Makes i like 30-April-12

Cute emergency pouch at a spoonful of sugar

Adorable amigurumi corchet hook at nerdigurumi

A-mazing pencils at Present and Correct

V. clever wood grain effect laptop wrap at Fine and Feathered

Devon Views

Lovely BM and I (and about 20 others - it was a weekend long birthday party!) spent last weekend in Devon (Hope Cove, near Salcombe for the locals) and it was spectacularly beautiful so i thought id share some photos of the view from our doorstep - happy times!

Machine sewn greeting cards

I love these machine sewn cards over at Sew Mama Sew so i thought i'd have a go myself. I wasnt sure how they would work so i pretty much copied the design Lina used as a starting point.
They were actually really easy and I think they've turned out really well :) You have to be careful not to stitch too closely together or you make a perforation, and the corners on the square card required some thinking about needle positioning before i was confident enough to try. These cards take no prisioners though, no redoing anything as you've already made the holes...
I just need to come up with some ideas of my own to try now!

Embroidered clutch update...

Well im getting there with this project.... its only been 4 months since i posted about it! But i finally feel like ive broken the back of it. Fingers crossed, and life permitting, i might even get it finished in the next week. Just need to finish the last three rows, add in the contrasting colour areas, add the lining and the bind the edges and it'll be done - i'll keep you posted

Knitted Pencils

I feel in love with these little crocheted pencils at crochet n play designs but im rubbish at crochet and trying to make them was slowly driving me insane. So i thought - stick to what you know abi - and i found this cute knitting pattern for very similar pencils from Mochimochi land. (If you dont know about Mochimochi land then please check them out, they make the cutest little knitted things and they specialise in teeny tiny knits!)

Anyway back to the pencils - these were so easy to make, they took me less than an hour each and im not a fast knitter by anyones standard. I just changed the colour of the body each time to make myself a set (spot the 'deliberate' mistake with the tips though!). I used up my some of  my wool stash doing these and used lots of different thickness wools, which hopefully explains the varaiation in size (not that i cant count stitches or rows at all!) but i'm really pleased how they turned out, now do i give them away or keep them for myself...

Cookies!

I fell in love with i kats bag's little fabric cookies making kit when i saw it on her blog, and its one of my friend's little girls 3rd birthday next week so i couldnt resist making it for her! I changed it slightly from i kat's version, i added a baking tray as well and made it all into a roll, tied with ribbon and I love how it turned out :). Hope the birthday girl likes it too!

Makes i like this week 23-April-12

Gorgeous quilt at sirbubbadoo

Hand printed tote at V&Co

Applique chevron hearts at sewing in no mans land

Beautiful thread pictures at Running with Scissors

More little tiny things - Warning Adult Content

*****Warning this post contains adult content*****

Ive made some more Teeny tiny stuff for the project ive been working on!

Ive made some little tiny papercuts for one part of it

and knitted a tiny little happy penis as well, find the pattern here if you wnat to make your own!

not much else you can say after that is there.....

Mushroom Keyring

Ages ago i knitted lovely BM's mum some vegetables and i borrowed them back for some photos (here) recently. As i was looking at them i thought maybe they'd make good keyrings. I'm forever loosing my keys in my handbag, i can usually hear them jangling around but dont seem to be able to catch hold of them! So i now have a big squidgy knitted mushroom attached to them - it seems to be doing the job as well!

Print on fabric

Now i never thought this would work if im honest! When i saw this post at The Creativity Exchange my first though was that would be amazing... if it works! But it did! In fact i was so dubious that i hadn't even planned anything to print onto the fabric. I just used this wire cross section diagram i had pinned from on Present and Correct earlier that day. But it worked brilliantly, my printer took the fabric fine and the quality if the print is excellent. Now i just have to think of some proper ideas on how to utilise it!

