Oink!

Just finished stitching up this cute little pig cross stitch pattern (another fantastic design from mouseloft). Tomorrow I go back to work after a lovely craft filled Summer break so the posts on here will sadly have to slow back down again - awww!

Hope you've all had a fantastic Summer and been able to fit in plenty of crafty time :-)

Hot hot hot!

The weather is so very hot - our Manchester garden has never been this dry... however there is one plant that seems to be loving the recent heat wave.

This ever so cute amigurumi crochet cactus is from the kit with issue 59 of Simply Crochet. I love this pattern by Ilaria Caliri, the little details make it look so perfect, like the spike stitch around the top of the pot to create the rim and the tiny pompom that you put in the centre of the flower.

The hot weather seems to make it hard to face any larger projects so at the moment I am happily working through some of the lovely kits from my back issues of Simply crochet.

I've also recently finished this Tilly Flop card design that made me smile - so true :-)

Little late bat

This little bat was started way back in October - and then not quite finished as the Christmas crafting panic set in. He is from a kit in Simply Crochet magazine
and hangs so cutely.

I also thought I would share a quick photo of these little pumpkin faces I drew to go on cards... I find them very pleasing. Happy late Halloween everyone!

Sharing the love

Even though I love the idea of the craft swaps that happen on so many of the wonderful blogs I follow I've never had the courage to put myself forward to join in. However, when my sister suggested that we do a few craft swaps between just the 3 of us I decided it would be the perfect way to make 2012 the craftiest year yet.

We decided to have our first swap in February to give us a bit of time to think about what we wanted to do and hopefully be able to make a couple of pretty things. February = valentines so hearts seemed to be a good theme for us to focus on.

For the packages I sent out to my sisters I managed to make them each a simple card, a fan bookmark, a painted nightlight holder and a batch of slightly undercooked heart shaped biscuits. I also included a pack of 'love in a mist' seeds in case they felt like being green fingered this year...

I also had a bit of craft fun with my lovely husband's gifts - hopefully he'll enjoy his lego chocolates (I just melted some chocolate into this fantastic lego man ice cube tray). For his card I used the free template off minieco which I had a bit of a struggle cutting correctly - but I'm very happy with how it looks.

Now I'm off to open up the packages my sisters have sent - I can't wait to see what they got around to making :-)

More cards to show

My lovely card making course is now drawing to a close so I thought this would be a good time to show you a selection of the different cards that I've made.

From the top left in a clockwise direction we have:

1. Sunflower card - made using an embossing machine (a Cuttlebug)

2. Spirelli card - winding thread round pre-cut card

3. Cat card - stamp embossing

4. Thank you card - done with the Iris folding technique


5. Recycled paper card - made with paper punches

6. Black & white card - embossed and then lightly inked to show the image

7. Paper pricking card - hand paper pricked and spirelli added to the centre

8. Candle card - candles embossed on to card and cut out

Centre:

9. Tulip card - made with a sticky outline which is then painted with watered down inks and mounted

I've really enjoyed doing some paper craft for a change, it's so nice to do something different from crochet and sewing occasionally and I'll definitely be giving some of the techniques another go in any future cards I make. The other half of the course is about how to run your own small business which is giving me lots of grand ideas - perhaps 2011 will be the year I give that a go?

Christmas goodies

Before we get too far into 2011 I wanted to share with you some of the beautiful craft related goodness that I was given for Christmas.

I'm really lucky to have some very talented craft people in my family, my sister (check out her beautiful blog here) who has only be crocheting for 4 years seems to be a pro already - check out this beautiful tea cosy with matching mat that she made me for Christmas. It is so beautiful that when I first got it I couldn't stop admiring it. So I've gone from no tea cosy to having 2, what a great start to the year!

Next up we got this fantastic door stop from my sister in law who is always coming up with cool sewing and crochet projects. I love the fabric she has used (I really should have included a back shot of him too as you can see more of the design... oh well) and with the addition of buttons to his felt eyes he has lots of personallity. I'm really going to have to make 2011 the year of the sewing machine so that I get a bit more confidence and perhaps even do a few fun projects like this.

My little boy has taken quite a shine to him and keeps removing him from the kitchen door (which Mr. Owl is responsible for keeping open) and taking him for rides on his wheely bug. In fact he is sitting on the computer desk with me right now as he has had his morning ride and has been brought over to me to keep me company.

Next up I was given this cool Christmas tree bunting from a local crafty friend of mine (she has an Etsy shop called Bunting and beads - but it seems to be sold out at the moment). I can't wait to get it on the tree next year and I'll try to remember to take a photo of it for you all to see in it's full glory then.

Lastly I was given another whole year subscription to Inside Crochet as well as this box which is choc full of fantastic card making supplies all from my very generous Mum in law :-) I just love the pretty snowflake stamps she's included and there are even some tea cup card decorations that suit me so well!

Card making

Since becoming a full time mum I've had the chance to join a few new crafty groups and meet some of the fantastic crafters who live in my local area.

