Scarlett...

Happy Birthday MummySew!!!

After stitching my header, I found this really awesome site - Sarahs Hand Embroidery Tutorials. It has a fantastic embroidery picture dictionary, sew you can pick a stitch, click on it to see how its done and away you go!! I'm loving the knot family at the moment (first 't').

I wanted to add more, but didn't really know how - better planning next time. I'm thinking chain stitch flowers and fishbone stitch leaves. 

I printed out the 'Scarlett' from the computer in a fancy font and penciled it onto the linen (I need to find a better way of marking my fabric - pencil does NOT rub out).

And then I didn't know how to present it!! Eventually I made it into a card, just glueing the edges of the linen behind a frame. Really I suppose I should have stretched it over some card...or framed it...

I had great fun though! And I hope Mummy Sew liked it :)

P.S. that linen is a recycled tea-towel. Hope you approve!

Juice Carton Purse

Sew this is an easy 10 minute craft! I have the pattern myself and couldn't remember where it came from...but I googled 'Juice Carton Purse' and there's a million blogs with tutorials e.g. Spoonful which has a really cool tutorial and a pdf pattern to print off and cut out if you want a go yourself. 

Honestly, they're the easiest thing!

Toilet Roll Owls!

My new obsession with pinterest has left me with a whole hoard of things to try out! For those of you who don't know - pinterest is basically an online scrapbook. You can search other peoples 'boards' which have 'pins' on them or pin your own ideas which you find on the internet e.g. someones blog might have a tutorial you want to try and you want to save the idea for later. Much easier than printing, cutting, sticking, losing bits of paper etc etc

I quite like all the childish silly paper ideas at the moment, but theres some gorgeous free patterns and ideas on my 'crochet crafting' and my 'felt fun' board. Can't wait to have a go!

Here's one of the more silly ideas I had to have a go at over Christmas...

...toilet roll owls!!! Yes, I had awesome fun. They look a bit like soldiers with the cupcake flags in wing. They served as pretty cute place names this year on the Christmas table.

Burlap Totes

This was gift from a friend who works with children, getting them to be part of a business and make things from scratch. This was one of the things they did this year!

The burlap used on the inside is divine - its from Betty's tearooms - its what their tea arrives in! The kids trade recycled things with Bettys for fabrics and other things, a great idea to get people recycling. They collect stamps and bottletops (which once they have the weight of a wheel chair in bottletops, they can actually swap for a wheelchair!) and even glasses and phones.

MummySew got one too...

A Snowy Scene!

I drew the blinds today to find foot long icicles! Definately a first for us - sooo cold right now. We have worries about getting back up to Glasgow tomorrow, lots of roads have been closed and grit stores have all been used up. We'll just drive slowly and hope for the best i think. At least the drive will be pretty!

MummySew and I made a million party invitation cards yesterday (okay 33) which was fab thing to bo able to do for free from all our arty crafty stocks.

(i KNOW that this card has yellow, orange and puce pink all mixed in and i KNOW it should be horrible. but i adore it!)

We were very lazy and just cut and stuck, using pretty pretty embossed shiny papers and the like. We used up a lot of old cards, cutting out little pictures for a funny little twist. They're simple, but i think they work. Good fun too! Christmas cards might be done the same way this year. We have enough 'stuff' in this house to do it for years! Here's just a few random ones to show you...

(look at that beautiful snowy background! 7" - no wonder we're all grinding to a halt. thousands of school are closed! It makes me wish i was still at school, just so i could have a day off...)

Designer Recycling!

The christmas tree came down 2 days ago, and our traditional barbie angel was wrapped back up and dissappeared back into the attic...sad, but exciting - a new year, a new decade even! She has a half made friend with her in the attic, for when i finally have a tree of my own :)

I also wanted to show you another thing that MummySew had for me under the tree this christmas...
An enormous crochet rug! It'll liven up my floor at uni...she upcycled a bit, using an old cable knit sweater that she unraveled (a jaeger one!)...but she doubled the thread and came out with this wonderfully squishy bath mat/rug for me to enjoy. It's roughly a metre across!

mm...

Felt scraps...

...make wonderful stocking fillers!

Some for boys...(how much fun did i have with these?!)

Some for girls...
and some for crackers..! (there were five once...maybe something nibbled one - something appearing in the next post - keep your eyes peeled!)

Oh and MummySew cooked up something for a boys stocking too! Just big enough for a santa choccie!

Sew keep recycling!

Remember these that i made out of juice cartons? Well i made quite a few (half a dozen :s)...and have decidedthey need a bit of variety.

I have infact discovered that they work quite well as needle cases! Big wow! I quite like them, and my sewing machine survived beating its way through felt and card which spurred me on too.

I tried sewing the felt pages in at both ends, to see which work best.

The one on the left seemed to work better - with the felt on the top hinge, it got slightly in the way of the purses closing. Not drastically but hey. Cute?

And a big thank you to the knackered sewing machine. It keeps plodding on :)

Oh and look what i recieved in a swap recently: part of a stuff an envie swap all the way from Israel! Libat enclosed some very pretty little Ex Libris stickers which i adore...aren't they beautiful?

Sew start recycling!

I found a fab little tutorial to make coin purses out of juice cartons! Love recycling so it was good fun! Link

Rather original and surprisingly roomy...

How cute! 2 different types here (the first went wrong and i wasn't going to chuck it after all that folding! so its got a folded in flap rather than an over the top flap).

Sew a gift

Mothers Day arrived today and Mummy Sew recieved one bookmark, a bunch of flowers and one hand made bag! Pattern needs a bit of tweaking but here it is as it stands.
I sewed 2 crocheted doileys onto the pale pink circles of fabric and sewed on my beads and buttons and suffolk puffs and ribbon. I added a chain handle, and another doiley inside sewn onto the pocket. Pops shut with a simple snap fastener :) Mothers Day was a relaxed occasion...a bit of shopping, and saw Nanny! Then we had dinner together - a seafood casserole...mmm... and then strawberry crumble!