Mr Badger embraces his inner-musician

I am extremely honoured to be hosting an esteemed guest! Mr Badger, from Wind in the Willows, is currently residing with me in sunnny Essex as part of his world tour visiting bloggers. He originates from my dear blogging friends Pom-Pom and Mags  at Fraise.  Part of his mission is to promote and share 'hygge' wiht those he visits.  Hygge is a Danish word with a rough translation of 'Cosiness, creating a warm atmosphere and enjoying the good things in life with good people.

Before me, he was staying with Cheryl at Sweet Briar Dreams and had an amazing visit to Highclere Castle, the home of Downton Abbey!

It was wonderful to come home on Monday to a parcel which was a patchwork of different address labels.  Inside, I found Mr Badger, along with a beautiful copy of Wind in the Willows.

In addition, he has a passport which every host is invited to stamp and write in and there is an increasing-sized pile of postcards which each host includes. It was a delight to read through the passport and the postcards.

Really surprisingly and delightfully, Cheryl had bought me a gift and postcard at Highclere castle which was lovely!

I look forward to actually reading Wind in the Willows which I haven't done since I was a young child (and then I suspect I was read to).

I discovered Pom-pom's lovely annotations and others inside the book! This book has a great deal of heart and joy in it!

On Mr Badger's adventures.  In some ways, I am sad that he wasn't with me for holiday times, but he is a grateful old gent and will appreciate the Hygge in whatever form it comes!

 On Mr Badger's first day, Tuesday, he accompanied me to school to feel young again whilst surrounded by friendly young musicians.  Since we were learning the recorder, Mr Badger also needed his own instrument so we found him a suitably-sized recorder which he could tootle down.

 Through the lesson, I asked the most-well behaved table to host him and he sat on their table as they took part in their first recorder lesson and tried his hand at the recorder too although we noticed that he was holding his recorder in his right-hand rather than the correct left but as he is an esteemed old gentleman, we allowed it!

Later that evening, Mr Badger travelled up to London to listen to a rehearsal of Hadyn and Ligeti. He particularly enjoyed the slow movement of the Hadyn and could be heard snoozing in the middle of the flute section! We just pretended it was an out of tune bassoon!

On Wednesday, Mr Badger felt rather tired so he stayed at home for some rest and a chance to catch up on his sleep.

On Thursday, he hinted that he'd rather like to spend some time with the children again, so he came to school again and sat keeping time on the snare drum for a very well-behaved year 2 class who enjoyed his company very much.

I wonder what Mr Badger will get up to next? Hopefully,he will have some gentle fun and enjoyment at the weekend!

xxx

A right old crafting fest: Making up my Blogger snail mail parcel for Janet

Hi, I thought I'd share a post about what I sent to Janet reciprocally for the recent Blogger snail mail swap. I was waiting to see if she'd post first anything first, but she doesn't seem to be so I will just go ahead and write this anyway.

One of the things I like about Blog swaps is really really trying to think about what to get for someone, particularly when it inspires you to craft.  I have always tried to make something for most swaps I do, though the pre-Christmas ones didn't really give me much time for this.

I do like to a proper thorough job on trying to find something for that person by reading the blog archives (that makes me sound scaaaary, but I'm trying to show the dilligence!) of the blogger in question. By that, I mean, really going through their archive to find what they really like. I did this with Janet, reading every wishlist she'd posted ever, looking at particular themes that arose.

In this case: books, words, lettering, maps, mustard, Peterpan collars, vintage fun, dresses were main themes that I noticed.

The first item I decided to make was a Scrabble Brooch.  I'd seen a brooch on one of her wishlists, seen she'd recently starting wearing a brooch and I had been intending to make Scrabble brooches for a while with my Nan's Scrabble set. Having purchases some tiny brooch-backs a while ago, I just needed to use some strong all-purpose glue as I have not plucked up the courage to try my glue-gun yet (I am scared of them!). It wasn't particularly neatly done but from the front it was fine.

 I had a small white box from a pair of earrings I'd bought so I decided to customise it. I know Janet likes book text crafted into other things, so I found these love heart confetti pieces I had picked up from my table at a friend's wedding last year (yes, I know that's a bit cheeky but like they were going to go round and rescue every bit of confetti after their wedding, they'd have just ended up in the bin) and stuck them to the lid with an edging sticker from my craft stash.


Pre-making this card, I'd picked up a 25p book in a charity-shop to use for craft purpose, making sure it wasn't something I'd love but you know what, I could not bring myself to rip out pages of the actual story, it just seemed sacrilege so luckily, it had a preview of the next book in the series at the back and so I ripped those out to use, thus meaning I didn't feel guilty.

