Quilled Tree Art

This is my latest art project, and my second attempt at quilling. This was my first attempt. 

I am pretty stoked with this one, I wanted to just use autumn colours and have the quilled teardrops be like falling leaves.

 My Creative Space

Little birdy

The shiny spots you may notice is just the glue drying. That is the suckiest part about quilling. It is freakn hard to get the glue to stick to such a small surface area! I generally use a paintbrush to coat the base of the paper generously then stick it down hard and hope for the best!

In other news...

•  I have dyed my hair, bit of an impulse move, not sure how I feel about it yet, probably when it lightens up in a few washes it will look closer to the 'strawberry blonde' I had envisioned. It does however, make my blue eyes look super bright and awesome.

• I made my very first Mince Chow Mein. YUM!
  This recipe uses only one (large) pot! Easy!! Plus you can extend it out with beans/lentils and it makes about six dinner-sized portions.
  
  Mince Chow Mein Recipe

• The latest set of Love Bombs have been sent! Check out Sophie Slim's blog for all the latest.

• We finally met our neighbours! (After 1 year...oops). One we met while Dave was out doing some tree hacking pruning and the others we met when their car got stuck in the stupid gutter drains. (Seriously- they don't make the driveway planks wide enough)
  *tip - use a car jack to jack the car up so its wheel is off the ground and slide a sturdy wooden plank under to use as a ramp. Lower the car then drive on out!
  
  Anyway, the neighbours are lovely, I might have to do a baking mission sometime. 

Enjoy the rest of the week!

Freehand Sewing

The other day, I was about to head off to a birthday party...Empty Handed! Shock Horror!
I had an hour or so to spare and had a cushion amount of material in my stash so taking inspiration from these lovely ladies : Sophie Slim and Miriam, I decided to make a birthday pillow for the coolest little 1 year old on the block - Holly's son.

I had seen this link a while ago and loved the look of it:
Mr Whiskers

So I thought I would try my hand at freehand sewing.
I don't have the right foot for my sewing machine so I just sewed like normal, and I think it turned out alright...

Minus the filling..

Next to the Lion I wrote Master Ones name but for the sake of privacy I won't show you that part.

I am pleased as punch with how this turned out.

There shall be more freehand sewing in the future!

xxx

Sonic Blanket Update #2

So two days ago, my laptop died. Its a Mac, Daves hand-me-down so its done some hard yards. I have a feeling it could just be the charger that died. The red charging light stopped working about a week ago, even though it kept charging. Then it stopped charging.

Anyway, the point of that whinge was to say that all my photos and plans are on that hard drive. But all is not lost! I am the awesome type of person that keeps all photos on their camera until the memory is full, then only deletes the ones she HAS to.
Also, I have my blog memories.

So when I was hunting for the photo I posted about what my sonic blanket would look like, I made a hard copy of the plan so I can refer to it easily.

Wanna see where I am up to now?

Keep in mind there was an entire week where I didn't pick up my crochet hook...

I am also missing the bright blue and the tan colour (I haven't found the right shades yet) so for now I am just working my way up, doing outline and now his gloves.

I am getting to be pretty ninja at making these, I can do one in about 6-7min.

So far so good! It is starting to take shape!

This was my Creative Space for the week :)

Another crafty making I did this week was a little name plaque for our flatmate.

He loves comics, and I reckon this fits him well.

I made this out of the same sheet of copper I used to make over this tissue box.

Same technique, I used a ball-point pen to press into the thin copper to make an indentation, then coloured over the whole thing with black vivid, then wiped it off with turps to leave the indentation marked.

Anyway, its now officially the end of my work week, I am looking forward to a couple of days off to get things done.

For more about my Sonic Blanket, check out the links below:

The Beginning of the Sonic Blanket

Sonic Blanket Progress Report #1

Re-purposed Tissue Box

The other day I picked up an awesome tissue box in anticipation of the coming winter season. Sure enough the tissue box has been well used and all the tissues are gone.

I didn't want to throw out the box so I thought I would do a bit of modifying to make it into a pretty storage container.

First up I used some orange polka-dot fabric tape to cover up the Kleenex logo and create some interest at the top and bottom of the box.

Next I made a wee plaque with my name on it.

I made this out of a thin sheet of copper I got from a customer at work. I mentioned to him that I enjoyed and making things with copper and brass. He gave me a small sheet of copper to play with.

It is super thin so I drew my name with ball-point pen, which left an indent. I then covered the whole thing with black sharpie, then wiped off the ink with turps. This left the indent filled with black to make it stand out.

 I stuck the plaque on the tissue box with double sided tape, and check it out!
One awesome, new, personalized storage box!

Tutorial: Birds on a Wire Cushion

The other night I was struck by some inspiration and created this wee masterpiece.

I had a few pieces of fabric left from when I re-upholstered this bedroom chair and one length of it was perfect cushion size.

I also had some bright scraps left from when I made this scarf.

I have been seeing a lot of birds in artwork lately and I love pretty birds.

To make this cushion you will need:

• Enough heavy fabric for the cushion base. Depending on the size you want your finished cushion. I used approx 1m x 50cm
  
• Contrasting scrappy bits of fabric
• Sewing machine and black thread
• Pins
• Needle and thread to match scrappy bits of fabric
• A4 paper
• Cushion stuffing material

 Method

• First I drew and cut out some bird silhouettes from a4 paper to use as templates.

• Next I pinned these to various scrappy bits of bright fabric and cut out 2 of each bird on different patterns. 

• I grabbed my length of upholstery fabric, folded it in half to mark the front of the cushion, then sewed two 'wires' on different angles across the fabric. I created a bit of texture by reversing the stitch every so often as I went along.

• I played around with the placement of the birds until I was happy.

NB- Remember to allow for seam allowance around the edges when placing your birds.

• Next, hand stitch or, if you are good with sewing tiny things, machine stitch each bird onto the wire.

• Then fold your cushion with right sides together and sew around the edges, leaving a 10cm gap so it can be turned right way out.

• Turn the cushion right way out, then stuff with poly-fill or other stuffing material.

• Slip-stitch the gap closed and you are done!

This would look really cool in opposite colours too, a black cushion with a white wire and red birds, or any combo really!

Happy making!

Giveaway Winner!

Congratulations 'Oh, the Humanity!'AKA Erica Donovan!

You have won the pretty re-purposed frame!

I shall be in contact with you about postage details etc.

This week has been a bit of a blah one for me, I caught the dreaded winter cold. I knew it would come sometime. I had the afternoon off on Monday and managed to slog my way through the work week without too much drama. Sadly Dave caught it too. I always apologize when I get a cold because I know that inevitably it will get passed along the line.

The makings in this house have been minimal this week. I only managed a couple of granny squares for Sonic, but I'm ok with that.

We have been watching the TV series Friday Night Lights lately, we are onto season 3. I had my reservations about watching a 'football series' but it has enough juicy drama and crazy-yet-could-still-happen situations to keep me wanting more.

I have been inspired to do a bit more sewing in the near future and I may even attempt some freehand stitching. We shall see...