Eye Candy to Brighten Your Monday

Sooner than I thought - a second wedding post!

As I seemed to be on a roll at the weekend, I carried on looking at wedding bits and pieces, this time with my sister in law in mind - who is also getting married next year! I dont know what the happy couple's current thinking is venue wise, but when we last spoke she had been dreaming of doing the whole spring or summer/converted barn thing. So I had a scout around for ideas that might compliment that.

Heres what I came up with:

(Again courtesy of Style Me Pretty with a bit of Oh Happy Day thrown in for good measure)

I have to confess that I love the use of unusual materials for button holes - especially this use of corn and wheat. I made the ones at our wedding from material, thistles and pheasant feathers which looked awesome! I seem to have a bit of thing for bunting too! The pictures in here remind me of village fairs at the height of summer and I had to include the little flag stirrers again - they are super cute! And dont you just love those pinwheel type things? Or is that just me? I'll have to try making some when I get the chance - they'd be great for a kids party and would give a wedding a lovely fun whimsical feel...

...Thinking about it, I'm not quite sure 'whimsical' is what my sister in law is going to be looking for, but posting just now has cheered up my monday morning no end so its all good.

As a little aside - congrats to me for finally finding a picture tool that let me collage photos together. I had been wondering how the hell everyone else did it!

In case you are still in the dark too - my way of making collages is to use Picassa. Its a great little photo viewing/ editing tool, its free and if you go to 'create' you will find the 'collage' tool - which will help you create your own multi-pictured extravaganzas. Awesome!

Have a good week!

All you need is Thisel and Bean

I was on Heart and Sol the other day and saw this fantastic slogan maker. So I went on and generated a few for myself.

I think ‘All you need is Thisel and Bean’ is my favourite!

Spring Weddings

I mentioned a while ago that my sister and her partner are getting married in the spring next year so as you can imagine – I’m mega excited! Having only gotten married myself about 4 months ago, I have been getting withdrawal symptoms after cutting down on my wedding blog viewing (i couldnt resist the occasional peek at style me pretty - its like eye candy) but now I have the perfect excuse to keep looking. Hurrah!

After proffering many offers of help, I have been set the fabulous task of coming up with a few decorations for the church. So searlier today I set out on the internet super highway in search of inspiration . Three hours later I had managed to sidetrack myself completely by finding all kinds of loveliness that would go with the colour scheme (yellows, greens and whites) and season (spring) that the bride and groom are they are going for.

(All photos courtesy of Style Me Pretty. )

Soooo lovely! I have a feeling that this may be the start of quite a few posts on the subject!

Note to the bride to be - I know you liked the moustaches/photobooth and sweets things that we had at our wedding, so if you were looking for a variation on the theme maybe something like your favourite chocolates and the photobooth with lips might work!?! Also I loved the little flag stirrers, Mr & Mrs signs and then the bunting - it screams springy/summer! Plus if it is nice, a few nicely designed cushions would be lovely scattered in some kind of cosy corner. I will keep thinking of church type decorations but in the meantime I hope the planning is going well! xx

My Creative Space This Week

I’ve had quite a busy week crafting wise, making various little bits and pieces.  I feel a big project coming on, but I’m not sure what it will be just yet...

In the mean time, these little knitted disc things seem to be multiplying at a great rate!

I now have about twenty of them and am trying to come up with ideas for them. I might put a few together for broaches, or use them to decorate a cushion or two, or maybe string them together in some kind of garland type affair. Decisions decisions!

Anyway that’s it for me for this week. For the original creative space, to check our Kirsty's fab new coffee sack stools and to see what other people have been up to, pay a visit to Kootoyoo.

Toys for Boys - the result!

So you know I was umming and arrghing about what to make for my husband for his birthday (see sundays post). Well heres the result. Suitably 'computer orientated' but also suitably cool I think!

Happy Birthday Mr T!

Sunniness where I can get it (ed. yes that is now a word!)

I am soooooooo over the winter! After being mild for the past few weeks (which stupidly gave me a flicker of hope that spring was around the corner) its gone UBER cold again today. Brrrrrr! I don’t think I had realised how grey it had been recently until the sun came out last week, which picked up my mood no end.

Anyway enough of my griping...

Instead of waiting for sunny weather I have been getting my sunny thrills from my crafts. Like this birthday present for my friend Jenny.

