Christmas is on it's way Stage 2: Bling Up The "Tree"

I realise I may have been a little quite this past week or so. I did have plans for blog but a couple feel through...

1. The Halloween wreath I attempted to make went disastrously wrong, so I gave up on that....and it could have been so pretty....

2. The walk to find sloes to make gin resulted in no sloes whatsoever, but we did have a very lovely long walk in the sunshine.

So that was that. I do have one currently in the process but everything takes a little longer now husband is back at Uni full time as I have no access sat home to the pc as he's usually in the spare room til late working every night.

So what have I been doing with my time? I have in fact been making my Christmas tree costume a lot more bling. I decided it was far too sparse of baubles so spent four nights happily sewing baubles onto it and sleigh bells to make it jingle as I walk. That and adding lots of tiny sleigh bells to the gloves too.

Ta-da - the finished product!

This one is from last year but I will be a lot more baubly and jingly this time round :D 

If you're confused as to why I might have  Christmas Tree costume in the first place, may I direct you here, to my other website. I know it's not something I blog about a lot but I did say I'd update here if I did any kind of craft stuff related to my other part time career!

30th Birthday Embroidery

30th birthday card for my friend Becky with a sweet kawaii cake pattern for the front, courtosey of Wilde Olive. 

Home made Halloween Invitations

This year we're hosting a little Halloween film fest for a few friends and I decided to go the old fashioned way and shunned facebook in exchange fir some hand made invitations with a simple ghost embroidered on to black card. The inserts were printed in orange and brown.

Ghost drawn freehand by me (obviously, it's not that hard is it?!).

30th Birthday Card Embroidery

My friend Lauren always has a piñata on her birthday so I thought this cute design was perfect, from Feeling Stitchy 

Luna Lovegood Costume

It's was my friends 30th fancy dress party at the weekend. The theme is L or B. So I decided on Luna Lovegood. 

I secured myself some sprectrespecs, a ravenclaw tie, a butterbeer cork necklace, some dirigible plum earrings and a blonde wig, found a white shirt (that didn't button up the top but I quickly amended with the use of safety pins) and wore my Viven of Holloway pinafore skirt. 

I think I looked pretty awesome! Of course, hardly anyone knew who I was meant to be but hey ho, I got to dress up as Luna andnd Tim went as Sirius Black :D 

It was a super night, and a great party, happy birthday Becky & Lauren! :D xx

Adventures in Needlework

My lovely friend Ginger bought me this amazing book for my birthday, Adventures in Needlework by Jessica Aldred and Emily Peacock. I cannot wait to try it out, it looks chock full of interesting projects including canvas work, appliqué, silk shading and goldwork!

Card Embroidery: Good Luck Ros

 

A card made for my lovely friend Ros who is taking early retirement at work. 

Drawn freehand, and I also made this lovely lemon cake for her leaving gift! 

Card Embroidery: Wedding Card, About Effing Time!

I recently made this card for my friend Mhairi for her sister's wedding. My first bit of business!

The ribbon one the bottle was a light blue to contrast with the dark green of the bottle and the main lettering was in a dark blue to match the bridesmaid dresses. 

Sorry for the dark photo! 

Crafty Club: Felt Lavender Pomanders

In April my friends and I got together for our first foray into a shared craft collective, ingeniously called: Crafty Club! The idea being, we all take turns to hols it (if you want to - you can just join in and not host one) and we do a different craft each month pooling our knowledge, learning something new and having fun and good old gossip at the same time.

I held the first meeting and we all embroidered cards, unfortunately I accidentally deleted the pics from the day (stoopid). 

On Sunday the next instalment was held at Chelle's pad and felt lavender pomanders were the choice of the day.

Chelle was a great host and showed us all step by step what to do. With her help I mastered a blanket stitch something I have seen a million times over in craft projects and tutorials but I have never been able to figure out from written instructions (I have a crap working memory because of dyslexia and mild dyspraxia so written instructions aren't good for me, verbal a little better but visual the best!). 

I think we all did very well, thanks Chelle for you patience, supplies and hosting a fab Sunday avo of craftiness!

 

Frenchi's bright and beautiful  for her lovely nephew, Caleb  

 

Kat's emo

 

Chelle's country chic 

 

Hazel's floral heart 

 

My purple felt, all finished. I eventually decided to hang it in the car to make it smell a little sweeter 

(the camping trip and fast food trips have made it smell icky!) 

Crafting: An old storage box gets a makeover

As you may remember from an earlier post when I went to visit my Nana in May she gave me a car load of knitting/sewing stuff and gave me this box:

I think she made it from an old orange box (or what I have heard to referred as an orange box - an old wooden crate). I had some material left from a previous sewing project, so glue gun in hand I went to work and covered it in a rather more pleasing colour. The inside is lined with dark blue satin. 