Update here

Another update here

Makes i Like 17-Apr-12

Rotating Goal list at cornflowerbluestudio


DIY print tights at the pineneedle collective


Matchbox art at The Owl Barn


Underwear styled into food at Present & Correct

Marley cat

I dont think ive introduced my foster cat Marley yet. He's my friend Ellie's cat and is staying with us until she moves somewhere where she has enough space for him. Hes a giant of a cat, over 5kg as the vet keeps telling us, with massive fluffy paws and the loudest purr ever.  Marley was supposed to convince lovely BM that cats arent that bad and if Marley's done his job well (and he has, lovely BM spends more time cuddling him that i do!) hopefully lovely BM will let me get my own cat when Ellie reclaims him

Gardening - Home Grown Veg

Ive gone a bit home grown vegetable mad this year! After last years success with tomatoes and carrots ive decided to try out peppers, peas and courgettes this year. So my conservatory has been turned in a greenhouse/seedling nursery - the photo below doesnt really show the full extent but the rest of the room was so messy i was too embarrassed to post the photos of it!! My courgettes already have buds on them so fingers crossed for a bumper crop of those. Although i may have slightly mis-calculated when to plant them, the threat of frost doesnt really go away totally until end may/beginning of june here so i may have a busy conservatory for a few months yet! Its normally Marley cat's territory, hope he doesnt mind sharing it...

Hoxton Monster Supplies

I had a little trip to London last week and stopped in at Hoxton Monster Supplies. Its such a cute little shop, selling all kinds of weird and random stuff - impacted ear wax fudge, zombie fresh mints, brain jam and organ marmalade!

The shop raises money for The Ministry of Stories a fab charity which encourages and inspires creativity in young people, mainly based around creative writing and story telling. I've always had a vivid imagination, especially as a child and lovely BM with testify to the nonsense i come up with on a daily basis so i love anything that encourages that in others. I'm more happy to support them by buying a bit of brain jam and organ marmalade - delish!!

Babies snakes (well hopefully in a few months!)

Now i know the title alone will have out a few people off but lovely BM and i keep snakes, we have 6 of our own and 4 currently loaned to us for a bit of breeding (yes you counted right, i have 10 snakes in my house!)

Well one of the females laid 21 eggs last week - which is brilliant! We've not had the best of luck breeding, with a dodgy batch last year, that produced 2 very small snakes that we've had to hand feed and then nothing since, even though 2 females showed promising signs they had eggs but none subsequently appeared. So were really pleased to have finally got some eggs, and such a good number. Fingers crossed theyre all fertile and give us some super cute teeny tiny baby snakes in 2 months time. So watch this space (or not if your not a snake fan, baby snakes still seem to freak people out even though they couldnt hurt a fly!)

 

muma snake defending her eggs

21 healthy looking eggs, snake eggs are not like bird eggs, theyre soft not hard so thats why they look a bit squidged, and the crosses are so we know which way up they go, the embryo attaches itself to the top of the egg in the air pocket so its important not to turn them.

Cupcakes galore!

I went to Amsterdam last weekend for a couple of days and i stumbled across this amazing bakery/sandwich shop. They had every kind of cup cake and macaroon and i was in heaven! i stupidly didnt write down the name of the shop though - doh, but its on Westermarkt, just near Anne Frank house. I'll have to find it again next time im there...

Zig Zag ribbon

Sew a zigzag in coloured thread down the middle of the cotton tape/ribbon and use it to decorate your packaging, original idea by shimtokk

Buy this box at my etsy shop 

What you need:
Cotton tape/ribbon
Coloured thread

Wrap the ribbon round you box and secure underneath or tie in a bow.

Makes i like this week 10-Apr-12

Amazing thread installation by Anne Lindberg

Knitted easter bunnies at Mollie Makes

Star hair clips by Refinery 29

LED embroidery at the zen of making

Genius party punch wall at celebrate the big and small

Diy twists ties at u-create - why didnt i think of this!!

Glassine bag bunting

Make personalised bunting using these glassine bags

Buy these bags at my etsy shop  

What you need:

Stamp/rub on lettering

Hole punch

Twine

Personalise the bags using a stamp or rub on letters or stickers

Use a hole punch to make two holes in the top

Thread ribbon, string or twine through the holes and hang it up

Follow up - today i realised you could actually use the bags to store items too, favours, confetti, tissues, use it as a guest book, everyone add their well wishes to a bag, the ideas are endless - enjoy!!

Recovery kit

Create a post party recovery kit

Buy these bags at my etsy shop 

Add all your items (mine contains a teabag, plasters, painkiller and breath mints) to the bag and sew across the top to seal it

Add a little sticker and hand them out at the end of the festivities