She’s finishing off at college at the moment so I thought I’d give her something that would make her final term a bit more pleasurable. Thank you to Pascale on Between the Lines for the cloth covered books tutorial. Awesome idea!

I’ll be giving her an accompanying coffee cup huggie. One of these three.

What are you  doing to keep the grey clouds away?

Toys for Boys

Sadly I haven’t managed to get anywhere with my patchworking this weekend as present making has taken centre stage.

My other half will be celebrating his birthday on Wednesday, so I’ve been faced with a familiar conundrum...

...What the hell do you make for boys???

Whilst this might seem incredibly late in the day to be planning my husbands birthday present, I have already bought him his ‘main’/ shop bought present, but I didn’t want the occasion to slip by without crafting at least a small something for him.

Now I don’t know about you, but I find crafting for boys (whether  young ones or older ones) a bit tough: they aren’t ever really going to want or need a clutch purse, or appreciate a nice broach, or be particularly grateful for something made out of a pretty materials, buttons or lace.

So I have so far been limited to making/giving scarves, back soothers (the warm in the microwave rice/ wheat back kind for when you have a sore back kind) biscuits/ other food stuffs. The last thing I made Mr T was a coffee cup huggie made from an old surf t-shirt.

Then inspiration hit me – he’s very ...errr....computer orientated. So without giving too much away, I thought I'd try for something a bit computery, a bit geeky, but ultimatately kind of cool.  If you want a clue I was inspired by this fab little etsy store called craftsquatch. Here’s the start of the project ...

Results on Wednesday!

In the mean time, what do you make for the men folk in your life?

Dreaming of summer

So I’ve been kind of busy today and have made quite a few starts on quite a few things.

Like the dress for the little girl I mentioned a couple of posts ago. Even though it doesn’t feel anything like spring yet (sadly) and summer seems a long way away, I feel like I’ve gotten past that point in the year where I can give woolly things as gifts so I’m forward planning with a summer dress for her.

I found the material I want to use today.

Aptly it’s a ‘Flower Fairy’ design. Love it! I'm going to make something kind of like this if I can:

I also made a start on a few summery type coffee mug huggies...

And attempted a knitted version.

I used a moss stitch (currently my favourite stitch) but it is FAR too big! I guess I’ll have to keep it for the larger mugs I own!

I also started a couple of birthdays presents, but more on that another day.

And as a complete aside I went over to Lewisham market today. Its always a great value for money for fruit and veg, and I came home with a complete bargain. I got a whole box of huge mangoes, most of them not even ripe yet for £1.50!!!! Insane! Anyway heres what our kitchen table looked like by the time I got back (minus the fab box of mangoes).

A whole heap of spring that is! Makes me think of salads, Vietnamese soup, maybe Chinese soup, maybe some kind of bruschetta ….mmmmmmmm!

Pottery

I’d love to say that this post was about me making pottery, but I don’t have a wheel…or clay…or anything else that might be needed to …err… potter!

However my favourite mug featured in yesterdays blog (its handmade and I love it!) and it got me thinking about how I’d like to show you the belated wedding present my mum and dad gave myself and the husband at the weekend.

Isn’t that gorgeous!

They commissioned a local potter to make it for us.

This weeks creative space - Patchworkiness

So I hope you all had a lovely Valentines day.  We stayed in with curry, video games and 'The Wire' box set (yes we are VERY behind - only on season 3!). It was awesome!

I got back on track with some material crafting at the weekend after finding these lovely materials.

I loved the patchworkiness(!?!) of them.

I originally bought them with a little girl I know in mind. I was going to make her a summery dress, or something similar, but I’ve changed my mind on that and am going to look for something a bit more floral instead.

Instead I dug out some other materials I had, cut up strips and did some form of random patchworking.

(My favourite crafting beverage (green tea) in my favourite mug)

Colours are all over the place on my photos this week. Dont quite know whats going on with that!

Now I know there’s quite an art to patchwork (particularly when quilting) as fantastically displayed by Karyn on her Make Something blog (I love her use of colour) and Blair on Wisecraft, but that demands a bit too much planning ahead for me at this point so I tend to go a bit more free-form. I LOVE picking up random strips of material, throwing them together and seeing what they turn out to be as a whole.

