Happy Christmas!

Hello there

I just want to take a moment to wish anybody reading this a very happy Christmas and a successful, healthy and happy New Year.

I've been quite affected by the Cinninati shootings, as have millions of others, I know. It's hard to remain light hearted in the immediate shadow of such an event. I have no concept whatsoever of how those families are keeping going. I just wish that some power greater than us humans, can help them to see a point in living full lives.

Here are just a few cards I made this season.

 

 

Snippets of three cards

 

 

 

Take care out there and enjoy, no matter how little the pleasures.

xx

Christmas table decorations

Hello there

Yes, it's definitely 'that' time of year again. Pressure on us unorganised folk to get things organised for a specific date/time. I've yet to send out the majority of my cards; only some overseas ones have been sent. One of the things I have managed to do is get my Christmas placemats and coasters made.

I made the paper rose too and the tealight holders are cool -
they're from a Partylite party I went to a few weeks ago-
there's space in the holder to place items, which you can
change to suit whatever the occasion is- brilliant idea!

I'm hoping that the astute amongst you will notice that I've done free motion quilting on them. It was the first time I've ever done a project using that method. It was great fun and obviously I got better at it as I went on. The batting is too thick really but it'll flatten once they're washed and ironed. I remembered to iron the batting before putting together the coasters, so they're not as bouncy. The main fabric of the placemats is made from old sheets. I just had to buy the starry material, of which I only needed half a metre and I got the gold thread, both from a great shop called Sew Simple in the Lady Heyes centre in Frodsham. The lady in there is so helpful, it's worth travelling a bit further for the customer service and almost knowing that they'll have what I want, as they concentrate on quilting and patchwork.

I love the effect of the quilting and of the gold thread. I do have to give thanks to Leah Day for her tutorial on making a star quilt pattern on her blog freemotionquilting. Mine don't look anything like hers but then she's been doing it for years and her machine cost at least £1500. After doing this, I really could do with a machine which has push button speed technology, an 'up/down' button for the needle, font stitches, a walking foot, a quarter inch seam foot and a few other things. That's the only trouble with crafting; there's always more you 'need' :-)

The back of some of the quilting isn't brilliant but a few of them (as I got better) are fine:

I have to confess to replacing the placemats for dinner, as we had meatballs and spaghetti, so there was no way I was going to let them get covered in pasta sauce, the very first night they were used! :-)

Take care out there

A sale!

Hello there

Just a brief little note to let you know that I've had my very first Folksy sale. A lady has bought a set of the portable coasters from my shop 'By DW'. I'm custom making them, so that she gets what she wants. I'm so so pleased. Now all I need is a bucket of free time from somewhere to ensure that this lady gets the coasters as quickly as possible.
Simples, hey?!!  :-)


Take care out there

A new item in my Folksy store

Hello

Incase you didn't know, I've recently started up a Folksy store and today I've added a new item.
The item is a set of 6 portable coasters in a decorative box.

A photo explains much better than I can:

 

Head on over to the shop now and see what you think - http://folksy.com/items/3887422-Portable-Christmas-coasters

Take care out there

A whole lotta die-cutting

Hello there

Let's see how Blogger treats me tonight.

Just a quick post to show you this gorgeous yumminess:

That photo doesn't do the 'Summer Blues' by Tilda paper pack any justice but believe me, they're so lovely. They die-cut on my Cricut like a dream too, hence I've gone to town with it:

Hearts ready to be 'taken out'

I've used the Flower Shoppe cartridge for all the cuts and that's about all I can tell you about this project right now, as it's all hush, hush :-)
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Yee hah! Blogger didn't give me hardly any hassle at all - I just had to put the photos on Picasaweb first and then insert them here. This post has taken me five minutes, which is the way it should be in my opinion.

Take care out there

Moving on

Hello there

I've got mixed news for you today.

