Black and White

This year's twin niece birthday has just been. At too late point of the last month did I realise that the day was near and hurried to ask my sister-in-law to make enquires of what the young ladies might wish to have. R wanted to have two new cushion covers for her new black and white room to be. L wanted to have a nice cloth covered notebook. I had a bit of poppy fabric left from my previous poppy dress, which was fine, but otherwise I had to pop into Funky Needlework Studios to get some black and white stuff. This was no hassle, the owner Josie is extremely nice and one can browse to all of one's heart's content without feeling a nuisance.
R had mentioned that a bit of colour was ok, so I chose to lift the monochrome scheme with an orange zip. You can also see that the poppy cushion's back has a different fabric, a chance to change the looks on the bed!

L's diary is covered in the same fabrics

Inside I made a title page, taking a punt, as I had forgotten to ask what she intended too use the notebook for. (Luckily my guess was correct)

Ooh...that glue splot totally distracts me. it wasn't as visible in reality. I also added some nice coloured fineliners in the front pocket

And voilá, two pressies done. I am not going to entertain you how much blood, sweat and tears went into those  cushion covers, which in theory should have been a walk in a park...I got to a point where I had to admit that I need a new seam ripper tool, mine is SO blunt after this project.
Any interesting/blood thirsty/sweat inducing projects your way?
Today I just say: "Happy Unbirthday L&R!"

Just for fun...

Halloweenish birthday card I made for a niece around the Halloween time. I just like this sultry young madam.

Papercut Forest

Aargh! I hate this messing about with clocks! My system seems to tolerate it less and less as the years go. Today I feel jet-lagged and feeble. I slept enough, but my body isn't really happy about the change in the rhythm and the disappearance of the light in the early morning.  I don't mind if the powers to be want to leave the time into summer time mode for ever and I technically would lose an hour of my life, just stop changing it. (That is rubbish of course, because I live the time I live, it doesn't really matter how it is measured).
  
I love papercutting. The forest was inspired by a card I received, but the idea of making a papercut for this shadow frame was there already. There is very little to say, the pictures tell it all.

The "door" open,  so you don't have the reflection of the glass, but you will see also bits, which are not on the show when the front is closed.

 I wish I could get myself doing these some more often, so I could get better at it. A good papercut is a fantastic piece of art in my opinion. (Mine is not really art, just craft).

Twin Gifts

As per usual I have been making gifts for our twin nieces. This time a short consultation with their Mum resulted in making things for their room, cushion covers to be precise. I cannot remember when I have last panicked this badly about something reasonably simple to make. The sewing stars were not aligning themselves at all. I had an awful time deciding the design, did not ever get a result which I was totally happy with, but as I was yet again very late at it, had to push on with what I had in mind.

The twins' Mum tipped me off with colours they favour at the moment, so that was at least decided for me. This one was easyish as the spotty fabric was readily available on the local high street.

Making the pink one was tough a journey. I suddenly realised that I had practically run out of pink material as I don't often use it for my own things. I managed to dig out a few pieces from my assortment of left over materials, but had to go and buy a bigger piece for the back and for the background of the "flag". My local shops seemed to have only a piggy and brownish shade of pink or the desired shade but in a design destined for the nursery. (And not very nice ones). In the end I made a lucky find in the charity shop of a pink cotton shirt, which was in good condition. That saved me from sewing one set of buttons and button holes as well!

The covers ended up all wonky, but hopefully it is not too noticeable when they are plump with a cushion inside them.

Crafting against the clock on Saturday morning I put together these cards to go with the presents and got them to the post office with fingers sticky with glue. I made it, but I am traumatised for life!

Have the sewing stars been aligned for you?

Papermania

Look at my pretty papers! I could almost eat these. I am generally not a scrap-booking type, so don't use scrap book papers. On the other hand I am no stranger to prettyfying things around me using paper...lately I have had to make something very close to a scrap book, so I have been using these.

The best thing is how I got my sticky paws on the papers; I scanned some of my yummy fabrics and now I have a lasting record of these pretty patterns and it feels a tad easier to use them instead of hoarding. I don't know about you, but I tend to get overly attached to some fabrics and it takes a long marinating period in the draws before I set my scissors to the fabrics.

Pretty yellows and oranges

Cool blues and greens

and edible reds and pinks

If you wondered about print quality and such, I found that I can print on poorest quality colour and it is still pretty. I print on normal paper with a Brother colour laser printer.

Surfacing from life that happens and filing it

Hello and thank-you for hanging on there, should you still be here with me.  It is really nice to be back. I have had quite a tumultuous spring in a good way and that has meant that a lot has been written, but that lot not being the blog. It all revolves around some changes in our family life, but I am not going to go into detail just now.

I have been firing on all fronts and although I have not blogged, I have created. Maybe not as much as usual, but still. So this and following posts are going to be playing a bit of catch up.

