So dinky!

Hello there

Here's another little Corinne Lapierre project I did this past week whilst I was sunning myself in Tenerife - I definitely recommend the weather there in October but I don't recommend the place we stayed at which was The Isabel, Costa Adeje but despite that, we still had a lovely time.

I did the lavender houses this time. In June I did the owl kit and loved it as a holiday project. You get all you need in the cute little brown box (you even get a needle and proper embroidery thread and a tonne and a half of lavender)  other than scissors and pins. I also found it necessary to add more stuffing to mine but that's maybe just my preference for them being fatter and firmer. I even took the extra stuffing with me in my case - I have to laugh at myself sometimes; that will have been fun to explain to customs :-) That's without mentioning the lavender seeds!

Their size is half their appeal and their ever so cute shape.

Good job there was nobody on the sun terrace when I
took these photos :-)

Some of the kit contents and templates
 laid out ready for action, along with
my dinky portable sewing kit

baby house

mummy house

daddy house

The daisy stitch for the flowers was great too, as it's a very long time since I did any decorative embroidery at all and they're so easy and Corinne gives you instructions on how to do it.










The only thing I don't like about the kit is the fabric provided other than the felt; it frays upon touch almost and when you're using thick embroidery thread in it, it is a challenge to keep it together, especially on the windows. Next time (and there will be a next time, for sure) I'll use a closer knit fabric along with felt. Actually when I had finished there was still all this lot left over:

If only I could sew on flights, they would be millions times better for me!

Take care out there

Harlequin

Hello there

Here's some cards I've done recently. I did the first one and enjoyed it so much, that I did a similar second one. I knew I wanted to do black and white for the first recipient and I went straight to Sue Wilson's Particraft blog and sure enough, there I found a fab card. She does the most brilliant elegant cards and monochrome colours are a signature style of hers, in my opinion. 

I used that as my inspiration and then got to cutting a pile of diamonds out, to attempt to make some sort of harlequin pattern, as I don't have any stencils or stamps with that style on.

It's so easy using Cricut craftroom

That created the top, which I had to colour black and place a white background behind it and voila; une harlequin pattern ready to be cut up into 'tails' for the cards.

Colouring these dies wasn't great fun but a necessary evil this time

I don't actually own the Sizzix Venetian accents dies, so instead I ordered them pre-cut from ebay - 24 cuts from the Venetian motifs and accents sets for only £1.80. Job done! I am now very tempted to get the dies though, as they're gorgeous - I LURRRRVVE that mask! I'll put it on my Christmas list and drive my mum mad, as she always says " but why don't you get something nice for yourself?".... which part of 'these dies are amazing' doesn't she get?!!! :-)  Only joking, I love my mum to the moon and back but she doesn't get my crafting side at all.

I was so happy to find a sentiment stamp which fitted perfectly onto another one of the Venetian accent dies. I also had the feather in my stash and the embossing folder. I finished it off with some drops of Cosmic shimmer glossy black pva, in the form of drops along the top of each tail. 

The second one I made in almost exactly the same way, other than I used some black ribbon to tie two pieces of card together to make the card base instead. I also coloured the mask in a different shade and placed the border strip in front of the tails instead of behind. 

I love these cards and I hope Sue likes the fact that I used her cards as inspiration. If they inspire you to make your own take on this, please send me photos and I'll post them on here for you too.

Take care out there. 

This is unusual

Hello there

Yes indeed, I find myself in rather a peculiar mood. I'm going on holiday to Tenerife on Saturday morning. I'm usually a mega fan of going to sunny places, as three quarters of the time I can't stand the weather in this country and how it affects my lifestyle. The weird thing is that I'm not that excited about it. I keep thinking about all my projects I need/want to do. I've been busy with other stuff recently, so my projects haven't been taking pride of place in my schedule, as I'd like them to do. Truth to be told, I'm also not enjoying the mega cleaning I'm having to do, as my mum and step dad are coming to look after the house and the dogs. I feel like stomping my feet and saying ' I don't want to be an adult, I want to play!!'. 

Of course I'm way too mature for that! ;-)

What I'm meant to be showing you (rather than having a whinge about going on holiday?!!!) is the coaster set I've made for Linda of The Crafty Network fame, as she was my first liker of my brand new Facebook page for my brand new enterprise 'A Place to Set'. I was determined to squeeze it in before going off on my jollies and I've managed it! Hip hip hooray! Linda asked specifically for a burgundy red Christmas theme, so hopefully she thinks I've managed that.

