All aboard!

Hello

This time I want to show you a card I made for one of my Australian grandson's birthday.  It was for his 2nd birthday.

I have used Jayne Nestorenko's Cute Companions Playtime stamps.  I love her stamps; I have to confess to having any of them!!  They are very cute.  

I stamped them onto card, painted them using my water colour pencils and then cut them all out.  I have used Collall decoupage glue to raise the pictures off the page. 

I was so pleased with the result I made another one for my grandson here in the UK.  After all it was not as if they'd compare birthday cards, is it?

Thank you for looking.

Liz x

Christmas Crackers

Hello

These are some Christmas crackers I made at my sewing class.  Sharon from Whoopsiedaisy Designs gave us the patterns and they are very clever.  One assumes they are made using cardboard rolls but these do not.  One piece of the cracker fits inside the other one meaning you can put little toys, sweets, jewellery or anything small.  

I made six of them for my grandchildren for Christmas and popped little bits and pieces in there.  I thought they were a novel way of giving little presents.

This one is much bigger.  I would say its nearly three times the size of the smaller ones.  This one would be suitable to put on the table on Christmas Day as a centre piece.  This one uses much more fabric (obviously) and was a bit trickier to make.  Still it was worth the effort.

If you would like the pattern you need to contact Sharon on Facebook - look up Whoopsiedaisydesigns.

Thank you for looking.

Liz x

Thank You noteIets

A while ago I went to a crafting class with Gaynor and Anne.  I am afraid I don't remember their surnames, so apologies to them both.  They showed us how to make little card caddys with four notelets inside.

I was so pleased with them I bought the Sissix die to make the caddy and used my various stamps to decorate the note lets.  The little note lets and envelopes I bought from The Range which were just the right size to fit the caddy.

These were stamped using Stamp Doodles by Polka Doodles and coloured in using Promarkers.

And these used Katy Sue Designs called Fabulous Fashion.  I'm lucky enough to have both the CDs and the stamps.  These were also coloured in with Promarkers.

I made about 20 boxes in all for various little gifts for my friends and family and they were well received.

Thank you for looking.

Liz x

Door stops

Hello

I first saw Debbie Shore when she was demonstrating on Create and Craft.  She always made everything look so easy and she would make items in the hour, which I found very interesting!

One of the items made by Debbie Shore was a door stop in the shape of a cube, made with hessian and decorated with various ribbons.

This was one of my first efforts which I gave to my son and daughter-in-law.  As you can see its just decorated with different types of ribbons and some appliqué, anything you want.  

This was was made for my daughter and son-in-law.  Their colour scheme has green and purple in it and my son-in-law is a bit of a Goth (I think that's how you describe it) and likes skulls etc. but you can see how different it looks.

When my son and daughter-in-law were married, the people at whose premises were used were so helpful and kind that my son and daughter-in-law wanted a little present to give them to say thank you so they asked me to make an appropriate coloured door stop.  This was the end result.  Apparently they were over the moon about it, so I was glad.

To stuff the door stop I used ordinary toy stuffing and weighted it down with a rice envelope in the base.

Thank you for looking.

Liz x

More Whoopsiedaisy sewing

Hello, me again

I want to show you my cushion I made using Sharon's pattern.  Sharon gave us the appliqué patterns for all the flowers, birds and butterflies.  It did take me quite a while to do but I was very pleased with the result.  However it strengthened my belief I do not particularly enjoy appliqué nor blanket stitch!!  It has become quite a joke at class regarding my dislike of blanket stitch.

We started off with the appliqué and then went onto the border - this was made up with many small squares, using fabric to match.  We sewed each square into strips and then attached the strips using some wide ric rac to the appliqué square, adjusting where necessary.  

The little birds have some wadding under their wings to give some depth and texture and some of the flowers were made using little Suffolk puffs or curved petals.  Very effective.

The back was finished off using buttons and button holes.  Sharon showed us how to make button holes using the sewing machine and made it look so easy.  Which it is really once we knew how. Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of the back so I'm afraid you'll just have to imagine it!

Thank you for looking.

Liz x

WhoopsieDaisy

Hello

Today I'm going to show you some more sewing.  I joined a weekly sewing group with my friend Jill.  Sharon Gammon runs sessions all week, morning and afternoons and sometimes weekends too and it is called Whoopsiedaisyhandmade.  She has a Facebook page and I recommend you have a look at it.  It shows you how talented Sharon is and also gives many examples of items we all have made.

Sharon provides the patterns and and tuition and we bring along the material of our choice. 