Recently I started a card making course and though I'm not that keen on papercrafts I've really been enjoying myself each week learning a number of different card making techniques as well as getting some time to have a quiet cup of tea with some other like minded mums.

Due to the run up to Christmas a lot of the card designs we have been doing are Christmas themed (which means I've made plenty of cards to send out to family) happily though the course will be continuing into the new year so I'll be able to show you a number of other cards and perhaps even do a few posts here with brief notes on how to make them yourselves if you are interested.

Pictured above are cards that use embossing stamps and powder, Iris folding, decoupage as well as the very popular just sticking stuff down method.

I love my craft group :-)

For the last year I've been regularly going to a mums craft group which is organised and heavily subsidised by a local charity. This is the one time in the week where I get to leave Sam with a creche while I go off to chat and craft with a group of other mums. It has taken about 6 months for Sam to become comfortable with me leaving him as he is so used to my always being near him, but now he is very happy for me to go out of sight while he plays with all his favourite toys.

So now I get the full two hours to sit and join in whatever craft project the group is doing that week - bliss! For the last 4 weeks we've been making paper mache money box mushrooms and I've found that gluing lots of newspaper to rolls of cardboard and plastic plates has been very relaxing especially as I also get a cup of tea while I'm there.

As I had finished up my mushroom today I got the chance to try my hand at paper pricking - which is a craft I hadn't even heard of before. You place the piece of card that you want to embellish on top of a block of foam, and after gently taping a metal punched template over it you are ready to use a little pricking tool to prick through the template onto your card. The repetitive pricking can be quite addictive and this is another great craft to do while having a chat as you don't really need to think too much when you get going.

I love the finished effect that paper pricking gives - so simple and detailed at the same time (to see the detail more clearly click on the image to enlarge it).

A late Ho ho ho!

Ho ho ho, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all my readers! Due to all the annual Christmas madness I've been very late in writing my roughly weekly posts which is a shame as I have lots of craftiness to share with you.

Now that Christmas is done for another year I can show you some of the things I had been busy working on but had to keep secret. First off are my Christmas cards of which I managed to make about 25 this year (not enough for everyone but it's a start). With a quick embossing lesson from my sister in law I was happy to find that embossing is a lovely and quick way to make some very attractive cards.

The trees on my cards are simply two stamped trees which have had the embossing powder sprinkled over them and then heated with a handy heating tool (a bit like a mini hair dryer) which gives a slightly raised surface and a bit of added shimmer from the glitter in the powder. The middle tree is a simple triangle crocheted from green thread and glued on with a star and trunk added in afterwards with green pen.

To go in my cards I made a batch of crochet star Christmas tree decorations - over 30 of them in fact, and these little lovely stars almost killed me. Though simple to make with a basic granny style hexagon as the centre and 5 triangles coming out from each side to make the points they each took about 1 and a half hours to make up, just weaving in the loose ends afterwards gave me callouses on my poor fingers! Once finished these stars had a quick soak in some white glue and water mix and left flat to dry so that they became nice and stiff.

Next I painted up a large batch of scented candles that I had bought at a very reasonable price from Ikea and with their apple and cinnamon scent were very Christmasy. Stupidly though I wrapped them all up before thinking to take a photo of them so all I can show you is a pile of some of them all nicely wrapped and waiting to be given away...

I still have one candle that I kept back for myself so if I get around to it I'll give it a quick once over with my glass paints to give you an idea of how lovely they looked.

Lastly I managed to find the time to make up some more of these great crochet slippers for some of the people who had admired the pair that I made for myself recently. The pattern is simple and you end up with a very comfy slipper that seems to fit well (at least it fits me and the other lucky three recipients that got the slippers pictured).

Phew! What a lot of crafting - I'm very glad that I did it but I really wished I had started much earlier as there was so much more that I wanted to make that I just didn't have the time to do. So in the spirit of making a start on some of next Christmas' crafting I've already taken down all our Christmas cards and cut them up for gift tags to go on next years presents. I'm also thinking I'll start to trying to make presents this very month so if you have any great ideas for Christmasy makes then let me know!

Happy (late) Easter!

Happy Easter everyone!

I'm really sorry that there has been such a long gap since my last post - there has been crafty news to share but unfortunately illness in Tea Towers has prevented me from sharing any of it until now.

It seems that Easter caught me unawares this year and I didn't get around to making anything for family gifts apart from these little (very little - only size A7, that's an eighth of the size of A4) butterfly cards to send out with a few small Thornton chocolate bars. I really love making my own cards though - and these were really easy as I just recycled a butterfly card that I received a few years ago which had 9 lovely little butterfly watercolours on.

In other crafty news I'm still working on my little boy's cot bed blanket... I've very, very nearly done as I've made all the squares, joined them and added a simple plain border... but I'm being a little useless about weaving in the huge number of ends. Hopefully I'll get it all finished off in the next week or so and be able to take some decent photos of it to post here. I'm really proud of how it has turned out and I can't wait to share it!

This has got to be a short post as I have a baby who needs his food now - but I'll try to get my next post up in the next week or so.