanking and linking the person who nominated you.
Include the Liebster Award sticker in the post too.
Nominate 5 -10 other bloggers who you feel are worthy of this award. Let them know they have been nominated by commenting on one of their posts. You can also nominate the person who nominated you.
Ensure all of these bloggers have fewer than 200 followers.
Answer the eleven questions asked to you by the person who nominated you, and make eleven questions of your own for your nominees or you may use the same questions.
Lastly, COPY these rules in your post.

….This is my addition to the rules saying, you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. No pressure.

Here’s who I’m nominating:

https://buttercupandbee.wordpress.com

Nominating you back! Ha ha.

https://hooksandhabits.wordpress.com

https://sweetamaretti.wordpress.com

https://hookstitchsew.wordpress.com

http://connienaka.com

Connie at Joyful Solitude nominated me for a One Lovely Blog award back in June (the one I mentioned above). Please look at her blog so that you’re aware of events happening on the island of Saipan that, you might not have heard about on the news.

https://erickaeckles.wordpress.com

http://esshaych.com

https://no85.wordpress.com

https://quietensheorot.wordpress.com

These were the questions I was given to answer (yours are below):

1.What do you do to relax and wind down?

Bugger about on the computer, read, watch movies, but mostly crochet and waft around being “creative” (with or without booze).

2.Do you collect anything? If so, what?

Books. I collect ladybird books, old illustrated children’s books and books about folklore. Also, random junk from charity shops and jumble sales that gets squeezed onto the shelves in my house.

3.Where would you most like to travel to?

Japan and America probably.

4.What is your favourite meal to cook?

Cooking is awesome, I don’t think I have an absolute favourite to make. I do enjoy making curries though.

5.Name the last book you read. Was it any good?

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. Yes it was good, I really enjoyed it. There is a movie coming soon. Don’t mess it up, Speilberg!

6.What is your favourite crafting project to date?

Usually it’s the one I am working on (until it is finished and then I end up thinking it’s rubbish). However, I am still pretty keen on the cherry blossom needlecase I made.

7.What was your worst crafting disaster?

Loads. I can’t think of any specific ones but there are plenty of things I’m thoroughly ashamed of.

8.What would you most like to learn?

Probably another language. Learning a martial art would be pretty good. And I think I’d like to learn how to use a camera properly. And I’d like to learn how to become a proper dressmaker so I can adjust patterns to suit me.

9.Name a person that has inspired you in your life.

All of my besties. An awe-inspiring bunch!

10.Where do you take inspiration from for your crafting?

Old books and Pinterest.

11.Describe yourself in 3 words.

Don’t want to! :p

My questions to you:

What did you have for tea last night?
What are you having for tea tonight?
What are you doing at the weekend?
As a child, what did you want to be when you were a grown up
What was your first job?
Name a book you read again and again.
Adventure Time: Yes or No?
What do you collect?
Mastermind subject?
um, running out of questions to ask. Can’t think. Feel free to make up two questions you’d like to ask yourself! Answer them too, obvs. X