Just for fun

It's been a long while since my last post - a short break turned into over a year! I've still been crafting bits and pieces though! 

My most recent project was a Christmas present for my little niece, who was 2 in September. I decided that I'd like to try my hand at making some felt food. I've always admired the felt doughnuts and cupcakes that I've seen on Pinterest. 

I started collecting patterns and soon amassed quite a few! Patterns for ice creams, biscuits, cakes, sandwiches, pasta, pizza, hamburgers, .... The list goes on! So then I had to narrow it down!

I loved these ice cream patterns so decided that I'd make a little cafe set with ice cream, cakes and biscuits. 

The pattern is genius! The underside of each scoop has a piece of Velcro so that it attaches to the cone - you can even create double, or even triple, scoop ice creams! Yum (here's me, demonstrating how tasty it is)!

Very soon, I had made 4 cones and 9 scoops of ice cream (in colours to represent mint-choc-chip, chocolate, vanilla, lemon and strawberry. My amazing OH painstakingly cut the round holes for the stand before I covered it with gingham and white sticky-back plastic.

  

 Next I started on biscuits. I made some gingerbread men...

... and a selection of favourites...

The gingerbread men, "nice" and digestives are from my own patterns but the chocolate-creams, pink wafers, ring biscuits and ginger snaps came from this pattern. These were great fun to make too and I'm really pleased with how well they came out!

I then added some doughnuts based on this tutorial and some cupcakes adapted from this tutorial. Then, with the other half of the box divided into shelves, the little cafe was nearly complete! All of the cafe items can be packed into the "shelves" for storage (since they were just an old box to begin with!).

Of course, a cafe wouldn't be a cafe without a special flip notepad and a pen with which to take all the orders! And every good cafe needs a good name!

I had a ludicrous amount of fun making these, even though sewing Velcro is VERY hard on the fingers! I was just a teeny bit sad that I had to give them away but it seems the family have been enjoying lots of ice cream and cake since, so I suppose that makes it worthwhile!

(Thanks to my brother for taking the photos, I completely forgot!)

August

August is here and, as I write this, so is the sunshine! It's been so lovely to see it. 

I am also trying to write this while watching the olympic fencing finals - men's epee and women's sabre today. So hopefully I won't be too distracted.

July passed by in a bit of a blur to be honest. 

We spent a lovely week in France visiting my parents and although the weather wasn't brilliant we at least escaped the torrential rain and storms they'd had the week before! And we did spend one glorious day enjoying the unexpected sunshine by the seaside!

But other than that I haven't got much to report. 

Motivation for crafting has ebbed since I don't have a pressing deadline at the moment (I'm very much a last minute sort of person - it runs in the family!). I have been playing around with some Scandinavian style embroidery which I am quite pleased with. 

I enjoyed making these even though the embroidery itself took a while.

There are some new stitches for me in there which is always nice. The swirly pattern is stitched in whipped backstitch and the dashes around the outside of the heart are bullion stitch. 

They are stitched onto felt (my favourite medium at the moment it seems!) and I stitched the pattern through tracing paper. This was a reasonably successful strategy but picking out the teeny bits of paper was rather annoying and did fluff up the felt a little too much. Will have to rethink that for next time!

I think they might make a good addition to my shop range for the mid-winter-festival-that-will-not-be-named-so-early-in-the-year. Or maybe smaller versions for Valentines day. We'll see.

As it's August, it also means that I have now been blogging for a year (and 11 days to be exact). So I would like to take this opportunity to say a huge thank you to everyone who has read, followed and commented on my posts over that time. I really do appreciate it.

I have big plans for a competition or a tutorial in the near future (so many 'big plans' for the summer - wonder if I'll get them all done!) so watch this space!

30 Days of Creativity - Days 27 to 30

July is here and my month of creativity is over! Not that I will stop being creative, of course!

We have been tidying this week and, after all the paperwork sorting, have "created" a bin bag full of shredded paper and several carrier bags full of junk mail waiting for the next recycling collection. 

