Ear candy

I have a penchant for eccentric earrings.  Things that look like they should be something else.  Or something different or quirky.  My Scrabble tile earrings, Pride and Prejudice and Lego ones take pride of place in my collection.

At the Big Church Day Out back at Bank Holiday weekend, I came across a stall from a company called DIY beads who were selling beads and you could make them into necklaces and bracelets at the time.

There were all sorts of cool and fancy ones. But the ones that attracted me the most were the sweetie ones.

Pink Shrimps are one of my favourite sweets so it was inevitable I would squeak and reach for these ones instantly.   The bananas, eggs and love hearts followed in that order.  It was a simple matter to bend a jump ring and add them to it plus earring backs.  Really not really craft in my case or making but simply the opening and shutting of rings of metal! 

Thus, because I feel a bit of a cheater, here's something else I made- a card for a fellow blogger's birthday.

My sister has a really cool dress-shaped punch.  As a birthday present- she cut me a box of dress shapes in different patterned papers. What a cool idea- it cost her very little but was a huge help to me!
I layered the dresses upon 3d pads to accentuate the bottom half and then added paper-shredded strips and some punched butterflies.



Linking up to Ta Dah Tuesday
Creative Mondays


Super Handmade Sundays with Sarah:

In and out linking party with Cynthia

With cat-like tread, across the seas we go

You get super brownie-points if you can tell me where my blog title comes from!

Ages ago, I saw a wonderful tutorial on Kate-Gabrielle's Scathingly-brilliant blog for how to embroider your own cat shoes.  I thought this looked a great idea and decided to give it a try.   Her tutorial is here- I'd advise you to go to her blog for the proper tutorial.  This is more my own take on the experience rather than amazing original tutorial.  That would be plagiarism!!

1.  You need to find a pair of cheap flat shoes.  You could do it with heels but they'd need to be something you can pierce easily with a needle. I have looked for ages and found this pair with plimsol-like material in Asda for £6- I knew a needle would easily pass through these.

You can find them here at Asda. They also do them in grey!

2.  Next, I drew round the front of the shoe and then drew a cat face on it.  I kept it fairly simple.  I then scribbled on the back of the paper with a white pencil and then placed it over the shoe and drew hard over the design with a medium-sharp pencil (not too sharp or it will go through the paper.).  Kate used tracing paper but you don't need to- I couldn't find any!

3.  Then you start to sew with embroidery thread (and a sharpish needle).  I chose to use biscuit-coloured thread as it was not so stark as white might be.  Kate advised that you start from the bits further inside the shoe as they are the hardest!  I had to go over the white pencil face with my white pencil a couple of times as it rubbed off a bit. I had trouble with finding where to put the needle through- it was mostly guesswork. I know of no other way to miraculously find where the needle needs to go otherwise!

4.  Finally, I decided not to go with green eyes but used pink Pebeo- 3d touch paint to colour in the nose.

5.  I intend to sew on a little pair of black felt triangles (with mini pink triangles on top) to the top to make ears at some point but right now, I think I will wear them as they are.

6.  If you decided to make a bunny version of these shoes (Asda do grey shoes), you could easily add a pair of floppy ears and then add a white pom-pom to the back to make a cute tail.

Linking to:


Sarah's Super handmade Sunday


Claire Justine's Creative Mondays

Cynthia's In and Out link party

Lakota's Ta dah Tuesday

One set of alphabet stamps

The birthday card season for me really begins from April when I have a whole plethora of birthdays (and thankyous!) to address up until August, where it calms down a bit. Oh except that I will have wedding craft mania then!  

I have been a bit smitten with my alphabet stamps (and that manuscript paper) so all three attempts today make use of them. 

This is for a close family member's E's 60th birthday which is today!  Happy birthday E!


He's a bit of a fan of many types of music- jazz, rock and all that and so I thought I'd celebrate that in this card! I watched an origami tutorial on Youtube to make the shirt.  Thank goodness for Youtube- there's NO way I could have followed a book instruction on this! I used peeloffs for the instruments and backed onto a variety of metallic cards.  Not so much a fan of this ink pad- it smudged a dozen times and didn't like most of the papers I tried it on!


Next up was a belated birthday card for one of my favourite bloggers, Katie at www.hooklineandsinkher2.blogspot.com Katie makes no bones about her love of cake (er- every blog post is it?) and so a TOWIC (much nicer version of TOWIE) was definitely the way forward!



