Crafting 27/365...

...red and purple heart buttons...

Fruity beads in action...

The lovely snowberrylime has worked some of my fruit beads in to this delicious yarn.



What a privilage! I absolutely covet so many of her wonderful yarns...I have yet to purchase any, in the full knowledge I will never find a project that I feel worthy of such beautiful supplies!

Alphabets and Ninjas

With no work yesterday (or today for that matter!), I had a pretty productive day overall. I didn't get to do the fun kind of shopping I was hoping for as it just isn't very good for that where we live and didn't quite get ourselves ready in time for travelling to Bristol or Birmingham, but did get to do some of the boring "stuff we need for the house" kind of shopping. When we got home we ate lots of toffee yum yums and I made many beads with some special cutters that Johnny spotted for me.



Obviously they are cookie cutters really, but then so are all my other polymer clay cutters and they've always worked pretty well and as it turned out so did these. I was really pleased as although the principle would be same as with another cutter, letters are a lot more delicate and fiddly overall. But (well I think so anyway) they are quite well defined, you can certainly make out what they are meant to be anyway. These are for my niece, well one of each letter at least, but I'm thinking about doing custom orders for my shop.

I also made some more of these little fellas who were originally for the UK etsy challenge. I haven't participated since back then, over a year ago now, but am thinking of doing so again soon. October's challenge is King Arthur! I have absolutely no idea what I'd do for that, but I guess that's why they call it a challenge!!

Anyway...these are my new ninjas who will be making their way into my shop sometime this afternoon.

There's not much else to share yet for today, but I intend to spend the rest of day crafting, so no doubt there will be tomorrow at least if not later on this afternoon!!

Boiling Baths and Beads

There is still no hot water or heating in our house...and probably won't be for another week, which really is truly rubbish! However it does inspire me to be a lot more crafty in the evenings, especially when it comes to making polymer clay items, as I am constantly being asked to by my boy, in order to have the oven on for a while in an attempt to warm the house! Having a bath also warms the house quite well as it takes well over 30 minutes, an electric kettle (bought especially for the purpose) an old fashion whistling kettle and two saucepans all heating up on our gas hob to provide enough hot water! I'm only grateful that we have a gas hob, if it were electric I don't know how we'd survive, it would take twice as long to get half the amount of hot water. There is a plus side to all this, which is that we're not paying rent the whole time we are without a working boiler, which is better than nothing I suppose.

Anyway...this is just some of what I have achieved over the last few chilly nights....

I best be off, hopefully at least, we're going shopping today, that is if I can get the boy out of bed and boil a bath in time.

Happy Sunday xx

New Fabric

When I returned from work yesterday....to the news that we still had no heating or hot water (it's been over a week now!!)....there was also this lovely little package waiting for me. Which made the bad news seem OK very briefly!

They came from reprodepot and arrived very swiftly indeed.

Now I just have to decide what to make. I always grow far to attached to fabric, not wanting to make anything out of it as though it is more precious to me in it's original state! Or case it all goes wrong I suppose!

Buttons and Bags

Now available for sale in my shop are the cupcake and toadstall buttons....

AND....

some very lovely shopping bags.

Baking Cupcakes...

Along with the many fly agaric mushrooms I created yesterday I also cooked up a whole load of cupcakes.
Today I shall be getting these ready to post in the shop and stitching up some more shopping bags.

Shop Reopen!!!

Horay Horah!!!

I have reopened my etsy shop! Come take a look if you like.

There will be many many new items to be added including bags and lots of new buttons.

Yummy New Fabric

Not much crafting has been going on this week unfortunately, as I've been rather poorly. Well to be fair I've only had a cold, but I so rarely get sick that when I do I really take it to heart!

I did however receive these beauties from kitty craft....

They are so so so lovely!!! I 'm going to use them to make a quilt for my niece's first birthday, it's already late as it was her birthday on Friday, but I mean well!!

I also got sent this little extra freebie...

That really is all the news I have for today. I really have been slack this week. I promise to try harder from now on!!

"Hello Mr Sewing Machine, my how I have missed you"

It has been quite some time since myself and the above mentioned sewing machine have kept company, but over the last few days we have been getting reacquainted with one another. And what a jolly good time we have had!
Often I think I avoid sewing, because I can get myself in quite a tizzy over the whole process! Compared to all the other crafts I partake in, such as knitting and crochet, I find sewing HARD.
However over the last couple of days I've learnt that it is this which can make the results so very rewarding.
I mean I can sew and I'm not bad at it, I just think perhaps I lack the patience that is required of me. I like projects that I can finish quickly and gain instant satisfaction from, anything that takes more than a couple of days tends to get left to one side, hence the fact my craft room is cluttered with half finished blankets!
It is because of this quality I am so so pleased with this....