Janet declared her love of peter-pan collars, so decided to use a circle punch, dress-shaped punch and edging punch to make this card. I'd love a dress like this.  I wrote a rather long and rambly message inside explaining why I'd chosen the gifts. Was rather pleased with it.


Having seen Janet's liked to make craft items out of old music, I decided to use some music which had been destined for the dump at Music camp (the book I used for my Ivy Heart  collage in the summer) and an envelope template to make her 5 envelopes out of them, added some gold ink to the edges and tied them up.

Since Janet showed that she liked map-items in various wishlists, I used an old 2002 atlas I'd saved when we were clearing out Grandad's house to make some larger sized map envelopes.


The next item was a bit of an afterthought.  I spied a small decoupaged music heart (you can see it below in the 7th picture) I'd made in the summer and decided to try and make a coaster using decoupage technique for Janet, double-sided with book paper and maps. You can see the process below, which included trying to varnish it with PVA glue.



It looked ok though I wish I'd have avoided the yellow borders!

The other side, still from the preview chapter.  I did varnish it with PVA. Not sure how durable or waterproof it is though, but we'll see...


The final hand-crafted item I made was a bookmark. I used the remainder of the turquoise card from the card and cut out yellow letters and shapes with some punches.  Janet had featured a Hello Sunshine postcard on her mantelpiece and a bag in her wishlist so I figured she might like it for a bookmark since she is an ardent book reader.  Luckily, I had some laminating of Music Vocabulary to do at school and the word cards are slightly smaller than A4 so I squeezed the bookmark in with them.



So that's almost the end of crafted items which I was quite pleased about though nervous of Janet's reaction because she is a neat crafter and I a scruffy one.

What about the other items?



I know Janet likes Crocheted Peter pan collars and I had picked up one or two when I visited Bruges, a place famed for its lace, (indeed, I sent one to my Blogger friend Lauren of Someonelikeyou) and had had it in my storebox for a long time, intending to give it to someone who'd loved such collars and would appreciate it so I was delighted to think of it for Janet.

Janet declared a love of mustard clothes recently and when I saw this bangle, it reminded me of the cable knit jumper she'd worn in a blog post.

Finally, Janet loves books. I stalked many blog book reviews in order to see if she'd come across Carola Dunn (whose books I love), and took a chance that she enjoyed Agatha Christie so might like this gentle Whodunnit!


The last task remained to wrap up the items. I decided to design some wrapping paper especially for Janet. I opened an A3 sized Publisher document found the opening quote from our mutual favourite book, I capture the castle and collaged this all over the page.  I then cropped an image of Janet's own logo and superimposed it over the top at equal intervals and then, after printing, had some unique wrapping paper.


You can see the items wrapped up in their box (recycled Glitterati box so had a nice sparkly bow on it) ready to go. I accidently left out a roll of vintage ribbon I'd intended to send also,but never mind!

It was great fun trying to think of things that Janet would like, she really did make me get my act together and do some crafting, which I haven't done much of for ages,so I love it when a swap partner is the type of person to spark my creativity!  Thank you Janet, and I'm so glad you liked your presents!



Linking up to:

A round tuit with Creating my way to success



Creative Mondays with Claire Justine

 Brilliant Blog posts with Honest Mum


 You're gonna love it Tuesday with Kathe with an e

Blogger snail mail mark 2

I took part in another round of Gemma's Blogger snail mail.  I was Gemma's partner last time and this time I was paired up with the super Janet of Words that can only be your own.  I already read Janet's blog so this was cool.  We exchanged some e-mails. It was nice to correspond with a fellow teacher, though of the secondary-kind, and we go to know each other.

Last week, we both got around to sending our parcels. I picked up Janet's on Saturday on my way to London.

Unfortunately, in my excitement, I opened the presents on the train so I cannot show you them beautifully wrapped but they were wrapped in my favourite colour, turquoise tissue paper.




A cute Hip Hip hooray postcard held a friendly greeting from Janet.

What was inside the parcels?





Up first, I found a very interesting book which Janet had told me was her favourite of the year. I was delighted. I always love a new book, especially one that someone else loved!  This one sounds very intriguing and I love a good historical novel, especially one with a mystery involved! Great choice!



I have admired some lovely crafty items Janet has made on her blog and I was really impressed by the beautiful polka dot and floral purse she made for me- I love little material pouches like this as I really like to put jewellery in them when I am going on holiday.  I have one but necklaces and earrings always get tangled so it will be great to have two so they can be kept out of tangles way!