Finally, it was CBC's birthday so I made use of his love of maps and bicycles in this card- using a bike stamp I bought to make the first card I ever made for CBC, combined with reused road atlas and old Royal Academy of Music concert programme.

I must find the pictures of that first ever card at some point- it's one of the cards I have been most proud of (and the most time-consuming- it must have been 10 hours in the make!)


Link-parties galore!!
Linking to:

Sarah's Super handmade Sunday


Linking to Creative Mondays with Claire Justine xoxo
and Cynthia at Feeding Big's In and out link party

Lakota, Lakota, wherefore art thou Lakota?  I come proferring Tahdahs!!!

Blue for a boy

Though it may seem to you that I am always making cards (possibly true!), I always seem to have a deficit in certain areas in having 'stock ready' as it were (not selling them obviously but you know what I mean!).  One of those areas is definitely 'new baby' cards.  There have been several opportunities over the last couple of months where I have missed giving a made card, because I've been busy and not had some ready!

So I was happy when the Daring Cardmakers blog challenge of the week was 'Child's Play' as it reminded me that this was something I'd need in my stash! I haven't linked to there in ages too, as not been able to get organised in time.  Their challenges are lovely, so it's worth going to have a look!  Their makers make absolutely stunning cards!



Card no.1 FINALLY uses a rubberstamp I have had for aaaaaaaaaaages!  I saw this cute 'feet' stamp and knew it could be used in so many ways for baby cards.  I am not fond of rubber-stamps but this one was different!  I also used a set of alphabet stamps I bought when I'd not been long making cards!  I punched the circles around them once punched which is a revelation as I am soooooo bad at cutting circles! 



Card no.2 ALSO uses a tool I bought with the same idea in mind- a tiny foot punch! It looked a bit boring with just feet so I added little pearl accents with  Pebeo touch, 3d paint pen!  No matter how long I haven't used the Pebeo paints, they never dry up or clog the nozzle, unlike those horrible Anita's 3d paints which cake up after using the paints once, no matter how religiously I clean them!  So, if you'd like 3d paints, go for Pebeo NOT Anita's!

You're wondering what's been recycled in the making of these cards?  No?  Well, a 'London borough of Walthamstow' prospectus guide has been utilised for the feet and the white card with feet on comes from a church holiday club left-over sheet (it has a picture of a mountain on the back!)


Also, I couldn't resist this necklace over the weekend!



I saw it and HAD to buy it!  It was only £2 otherwise I probably wouldn't have!!x

Linking also to Claire Justine's Creative Monday
AND
Lakota's Tah-Dah Tuesday (if she's moved in yet!!!)

With thanks to Miss Katie Hook Line and Sink Her for making me realise that I too, can have pretty backgrounds in my picture rather than dusty looking wooden tables!

Tray bake

You wish.
I wish indeed!



This may be my most spectacularly rubbish upcycle or make EVAH!  But I shall still share it in case it inspires you to show me how to do it better or you think of some scabby unloved tea-tray too!
Old boring, scabby wooden tray in the kitchen has sat unloved and unused for ages.  Was going to visit a charity shop near you but I decided to have a little mess around before I did anything so drastic!

I dug out a daisy shaped paper punch, some acrylic paints and a big stubby paint-brush (and some scrap card) and cut myself a template which I then used to make a line of daisies. It looked bare and boring so I found one of my most disliked/avoided craft devices, the rubber stamp, (despite this fact, I seem to have loads of them, mostly gifts, bumper pack items or bargain bin finds) and proceeded to make it look even worse by adding rows of fern on either side using more acrylics!  Next time, I'll do decoupage instead!

You're wondering about the cake, right?  Surely we all appreciate a gratuitous cake shot (a Cadbury's chocolate cream gateau that was tragically found on the Reduced to Quick Sale counter at Tescos. I had to rescue it in order to help it achieve its destiny of lining one greedy person's many persons' stomachs. It is delicious, incidently.  I still have half to go!



I always end up left up with a bit of acrylic paint left which it seems a shame to chuck as it is expensive so I made a sort of swirly pattern on the back of a cracker box.  I then cut them up to make these two Easter cards (also using some scraps of card hanging around) and some Anita's daffodil stickers to give a lovely Spring look!
Somehow, sitting there watching Ella Enchanted as I did this, I ended up using the corrugated coffee card leftovers to make hearts and made this other masculine Love card!  I suppose it could be a Valentines!

