Holiday :)

Im off on my holidays this week (hopefully somewhere as pretty as this) so i'll be taking a break from making and blogging for a little while.
I'll be back in a couple of weeks, hopefully full of new ideas to try out :)

Silver tape gift tags

Ive had some self adhesive silver tape lying around in my making supplies for ever so i thought id have a go at actually using it (since im still on the spending freeze!). I love using parcel tags on gifts, in fact i love anything a bit industrial looking, but not everyone does so i thought some silver tape on the parcel tags would be a nice combination. I love how they turned out and i think these would be great for Christmas presents (only 5 month to go as some kindly told me when they saw these tags!!!)

Going to go have a root round my making supplies to see what other long forgetten items i can find in there!

Shrinky dink ring fail that im very proud of!

Now i dont like how this shrinky dink ring turned out at all, wrong size, bent all wrong and just looks rubbish. But ive posted it because im quite pleased with the very simple flower design i drew on it! As i mentioned in yesterday's post i was repeatedly told by teachers i was terrible at art and not at all artistic (both my mum and sister are very artistic so that comparison didnt help). My adult brain can now translate that into meaning i'm not a natural at drawing still life in pencil (pretty much all we did) but my younger brain took it very personally and i kept away from anything arty or even creative for a long time. (I am a scientist by profession, not that thats not creative, but it certainly doesnt require me to do a pencil drawing of fruit!). Ive obviously overcome this (the previous 100ish posts hopefully confirm that!) but i do still struggle to draw anything freehand with confidence. So im pleased with the cute, little, slightly abstract, flowers i drew on this crappy ring and in my opinion you should always celebrate anything youre proud of, no matter how small :)

Balloon girl pendant

I love Banksy's Girl with Heart Balloon and wanted to make a necklace of something similar. The spending embargo is still full force so i thought id experiment with some shrinky dinks i had.
I'm rubbish at drawing so I just copied a girl silhouette i found online and drew some balloons free hand (a massive accomplishment for the girl who repeatedly got Fs in art class for years!)
I drew them about 2/2.5 time bigger than i wanted and then punched some holes in them and baked them as per the instructions. And i l-o-v-e how its turned out :)
Then i spotted a huge error, can you see it?...

.

Theres suppose to be two chains between the girl and the balloons and then they all go on a necklace. But where exactly am i planning on attaching the girl and the balloons to the rest of the necklace?! That's right, not enough holes by half!

So i'll need to remake them but i'm still pleased with my first attempt efforts :)

Update - 2nd try

Update - finished item :) 

Glitter hearts

More fimo hearts! Sorry again for the terrible photos but these little hearts have glitter mixed into them and then pressed on the outside. Inspired by these at Twirling Betty.
Going to put a few on a really long necklace, when the spending embargo is lifted!

Marley cat

I love how this cat can sleep anywhere, even wedged down the back of the (his) sofa!

Cheerio treats

We had fight night round ours last weekend to watch the boxing and i cooked for lovely BM and his friends. They scoffed most of it before i could photo it but i managed to photograph these yummy cheerio treats. I was hoping there might have been some left the day after but there wasnt a crumb to be found!

Love hearts

I made some quite little fimo (polymer clay) hearts the other day. Just shaped the hearts and then stamped some words on them. You cant really see in the photo (must buy a proper camera!) but the one on the left says 'love' and the on the right says 'for' with 'ever' on the back.

























I then rubbed some ink on the 'love' heart to make the lettering stand out more.

I like how they turned out, might put them on a keyring...

Birthday cupcakes

It was my birthday last week and i made cakes for the folks at work. Chocolate marble cakes (recipe to follow) and vanilla cupcakes (receipe here). I only managed to take this picture after most of them had been snaffled! I'll take that as a compliment :)

Olympic torch

The olympic torch went very near my parents house last weekend - very cool! (and very wet!)

Doily gift tags

I have loads of doilies (or is it doilys, i never know...) in my house but i never really use them! So when i saw on Pinterest that someone had used them on gift tags i knew i had to make myself some. These are so pretty and would be fab as the tag on a wedding present, cant wait to use them :)

Greeting cards on my Silhouette SD

I made some greeting cards with my Silhouette SD last week, one of a golden sun and one of an arrow. I'm pleased with them although the Silhouette struggled with the thicker card, it might need a new blade. But im getting the hang of it, slowly!

The backing paper on the sun card is this fab moroccan tile print thats available free from Mel Stampz. People who make their stuff available free are my heros, i doubt id make half the stuff i do without freebies

Gold rings and wool necklace

I had a go at making this diy gold rings necklace from Creature Comforts, it was so easy. I just made it using stuff i already had lying around (making spending freeze is still on!) but if i made another one i think i would combine a few colours of wool and maybe find some different textured rings as well, just to make it a bit more professional looking. But i still like it, just need to find an outfit to wear it with now...

