Dolly Daydreams

I received a free dolly peg a few months ago in a parcel of scrapbooking supplies and it inspired me to have a go at making one, as I used to make them with my Mum when I was little. I really enjoyed it and here is my second one, which is this week's post over on Bubbly Scrumptious. To see more about her, click here.

Fun with Fabric

It's Week 1 of a new class, "Fun with Fabric" with Donna Downey over at Big Picture Scrapbooking. Donna makes great tutorial videos , with loads of ideas and a lot of humour too. This week's project is supposed to be a camera bag, but I've used the techniques on a 12 x 12 square of uncoated artist canvas instead.

We started with applying acrylic paint and loads of water to the canvas. I really like this technique and will definitely be using it again. Donna showed us how to apply one of the Prima iron-on motifs. I had a couple of these in my stash and I'm very impressed with them. They are flocked and so add texture too. I added a little stitching around the photo and around the edge of the page.


I had a go at using Distress Ink on the text, which is another new product I haven't played with before. I've only got one colour at the moment but I think I'm going to have to get some more!

Learn Something New Every Day

I've finally finished my album for the "Learn Something New Every Day" class. I think I've learnt over the month that this sort of scrapbook isn't really my kind of project. I think I'd rather be scrapbooking my photos. But you don't know unless you give something a try. I really liked working on an album with a small amount of supplies and even though I'm not totally happy with some of the pages, I think they work together really well

Here's the finished book...

And here are the pages ... (if you click on the picture you can see them in more detail)

A Sassafras Summer

I've finally finished my "Indie Girl Class" from Lillibee Studio. I haven't used the Indie Girl papers as I couldn't find them, but I've used a range of Sassafras Lass papers and stickers instead. I've made a mini book of the kids playing in the garden this summer. Each page has a flap which folds out to reveal a pop-up.

I'm really pleased with how this turned out and really enjoyed making the pop-ups.

Pretty things

This month's challenge over on Vanilla Sugar is to make a wallhanging. I've had a design for a wall quilt in my head for a while as a friend gave me a bag of fabric swatches a little while ago and I loved the colours of one swatch in particular - a photo of the swatch is actually the image for my blog title (see above!). I was given a new quilt book by Kaffe Fassett for my birthday and I was inspired by his square quilts, so I've had a go but I kept it very free and didn't worry too much about matching up corners.

Here's my quilt, with lots of collectables that normally lurk in my jewellery box finally seeing the light of day...

Here's how I made my squares. I cut out four triangles per sqaure and sewed strips across the back of the triangle. I trimmed them and sewed four together to make the square. I then stitched them all together before tearing off all the paper and quilting the piece.

Here's a closer look at some of the treasures.

This is very special to me as I inherited a small silver button from my Granny and I've had it made into a brooch, but I don't wear it very often so I've put it on here (it really needs a clean!).

This is a polymer clay brooch I bought from an extremely talented artist called Sarah Shriver after I attended one of her workshops a few years ago. It's very inspiring to see what can be done with polymer clay (e.g. Fimo)

These are buttons from my Granny's button box that I used to play with when I was little...

Come over to Vanilla Sugar and check out all the team's wallhangings.

A little rosette

My post this weekend over on Bubbly Scrumptious is a birthday card with a rosette flower. You can see more about it here.

Still learning!

Here are some more pages for my mini album for Shimelle's online class "Learn Something New Every Day"

Day 14 - we made the biscuit in this photo - almond and chocolate - yummy!


Day 15 - I'm really pleased with the little washing line on this page. The lesson today was that if I don't put the washing away straight away, I forget it's there and it gets all crumpled in the washing basket.

Day 16 - I've just bought some vintage knitting patterns on Ebay (mostly to knit outfits for the girls' Barbies) and I couldn't resist this booklet. The language in it is so great "Here's teddy in his jolly walking-out suit"

Day 17 - Nearly all my clothes are stripes!

Day 18 - Will I never learn this one?

Day 19 - the boy features on this page.

I've nearly finished my album now and my aim is to finish it this weekend so I can get cracking on my next two classes which have just started, "Fun with Fabric" with Donna Downey on Big Picture Scrapbooking and Clearly Creative on My Creative Classroom.