Crafty Days

 I have some crochet to share with you today.........i finished the spring flowers blanket last week and here it is hanging on the back of a chair in front of my newly (re) painted white dresser...........

 ...........i LoVeD making this granny stripe blanket and will be beginning another one very soon.......

 ..........the colour pallette was inspired by the spring flowers that have been brightening up my window sill over the last few wintry months.........the various shades together in nature work so beautifully...

..and in yarn combinations too........i made a very simple border for this blanket, after all those stripes i decided to just do a plain pink border, very simple indeed but it pulls the whole thing together ..........

 ........here is gorgeous little grandbaby Daisy having a peek at the new blanket and the yarn stash....she is already showing a lot of crafty interest, will play for ages with a basket of ribbons, can remove all the bands off a whole heap of embroidery thread skeins in the wink of an eye and squeals with delight if she discovers a new bunny in my studio.....we have a lot of crafty fun together.......

 ..........my next crochet project is using up the rest of the yarn from the spring flowers blanket to make a cushion....this is the beginning of it and i'm having a bit of a craze on it so hope to have it finished soon....

         .....before i go i must show you my little patchwork project in this month's Crafts Beautiful magazine......

 ......a close up of the selvedge ribbons i made to decorate the top....for more crafty ideas look here......

.......thank you so much for visiting me here in my little bit of blogland and thank you to everyone who entered my giveaway in the last post.....it was wonderful to hear from so many of you and i look forward to visiting lots of lovely new (to me) blogs in the next few days :-)....thank you for dropping by......
.....the giveaway is open until March 21 so there is still time for you to put your name in the hat if you'd like to.....
i am off to do some more crochet now.....i hope you are having a happy crafty week too.....back soon xxxxxxx

Making Notes

 My tidying up this week has meant discovering all kinds of things...like these crafty notebooks...I have always loved stationery of all kinds, as a child getting a new supply was the thing that cheered me up when the school holidays came to an end....as a student I loved all the art materials, especially the sketch pads and notebooks just waiting to be filled....

 ....I made this set of handmade notebooks as a Crafts Beautiful project a while ago.....the recipe one has a concertina arrangement of pages with folded down pockets to contain clippings of favourite recipes from magazines as well as hand written ones.....

 ...I especially love garden notebooks, there are always things to try to remember for next year...garden lessons learned about planting (or not planting) and what do well, what to avoid in certain parts of the garden...easily forgotten over the winter months (by me anyway)....I also love collecting garden ephemera in little handmade garden scrapbooks, some of which I'll show another time....

 ....a handy noteblock is always to be found for quick jottings and messages...one of my nieces sometimes leaves me a cute little note on here, or on the kitchen chalk board after a family gathering.....

 ....here is my sewing notebook, also a CB project which I loved making...the plastic tape measure was a free one, but actually plastic tape measures often cost less that ribbon so it's really ok to chop it up for creative projects :).....

 ....another sewing project came winging its way home to me this week....this is my selvedge heart and corsage set featured in this month's Sew magazine.....the heart uses strips from the beloved flower sugar range with little cross stitched flower and heart borders too....

 ...the summery flowery corsage has a cross stitched posy covered button for its centre...I just love covered buttons at the moment and can't wait to make some more....

Thank you so much for dropping into my little crafty world today....I wish you all a wonderful weekend with lots of happy, sunny times whatever you are doing...now I'm off to make a list of things to do in my little notebook..........back very soon xxxxxxxx

A Little Stitching

 This is the little creature I mentioned I was sewing the other day - Liberty Bear is her name. She is made from soft pink fleece as you can see - I couldn't think where I got the fabric from at first and then I suddenly remembered that it was in a bag of fabric one of my sisters gave me after sorting out her stash. I loved the look of the Liberty fabric heart, and added a little bow too.

 This little bear is part of a gift for a certain baby who I know will love the feel of the fabric and will also enjoy biting it, chewing it and dribbling on it too! It's easy to wash in the machine so that won't matter at all.