I just got back from attending a Lindy class in London.  Usually, I feel really psyched after these but I really had trouble with the moves tonight- it involved a quick spin using single step footwork (as opposed to a triple step) and I just kept landing awkardly/badly and an immediate contrasting turn in the opposite direction which threw me off each time.  I felt like my partners thought 'what on earth is she doing?'  Plus I sat and watched the Intermediate class after (whilst waiting for CBC) and discovered I could have joined in if I had really wanted to, which is a shame as they learnt a realllllllly cool move called 'Around the World' (like the Yo-yo!).  I paid the extra to do some social dance after but CBC had a horrid day and wasn't in the mood for dancing but at least we went to Wagamamas and I ate far more ramen than is healthy for one person to do!

Hope you are well!x

The link party:

Lakota's Ta Dah Tuesday featuring one fab Angry Birds cake!


Claire Justine's Creative Mondays

Cynthia's In and out of the kitchen linkie.
and the Daring Card Makers Spring challenge for this week!

Be sure to go and visit!

"You're nothing but a pack of cards!"

Hello there!  How are you?  Well, I hope!  Hello to my lovely new followers!  You are helping me towards my little, sort of wish/nice idea of having 100 followers for my 7-year blog anniversary in April! I've never been one for deliberately garnering followers (you can tell that from the 91 followers in 7 years thing) but it's always such a secret delight when I find someone is kind enough to follow me!  I am delighted that each of you found something you decided to come back to!!!  Thank you!!!

Last year, I took part in Annie the Felt fairy's A make a month and that kept me on track making something every month!  Somehow, the impetus has gone since the lovely Annie has not reissued the challenge, for personal reasons.

Anyway, I always enjoy making cards in the holidays but sometimes wish I were more focused in trying other crafts. I did try glass and ceramic painting last year, making boxes, brooches, jewellery, which was great but I wish I could actually be disciplined enough to try and learn a new craft such as crochet, knitting, dress-making, mosaic-making!  Sigh!  At some point I hope! Maybe the wedding (August!) can be the impetus for me to try something new!!!!

Anyway, I did make some cards.  All of them involve something recycled as usual!



1.  The top left one is for my friend's wedding next month.  The William Morris paper is something a work colleague dumped in the recycling (print-out) and I punched the flowers out of an old school letter.
I used an embossing tool to curl the petals of the flowers.
2.  J's birthday card- I've got sooooooooooo much ribbon that I never use!
3.  I punched the butterflies from some scrap for this one.  I liked using aperture cards
(I got a job lot from The Works for 29p for 8 cards!)

4.  The Star card reuses one of those free CDs they used to send in the post.  The star was a Christmas  tag from a child.  I used the embossing tool to add the line details.
5.  The gold patterned squares were punched from some old Christmas crackers.  It's a standing joke at our church Christmas meals out, that I collect up all the cracker ends to turn into my Christmas cards!  One friend even collected me cracker ends at a party she went to! More paper flowers from scrap and a gold gel pen
6.  This mosaic-style one recycled another cracker- I liked the fact it looks like these are all part of a picture.

7.  The NASUWT fee does provide something- the front cover of their magazine was a pretty swirly rainbowy pattern that was begging to be made into something pretty!  The blue background of both cards was a tissue box.
8.  A different tissue box.  Is it sad that I chose those particular tissues for their potential recycling qualities!
9.  See number 7.

10.  One of my favourite crafts is quilling!  I used some blue scrap paper to make the rain drops for CBC.  It was a pop-up card, can you guess what the sentiment is????
11. "            "
12.  I accidently forgot to give out flyers for a previous concert from my orchestra.  It seemed a waste so I turned them into envelopes!  Two of my blogging penpals may recognise them!

What have you been making recently?  Something lovely, I hope!
xx

Linking up to Lakota's Ta Dah Tuesday!!!

And also linking up to
Claire-Justine's creative Monday for the first time!
And Sarah's Super handmade Sunday



Oooh, and I forgot, it was Style Imitating Art with Jess of Animated Cardigan this week- the inspiration was this awesome Sol Lewitt's untitled lithograph (WHAT is a lithograph? Must find out!)


Here's what I wore for the interpretation!


Yes, it is the madras check dress again! And a vintage belt of my Mum's that I 'borrowed' years ago!!!  Try to ignore the heinous combination of magenta tights and turquoise satin ballet pumps!!! And the attempt at a side-parting! Go and check the link above to see how else the other participants styled it!