So I’ve ended up with these...

I’m waiting for inspiration to strike as to what to do with them next. Last time I patchworked I made these pan/pot holders but I want to do something different this time.

I think I might turn the horizontal strip patchwork into a couple of pillows, but I have NO idea for the other one. If you have any suggestions I’d love to hear them!

For the original creative space go see Kootoyoo.

Happy Valentines Day!

Here’s hubby’s card

Like it? Hopefully he will.

The more observant of you will see that I didn’t quite have room to write Happy Valentines. Skills!

I also have a slight confession to make – I saw a similar card to this on someones page somewhere and was planning on making a reference to it/ linking. But I cant remember who’s page I saw it on – arrrghh! Let me know if it was yours!

Have a lovely day whatever you do.

Hearts, hearts everywhere!!!

Since posting about Valentines Day preperation last week, I’ve been noticing hearts EVERYWHERE! Who knew there were so many lying around.

Here are a few of my favourites...

Picture frame given to us at our wedding

A key ring I got from my friend at Christmas

Heart shaped buttons - naturally!

One of last years batch of button/badge making

This... I have a couple of them around the house

As I said - hearts everywhere! Have a great weekend!

The Old Biscuit Tin

I couldn’t stop thinking about the royal family biscuit tin... so looked it up online.

Apparently it’s a commemorative tin from 1937 of George VI’s coronation. Cool eh!

My Creative Space - Planning for Valentines Day

Continuing with the button theme… I have been crafting for Valentines Day. We don’t really do presents, but I am making a card – with buttons – what else!

When I was taking this button photo,  I realized that just behind was a heart shaped cactus (well its in the cactus family) that I got my husband for a previous Valentines Day. Ahhhh!

For the original creative space check out Kootoyoo. 

This week its all about the buttons

I've got a bit of a button thing going on this week. Not only have I been making more hearts, but I've been exploring my botton collection. I try to keep my buttons in some semblance of order, roughly organized by colour, although that’s more because it looks prettier that way than anything else. 















I’m not so sure what it is about buttons that fascinates me. I used to spend hours at my Gran’s house when I was little sorting through her button tin. There were so many gorgeous buttons in there – so much nicer than the plastic types you seem to get a lot of now.  I inherited the tin when she passed away. Its one of those really old black and white battered tins with a picture of the old royal family on it. I packed it away a few years ago to keep it safe. I really should dig it out of my parents attic…

Anyway I here are some of my favourite buttons at the moment:

More modern sparkly buttons














Some old school wood and metal buttons

Some of the antique buttons I found at a charity sale

Hurrah for first comments! And more on button hearts…

In honour of my first two commentees Clare and Sol (it was a very exciting moment when I realized I had had my first ever comments!!!) who seemed to quite like the button hearts, I threw a few more together. 

They are soooo easy to make and look lovely on door handles, Christmas trees, windows etc, pretty much anything you can hang them on actually!

If you want to make some of your own:

First, gather your buttons together. Use any size and any colour. I use about 20 buttons (give or take). Smaller buttons make cuter hearts but large ones are okay too. I like the randomness of using a variety of buttons from a particular colour palette like this coral/red one: 

or identical buttons, particularly pearly or engraved type ones like this one:

Next take some florist wire and cut a length approximately 3 times the circumference of the heart you are hoping to make. There are probably tones of different types of florist wire out there so go for something strong but not too thick.

Then start threading your buttons onto one end of the wire.

Once they are all on there, you could at this point (if you wanted to) twist the end wires together and make your heart shape. I try to thread the wire through a second time to strengthen the heart up. It helps it keep its shape. You should end up with something that looks a bit like this:

Next, twist the ends of the wire together and make some kind of loop to hang the heart with. I usually make a small loop and using a ribbon to hang the hearts with, although you could just make a large wire loop. As a final step, bend the wire til you have your desired heart shape.

Finally attach a pretty ribbon, and ta da you're done! All ready to hang in the place of your choice or give to a special someone for Valentines Day!

n.b. one small piece of advice - if you plan to double up/ re-thread the wire, or if you plan to make more than one heart I'd highly advise having a pack of thick plasters on hand. The wire starts digging into your hands after a while and ouch, it hurts! If anyone has a slightly more intelligent way of guarding against blisters when using wire please let me know! :-)