Inside it was a lovely Burt's Bee plum lip shimmer. I really like Burt's bee products, they are good quality and I really prefer to use more natural products (I try to use only SLS-free shower products etc) so I was really chuffed to receive this. I've got one of their tinted lipsalves which doesn't really give much colour, so I am really intrigued to try a lip shimmer!


Finally, the last item was really exciting! I have seen a print like this on Etsy before with different designs like typewriters and butterflies so to have a beautiful TARDIS one is super cool!  I can't wait to frame it and then put it up alongside my print from Gemma and finally put my 2 old framed Doctor Who prints from my old house! Geekily, I love the fact that the page that it was printed on had the words Figured Bass at the top- a musical term! Mwa ha ha!!!

Thank you Janet, I loved the items you chose for me, very kind and thoughtful.

I will share a post of what I sent to Janet soon, as I finally got a bit of a crafting thing on!! x

Have you taken part in any swaps recently? DO share if so!x

P.S.

Lizzie, I hope you get better soon!
Julia- Nicole must be SUCH an interesting person with all her world experience! Your cookery books sound good!
Nicole- sadly not!
Denise, Birds and MariaFelicia- I do too! It's weird, but up until about a year ago, I wasn't bothered by Indian cuisine- but then I discovered dahl and it has opened up my taste buds!
Char and Jan- this is my first cooking workshop! Not thought to do any before!
Thrift deluxe- the chutney is SO TASTY!
Laura- ha ha, I haven't made any yet!
Curtise- lucky your kids like things like that now!
Lisa- pinickety? How so? I'm quite fussy about sweet things! And I hate mushrooms or fruit (except coconut) in savoury.

Bloggers Secret Santa 2014

I signed up for and took part in Char's Bloggers' Secret Santa and  received a wonderful parcel on Saturday from Ingrid at See the colts who thankfully included her name and blog link.

She'd decorated the box beautifully with lots of lovely washi tapes so it was already exciting from the outside.  When I opened it up, I found some lovely looking parcels and a pretty card which had also been decorated. This kind of put me to shame as I am Mrs Absolute-Scruff-ball when it comes to wrapping up presents- most of mine look like they've been through a bush backwards.  Everything was wrapped beautifully with exquisite labels.



But what was inside?


1.  I first unwrapped this cute book about a cat which I look forward to reading as the blurb looks really exciting. I always love a parcel with a book!
2. The second one I unwrapped was a beautiful pair of handmade paper heart earrings which are really delicate and pretty, just the type of thing I like! I can't wait to wear them once the season of Christmas earrings is over!
3.  Also included were two rolls of pretty tape which I can imagine using to decorate cards with- sorry if anyone hoped to get presents wrapped with these- they are far too pretty to end up in the bin with wrapping paper!!
4. I was totally excited about the white bunny lamp- Ingrid must have read my post about Alice the white bunny recently! I have seen these lamps and wanted one but didn't think I could justify buying one- so brilliant that I got one as a pressie!
5.Ah ahahahaha!!!! Doctor Who stickers!!!!! Excellent!
6.  A wodge of money- alas, tissue money but very very cool!
7.  Finally, a fold-up burger- I have read the instructions and still not quite worked out what it is, but it looks really fun and a good project to work on!

Thank you SO much to Ingrid for my lovely presents. I love them!

I had a little more trouble with my mystery partner who had not included ANY sense of her likes or dislikes in Char's e-mail and when I went to her blog, found very little more about what she liked (hers is a professional blog of her profession!) - in a panic, I read her entire blog history in the vain hope of finding some ideas. I gained a few little ideas from some recipe posts and an reference to note books so went along the foodie route but I admit,it's been the hardest 'blogswap' I've been involved in! I really hope that a) she received it and b) liked the items!!

Did you take part in any swaps or posting fun at all? Let me know if you did- I love a snoop over these posts!
xx

TARDIS in the post

I somehow found Gemma's blog by accident- I can't even remember how I found it, but she has quickly crept into my top bloggers list.  Her blog is varied and motivational and she is just a lovely person.  She runs a blogswap called 'Blogger's snail mail.  When I discovered the swap, it transpired that the odd number of participants meant Gemma didn't end up with a partner, so I quickly offered to be her partner which thankfully she agreed to!