Along a similar theme, Linda posted my latest 'A Crafter's Journey' article onto The Crafty Network blog. Nip over there for a read and let me know your thoughts, either there or here. Is there anything you think I could be mentioning in these articles? What in particular do you think is needed on that site or on my page?

                                    -----------------------------

One other project which has taken some time recently is the halloween 'bunting' I've made for work. It hasn't turned out quite how I expected. The main reason for that is that I did some free cuts on Cricut Craft room but then they expired the next day (they give you a week free trial of a cartridge a week), so I couldn't do anymore. I'm not prepared to pay for a halloween cartridge, as I don't really like it. I also ran out of time and also it's for a Sainsbury cafe, so I'm hoping that enough 'official' stuff can be used in there. I had felt sorry for the cafe team leader, when she said they didn't have any decorations for in there and they're not allowed to dress up themselves. The bunting will hardly be visible at all in the large space but hey, at least I've tried to help someone out, which is what life should be all about.

The items are placed onto some spider's web net, which is actually white but I just rubbed a black archival ink pad over it to make it the right colour for the theme.

Now I just need time to nip round with it for them.

The sun is shining now and although I have to get back to the boring cleaning stuff, at least I've crafted by proxy of writing this blog post :-) I'll enjoy the holiday once I get there but it's just all the faff of organising everything before I go and let's not mention what happens when I get back but hey, all you ladies know all about the holiday related stress.

Take care out there, especially if you're going on holidays! :-)

One of my favourite people

Hello there

My baby is 15 today, although I'm writing this on October 12th whilst she's out at a friend's house; I've scheduled this post for October 15th. We had a fab trip to Harry Potter World at the beginning of October and she's getting a big present, so she's going to have yet another good birthday hopefully.






Unusually enough, I don't normally make her a card but I have this year. 

I've used the Juliet stamp by Indigo Blu for the first time, despite having owned the stamp for a very long time. I looked online for inspiration but found only three examples of cards using that stamp, which is surprising. I love the flowing hair behind her and the birds and swirls; very liberating and pretty. I used a tag project as the inspiration but mine looks nothing like that. 

I first inked the tag by putting three distress inks on the craft mat and spritzed them with water and ran the tag through them - very technical; that's me! I did the same for the second layer but only using the wild honey and worn lipstick. The base layer, I only used the broken china. I then used the swirly stamp from the Indigo Blu 'music hall' stamp in matching colours on the edges of each of those two layers and used the musical score stamp, from that set, on the main tag. I stamped Juliet with SU's tempting turqoise. 

The flower is a washi tape one, which I really like. It has musical score on it, so very fitting for this card.The lace is a SU lace which I dyed with some spray ink. The sentiment was created some leftover musical score practise stamping I did. I had to do a couple of tags before I got to this one, which I was happy with.

The flower meant that I had to make a box, as it is quite raised - oh goody!
 I mean that, as they're easy to make with my Ultimate Pro.

 Decorating the side of the box with the musical score and the lid with more of those swirls was fun too. The sentiment comes from the musical score Indigo blu kit again.

I did the insert the same way. 

I really enjoyed this experience. 

Let's hope my baby likes it too.

Take care out there

You never know what you'll find

Hello there

A few weeks ago now, my daughter and I went to a glass fusing class - I bet that's the last thing you were expecting this post to be about! She had shown an interest in glass when we had a visit to our local museum over the summer and when I saw this advertised at The Sewing Sanctuary in Thornton Cleveleys, then I just had to book in on it. This isn't as easy as it sounds, as it's an hour's drive away and it was on a school night but sometimes you just have to bite the bullet. 

Reasons not to do things are always plentiful but reasons to do things need to be highlighted more.

Courtesy of traffic we were slightly late arriving, so we were thrown in at the deep end a bit and didn't get a chance to attune to the environment, so to speak but we did ok and had a nice time working out what to make. Maggie was brilliant, as it was a room full of adults and yet she just carried on regardless. There's such a choice of things you can do of course and yet with our complete lack of experience, we plodded along as best we could. There were some lovely examples of clever glass work around the place. 

