Crochet Hearts, a birthday gift set and a crochet catch up.

When I started my little crochet adventure back in April, never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine that I would be making a birthday present for a friend that involved crochet. OK what I've done is very simple but I think very effective and should encourage all you novice crocheters (like me) out there to have a go.

Ooooooh what are these......?

My very good friend is celebrating her 'girlie' birthday this week. She is a lover of all things 'hearty' and has an excellent eye for detail, creating lots of interesting little corners in her house. Anyway the 'hearty' thing was my starting point.


So where do you go when as a crochet novice you need a bit of handholding and advice? Off to lovely Lucy of course, where there was a lovely teeny tiny heart tutorial which was just perfect for my needs.

The hearts were so straightforward to make and I had purchased a white box frame for them to nestle into.

But then of course I had to make the card and think of a suitable wrapping. Here's what I came up with.

A tote'ish bag made from good old reliable wallpaper lining to house the frame, using hearts as my theme and working with the same colours as the crochet hearts.  Shall we have a closer look......?

A carefully placed sentiment and hearts randomly stamped onto a strip of white card which were then cut into squares and mounted onto card. I wanted a faded heart look, so I stamped some of the ink off before stamping onto the white card.



This might give you a better idea....



The ribbon was simply tied around the handle and the handles were made from red card and attached with eyelets.

Although this was for a birthday, what a great Christmas present it would make wouldn't it?

And talking of all things crochet, just in case you were wondering...............

........my crochet blanket is coming along nicely. I left off it for a few weeks as sewing projects took over but I'm determined to get it finished in time for Christmas. I'm aiming for a 10 squares by 12 rows blanket and I'm on row 10 now, I should make it shouldn't I?

Enjoy your day and thank you for stopping by x

More scrappy beach huts

Last week I mentioned that I was going to be making a fabric picture of beach huts for my lovely friend's birthday. I know that some of you are big fans of beach huts and indeed some of you are lucky enough to live by or near to the sea. Well, after a trip to the North Norfolk coast, my friend was inspired to makeover one of the rooms in her house using colours with a definite seaside feel and that was my starting point.

I had recently made a cover for a footstool for her,




Not the most inspiring of photos - sorry



......which I was really pleased with, but wouldn't be in a rush to repeat the experience as my poor sewing machine struggled to cope with all those layers of fabric. A no nonsense bruiser of an industrial machine would have coped much better . The footstool belonged to the sofa in 'said' room.




Lots of layers of fabric here

Anyway the point of me mentioning this is to say, I remembered I had some scraps left over from this project and I decided to use one of them as the background for the picture. A lovely, ribbed heavy cotton furnishing fabric in a neutral sandy colour, perfect!

Then came the usual playing around with colours and I did have fun with this one. Getting the combination right and waiting for that 'pop' moment. The weird thing was that when I gave the present to my friend she squealed out loud, as the blue in the picture is the exact same fabric that she also has on one of the cushions in 'said' room. What a coincidence!!

I must admit I loved the way these colours came together and will I ever stop loving this applique thing? I chose a clean white frame to set the picture off.

Then the wrapping. Regular readers will know I enjoy a good bit of papercrafting. I made a box to house the picture and decorated it very simply with white ribbon, linen thread and a co-ordinated gift tag.




Poor picture - sorry



Let's have a closer look.........



Little bit of sponging on the background and around the edge, you can just see it if you look carefully


It was lovely to see the delight on my friends face when she opened up the box and I've seen it in it's new home and she's right it co-ordinates beautifully.

Well, I certainly feel like a bracing walk along a beach this morning, so I envy you if that's on your agenda but whatever you've got planned for today hope you enjoy it and thank you for visiting and saying hello.



Revamped Key Cupboard

Hello everyone and a warm welcome to a couple of new friends. Regular followers of my blog will remember this little gem that I found at a local vintage market.

Well last weekend I set about operation revamp. Sanding down, painting, distressing and now it looks like this.

Have a closer look at the distressing, this piece needed quite a few coats of paint until I was happy with it and then I rubbed it all off!

The name 'bimaculated duck' was one I was not familiar with, so I couldn't resist investigating on line. In doing so I found out that the Bimaculate Duck or Squawk Duck, is a Baikal Teal duck. It breeds within the forest zone of eastern Siberia. Now there's a bit of useless information you can impress your friends with at your next dinner party.  More interestingly..........I also saw the same print for sale for £75!!

Now I've got just the right place for this in my hall I just need to raid OH's toolbox for the necessaries. So with that I'll say have a lovely weekend and I'll see you all next week.

Happy crafting

What a difference a frame makes!

Hi there everyone, welcome to Tuesday and thank you so much for your lovely comments from yesterdays post, I poured myself a cuppa and settled down for a bit of 'me time' to fully digest them.
In getting things ready for the fair on Saturday I was re-framing a fabric picture I made a while ago - remember this?

Now look carefully at the frame, it's an Ikea one, it's fine, but when you look at the picture in it's new frame, wow what a difference!

Have a closer look and you can see the distressing a little better. I think my photos have turned out a little darker than I would have liked them to.