Here's a bit about it from Gemma:

A quarterly gift exchange where you can meet other bloggers from around the world and spread a bit of positivity! People get paired up in March, June, September and December. During the sign up period, every participant will be paired with one other new participant and you’ll spend a few weeks becoming BFFs (i.e. reading each other’s blogs, sending happy e-mails, you name it!). After that, you’ll send your partner a gift from your country that you think they may like from the info you now know about them. There’s a £5 limit on the gifts to make this project as affordable as possible. Be as creative as you can and make it meaningful! Motivate them, tell them all the beautiful things you learned about them, and make them feel special! We could all use a little encouragement, especially from our new friends. Also, each package should include a postcard (or a letter if you can’t find one!) with some motivating love or positive words of wisdom written all over it.

If you would like to get involved in this batch, click on Gemma's post to find out more details

We exchanged some lovely e-mails over the weeks and got to know each other, about our lives, interests and life in general and finally we sent each other a parcel.  Here is what I received from Gemma:


This was an absolutely brilliant parcel and I was so, so  pleased with it:
Firstly, this wonderful Doctor Who quote which Gemma framed for me. I am beyond excited to have a TARDIS print and this has taken pride of place on our bedroom wall already.

The second item was a beautiful vintage-looking tin which I am definitely going to keep my brooches in as my current box is a bit too small!

The third was a delicate quartz crystal necklace which Gemma made for me. She sells necklaces like this in her Etsy shop too and there are some beautiful ones.

I was so chuffed with my parcel and just hope she likes hers! Thank you so much Gemma.

If you want to join in with the Blogger Snail mail, then pop over to Gemma's post!

xxx

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!!!

Mary Poppins' Handmade heart swap - What I made! Epic make a month!

2 days ago, I shared what I had received from the lovely Tracy at Mad about bags as part of the Handmade heart swap.  Today, I thought I'd share what I made and a few details of the how and why! 

I admit, I was a little apprehensive when I first signed up at the prospect of making all 5 gifts, all with a heart theme! My crafting regularly consists of cards and now very simple jewellery.  Nonetheless, I signed up, after Mary encouraged me.  Then I found out I was with Tracy and I was scared again.  Because, despite the fact that Mary said, things came from the heart and it didn't matter how experienced you were, there's still that part of you that wants to do the best that you can for someone and you yourself know when you feel you haven't made something the best you can.  I do struggle with insecurities in my abilities, even things that I consider I am good at!  Tracy sweetly reassured me similarly and I just thought I had to give it a go!  Even though I stressed over it in my head for 3 weeks, spent about 20 hours making everything over 3 days, it was a worthwhile challenge- it's been lovely getting to know Tracy.

So here was the pile of finished goodies!  "What did they contain?" I hear you ask!

Well, Tracy said she liked a nice cup of tea!  So I remembered that I had been to a ceramics workshop at Christmas and made a Daisychain fruit bowl (in fact, I don't think I ever published my post about the workshop...).  So I bought a plain white mug, some peel-off stickers and some ceramic paints.

Firstly, I stuck the stickers to the mug (which was unexpectedly time-consuming lining them up!)

Ceramic painting mug
Then I used a sponge and ceramic paints to paint colours that Tracy said she liked (the handle was a bit lumpy so it caused issues!).  You had to leave to dry for 24 hours.

Subsequently, I peeled off the stickers and saved them for later...

Finally, I baked it in the oven for 35 minutes.

And voila, it came out looking slightly shiny!  It's now dishwasher safe!

I filled it with some individual tea-bags before wrapping it up.

Stained glass tea-lights
For my second gift, again, I tried to think of crafts that I hadn't seen Tracy do on her blog and I hadn't seen any stained glass painting and thought that she might appreciate some tealight holders in her favourite colours of turquoise, green and purple.
I have to say, these were by far, the most problematic make of the swap!  They were so so so time-consuming and very very stubborn. Painting on a curve was not easy!

I bought some mini shot glasses. Then I attempted to use my stained-glass black relief outliner from Anita's crafts which refused pointblank to come out of the squeezy bottle.  So, I poked it with pins to no avail.  Finally, I took the lid off and just tried to paint it on with a paintbrush.  I maskingtaped a template to the inside and painted the black outlines over about 3 hours, which was hard on a curve.   The next morning, I filled the gaps with 3 different colours.  I obviously hadn't entirely sealed the borders between them enough as there were several leaks.  Finally, after leaving them to dry half a day, I painted the rest of the glass in one colour.  I did the same with 3 of them. Then put in tea-lights with a couple of spares in each one.

