Santa Letter

I have been thinking about Christmas and this past week have started to make some Santa Letters and Envelopes. I am going to be making them for each of the children in my family and would love it if they were something that they brought out and used each year.

This is my practice piece, made out of red felt. I have embroidered the address and stamp and I think it looks quite good but there are a few little improvements I want to make before I hand them to the kiddies, so I'm pleased I've done a dummy run with this one.

Upcycling

I love the idea of recycling and I try to do it as much as possible in my home. I am known by my friends and family as being a bit of an Eco-warrior and my brothers like to remind me that I was a keen supporter of 'Swampy' when he was fighting the M25. At the school I work in, I ran the Eco club and was responsible for building a nature reserve woodland area and introducing paper recycling to the school. So yes, I guess I am an Eco warrior.

With this in mind, I today I have moved onto the next step - Upcycling. I have taken something (well a few things) that were going to be thrown away and made them into something lovely. I had some old cushions that Isaac has been sleeping on since he was born and they are now pretty manky. Having taken off the outer covers and washed them, I was left with the inner padding.

I then discovered that a lovely sweatshirt Brian has in his wardrobe is destined for the charity shop bag. His Scotland sweatshirt (Brian is Scottish so this is quite major). Oh no!

So, I have spent this morning hard at work with sewing machine, including having a slight disagreement with it and walking out for a pub lunch to then return and attack it later with a clear head.

After several hours of thinking things through and sewing, I have turned these3  items into a wonderful snuggly cushion that either Brian or I will take to school and use on the hard plastic teacher chairs that our schools both have.

I'm quite proud of my achievement with this and actually was an awful lot easier than I thought it was going to be!

Blue moon

I woke up this morning feeling creative. The blue moon this month has clearly had an effect on me. I always find that around the time of the full moon I feel a bit more emotional than normal but this month as there are 2 full moons, I thought Id put them to good use.

So after returning from the nursery school run (Isaac goes to school and Mummy has a day off) I dragged out all of my craft things. I have to admit that a few weeks ago Brian (my husband) got cross with my keeping craft bits stashed around the house. So we now have 2 stacks of drawers that contain all of my bits & bobs. Its amazing how much stuff you accumulate when you don't keep it all organised. In fact if I'm honest, I surprised myself by how much fabric I have.

So today I was going to put it to good use. I started out by ironing it all and cutting 5" thick strips, which I then cut again into 5" squares. Oh how I love a rotary cutter and self-heeling board. My plan is to make a crazy patchwork quilt for the master bed. I love things to be bright and colourful and a little bit unusual so I have intentionally chosen a really wide range of different fabrics. It was only after I had cut about 250 of these 5"x5"squares that Brian chirped up saying that he wasn't too keen on the idea as it doesn't have a theme. So, at present this project is on hold until he goes out for the day and then I'm going to get busy. I will keep you updated with pictures of how its going.

'Embrace change'

I have just returned from a wonderful holiday where my little family went off exploring the West Country. We spent some time in Longleat Forest and got to see all of the safari animals. We then travelled down to Devon to spend time with friends. It is during this time away that it has really dawned on me just how different my life will be now. Up until now I have always been a distance learning student, for 11 years I have been studying for some form of qualification. Well that is completed now, I finally finished.

So for the past few weeks I have been enjoying the countryside and reminding myself how to relax again. In Devon I was able to take in the scenery and its amazing how rejuvenated I felt from the luscious green fields, the buzzards calling over head, even the smell of cows which my little man was fascinated by, all helped to make me feel better about the future. Calmer in a way.

I then watched a film with one of our friends and the final thought was 'Embrace change' and that really struck me. What a powerful way to live life, a very positive way of thinking and a frame of mind that I would dearly like to adopt. So this is the start of my change in mental attitude. I am going to try and embrace change rather than be cautious of it.

New stock

My husband is away at the moment so I am at home, alone with my 20mth old toddler, Isaac. He keeps me very busy and it is wonderful (albeit exhausting) to see the World through his eyes. Everything is new, everything is a discovery and that excitement is inspiring!

Having finally finished Isaac's magician's cloak I am now working on new stock including the Christmas range, that I am hoping to sell at some of the local Christmas markets. I am going to be doing these markets with a dear friend of mine and we have started to trial a few new, fab ideas. I can't wait to get them made and pictures of them on here for you all to see.

I have just been looking at the stats for this blog and I have to admit, I am blown away that I have followers from all over the World. Thank you, that is an honor that you like my work!

Advent bunting

Instead of quilting my wizards cloak I have spent time today working on my advent bunting. This is something that I chose to make for a few members of my family for Christmas but a friend of mine and I are thinking of holding a Christmas craft fayre, so I am making more sets, in order to sell them.

They are coming ailing really well, big enough to hold a sweety during the Christmas  countdown. All I need to do now is attach numbers 1-25 to them and sew them onto the ribbon so that they hang.

If you would like information on this handmade advent bunting, prices, sizes or even if you would like your own personalized set made, please contact me and I will send you everything you want to know.

Sewing day

Today I had arranged for my husband and son to go out for the whole day so that I could be left in peace and get some serious sewing done. The boys left at 8.30am so I had a quick blitz in the house & then pulled out all my craft bits. I have discovered that I have an awful lot more stuff then I thought I had - oops!
I had already sewn the blue patchwork side of the cloak, so today I attached both side to the wading with pins.

I then found some wonderful monster fabric and cut 5cm strips in order to make the surrounding binding. I folded over & pressed this fabric with the iron so that I was all ready to quilt the cloak and finish it today. A slight problem then happened, I somehow managed to jam my machine and didn't even start to quilt the cloak. So now tomorrow my son & I are taking it back to the store to see if they can help me unjam it.

Why is it that whenever I set aside time specifically to have some sewing time, something sabotages it. I just hope my precious machine isn't too badly damaged & can be fixed easily!!

Cloak

I have been working on this cloak for my son since the second half of my pregnancy. It is the first thing I decided to make and I've done it all by hand so far. The top side is now finished. It's made of hexagons, each of which was folded around and tacked onto a precut paper hexagon shape.

I made hundreds of these hexagon patches, which were then ironed to press and hold their shape and then finally I have sewn together by hand to create the top of the cloak.

I'm now thinking of sewing square patches together on my machine, for the underside. As you can see from the pictures, I'm planning to us a range of blue fabrics for the underside patchwork. I would love for my son to use this cloak for a whole range of dressing up and by making it reversible with a different style on each side, I think it'll be more durable.

Of course, in this picture my son seems to prefer using the cloak as a road mat for his cars to drive along rather than a fancy dress outfit to play in. Oh well. 

Christmassy

I saw this plant and it got me thinking of Christmas. I love the colours and how they're blending all over.

Cupcakes continued

Here's a piccy of the wonderful cakes we decorated last weekend. So prloud of my achievements!

Weekend fun

While hangin up the washing on the drying rack I noticed how much fun my son was having from inside it, popping his head through the washing, to play pickaboo. This got me thinking, its time to make dens! I've been looking forward to this stage imensely. So, I have raided my bags of fabric, chosen a selection of different ones and am going to get started on make him a den that can be hung of clothes driers and we can play in.

cupcakes

Today I speny the afternoon with a good frieng on a cupcake decorating course. As someone who normally yries drcorating cakes & then gives up when I get it wrong, this course was wonderful!!

The start of something new

Suddenly I have free time and so many ideas of things I want to do - the possibilities are endless!