A quilt! A whole (all be it small) quilt.

Here are some more pictures, because I am after all so very very proud!

It's by no means perfect and I appreciate it is very simple, but I love it and it's very cosy (although I do keep finding pins still hiding in it!).

So after that great accomplishment I went on to achieve some smaller ones...

I really love these little tote bags, and this is not something that is totally new to me (unlike the quilt) I made lots for Christmas presents last year.

The love heart bag is already for sale in my shop, however the cupcakes still have an unknown future. I really love it and don't know if I could bare to part with it. I was thinking of filling it with lots of cupcake goodies, such as rings and broaches and buttons and magnets and selling it as a super special cupcake treat! The lining is just amazing and was in fact the inspiration for the whole thing. Here's a little snippet for you...

The red bag is still incomplete as I cannot decide what to put on the front. It also has a super cute lining...

I just keep drawing blanks on this one, so any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Well I'm off to do so more sewing, have a lovely Wednesday.

Did I mention that I made a quilt!!

A fun Day Out at the Craft Fair

Went to the Craft, Hobby and Stitch show at the NEC in Birmingham yesterday with my Mum and my sister. I've never been to the NEC before and wasn't really prepared for its vastness!! It kind of feels like an airport. However I had loads of fun, although it was incredibly exhausting. The really annoying thing was none of the stalls were actually allowed to sell anything there on the day, so despite seeing all these wonderful and inspiring things I came home empty handed. Which my bank account is probably quite happy about anyway.


However my Mum did place an order for lots of Sculpey Clay for her shop which makes me very happy as I now have a very cheap and accessible source for my polymer clay!

I still haven't finished my painting but have been quite busy making these little treasures...

The Cupcakes are a ring and broach that I made as a little gift for myself! However I have been working on some more today to add to my shop. The buttons and the beads are made from the wonderful glow in the dark fimo I discovered a few weeks ago and cannot get enough of!! Both are in my shop already.

Anyways back to work, I'm painting some new ceramic magnets for the shop today.

Craft Room Mayhem!!

I started to sort through all my craft supplies last night and my oh my are there a lot!!
Way more than I ever realised I possessed!!
After gathering everything from all it's little nooks and crannys around the house this is what it looked like...
Argh!! Once I had got this far I just wanted to give up on everything and go watch T.V. But I soldiered on through it and actually really enjoyed putting everything together in an order which actually makes sense to me and hopefully will prove to be more inspiring.

So this is the almost finished result...

I mean there is still more to do, like get a table and some storage boxes, and set my sewing machine up!! Since I can remember I have been sewing on a glass coffee table in my lounge, it really isn't practical and if you go to fast the whole table shakes and acts as though it might smash into a thousand pieces at any moment!

There were many good outcomes to this sorting, the best probably being the amount of half finished work I have been building up over time, lots of which I had completely forgotten even existed. So hopefully now I might even finish some of these projects....

I also came across the first thing I ever crocheted, this, still not finished (!), stripey scarf...

I've spent the morning moving flower corsages from my old etsy shop to my new one....

More tidying and sorting for me and the rest of day.

Cornish Treasures

I'm on half term at the moment so no school (yay!!). As a treat to celebrate I went down to Cornwall at the weekend to visit bestest of all friends Melody. I had such a lovely time as it had been over a year since I last saw her and Cornwall is so beautiful.

We didn't do much, except chat, go for walks and most importantly we went Charity Shop shopping! And my were there some treasuries to be had. We came home with a lot but we could have returned with so so much more!! During our shopping time we came across 3 vintage sewing machines, fortunately we both had the will power to resist (well I think Mel helped me out in the will power stakes!).


However I did find myself this wonderful old suitcase, it has woodworm and took me and Melly about half an hour to discover the mystery of how to open it, but I love it! It's also incredibly impractical I used it to bring all my other treasures home and it is very heavy! But I think I'll just use it to store things in and look lovely somewhere...


Some wonderful buttons, which I don't have any plans for as yet....

and a lovely array of vintage neck scarfs which will probably find themselves a new home as the lining of crocheted bags and purses...

I also got myself some yarn and a lovely vintage pearl necklace still in it's original case, I don't think they're real pearls but they are very, very beautiful.

I started painting a picture last night for our bedroom and found it so engrossing, I haven't painted for such a long time and I really enjoyed it (shall post some pictures when it's finished). The rest of this week is mostly put aside for tidying and sorting, and the absolute state of an office/spare room is going to become my ultra organised craft room over the next couple of days! I'm SO excited!