Baby and Birthday!

A friend of mine recently had a baby and today is her birthday, so 2 cards have been made!

The design slightly changed as I made this one, but I think the end result is better than my original plan.

This one all started with the border! The trouble was figuring out what to do next. But I'm really happy with the way I was able to introduce texture through the embossing, without adding another colour.

Who Needs a Journal?

My latest crafting project was not cross stitch (still working on that), nor was it a card made specially for someone!

This one was for me - a new journal!

Several years ago I won a Bind-it-All. An amazing tool that enables me to bind up all manner of things in a variety of shapes and sizes. So far I've only made journals, but there is always the possibility for something more.
Anyway, back to my current one ...

This one has been a combination of recycling and re-purposing. The covers were some cardboard used as packaging that I trimmed to size and then covered. The front cover is a beautiful Grace Taylor scrapbooking paper, with clear contact over the top to protect it. Unfortunately I ran out out of clear contact, but found some patterned contact in the back of my cupboard - silver holographic stars!

The internal pages were also a challenge. I really wanted some lined paper, but I can never find good quality paper of the right size that has lines. So my brilliant idea was to look through my stash of writing paper from the days when I used to write letters to pen-pals. I had 3 pads of blue paper that was excellent quality, not lined, but that's OK. So I pulled all the pages apart and they are the pages of this journal!

The wire is a little big (I didn't have the right size on hand), but that will work well, because for the purpose of this journal, I often stick other pages in and the extra size wire will allow the journal to expand.

Now, if you live in Australia, could you please give me some suggestions of where I might find some good quality lined paper?

Safari and Baby

No, not combined!

I recently made a card for a friend who was having a baby shower. Inspiration for the card came from 175 Fresh Card Ideas by Kimber McGray, but I have changed things a bit.

My friend loves polka dots, so using the dots embossing folder was perfect. The pram is actually made from some kind of fluffy fabric. And I added white brads to help secure it.

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And now for safari time. I did some more on African Sunset last night, and have now finished one of the elephants - except for the back stitch!

You can't quite see all of it because I have turned the aida cloth on the scroll frame. I mostly need to do backstitch around the legs, ear, trunk and tusks. But that will have to wait until I've done part of the next elephant - at least to the point where there is at least one stitch beside all the areas for backstitch.

Costume anyone?

I'm on a Kid's Summer Camp this week!
Each day we have a different theme - Dinosaurs, Pirates, Medieval and Under the Sea - and needed a little costume item to make the games fun each day. Most days it was easy to find something because I already had a suitable costume, but Dinosaur day was a problem.

A Google search started and I found an idea that I could modify, so thank you Ginger & George for the inspiration!

I started out with a plain green t-shirt (conveniently already in my wardrobe).
Then I added 10 felt diamonds.
A needle and thread connected things together, and this is the result:

Side view!

First Card for the Year

Well, I've made my first card for the year, and it was not for the person I thought it would be.

I received a surprise phone call from a very good friend, we talked about many things, but the purpose of her call was to invite me to her daughter's 10th birthday party. Her daughter specifically wanted me to be there!!

It's such a blessing to be part of a child's life, but it is in moments like these that you realise they really appreciate the time you spend with them. Don't ever underestimate the impact you can have in a child's life.

This card is for my young friend!

A Sewing Adventure in Re-Purposing

How many of you have a few items in your house that you don't use and are getting frustrated by the space they take up?
I'm guessing everyone!!
I know I have a few.

Which recently led me to get rid of a few things in my wardrobe. A few things will be making a trip back to an Op Shop! They served their purpose but I'm not going to wear them again.
This leads me to the purpose of this post.
I've had a skirt sitting in my wardrobe for a few years that never quite fit right (on me or any other member of my family). I also had a need for a bag to put my pillow in when I go away on holidays or trips.
The skirt was the perfect size - resulting in the idea that the skirt could become a bag.

Before

After

It took a bit of unpicking - I had to remove the elastic in the waist and take out the hem.
I used a French seam for the bottom to make sure the denim wouldn't fray in the bottom seam, then sewed up the casing for a cord. I even used the gold coloured thread to match the stitching. I tried using a toggle that I had to secure the cord, but it wasn't big enough, so I popped the cord through the holes on a big button and used that instead.

It's the perfect size bag and it even has pockets (I left them as they were)!!

A Selection of Cards

A friend was asking what I'd been up to lately and I had to confess that study has taken up the bulk of my time, leaving almost no room for craft.

There were a couple of things I couldn't post about earlier because I was waiting for them to arrive (mail is very slow going to Africa).

This one headed over to Africa to my best friend!

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An engagement card! You might be able to just see all the hand drawn hearts on the background.

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My first attempt at a centre-opening card - this one was for a wedding.

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Now this one looks complicated, but it actually very simple. It's just a piece of patterned paper stuck on a card. I wrote the 'Happy Birthday' myself (as you can guess, since it's not perfectly centred)

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I've also been doing some more on African Sunset, but no pictures this time. I'm filling in some gaps and working on the ground.

I'm also planning some Christmas cards and Christmas crafts, but study is taking precedence right now with deadlines looming!

Mini for Christmas

I needed something to do while going away for a weekend recently (not that I actually did it while I was away), so I pulled out my stash of projects to complete and decided to do a mini Christmas decoration.
I like to have something new every year, although I have now exhausted my stash (unless I pull out some of the Tiny Stockings that I did a few years ago - I didn't do them all then).

So there you have it! A little bit of Christmas!

Update on African Sunset

A few people have been asking me lately how I'm going with finishing African Sunset.

So I thought it was time for me to give you an update.

I'm probably 2/3 of the way through, and I'm now doing back stitch as I go, so that I don't have to come back and do it at the end. Before I scroll over to the next section, I'm completing as much of the back stitch as I can.
I really like the elephant's wrinkles - they look so real and it's all done through slight changes in colour. Back stitch is just used to outline.

My Working Space

Have you wondered about my crafting space?
Well, if you have I'll tell you a little.
My bedroom is not just a bedroom - it is also my home office, crafting space, relaxing spot and library!
The top of my bookshelves holds DVD boxes full of stamps, ink pads, dies and a variety of other crafting paraphernalia. My desk is flanked by 2 sets of plastic drawers plus another set of plastic drawers on the other side of the room, holding embellishments, paper punches, adhesives, brads, eyelets, scrapbooking papers, ribbons, lace, templates, cardstock, beads and chalks.

That's all good, neat and tidy, but when I get crafting things start getting pulled out, and things get piled up on every available space - generally my bed!
This is what happened when I got crafting recently:

What you can't see from this photo is what my desk looked like, but I can assure you there were crafting things all over that too (I just don't want to give away the project I was working on)!
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With the school holidays I have had a bit of time to work on some sewing projects - I have actually halved my list!

• Darts in pants so that they fitted properly
• Mending
• Putting pockets into shorts that didn't have any
• Making a rag bag

The most interesting is the rag bag. I used the legs of a pair of jeans that had worn out in other areas. I cut them off, sewed them together in a tube, sewed up one end of the tube and made a casing for a draw string by opening a small section of the hem on the other end.

To make the string, I started off by finger knitting some wool, but I found it was not thick enough and likely to break. So I used the initial finger knitting and finger knitted that again to make it stronger. It was then too short, but I had more wool and tried again.

So that I got the right length, I started doing the single finger knitting, then before finishing it off, I started the double up. It worked really well because I could do more single finger knitting to make it longer until I had the right length.

It's a good feeling to finally get some things done.