We left our little creations there for the lady to take home and put in the kiln and I collected them a week later. One of mine I threw in the bin, as the colours inside it were all washed up instead of displaying the stencilled images I had tried to achieve. All of Maggie's were fine but I especially love her bird.










Whereas my flower looks a bit like a alien hand :-)

The light used for the photos doesn't show them at their best but I struggled to know how best to capture them.

On the way home we passed John Ditchfield's Glasform studio with it's amazing huge glass structures on display in the field's around the studio, which was brilliant to see in the dark all lit up and changing colours. After our little workshop, we appreciated the skill needed to create such a project.

We also have a glass museum in St.Helen's which is close to us and we've yet to go there, so that's next on the list.

Take care out there and check out your local craft shop and see what classes they have available, as you never know what surprises they may have in store.

Watching my p's and q's

Hello there

I'm having to listen to One Republic at the minute, as my daughter wants my opinion on another cd to have in the car, which both of us could listen to. I'll be back in a mo :-)

... It's an 'on the edge' contender in my opinion.

Back to it.

This is what I've been up to this afternoon. I've been to my very first patchwork and quilting class with Wendy Deverill at Coppull; hence the title of this post. I found Wendy after quite a long search for a City and Guild's course in the area and she runs the closest one to me. The course I'm doing is just a beginner's one, as I'm better off doing that first and seeing if Wendy's style suits me.

 I'm not a beginner but I do want to make sure I am doing certain basic tasks efficiently. I thoroughly enjoyed my couple of hours with some lovely ladies and created this easy block. I wasn't at my best as I've been at work for 6am each day this week but I don't normally work Wednesdays, so I'll be fine for future classes which are held fortnightly. I am looking forward to it, as I did enjoy today's and learnt a couple of good tips






We then went on to cut and sew up half square triangles at 3 7/8in. Here they are waiting to be made into a block. That's not going to happen tonight though, as I'd probably make a mistake with being tired.

This reminds me that I haven't shown you a photo of the large patchwork cushion I blogged about several times early this year. 

I made each block by following the tutorials provided by the Craftsy class I signed up for. That class taught me alot and still can, as I haven't finished it and can go back to it as many times as I like.  The last block was mentioned in June in this post called 'Continuation'. 

This is what I embroidered onto the back of the cushion cover. Kinda says it all really.

Take care out there and enjoy!

One down

Hello there

This is an update for Dawn, who is one of my avid commentators on here :-)

The craft fayre is all done and dusted. It went really well from what I can tell from the other stall holders, as there was regular footfall. 

Mr Owl managed to make it out of the tree unharmed Dawn! :-)

I need quite a bit of work on presentation though.

Cathy Bown took these photos, so that she could give them for the Church magazine. She did a very good job of advertising the event, hence there were much more people than had been to previous events apparently. I also had my laptop on there showing the slideshow for a while but because my table was in the middle of the room, I couldn't have power for it.

Those brooches are Polly's who had agreed to share the table
with me but unfortunately Polly has had a very busy
time lately and was ill today, so hadn't had time to do anything else.
That's probably a good job as my stuff was taking up so much room.

The weather stayed dry and actually quite warm too, so I think that helps to get people out and about. 

The chalkboards were fab and again, belong to Polly but I would love to get some like that and have them stood up properly. I also think that I should've taken the place-mats out of the ribbon wrapping, so that people could see them properly and touch them. I did take a couple of bags with me too but because I didn't have anything to hang them from, they almost went unnoticed. 

I sold two portable coaster sets and got an order for the red polka dot place-mat set but the customer wants mauve polka dots instead. I'm chuffed to bits about that. It probably doesn't sound brilliant but it was a good experience for my first craft fayre and I'm left feeling positive about the whole thing. Everyone was very friendly, especially Catherine Wood who was also very helpful and kept me chatting when we had quiet times.

A few people took my new business cards too - super cool ones from moo.com with various photos of my products on the back of each one.

Last night I looked for a banner and avatar to use for my newly set up Etsy store, as Folksy doesn't seem anywhere near as popular and Etsy have sorted out the currency issue, which put me off last year. I've also set up a Facebook page or ' A place to Set' which is what I've gone to now as a business name. It's not ready to be promoted yet but it's all a work in progress.

Onwards and upwards.

Take care out there