A Pirate cushion

The Boy has moved out of his cot and into his big bed and he is doing really well. The girls have large cushions in their room which we call the "story cushions" as we lean up against them for stories at bedtime, and so I thought that the boy needed a story cushion too. At his request, I made him a pirate-y one.

I started off drawing a design onto paper and then placing my fabric over the top and drawing over it with a fabric felt-tip. I ironed the drawing to fix it and then used fabric paint to colour it in. Apologies for the photo - I was doing this quite late at night!

I used a watered down fabric paint for the sea and sky, which bled into the other colours more than I would have liked, but it still looked OK, so I layered the painted fabric up with some wadding and quilted it with my free-motion foot. I used white stitching for the clouds, sun and waves.

And I used black stitching for the boat.

Going out for a smoothie

I've been working on my final post as Guest Designer for Quirky Kits and this time I was using the Rocky Road Lite kit. You can see more details about it on the Quirky Kits blog here.

If you happen to be in Gloucester tomorrow then I will be at HobbyCraft doing a Fimo demonstration all day. Do pop in and say hello!

Happy Words minibook

I've been having fun with my "Hazelnut Coffee" Quirky Kit again and this time I've made a minibook containing some of the inspirational quotes I've been finding recently. You can find out more about it on the Quirky Kits Ideas blog,

Here's a look at the pages...

Happy Days with a Quirky Kit

I've been continuing to play with my lovely Hazelnut Coffee kit from Quirky Kits and here is my page using the crochet doily I used as a mask earlier. I love the texture that the crochet pieces give to this page and I really like the colour combination. I am rapidly coming around to the idea of subscribing to Quirky kits once my time as guest designer finishes as I am really enjoying using the selection of items that I wouldn't necessarily have chosen myself.

You can see more about the layout on the Quirky Kits ideas blog here.

Felted Crochet brooches

I have been working towards a little fundraising at my church again and I have been making these flower corsage brooches using my newly acquired skill of crochet. They have been quite popular and I have been taking orders!

The best thing about these is the wool. It's called "Wash and Filz it" and it's a washing machine felting wool. This means that I make a wobbly flower with my novice crocheting and then I pop it into the washing machine (usually with a load of dark or colourful washing) and it comes out all tight and neat - hurray!

The larger flower is made using a pattern from the Mollie Makes magazine, with a covered button in the middle, I found that pinning them onto a piece of printed card made the brooches look even smarter.

I'm afraid I can't link to the pattern for the rose as I'm fairly sure I've been following it quite badly and mostly making it up as I go along - it's all to do with the difference between American and English crochet patterns. However my method seems to work quite well and it looks nice at the end!

Guest Designer time for Quirky kits

I'm really excited to be the guest designer this month on the Quirky Kits ideas blog. I've had one of their kits before, as part of an assignment for the Scrapbook Magazine and it was really great. The kit this month is called ""Hazelnut Coffee" and it's another fantastic selection. Apparently there are still a couple of kits spare.

This is my first page for the month and I am so pleased with it - I'm considering popping this one in a frame! To see how it's put together, check out the Quirky Kits blog.

A Christmas Robin

I had a great day on Saturday in Abergavenny demonstrating Fimo. I was asked to make a few little friends to sit in the shop and here is one the the Fimo creations - sitting outside his own birdbox!

I'll let you into a secret... he's not solid Fimo. I don't like to waste Fimo where I can't see it so I make larger models by scrunching up kitchen foil as the centre. The shape is smoothed out by a layer of mulitcoloured Fimo, leftover from previous projects, and then covered with a final feathery layer.

Hexipuffs

While browsing the Mollie Makes blog I saw this. It's so fabulous. The pattern is called "The Beekeepers Quilt", it's made with hexipuffs and I would love to make some. The pattern is byTiny Owl Knits and it's available on Etsy.

Could someone please invent a time machine so I could do all these craft projects in my head?

If you find yourself in Frogmore Street in Abergavenny tomorrow, then pop in to The Initiative and say hello. I will be doing a Fimo demonstration all day.

Machine embroidery happiness

I am looking into starting up a new creative group at my church and so I wanted to start with a little fundraising. I looked into printed T-towels and cotton shopping bags but our church isn't big enough to support the numbers required and it would have been a big outlay for a tiny profit. I got thinking and I was particularly inspired by a pattern for a shopping bag in an issue Mollie Makes.

I have been loving free machine embroidery and I re-watched a tutorial that appeared on Kirstie's Homemade Home about sewing through tracing paper and I came up with this design for a church bag to sell. One thing I like about this is I only have to make one to start with and I'm going to take orders if other people would like to buy one.

You can see the stitching a bit closer up here. I finished the design with a little fabric paint and I printed our church logo onto some special fabric that can be run through the printer and is then washable from Crafty Computer Paper.

It folds up so nicely too...

Playing at the crop

This weekend presented me with the rare opportunity to spend a whole day scrapbooking at my local crop. I went loaded up with all my paints, inks, mists, brushes, rollers, palettes, pens and an assortment of papers, stickers and embellishments. I'm very grateful that I can park just outside the hall! When I have a big bit of time like that I like to get a bit experimental.

I stayed fairly safe with my first page and included a fabric embellishment from Ikea.

I had a play with my Maya Mists for the next two pages. I sprayed some colours onto this page and didn't like too much and so I stencilled with gesso all over the top of the colours. I like the background now.

I used a couple of circle stamps from Claudine Hellmuth's Creative Layers collection and some circle stickers from Scenic Route.

More experimenting with mists on the "Sisters" page. I sprayed the mists onto my Teflon craft sheet and then used a brayer to roll over the mists and then lay the cardstock over the top.. I've watched other people do this online and it seemed to work better for them!

I wasn't very keen on the effect I created but then I added a heart mono print and a flower with a foam stamp and the background made more sense to me. I also included a brooch too ( an Ebay purchase).

Sitting by the pond

Yesterday I went to my local crop and spent a lovely day getting inky and painty - more of the results will follow soon. I also jotted down Shimelle's sketch of the week before I headed out the door and I'm really pleased with how it turned out.

I had a go at stitching through the title. I'm not sure I should show this close up as I could do with a bit more practising.

I enhanced the inky splatter with some bakers twine swirls and some Prima bling too. I curled the edges of all my paper strips. I love how this adds texture to the page so easily.

Yummy applique

After the busyness of the summer and the sorting out during September my mind has been filling with ideas. In a strange way this has left me not knowing where to start. I thought I needed a push in the right direction and so I signed up for a class called "The Good Life" with Amy Tan over on Big Picture Classes. Amy is so inspiring and has made great crafting into a successful business. She has her own clothing line and now has her own scrapbooking line with American Crafts.

The first week of the class included a tutorial on how to make her fantastic reverse applique t-shirts. This is such a great process. I made two t-shirts in one evening. The cake t-shirt is my most successful as the blonde one loves it and wants me to make another for her.

The twinkle t-shirt worked well and I liked it, but the ginger one decided overnight that she doesn't like pink or blue anymore and so won't wear it. Never mind!

At least one of them is happy with their new t-shirts!