The projector
Oh, and if you are still with me.  Well the projector update that several of you asked about?
It was a new projector.  I turned it on for Singing assembly this morning and..
1.  The display was upside down
2.  It was out of line to the left in direct relation to where I hit it.
3.  It was blurry!!

Everyone gleefully told the IT technicians about how I had accidently hit it!!!
My kids found the above problems hilarious but luckily my lovely year 6 screen operator boys managed to rotate all the lyrics in the powerpoint upside down so we could read it and then shifted them to the right.  I love it when kids manage to troubleshoot!!!

Crackerswap

Why hello there!  How are you?  Well, I do hope! 
I recently took part in Tracy at Mad about Bags' Christmas Cracker swap 2012. Tracy is the absolute queen of swaps, so it was only a matter of time before she organised her own one! It was a lovely idea, making the cracker!

I was paired with fellow teacher, the lovely Jille

I was overwhelmed with how beautiul her presentation was with her cracker.  Despite being through the post, it arrived immaculate!  A gorgeous patterned cotton material with a light-pattern, it was wrapped in a beautiful piece of organza gold ribbon with a funny joke and a lovely handmade flower brooch made by Jille attached!


Inside, I found this gorgeous  arrange of brightly coloured items, so well chosen for me, she's obviously read my blog to find out what I like:
Starting from top left: fun chilli earrings (I adore novelty jewellery), perfect polka dot and rainbow ribbons I intend to wear in my hair, a beautiful Jille-made flower ring, Jille-made cutest plump robin decoration with polka dot button, beautiful-smelling orange organza bag, choccie bear, the prettiest selection of assorted buttons, ribbon and flower sequins, the most brilliant Jille-made custard-cream keyring and finally, a Jille-made gingerbread brooch! 


Here they are altogether


I absolutley adore the items, you chose them so so nicely and carefully, thank you so much!  Who knew you could cram so much into a kitchenroll tube!  Such time and care have been taken with these items, so many wonderful hand-made items!  Thank you Jille!

Here's what I sent to  Jille.


Bag of assorted buttons, Christmas peg, embroidery threads, beaded bracelet, red polka-dot shoe-laces (I noticed on her blog that Jille said she loves red polka dots), a set of gold-patterned scalloped squares for card-making- I thought she'd appreciate the fact that I recycled some Christmas cracker-exteriors from our church-Christmas dinner out to make these!


Photo 2: Sheep zip-puller (Jille seems to love animals, silver ribbon, choccie puddings, beaded keyring, Cath Kidston polka dot handkerchief (which can be used as a scarf!),  
I wrapped the cracker with a piece of Asian material which I hope was of a size that could be used for a stole/scarf (if hemmed) or could be used to make something- I liked the sequins as they seemed festive!

I confess, inspiration was pretty lacking in the making stakes, to my utter shame.  I made a snow-flake felt Christmas decoration, I decided to try and hand-paint some red buttons to give them a polka-dot effect which took ages to do it right- I had to keep wiping off dots that went askew time and time again and repaint without disturbing the 'good ones'.  It was all fine until I decided to paint the other side and just couldn't seem to get it right.   In addition, I made a fanned-brooch with another polka-dot addition.  I adapted the design I tried of this before by scalloping the edges with patterned scissors as well.

Linking up to Lakota's Ta Dah Tuesday with these makes and Annie the Felt fairy's Make a month 2012
Have you done any swaps recently?  Let me know in the comments box, I love having a nosy!!!

I said yes.

I saw this painting for Style Imitating Art with Jess of Animated Cardigan.  It is entitled The Great War by Rene Magritte.  Tempting as it was to recreate the actual picture, I decided to go with a modern twist on it.  One of my favourite bloggers, Lauren at Someonelikeyou, is so good at wearing nude shades in the winter months and making them like they are meant to be together, pairing them with white tights and other lovely accessories.  I did ask her if I coul post a picture of one of her outfits but I guess she's busy, so no piccie right now!

This dress was my costume for the Ball in the Sound of Music (ASOS Salon) and I have only worn it in the summer so I wanted to see if I could put it with tights and shoes for the winter to have a go at doing 'nudes and whites in the winter', it's too pretty to leave languishing in a cupboard and because of the material, I don't really want to wear it on a sweltering hot day.  I'll add a cardie at some point.  Worn with my Grandmother's locket and silver sequin ballet pumps.