The good news is that my daughter has decided that she wants to make polymer clay mobile phone charms for her friends' Christmas presents. She's thought about what would be good for certain people, such as headphones for a friend who likes music. We 'had' to go to Hobbycraft after school on Friday to get the basics. They're mega cute and I'm so proud of her for doing such a good job and for making such thoughtful presents. She's been watching youtube videos galore to get different ideas and tips on techniques. Her Christmas wishlist has doubled in size this weekend too, with different tools!
Here's a few examples of the charms.

 

More good news. I have more floor space available in my crafty room/spare room, as we bought a new bed, which is a single yet can be extended into a double if required. It also has two lovely big drawers, which I told Chris would be ideal to keep guests' stuff in. He can believe that if he wants but I thought it'd be brill for some crafty stuff


Space, space, glorious space!

Space for my cutting mat, for example :-)

Another little project I've done lately is to make a wedding card for a young couple, whose wedding was in New Zealand and we couldn't get there unfortunately.
 

 

That was the original version of the card but then I added some Creative Expressions silver lustre pva onto the dress to make it stand out a bit more.



I then stamped some wine glasses inside and used a frame from Craftartist to put the sentiment on. I also stamped the glasses on the envelope too.

The wedding has happened now, so I can only hope that my card has arrived by now as recently my cards and presents for various occasions have taken an absolute age to get there.

 

The bad news as such is that the first placemat of the Christmas set I've made, involved me making a mistake in the binding section but I'm keeping it anyway. It incorporates my very first attempt at free motion quilting, so there's no way I can get rid of it. I love the look of the star, so can't wait to get time to do the others; hopefully before Christmas! :-)

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I've had so much hassle putting photos on this post, and it's nothing like I wanted it to be after over two hours of trying with dinner inbetween. I'm giving up now.

 

I've got loads of projects in the pipeline or on the go, so call back soon to see if Blogger behaves for me next time.

 

 

Take care out there and try to do what makes you happy as much as you can, even if it's only for short periods at a time.

Scrap happy

Hello there

Whilst surfing the net, I came across Katherine's  (Sutty)post for today -Fruit of my Scraps. Katherine does amazing scrapbook layouts, plus all kinds of different crafts. She's one of many whose work I almost drool at.
Therein lies a problem though. When I'm constantly exposing myself to such creative people, a) I'm not creating myself whilst looking at websites and b) it gives me too high expectations of myself. Those reasons partly explain why I don't scrapbook anywhere near enough. At the beginning of the year one of the goals I set myself, was to make a scrapbook page a week - visit here if you want to see what else I set myself up to do. I haven't managed to do a page a week and that's another reason why I'm always hesitant to do one, as I'm slow as I'm out of practise.

To break that chain of nervousness/hesitancy, I need to scrapbook more. That's it. Not a complicated, high faluting solution at all. Just do it. Get on with it and similiar phrases. So last night, I took the tone and feel of Katherine's page and interpreted it in my way. I told myself from the start, not to expect it to be like hers but just to go with the flow and what I felt was right. That's exactly what I did and I'm happy with the outcome and the process I went through.

Crafting can be compared to how life should be; it's not all about the outcome, it's more about how you got there. Some of you might look at my layout and say that certain things are 'wrong' with it (as I often do) but it's my presentation of memories which are important to me and my family, so that can never be wrong. I'm making our memories more apart of me and my creativity, to preserve it for the future, when my memory might be even worse than it is now :-)
I've got 7 photos on this page, as the central photo has two photos underneath the flip up front section. This way I get the whole trip on one page, which is fun for me and practical since I don't scrapbook that often. It creates a conversation piece in itself of our memories of the day.

Strangely for me, there aren't any die-cut shapes at all on this page. I used the Dear Lizzy 'Twinkling lights' mason jar as Katherine did and some of the papers I used are also from other Dear Lizzy papers. The background paper was a great find out of the huge K&Co. pack, as all those words are summer related, which is perfectly apt for the event the page is highlighting. The waves at the bottom right are part of a K&Co. citronella travel adhesive border pack I got in Florida - lol- I've only just realised that they're adhesive; as I looked at the packet to see what they were called, so I could let you know..... see, blogging helps me in more ways than you think! :-)














Take care out there and try to do what you enjoy