I was going to ask if anyone had any bright ideas for using up this pile of 'rubbish' but decided that I don't need another hobby just yet! 

Maybe we should just get a hamster...

Anyway, here's a round up for the last few days.

Day 27 - I made a mixed pair of Liberty fabric covered hairclips for a returning customer with the fabrics she chose...

...they seem to have gone down well.

Day 28 - On Thursday, I had another dip into the box of felt scraps and made some felt hairclips in a different style.

Day 29 - On Friday, I got a delivery of new bits and pieces including some mobile tops.

So I decided to make a few sketches of ideas for using them. 

Will have to get on with making a few of them now!

Day 30 - I decided it was time to do something with an ice-cream-tub-ful of candle leftovers that have been driving my other half nuts for months! I just can't bear to throw away the remains of candles, especially when it seems that more than half of the wax is left once the wick has burned through the middle.

So this week I finally bought some wicks ready to make new candles. 

I spent a happy few hours melting some of the candle pieces and pouring the wax into some empty candle holders. The resulting candles are not very beautiful (the inevitable result of mixing wax of different colours!) but I am quite happy with them.

Next time I will try and keep the colours seperate. I have a large bag of yellow wax and lots of blue still to use, so the resulting candles should be a little more attractive.

This has turned into quite a long post! I shall leave what I have learned from my week of creativity for another post.

30 Days of Creativity - Days 16 and 17

As you may have noticed, I didn't get the bear finished on Friday. Or yesterday either, if I'm honest.

The setback of the wrong joints completely put me off the whole idea. I hate making mistakes. It irritates me beyond measure. I don't mind mistakes that happen while I'm learning something new - those are a natural part of the learning process. But mistakes that happen because I wasn't concentrating, was trying to rush or simply wasn't in the right frame of mind infuriate me. 

I knew it would be a little while before I could face working on the bear again.

So I spent Saturday procrastinating instead. 

In a creative way of course!

I made bread: a loaf and some rolls. Our bread machine is broken so I made it by hand - more labour intensive but just as tasty. I made some oat and raisin cupcakes. I made some paneer (indian cheese) and a spinach curry to put it in. I omitted to take photos of any of these creations before eating the loaf; filling and freezing the rolls; freezing the cakes; and eating the curry!

And I made a gingerbread man. I have plenty of time to photograph him, since he is inedible. 

I have plans for this little fellow, but more of that in another post.

Today I determined to overcome the annoyance and frustration and forced myself back to complete the bear. Grudgingly, I restuffed the limbs and closed the turning/stuffing holes. Feeling slightly less grumpy, I attached the limbs to the body and tightened the joints. I stuffed the body with only a few muttered comments and closed the final seam. 

At this point I confess to breathing a sigh of relief and started to put the whole sorry experience behind me.

Ears, eyes and nose followed quickly after that change in attitude and, after a good brush, the little chap was ready for his photo shoot. 

And here he is...

 ... I say "he" because they usually are, but I can't quite make up my mind.

I am sooooo glad this bear is finished and none the worse for the traumatic joint experience. 

I will have to make sure I take my time and concentrate properly on the next one.

What do you do when a project goes wrong? Do you find it easy to just unpick and carry on?

30 Days of Creativity - days 9 & 10

A combined post today for the weekend's creativity. I've spent so long on the computer over the past week (writing blogposts and promoting CraftFest) that it seemed only fair to let my other half have a turn! So I had a good day crafting while watching the tennis from the French Open.

I have been making things ready to sell this weekend - a teddy bear for Tasmia Trinkets and Charms (but more on that when it's finished!), elephants and bracelets.

Saturday was bracelets day. Working with gorgeous Liberty bias tape; adding chains and charms. Part of the challenge is selecting the fabric to work with - they are all so pretty!

Here are the bracelets that I made...

... all of these will be available for sale, somewhere, at some point soon. Eeek! That was a bit vague wasn't it! :o)

On Sunday, I made some elephants...

... ready to become sets of three when I've made the other sizes.