 

Alas it looked quite plain, even though it was better than before, so I thought I'd do a little bit of stitching and add some buttons I had also left over from previous crafting. I probably should have thought about it before I glued the lid but I still think it looks good, even if you can see the the knots at the beginning and end of stitches. 

Tim had the great idea of me adding to it with the little bits I have left over, making pockets out of scraps of material etc around the sides, something I will definitely do in the future. 

Card Embroidery: Happy Birthday Isabel

A brithday card for my cousin Neil's eldest Isabel who turned 11 today, cake design from Wild Olive. Go check her out for more lovely free printables!

Card Embroidery: Happy Birthday Slashington

A card for my friend Paul who not not like cheese in any way. Based on an old t-shirt of his from the clubbing days. Hand drawn by Tim, stitched by me.

First Birthday Present Crafting: for Seb

Today is not only my other half's birthday, it's the lovely little Seb's birthday too, born of Hazel and Craig of House Sommerville & Connell (can you tell I've been watching Game of Thrones?!)

He was born into the world after a bit of a tiresome pregnancy (understatement) and he was born covered in his own poo. None of this surprises me, it would never be any other way with Hazel.

Little Seb is a wonderfully, happy, gorgeous little boy with creative parents.

This is what I made (using my makeshift lightbox):

As previously with Jack's birthday, Seb got his very own monogrammed canvas made from buttons and hand embroidered card. I hope he enjoys them as much as he can, being a one year old and probably having no idea what is happening!

As you can most likely tell, the card was drawn freehand by me.

Also, one last pic: Buttons. They're like treasure to me. This is what happens when your Nana gives you the button box to sort when you're a kid to keep you out of trouble!

Costuming: Genie

So I recently made a new costume!

It took me a while, after procrastination and not being able to track down a few bits and bobs I needed, it took me months to finish (well most of it was done before Christmas but finding the time to finish it has been tricky).

So this is what I made; panel skirt, jacket, knickers (haven't got a good pic here) . I embellished the shoes and the bra, which I also customised. Everything else was made from scratch and making my own patterns, which wasn't actually that confusing and only needed a little adjustment afterwards (go me!).

Ivy Wilde's Genie Costume 

Just a few close ups of the detail of some of the pieces: 

Birthday Embroidery: Tiki Birthday

This card was made for my lovely, all American pin up gal, Kate Donovan.

She loves all thinks Tiki, so I made this along with a tea-towel for her home bar.

Again the patterns are from the wonderful Sublime Stitching 

Pics of the accompanying tea-towel below. Althought this took me hours(!) I was so happy with how it came out and I got to buy a load of new silks as an excise (mwhahahaaaaaaa) after I ran out of every brown I had in store!



Front


Back




Close up

Birthday Card Embroidery: Shaun of the Dead

I made this for my friend Chelle's 30th birthday. I recently found out her favourite film is Shaun of the Dead and what better way to celebrate her birthday than a blood covered cricket bat with the words "You've Got Red On You"

Being a bit of a film obsessive myself this is probably my favourite out of all the cards I've made. Sometimes it's the more simpler ones that are the better. All drawn freehand with an attempt to make the cricket bat as film genuine as possible!

Birthday Card Embroidery for Lucy

A birthday card for my cous's lovely lass Lucy :D Hope you had a lovely birthday :D

Drawn freehand of my own hand.

Little Shop of Horrors Crafting

This blog is copied from a previous elsewhere blog. 

Clothes Eating Plant

Drawing inspiration from Little Shop of Horrors, I made a Clothes Eating Plant for a photoshoot with Kate Donovan for Donovan's Darlings, a classic 1950s cheesecake pin-up website. 

I cut out the card for the mouth and covered this with green felt and stuffed it with soft toy filling. After gluing the felt in place I then made the teeth out of thick white card and added these. Next I made a hinge from the card, as I didn't want anything too stiff. I attached both sides of the mouth and added red felt for the middle, followed by a lovely pink tongue. 

I added industrial strength magnets to his mouth and covered these over to ensure that the mouth snapped closed when needed.

I attached his stalk, an old cardboard tube covered in green felt, then I popped him in a plant pot and made a little covering of brown felt to look like a top layer of soil. 

The shoot was brilliant and a lot of fun, there's a one photo from it in the gallery below and the rest are of me making him.

I called him Timothy 2, because Audrey 2 was so named in little shop because Seymour loved her, I thought it was only fitting for me to do the same.