 Here is a virtual cookie for you - it's a gingerbread one and it was iced (like the ones in my last post) with the fabulous icing pen (made by Tala, bought from Lakeland, for those who kindly enquired!)...

                                                          And now it's time to relax ....

To do a bit of knitting and cosy up for a peaceful evening. I hope you are warm and cosy too, and all your candles are lit and your fairy lights are twinkling! xxx

Sew Merry

 Here are some pictures of  the Christmas tree I put up yesterday in our sitting room. The room is mainly cream and white with touches of red in quilts and cushions, so for the last few years I've decorated the tree in red and white. I hung the merry hearts on, and clipped on the cute new toadstool ornament I got in York.

 And then I had an idea which I just had to make right away...one more merry heart was needed this year...

 ...a red and white toadstool  merry heart was something my tree needed. I got out the felt and threads, and I used bondaweb to fix the toadstool  in place before sewing round it with blanket stitch. I used French knots for the spots, and backstitched some little ferns and stars as I had done on the other merry hearts. And then I sewed it round with red blanket stitch and filled it with polyester toy filling and it was done...

                                                        I hung it on the tree and here it is.

                        And here are some of the presents I wrapped the other day to go under it.

So does this mean I'm all organised? ..Oh noooo - I've still got loads of things I need to do but I keep getting side tracked by craftyness all the time! I hope you are enjoying your week, keeping cosy and having some crafty times too.Thank you for visiting me and for all your lovely comments, I really love reading them. Sending you all heaps of merry wishes. xx

Something To Make

 A little bit of recycling has been going on here, can you tell? Or it could even be considered as a bit of upcycling perhaps (a word I only discovered this year and rather like!)

                                                  As we've been making lots of these...

                                                       We've had lots of these to spare....

 And when washed and gleaming they were too nice to put in the recycling bin - I wanted to use them for something. So I cut up some pretty craft paper and covered the tin using double sided tape. I added a strip of adhesive ribbon round the top, and a pretty little flowery sticker.

 You could cover the tins anyway you liked, and add all kinds of embellishments and then fill them with lots of crafty things - or even lollipops!

Before I go and start stitching on today's project I must just show you these gorgeous corsages made by the very talented Ginny and available from sweetmyrtle now. I love the two I chose and  have been wearing them a lot on my bag or coat. (The package also included these adorable little handmade cards as an extra treat - what a lovely surprise - thank you Ginny!)

I wish you all a wonderful week and lots of crafty happy times. x

It's a Crafty Life

There's a lot of crafting going on in my house at the moment, though I can't show it yet. I'm working on projects that will one day be published so for now I have to keep quiet about them!

The studio is awash with embellishments, scrapbook materials, ribbons and bows, card, paper, paints and pens.

The crafty activity has spread to the dining room where machine sewing takes place and the second iron and ironing board are set up (ever since an incident when the first iron got some left- over bondaweb on a shirt, I keep craft and home ironing separate). And there are jars of beads and boxes of buttons on a shelf in the dining room now, and rather a lot of craft books have gravitated there too (it's a sunny room - I like to read there sometimes).

I really need to tidy up my studio and put everything away again. I find that when I'm in the middle of projects I just can't tidy stuff away, but usually I do at the end of them. Not so this summer - everything is left out and accumulating and I need to spend some time getting organised again.

But for now, it's back to making something new and the exciting creative process beginning again - if I could just find those blue-handled scissors....

Getting Crafty

Some of the crafting magazines I design for give their readers a big package of gorgeous craft materials with each issue. The designers work with the same kit, creating projects to inspire creativity and fill the magazine with colourful ideas. I love to open a new kit and see what treats are included. The picture shows a cross stitched flower project in the middle of being stitched (on my rather untidy table). The flowers were made into cards with ribbons, beads, sparkly sequins and paper embellishments - such a crafty way to spend the day.