I have had this file prettifying project in my mind a long time and got to realise it at last.  I have quite a lot of files, both for our family papers and for my work. They are kept on open shelves and in order them take as little attention as possible, I have chosen to have them in white.

This is how it all looked like, all white and green in different degree of yellowing.

I had a few ideas how to replace the backs, but ended up colour coding them according to the use. Our family files in one group, my sewing in another, my therapy files in third etc. I used textiles I like and  scanned them. I thought that it would be a lovely thing to do with the fabrics which I almost don't want to use, because they are so delicious. I could "preserve" the prints in paper format to use in my crafts. Honestly I don't know how legal all this would be. I think it is OK as long as I don't sell the products.
I chose a "retro" font and typed all the contents as well, so it all looks neat.

I especially liked the retro print, which is on the bottom shelf and I have still not decided what I will make of it!
PS the picture quality is awful. I try to change them as soon as I get the photoshop back on my computer. My computer has been misbehaving, so still several programmes to load...

Blog Anniversary Giveaway and a New Year's Gift

It was my blog's 1st anniversary yesterday! Happy birthday blog!

I am fully aware of the custom of having a little giveaway to celebrate. I don't know if there are any others than my family and a few friends reading this, although the stats show that there are at least occasional visits from places where I don't know anybody. (Obviously the family and friends are welcome to participate). As this is mainly craft and sewing blog the give away is "crafty". I thought that it would be nice to give from my stash and something I have made, so here we go.


The giveaway winner is going to get a rainbow of zips:

















small selection of buttons















 Two Suffolk puff pins















and a pencil case I made

















To participate leave a comment, it does not matter if you have never done so before, you are still welcome! I will draw the winner on Friday the 7th after 3pm GMT, as I am going to use Elf son as my random number selector after he is back from school. Please check if you have won and if so, contact me as the blogger doesn't always give me your email address even if you leave one. GOOD LUCK! 
Now that we have got the giveaway sorted, I can show you a notebook I made as a New Year's gift to my friend and mentor, who is an avid journal writer. We don't exchange Christmas gifts, but I am going to see her next weekend and thought that this would be a nice surprise and a way to say thank-you for mentoring me and being a friend. The colours are not very "me", but are "her". It's always nice to make things for people, because it forces me to colours and designs I would not otherwise use.

I blogged earlier about a notebook I made and there was talk about writing some sort of tutorial for it. Well, I didn't, but maybe I should have, just to use it myself! I could not remember what I did last time, so I needed to figure it out again. Not sure if I did it the same way, but that doesn't matter. I still have not produced a tutorial though...I have to refine my false book binding technique. I really don't have a faintest clue about real bookbinding, so it's all ad libbing it. The printed text is an Einstein quote: "Imagination is more important than knowledge"

I wanted to make the insides inspiring as well, so I added some pictures and decorations here and there

There are fantastic sources for vintage children's craft activities etc on flickr. I can easily lose myself for hours there. It never stops amazing me how generous people are sharing all these goodies with the Internet community. There are several rainy day cutting and pasting activities there which are super cute. Go and check out here and here. The latter has a lot of sets with different vintage themes and is a treasure trove. The pictures are actually lovely enough to frame, if you are missing pictures for your child's room, or indeed for yourself. I used some of them for illustrations printing them to be on the left hand side, where it is more difficult to write.
The whole process of making this notebook was much more painful this time than last time around. I wonder whether it was because I knew I was making this as a gift, whereas the other one started as something for myself.
 

Snow and cards

We have been snowed in! Well, actually we can creep out in our Land Rover, but the roads in this part of the world are not awfully safe at the moment. I am happy with the snow, because I don't need to go anywhere, we have plenty of food and there are shops at walking distance. I find it really cosy with candles lit and doing crafts and my elfy business.

At Elf son's school they have a tradition to have  a postbox at the school and all the children send cards to each other. Now this school is minute and everybody has something to do with everybody. this means that he needs/wants to send cards to ALL the children and ALL the staff. As he is not the greatest writer, even short messages tax him a lot and writing 30 cards is a total no-go area. To offset the printed message inside, I encourage him to make the cards himself. It cannot be too time consuming as he is a boy who won't make 30 same/similar cards or different for that matter. I don't think that I would have at his age. So this is what we made today, for children:

 for adults a different card colour

I think it was a rather good effort. I cut the cards for him with the guillotine and he attached little wooden Christmas figures on the front. We had a choice of three figures and three punches as you might figure out from the pictures. Elf son had a go with the decorative punch, but had to give up as it was too hard going. Even I had to resort to tricks to be able to do it. We produced all 30, so now we just need to plan what to write and get the message printed. I think I scanned his handwritten message last year, might do the same this year.

Have you made any cards? My own cards are not done yet...