The first two pictures show a little lined makeup bag with zipper closing.  I dreaded the thought of putting in a zipper as the last time I put in a zip, not very successfully!, was as a teenager - many years ago.  Sharon, however, showed me how to put in a zip and it was so much easier than I remembered.  She made it much simpler and had plenty of time to show me exactly what to do.

This is a Christmas table runner using Sharon's pattern.  The material I bought from Dunhelm Mill in their Christmas sale.  I have never made a table runner before nor had I done any patchwork so I was very pleased with it.  Sharon provided the pattern, explained it and showed me what to do.  

Thank you for looking

Liz x

More sewing

Hello

I back again to show some more of my sewing bits and pieces.  This time I'm showing my very first bag I made and a sewing machine cover.

This is my very first bag I ever made!!  I used ready cut 6" squares of cotton that I had bought when I was in Australia - I just loved the colour combination.  The pattern was a freebie I found on the internet and the lining was made with an old sheet!  I didn't know anything about stiffening or wadding, so this bag has none, but I did quilt it diagonally.  However I think I should have quilted it to include the lining.  The lining is loose and is not ideal.  Anyway I use it to carry my sewing machine about and for a first effort I still think its quite impressive (for me)!!

This is my sewing machine cover.  Again I used a free pattern from the internet and I don't know what I did wrong, but it has come up rather short.  Still it serves a purpose.  When I started making this cover I didn't think it through properly.  There is no actual handle to carry the machine around, it has an inlet at the top to put your hand in to carry it about, so its not ideal.  The material was some fat quarters I had in my stash but I'm afraid I can't remember where I got them from or who made them.  I just loved them and thought they were rather appropriate.

I hope you enjoyed looking.

Liz x

Some of my sewing

Over this past year i have become interested in sewing.  Before I started sewing my interest was in quilts and quilting and I thought that was what I would do.  However after a very short time I realised I didn't have the patience to make quilts, I needed things to make fairly quickly!

So here are one or two things I have made.

This was a sewing trug I made for my daughter's birthday.  It was made using the templates from Brenda Walker, entitled Country Folk - The Quilter's Trug & Accessories.  It included a needle holder in the shape of a flower, which folded up into a heart, a flower shaped pin cushion, a heart shaped scissor fob and a petal shaped scissor holder. 

It was not the most easiest thing to do, the trug especially being fiddly but I was pleased with the end result and I think my daughter was too. 

The idea was for me to give my daughter some sewing bits and bobs as she was always asking me to mend something, so I added some needles, threads and pins all in a pretty basket.  Unfortunately it hasn't worked!!  She still asks me to mend holes in my grandchildren's clothes!!

I have also made another one including similar accessories, with the same idea for my daughter-in-law, in red and white but I didn't take any pictures.  Needless to say, it has had the same effect as with my daughter; I'm still mending clothes!!

Thank you for looking.  I hope you like the sewing trug.

Liz x

Presents

Hello

Early on this year I went to a crafting weekend at East Park.  There were 12 of us and the custom has grown up that we all make a little present for everyone there.  I decided to make the tea light and chocolate box which I found on Crafters Companion website under their projects tag.  I'm not very good at coming up with new ideas but I can adapt from other clever people's ideas.

Above is without the bands and below is having added them.  I used Thickers letters.

You can see the tea lights but to the left there is enough room to put in a large bar of chocolate (yum yum!).

I have also made them for Christmas presents as well.  They are ideal for giving as a thank you present or when you don't want to give an actual present but want to give something more than a card.

Thank you for looking.

Liz x

Oh Pants ...

Hello

This is another SWALK card - I just loved the whole idea.  It puts a bit of humour into any embarrassment for forgetting an event, which I have often done!  It's called 'Pants!', obviously.

This card is another one from Jayne Nestorenko's Cute Companions called "Wishing Line'

Thank you for looking.

Liz x

Kimono

Hello

I bought Marilyn Robertson's beautiful Kimono Papercrafting CD, together with a fan and a peacock die from Crafters Companion a few months ago.  

Both the papers and the dies are really beautiful and I have enjoyed using them very much.  The first card I made was for my daughter and son-in-law on their fifth wedding anniversary.  I do love white on white cards and I felt this worked out very well but I did use a little silver gilding wax.

I used the Diesire A6 Create a Card Daisy Dreams Die and Centura card.

This card was made using papers from the Kimono CD, the Kimono Paper Moon stamp. I used silver embossing powder and decorated it with Liquid Pearls.

I also made the same card but using different backing papers and was surprised at how different the cards looked.  The backing paper was in my stock otherwise everything is the same.

With my last card made using Kimono products I used the lantern embossing folder, paper from the CD and the Butterfly Silk stamp set.  Again I used my watercolour pencils to colour her in.

Thank you for looking

Liz x