I can’t resist a swap, especially when it’s a thrifted Christmassy one so signed up straight away to Lakota’s Faith, Hope and Charity Shopping Christmas swap. The challenge was to send a minimum of 3 items: one item to be sourced from a charity shop, one handmade item and one Christmas decoration of some sort. My partner was the lovely Hope from Pixie’s Ponderings. The parcels were beautifully packaged (almost too good to open!) but one evening last week I couldn’t resist looking at them any longer and did open them. Hope sent me vintage pot holders, a vintage crochet…
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Difficult to believe my little girl is 2 weeks’ old already. Our first few weeks together have been lots of fun although my fingers have been itching to pick up some sewing! As we knew our due date we had time to customise a vest for Little Sister. I would love to claim the idea as my own but, you can probably guess, I saw it first on pinterest! We’ve been experimenting with printing on clothes for a couple of weeks and have previously made a spooky Halloween tshirt and Chuggington tshirt for Big Brother. This is what we made…
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I’ve been feeling sorry for Little Sis as virtually everything she has is second hand from her Big Brother. Last week (before she arrived!) I was sorting through bedding and blankets and found one cream blanket which had hardly been used. So I thought I would give it a bit of a makeover with some dye! I had a packet of Dylon Intense Violet dye which was suitable for hand dyeing (my husband won’t let me use dye in the washing machine yet!). After Edward was in bed I made up the dye and put the cream blanket in the…
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Christmas crafting is in full swing at the moment. I’ve been meaning to make a felt half eaten gingerbread man from Elsie Marley’s pattern for ages and finally got round to it this week. I love the vintage ric rac and used snowflake brads for his buttons. I think it turned out rather well and will look great on our Christmas tree. This is my monthly make for November
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‘Tis finally the season to be jolly which means I’ve been snapping up everything gingerbread to show you over the next couple of weeks. My energy levels are disappearing but I have a few swaps to honour before the arrival of Second Baby. This week I’ve been making a new type of gingerbread house for one swap partner, very simple with a red and white bead hanger and a metal heart on the door. I’m hoping my crafting mojo will return soon. I’ve been struggling to pull out my sewing basket after Edward has gone to bed yet there are…
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I recently treated myself to a copy of Queen of Crafts, a great book full of recipes and ideas by Jazz Domino Holly. It’s a lovely book to flick through for some inspiration although there aren’t many new ideas in it. However, a recipe for button biscuits caught my eye. I love buttons, have a huge stash to decorate my sewing projects, and thought biscuit buttons would be fun to make. I used my own biscuit recipe, divided the mixture into two and added blue and yellow food colouring to both halves which I picked up at Iced Inspirations, my…
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I’ve mentioned before how much I love Pinterest and find it really inspiring, and pinned quite a few fun Halloween projects. I loved making (and eating) Halloween cake pops and wanted my son to have his own spooky tshirt to wear at our Halloween party. I saw a fab design for shadow puppets in the latest issue of Handmade Living by minieco.co.uk. I thought that my son was too young for shadow puppets but the patterns would translate really well onto a tshirt. So I picked up some cheap tshirts from H&M and copied the scary robot template on to…
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Is it too early for a glimpse of the big red guy? On my latest thrifting trip I spotted a small paper bag hiding on the haberdashery shelf. It was printed with Your Woman and Home FATHER CHRISTMAS. I can’t resist vintage Christmas decorations so took a closer look. It contained a single piece of fabric, pre-printed with a pattern for a Father Christmas decoration. I think it must have been a free gift with the Christmas issue of Your Woman and Home. I haven’t been able to find out any information about the magazine – perhaps it was related…
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On the 19 September 2010 I started a Day Zero list: a place to record my goals, discover new challenges, and gain motivation to achieve them. I have a list of 100 things I want to do over 1001 days. The list is due to be competed by 16 June 2013. I’ve been busy this month with baby stuff so it doesn’t feel like I’ve had much time to complete any of my actions! 11. Identify 100 things that make me happy this wasn’t too hard and I made it into a pretty word cloud with wordle 13.…