Rose bath fizzers:
 As I found out Tracy was a busy Mum, I thought she might appreciate something indulgent like a soak in the bath.  Again, I hadn't seen she'd made any bath-bombs (although one of the pictures in her header could have been....) so I thought this might be a nice idea.
My Mum makes bath-bombs/fizzers so I asked her if she would teach me how to do it for this swap. She madly kindly consented to.
She thought that rose bath bombs would be a good one as pink hearts and all that. 
With much supervision frustratedly wrenching the spoons out of my hand, we heated olive oil (over a saucepan of water) and added rose, lavender, geranium, rose maroc, sweet almond oils and some non-water based red food colouring.  In a seperate bowl we mixed bicarbonate soda and citric acid.  Next, we took the bowl off the heat and mixed the solids in slowly with the liquids (this was the moment of spoon wrenching) until they made a firmer mixture.  

Next, using the heart-shaped silicon moulds I'd bought, I spoooned the mixture in and pressed/packed it as tightly as I could. I don't think I did it as well as I should have- it was hard with the heart shaped moulds which kept moving. Mum says that normal circular ones are much easier.

Finally we added Neal's yard rosebuds with a drop of rose oil on each.

I packed them in clingfilm as they need to be kept out of contact with water.  They smelt really nice and I was glad to give this a try!

Heart box and cards
It is clear from Tracy's blog that she has an eye for pretty things, so I wanted to make something pretty for her in her favourite colours.  Since card-making is the craft I indulge in most, I thought I'd make her some cards and somewhere pretty to keep them.

I took a small textured brown box; some acrylic paints in purple, green, dark turquoise; some silver outline stickers; some mini gems; a heart shaped punch and some stickidots.
I
I drew pencil lines where I wanted to apply paint to the lid.  Then painted strips of different colours on the lid and the bottom in green (acrylics) using a sponge to get an even finish.  Left to dry.

Then I created a stencil using a heart punch (see below) and applied a line of green hearts to the lid

Then I added some outline stickers to mask the boundary between colours.
After that: I punched some silver mirror card hearts and layed them on top of each other with 3d pads
The final touch was adding 3 little gems to each one with sticki minidot.

I have to say I was really pleased with the results.

The cards:
To go inside, I measured and cut cards to the size of the box, punched a heart border down the side of each.
Next, I created hearts out of 4 different envelope inards and attached to white card, cut with scalloped scissors.  Finally, to ensure Tracy could use them for any purpose, I added some Best wishes stickers.
The design is one I have made for Engagement cards on quite a few occasions and it adapts an idea I think I got from Papercraft inspirations magazine many years ago.

I HEART TEA charm bracelet:
Tracy said that thought she doesn't wear much jewellery, she likes a nice bracelet or two.  So I tried to find some purple buttons to make a base-bracelet with jump rings.  Then, I added a purple glass heart I had  bought the day before.  Remembering Tracy's love of tea, I added a tea-cup and milk-jug charm which I had from a doll's teaset I'd bought for the purpose.

Here it is wrapped up in some recycled organza and chiffon ribbon.

Jubilee heart decoration:
It was only as I was wrapping everything up, that I caught sight of an article in the Docrafts magazine that showed how to make a gorgeous paper/card heart. I thought it was so pretty!
It was easy to make with different length strips of paper which I secured with a bulldog clip after making 2 teardrop shapes with some red satin ribbon sandwiched in a loop between.  The ends were tied in a bow at the bottom.  To stop the heart from getting crushed, I put it in a recycled thorntons box which I painted and put a heart on.

Bruges chocolate:

I still had one lolly-pop left from Dumon chocolatier in Bruges (2nd best chocolatier in Bruges) which I hid in the box under the heart as a surprise.

 Knitted heart
Sadly, not by me!  But it was too cute and I thought Tracy would like it!  Some choccie and a badge from the British heart foundation which matched the recycled map envelope I made. 

Did you wonder what happened to those heart stickers that had been painted on the mug?  Well, I stuck them to a black card to make a greetings card for Tracy.  I couldn't possibly throw them away!

Here's the whole collection: (Thanks to Tracy for this photo and the knitted one.  You can also see the Thorntons protecting box to the right).  I always include little cards explaining what things are and why I chose to made them.  I always think its nice to know how and why someone chose something for them!

So I survived my first totally handmade swap and I am so glad that Tracy liked what I made for her. I've been thinking about it constantly for 3 weeks now!  Thank you Tracy for being such a lovely swap-partner. You are welcome to go and check out Tracy's pretty blog!

  I think June's Make a month with Annie the Felt Fairy is more packed than any other month!  I may just flake in July! 

So what do you think?  And what have YOU been making!

If you haven't made anything, what WOULD you like to learn to make?  I'd love to be able to make mosaics and make dresses and other lovely sewn items!

Linking to Lakota's Ta Dah! Tuesday as I am feeling pretty happy with my crafting attempts!