I've also been finding "creative" promotion opportunities for my business. I have broken my target of 100 Facebook 'likes' and think I may finally be getting to grips with Twitter (up to 63 followers this morning).

So I think that may mean it's time for a giveaway - I'll have to see what I can find for an appropriate thank you!

30 Days of Creativity - Day 6

Yay! Back up to date with the challenge!

Today I thought I'd use the penguins from yesterday in a new project. 

I have turned the penguin into a felt finger puppet. 

Having cut out the pieces, I blanket stitched them together. There is a small amount of stuffing in the head and shoulders but the rest is left unstuffed so that the penguin can be used as a finger puppet.

 

It's really hard to get good photos of this: the perspective is all wrong if I take the photo from the front but the wings don't show in photos from the side. Annoying.

Phew! All up to date now. Bring on day 7!

Check out everyone else's efforts here.

30 Days of Creativity - Day 2

Day 2. Plenty of time today so high hopes for a slightly more adventurous creation!

Today's creation started with a drawing...

...which I coloured in.

I then traced the individual pieces and cut them out of felt. With a combination of sewing and gluing, the final product is ready...

I wanted to make a pendant so this little owl has an eye pin attached to his head. 

He's not perfect, but not bad for a first attempt! Onwards to Day 3.

I've also made an inverse version...

...I can't decide which I like better, what do you think?

Pinterest board of today's creations - click on the badge below.

Meet the bears... Henry

Today, I would like to introduce you to Henry.

He, like Benny and Bella, is one of a range of "fancy dress" or "costume" bears. As you can see, Henry is dressed as a ladybird. I made him a little over 2 years ago for my first craft fair.

He is made from black upholstery velvet with black ultrasuede paw pads. He is thread jointed, has a brown embroidered nose and black glass beads for eyes. He has come out only 4.4cm (1 3/4in) tall or 5.5cm (2 7/8in) including his antennae!

His ladybird top is made from red and black felt. His "antennae" head band is made from very thin wire embellished with red felt.

He has his own little ladybird on his left arm which is made from wooden beads.

I have to say that the black upholstery velvet was a complete pain to sew. It literally took me days to finish him as I had to keep leaving him and going back later. It was like sewing a black hole! The stitches just disappeared and it was almost impossible to focus on. Taking accurate photographs of him has also been a nightmare. Suffice it to say that it may be a while before I attempt another bear in black!

So I shall continue to enjoy Henry for now and give myself a little more time to recover...

Henry is currently available for sale over on Folksy.

Further adventures in felt...

As you will have noticed, I have been going through an experimental crafting stage. If you haven't seen my previous posts on the subject, I have been experimenting with felt for a while now (you can read about it here - Adventures in Felt and More Adventures in Felt).

Well, these experiments have led to, what I hope will become, a new range of felt bears. 

They are not far removed from the prototype (he came out surprisingly well, for a first attempt) although I have made a few minor alterations. I have tweaked the pattern slightly so that the later bears are a little fatter in the tummy and have a shorter neck.

So with pattern prepared, I just had to choose a felt colour. Easy. Well, you'd think so, wouldn't you? I have a huge felt "stash" in a wide range of colours but I couldn't decide which to go for first! I pulled out all the "bear colours" (browns, tans etc) but that didn't seem to be right. Then I found these, on a trip with my parents to the craft wholesaler, and they were perfect! 

Naturally, it became crucial to fit the bear to the buttons (rather than the other way around) and the only colour that really worked was... white.

So the first white bear was born - with blue spotty buttons for joints, a blue embroidered nose and a blue ribbon.

Then came a white bear with pink spotty buttons, a pink nose and a pink ribbon...

...then came yellow...

... and finally purple!

And inevitably - while sewing, stuffing, jointing, embroidering and finishing these bears - hundreds of ideas were floating around in my head...

...mostly about personalising the bears...

...which is very tricky when they are only about 4 inches tall...

...but I might have found a way...

I fear this could become an obsession...

I have listed this "red, white and blue" bear on Folksy today.