Drip dyed tshirt

Made this fab summery drip dyed tshirt following the Free People tutorial at the weekend. I love the speckly effect you get from sprinkling some of the dry dye powder on the damp tshirt once you've dyed the bottom - great idea

Expanding Wallet Envelope

I needed a nice envelope/folder for some notecards i made for my sister and (as is always the way) just after i posted them off (in an ok but not fab handmade folder) i found this great expanding wallet idea from Heart Felt Inkspiration on Pinterest! Anyway i had to make it even though i have nothing to put in it!

Stencilled tshirt - internatoinal symbol for list!

Another little stencilled tshirt, i used a noun project symbol again, this time the symbol for a list. Now im a list making kind of girl, lovely BM might even say im obssessed with lists (he has been known to get me to make a list just to calm me down when im getting annoyed!) so i couldnt resist making myself a list tshirt. Im loving neons at the moment too so this was a great oppourtunities to combine two loves!

Hermes Paper Clutch Bag

I found these cute Hermes paper bags on Pinterest via love Maegen and knew i had to make one! The patterns are so lovely, i just wish i could use it! Maybe i'll think about printing the pattern onto fabric and seeing if i can sew it together...

Bunting stamped cards

I bought some lovely stamps off ebay a few weeks ago and i've been trying to figure what to use them on. The first was a set of alphabet stamps, only tiny, about the size of typewriter letters, so i knew i wanted to make a card with a message. I also bought a fab roller stamp (i love roller stamps, something about using them make me very happy!) which was party flags or bunting so i thought id combine the two and make some birthday cards. The bunting stamp would work great for party invitations or gift tags too, i might even try making some wrapping paper with it too...

Cloud stencilled tshirt

I found The Noun Project while pottering around the internet and i love it! Really simple clear symbols for pretty much everything you could ever imagine! I picked this little sunny/cloudy symbol (very British summertime!) to put on a tshirt. I just printed it out, cut out the shape and painted it with fabric paint. Really easy way to brighten up a plain white t-shirt :)

Add your latest pins to your Blogspot blog

See my latest Pinterest Pins to the left ------>
They are there because of this amazing little bit of code Marie at Code it Pretty wrote.
Bloggers on other blog servers have this kind of stuff available to them from their blog server but not us folks at Blogspot, they make us work hard to add cool stuff to our blog!
The instructions for how to add the gadget are very clear (even for a total newbie like me) and Marie will answer all your questions so theres nothing stopping you for adding it your blog too :)

Iron on Decal Book and Tshirt

I bought this cute little decal transfer book by Sukie earlier in the year and i finally got round to using it!

I chose a cute little motel scene to put on my tshirt and its fab :) I'm a decal newbie so the transfer wasnt exactly perfect (iron too hot i think since the backing paper went brown!) but i actually like that it looks a bit old and worn - instant distressing!

I recommend the book though, theres some brilliant designs in there, im trying to resist adding them to everything i own!

Cataloguing my fabric

I keep all my fabric in a massive really useful box to keep it all tidy and because im a bit short on space.

But it means that i cant always see or even remember what fabric ive got. I'd always check before buying new fabric so i didnt duplicate (short on space remember!) but i sometimes think it would be nice to be inspired by my fabrics so i decided to do a photo catalogue of it all.
I just took photos of each fabric and then saved them on my computer. That would probably be enough as i'm always on my computer but i thought a print out to store with the fabric as well would be good.
Luckily windows has a great print pictures function which allows you to print lots of photos together. Before i knew this i used to copy and paste everything into a word document!

So open windows explorer and select the all photos you want to print 

Once theyre all selected right click your mouse and select print

This will open Windows photo viewer

Select 'contact sheet (35)' and then hit print

Contact sheet prints your photos 35 to a page so theyre pretty small, you can choose different layout if you want them bigger

So i just popped my sheets on the top of my fabric box so i can easily look through and get inspired!

DIY polaroid

I love polaroids, i always have, but theyre just not practical in this day and age. But i thought id make some little borders for regular photos and turn them into polaroids. I know that i can instagram and photoshop them to make them look like polaroids, but the thickness of polaroids is one of the things i love the most. So by adding a border ive hopefully come a bit closer to recreating them

(the photo is of my dads homemade bread - it the best thing in the world!)
I used shiny photo paper and cut the frame out according to the polaroid dimensions, glued the photo on the bag and added a little note - job done!