Oh, not to keep you in suspense but It seems a fitting outfit for my announcement.  I've been hiding a little secret for the past couple of weeks

CBC asked me a certain question in Florence and I said yes!

(this is what I intended to wear for our little celebration party a week ago until it rained!!)

Linking to Lakota's Tah Dah Tuesday!

All things red

Jewellery red:

 Hello there!   Sorry, I have felt a little lacklustre and not much to say in a blogging sense.  Well, I have got stuff to say, but lack the energy!  I made some poppy earrings to wear this weekend. Made out of mere scraps of felt and some black buttons on either side.  They certainly look 'home-made' so these wont be featuring in an Etsy-shop near you!

Hat red:

Here I wore them on Monday with red beret!

Outfit red: (er, not so much!)

Saturday, I wore these ancient Falmer jeans that actually came with four poppies on them (they pop on and off!) Sadly I've lost one!  Worn with red-edged converse!

Here was a simple outfit with touches of red.  I found this Collectif sailor top in a charity shop a while ago for £3 after really liking the exact same top for £20 in Collectif a week earlier in Spitalfields and wishing I'd bought it! Can't believe I forgot to put the red hat on I'd been wearing out all day! A different one!

Blog red:

The lovely Lauren of Someone like you is celebrating her 3rd anniversary of her blog- check out the pretty red dress someone sent her!

Creative red:

Beautiful displays by the talented Sonja at church on Sunday.  That amazing lady makes so so much out of so little and she is so humble.  She even composed Christmas songs of praise whilst being a PoW in Malaysia as a young child.  The kids focus talk had a really important, simple point, "Loving our neighbours as ourself".  If we all did that, there would be no war. 

Nature's red:

Look what you gain as a reward when you actually get out of bed at 7am instead of panickingly leaping out of bed at 7.35!

Poetry red:

A Poppy haiku

Red Poppy stands tall,

Reminding of sacrifice

Sign of Peace to come.

***

Linking to Lakota's Tah Dah Tuesday.

and Annie the Felt Fairy's Make a month 2012

The blogger who came in from the cold

 Hello, better late than never, I am posting my Inspiration Monday with Megan and Nora at the Two birds boutique outfit.  It was this nice cosy outfit from someone pretty.   I did look in despair at my heaving wardrobes/boxes/drawers and contemplated my cricket jumper but instead I took my inspiration from Nora's lovely grey version of this inspiration.  (curses to grainy indoor shots- urgh, daylight shortening!)
All the garments are pretty old, especially the grey trousers which I've had since I visited Kings Lyn in 2001!!!

Please note, the gloves and hat were not worn in this shot for style sake but for the pure fact I am freeeeeeezing!  My house has no central heating and is a veritable ice-box right now! If you want to know what I am looking like whilst typing this post, then scrolll to the bottom of the post!!

 Fat lot of good this pretty infinity (with birds or feathers?) scarf is- bring back the cashmere!!!

 Tuesday is also a fun Tah Dah! linkie day with Lakota and now WOMOTM has celebrated his birthday (Happy Birthday today WOMOTM!) and opened his card, I can post it here.
He's an aamazing photographer and so I made use of the fun camera paper that came with my favourite craft magazine, Papercraft Inspirations.

I also made my little niece a birthday card for the end of the month.  She adores aeroplanes and so I made this to accompany the coolest ever book- the Wind-up plane book (it has a track inside it so the toyplane will zoom around the book!)  She recently went on her first plane which is nice she had a treat as she is currently suffering the most horrendous bout of tonsilitis and hasn't eaten for almost a week, poor love.

I adapted a design from the aforementioned Papercraft Inspirations magazine for her.  I hope she likes it!

Oh, I promised to show you what I am currently doing to combat the cold (purely for a bit of light humour, I'm not saying you should dress like this!!!).  Yep, I added another jumper, cashmere scarf, slippers and like a Victorian gentleman, wearing my dressing gown over my clothes!!!  Oh and that red thing I am clutching is a microwaveable cherry-stone pillow! It is warm. I'm still cold ;-)

I had ridiculous amounts of fun this morning teaching Year 1 to play In and out the dusty blue bells  in their music lesson this morning.  Hands up who played this?  We also discussed the tempo and instrumentation of the March of the tin soldiers from the Nutcracker suite just in case you think I was having too much fun!