This was the first thing that I sold at the show and had generated alot of interest. One lady came back to purchase it only to find it had gone - so guess what I'll be making lots of from now on?

I just thought I would share this with you as I thought it was a very good example of just how important the setting you create for a picture can be, something I perhaps hadn't fully appreciated.

You've probably worked out that I've been doing alot of 'distressing' lately, in fact if you stand still for too long in our house you'll get painted white and rubbed down with a piece of sandpaper. Good fun though and it really gives a new lease of life to something that may have been consigned to the tip.

Thanks for coming to say hello today. Tomorrow I'll have a few pictures of the fair to share with you.

Happy Crafting

Handmade Monday and a day of 'firsts'

A very good morning to you all and a special hello to my new followers. Today I am celebrating for three reasons

• I am no longer a 'virgin' craft fair stall holder
• I have received a 'versatile' blogger award from the lovely Ros at Ros Made Me
• ...and I can now, actually, at last comment on other people's blogs!

 First the award. A big thank you to Ros for this.

I'm surprised you didn't hear my squeal when I found out. My first one! It was so lovely to receive and very much appreciated. I hadn't visited my blog for a bit as I was so frustrated with all of the problems I had been having, so little did I know there was such a nice surprise waiting for me. Now, I understand the way these things work are for me to....

• Make a post linking back to the person who gave you the award.
• Share 7 random things about yourself
• Award 7 recently discovered bloggers with this award and contact them to let them know they have won.

So here goes.....

Bluebell at At Home in the Country
Polly Polkadot
Pickle Lily
Pomoma at Little Cottage Comforts
Sarah at Sew Me Happy
Lisa at StuffMummyMakes
Jan at Handcrafted by Picto

Make sure you visit these lovely blogs soon.

Next I have to give 7 random facts about myself, this I found surprisingly challenging.

1. I'll fight to the death for a last slice of Pavlova, my favourite dessert.
2. I used to be a primary school teacher
3. Before starting a new book I have to smell it - I know? ( A trait I've passed on to my youngest son)
4. I have a secret yearning to make a full on Anne Boleyn style Tudor costume
5. Snakes, worms and Simon Cowell or anything squirmy makes me want to hide behind a cushion 
6. I once trod grapes for my Dad in his wine making days (Wine was alright actually just in case you wondered)
7. Am currently humming Calvin Harris 'Merrymaking at my place' (how cool am I??? Actually I confess I first heard it on Debbie Harry's choice of Desert Island Discs)

And now my contribution for Handmade Monday.

This is one of the items I made for my stall at the Buckingham Country Show. I am so pleased with this because it really is a labour of love. Firstly, the frame, picked up from a local car boot by a good friend, who thought it might come in handy for me. What a pal! I distressed it so that it got that suitable shabby chic look and I was pleased with how it came out.

The fabric picture is a design I have been putting on my tea and coffee cosies and is again raw edge applique using fabric scraps - my favourite thing to do.

 As for the fair ........ A brief summary would be to say it was a good experience. I did come out making money (just) but we felt that due to poor positioning the sales weren't as good as they could have been. When the fifth person said to us, '"Oh, I didn't realise there were more craft stalls in this bit" we started to worry. There just wasn't a sensible flow for customer traffic and ourselves and those around us were not happy bunnies. However it was a good learning experience, people seemed to like my stuff and I've got a good idea of what to focus on next time.

Bit of a mammoth post today so thanks for sticking with it. Now I'm off to pay Wendy a visit at 1st unique gifts for a much overdue commenting session on all of those lovely blogs.

Thanks so much for visiting. See you tomorrow.

Scrappy Beach Huts

Hello and a big welcome to all of my new followers! I have had such fun browsing your wonderful blogs and have loved picking up ideas from you all or just stopping to go 'Wow or oooooh' every now and again.

Just a quickie today, beach huts made from scraps of fabric. What I like the most about this picture is the colour combination.You know the feeling you get when you play around with colours and then suddenly you just think 'Yeah'.

I framed it using a frame from those wonderful people at Ikea, it seemed to set it off quite nicely. Now I just have to think about where I'm going to hang it.

 Happy crafting.

Handmade Monday - Raw edge applique

Well I finally got myself organised enough to take part in Handmade Monday at 1st Unique gifts. Why not give it a whirl, it's run by a lady called Wendy who is keen to bring together like minded individuals like our good selves with a passion for all things hand made. There is some amazing talent out there.

So any way, I set myself a challenge of making something to fit a picture frame which I was fortunate enough to receive from a lovely friend for my last birthday. Out came the scraps of fabric, on went Radio 4, and a fresh pot of coffee was brewing. I can't tell you how much I'm enjoying making pictures with scraps of fabric, and I know I've said it before but my embroidery foot really is my pride and joy. I had so much fun playing around for a couple of hours, drawing and tracing, snipping and cutting, placing and stitching fabric. Here's a sneaky peek of what I came up with.

and finally........

I then had the task of fitting it to the frame.

The picture is destined for a shelf in my kitchen which as of yet hasn't actually been put up, but there's nothing like a bit of vision and forward planning is there? Hope you're having fun with your scraps and needles.