Monday 24 February 2014

Groovy mug, book and biscuits

Last week I had another belated christmas / birthday treat when I met up with an old work chum. I was treated to a delicious feast for lunch at The Little Organic Bakery in Brid and we exchanged some lovely pressies.

My friend is as big a craftoholic as myself and she had made me this fabulous covered sketch pad with a craft ninja embroidery :)



In amongst some other very groovy things I received this tin mug with all my favourite ice lollies on.




I think I've done christmas with everyone now!

Mega busy with work at the moment but having a morning out with some of the networking crowd tomorrow so quickly had a go with my Russian doll biscuit cutters from previous post.


I only had a couple of icing colours kicking about so not the most exciting of decoration for a first attempt, but they taste nice!



Friday 14 February 2014

A week of ups and downs

A week today I visited one of my longest standing customers who use my design service. I took Bob, I thought some of you might be worried about him as he hasn't been seen for a while and of course rabbits don't hibernate so here he is.


You can see we went to the Wold Top Brewery, high on the Yorkshire Wolds and it was the most lovely, bright, sunny winters day.
Had a great meeting and came away with lots of work in the pipeline so handmadey things will have to take a back seat for now.

Although I do have one or two things which just need finishing for the forthcoming Harrogate event. I have moved from gloves to birds.


Brooches and a pendant with one of my seaglass wrapped beads and little cotton pouches to package them in.



In amongst the 'ups' for the week was a lovely birthday parcel from my dear old school chum. 


Look at this cute book of felt zombies,


And what fun I'll have making and decorating Russian doll biscuits :)


Bought myself some Liberty fabric from the new range of art fabrics, these are Mackintosh inspired.


So I had a good day and then as usually seems to be the case living here, I get slapped around the chops with a wet fish the next day and have a bad day.

The strong winds have whipped off one of the new roof tiles leaving a hole again to the elements. I had the stress of the dreaded call to inform the landlady and I had the more or less expected response of not really being that bothered to get it replaced and protect her property. It does get me mad when some people must be so well off with their property portfolio that they do not have to worry about maintenance like us normal folk would.
Anyway I've informed and sadly the only one worrying about it now is myself as the rain is battering down again and the winds are picking up with the potential to whip off some more tiles near this hole.

Lets end on a slightly more positive note, I've had some fabric samples back from a UK print place and they are excellent, just as good colour and quality as Spoonflower so hopefully I will be able to move some of my designs there and have more fabric for sale in my shop and maybe a bit more competitively priced. If you fancy a go at digital fabric printing (free delivery too), check out

http://www.wovenmonkey.com/

Happy Valentines Day everyone and hope you are managing to stay dry!

Wednesday 5 February 2014

February crafty creations

Hello February, still a bit damp and miserable. not got off to the best of starts with the hassle of a tree down here in the winds. However, it's a birthday month for me (lets not mention that any more, too old to get excited!) and as we all know it's the month of love or luuurve!

I was asked to create a love token for the Valentine selling exhibition at the Art & Rose Gallery in Pocklington so I set about thinking of something a little less obvious to the hearts I was going to do.
I had a tah da! moment, I thought nostalgia, romance, Victoriana opulence, hands and hearts and eventually the Love Glove brooch evolved.


This was the first one.


I then embellished a bit more for the next one.


No machine stitching, it's all hand stitching on these as they are quite small and delicate. 
The gloves are a great way to use up little scraps of reclaimed fabric and lace. I have made about 7 so far, I think they actually make quite a nice gift beyond Valentines so I will be making a few more for my friends selling exhibition at Harrogate in March (see poster at end)





I wanted to present these nicely so I created some little textile love letter pouches to keep the love tokens safe. These are 2 which went to Pocklington.





I have added a couple to my Folksy shop and I've also made a 2 piece set with a heart pendant and a glove.






Thank you if you stuck it out to the end, I think I went a bit mad with the pictures but I reckon it's a reflection of how I've enjoyed making them :)