I need a little time

Well last week was very hectic. Man and daughter have gone to Austria for Snowboarding and Skiing so I've been busy washing, ironing, packing, washing some more and packing more.
So I'm at home minus a husband, daughter and 2 dogs. Left with 2 little boys. The plus side is that they nap.
I haven't got any craft done at all and now is the time I need to get cracking. The fair is only 10 days away.
I'm also without a camera because that has been taken to Austria as well.

But today I have plans to make some earrings and there is also another challenge on the mn crafters blog.
Its an inspirational challenge. I have some ideas in my head but whether they come out in a decent fashion is another thing.
I wont go into the disfigured Robot that was made the other night!

My little treat

One of the other MN crafters has started to make some beaded jewellery.

I think cards were her main passion but she made the silly mistake of picking a bead up and stringing it and lets be honest the second you do that your addicted.
She made a lovely lariat necklace using green and pink seed beads with some lovely leaf beads at the ends.
I have to admit I'm not normally a fan of what I call "normal" beads I love gems too much, but this piece was just lovely and I had to have one.

And this is it.

I love it and it will go perfectly with a grey and green cardigan I have.

Since she's made this shes also made some other brilliant pieces and I have to stop looking otherwise I will spend too much money!

This is her blog, Chickadee cards. Go and have a look and treat yourself too.

Something old, something new

A little online craft friend Meridian Ariel started up a vintage swap. I was lucky to get a lovely lady called Whizzz who said she had a thing for purple and green at the minute.

Sooooo after a bit of researching I stumbled upon a great picture of an old 1920's style necklace.

I found some more images and found that alot of the jewellery in that era used Bicone beads and usually an interesting focal pendant.

Heres what I came up with

The picture doesnt really show off the colours well but they are Swarowski crystal beads in "Amethyst" and "Peridot" with little silver beads between each one. The pendant is again Swarowski crystal but its clear and it was called the Avant Garde pendant. I love it so I hope you do too Whizzz!

Next I was asked by M to make her a little cat from a drawing she did. I ahve to say I was very impressed by her efforts to draw one. For a 4 year old she really does capture things well and has an eye for detail.

Obviously this is the first one and its gone wrong in a few places but that might have had something to do with the little scrap me and the sewing machine had. But I was thinking about making a few of these for the craft fair and selling them cheaply or maybe not bothering at all.

And here is my payment for a haircut. I thought it was a fair deal. Make a doll for my friends little girl and I get a free cut. Sounds good to me!

Felt headband

After making the bag from the tutorial on Betz White, I had a few scrap pieces left, so I decided to make a headband from the bottom part of the jumper.

I've also got the cuff parts left and some bits from another poor jumper that I hacked to bits a while ago.

So the next project is to trasform them.

Giveaway heads up

It seems at the moment lots of crafty bloggers are getting in to the giveaway "thang", sooooooo I thought I may as well join in.

No yet though.
I'm going to make the little something especially for it and when its done I'll start the giveaway.

Go forthwith, NOW!

Thanks to annie at Overmilkwood for the heads up on the giveaway at Old Red Barn .
Now if you mention that you heard about it from here, I get extra entries and if you put the giveway graphic in your sidebar you get even more.

Do it now, you'd be daft not to!

Prettys

After looking gormless at a piece of fabric for an hour yesterday, I decided to get my jewellery bits out and have a play with them instead.
I have neglected it for a while. I dont know why because I really enjoy it when I start.

So I made a Smokey Quartz and citrine bracelet, which is on the left, and an olive pearl necklace and bracelet, on the right.

I love the Smokey Quartz one and I'm actually quite tempted to keep it.

Back up and running!

Finally!

I can now update with all the little bits I've been getting on with.

Its amazing how reliant you become on a pc. Also just as amazing is how much you can get done when you dont have one.

So I now have a lurrvey new Sony Vaio sat on my knee. With its lushcious curved edges, smooth keyboard and shiny bright screen (I promise I dont secretly work for Sony).

Anyway, here are the dolls I've got done over the last 3 weeks.

I'm really pleased with all of them. I made a bit of a mistake with the one on the left. She turned out a bit bigger than normal and took up nearly a full bag of stuffing but she still looks sweet. My favourite though has to be the cheeky chap on the right who I've called Ralph.

I had a go at making one of those crayon purse things. I've seen them all over now and I think they're a lovely idea. I was at a bit of a loss one night so I decided to give it a go and it only took me an hour to do.

This is what it looks like closed

Then it opens up into this

Then one day Madison and I were having a blog gawp, as I like to call it, and came across Flossie Teacakes blog (I would link at this point but for some reason it just wont do it) and we got the recipe for some Peppermint Hearts. They turned out really well and Madison devoured most of them in a few minutes.

My next project which I had to get finished were some hanging hearts for my friends little girl. She has just decorated her bedroom in the most gorgeous pink and purple colours and I promised I would get them done for her.

I embroidered her initials on the top, middle and bottom hearts and decorated all of them with different buttons. They are now hung in her room and look very pretty.

Then the fab Lucykate Crafts put a link onto Mumsnet about a felt bag from http://blog.betzwhite.com/2008/03/girls-spring-mini-tote-tutorial.html Betz White (must must sort out these links).

So I found an old Gap jumper in a size 8 (shock horror) and because there was more chance of me taking over the world than fitting into that again, it got thrown in the washing machine and endured a 95 wash.

I've never ever felted anything before, well not intentionally anyway, but I really really enjoyed it and the tutorial was really easy to use (must have been for me to use it). I've had a good old rummage through some of my old clothes and bits which were on the way to the charity shops and I found a 100% cashmere cardi. That also got the 95 treastment but amazingly it hasnt felted, or it doesnt feel like it has. So I'm not so sure what I have done there.

Then finally I have been thinking about redecorating Ellis' bedroom as its been untouched since we moved in. Well I say untouched, I did remove the hideous Scooby Doo border but other than that its still displaying lovely artex.

So I've ordered some gorgeous fabric from Nuno which has some trains and cars on and that may be used to make some tab top curtains or a playmat. Not so sure yet. But also I thought I could brighten the walls up with some pictures. Ellis has a bit of an obession with cars and trains and in particular an old train of L's that a landscape gardner found in his parents garden. It sits on top of our piano out of the way because I love it too much for it to be played with and destroyed but I thought it may look good in the form of a photo on his walls.

I've taken another shot of it facing the other way too so hopefully they'll enlarge with no problems and the frame man on our local market can set me up with a fab frame for it.

So thats it really.

I'm off for a cup of hot chocolate and to try and figure out how to do a link without seeing numbers, slashes, dots and all ther things.

No laptop no posts

Sadly our laptop has passed away.
Its also taken 2 years worth of photos with it, thanks to a ruined hard drive.
I'm absolutely broken about it. We have fortunately salvaged an old disc which has some photos of my first son Ellis as a newborn and up until he was about 4 months old but nothing after that.
Theres so many memories that we have captured and now they've all gone. So a word of wisdom to you, go and back up all your photos. Go on, do it NOW!

At the moment I'm using a 10 year old pc that is normally used by Madison for playing games or the paint program.
Its that old it doesnt support the program for our camera so I can't upload any photos of the work I've done.
But hopefully the man will be buying a new laptop on Monday.

The doll count is increasing ready for the craft fair that is quickly looming upon me. I've also done a few more jewellery pieces.
Not that you can see any of it!

Also I have an Etsy shop ready and waiting for me! I'm very excited about it but I'm going to be sensible and open it end of April/May time when I will have more stock made.
Or maybe I wont need to make anymore, depending on how successful the craft fair is!