A Quick Update

I've horribly neglected my poor little blog of late, so sorry bloggy. So just popped in to give you a flavour of what I've been up to!


I've been making the Wedding Invitations for a friend's wedding. The theme is vintage and pink roses.

Just finishing off the actual invitations, these are some of the samples I did for the bride to choose from.


She chose them all!! So instead of one particular one she's chosen to have a mixture of backgrounds, images and trimmings. It has sure made making 45 of them more interesting :-)
When the bride to be has seen the real ones and sent them out I'll let you see them until then they are under wraps!

I hope to be back soon with a proper blog post and some more cat news - never a dull cat moment in my house. Toodle pip till then!

Geisha Accordian Book

I've finished my first accordian book in my class on Roses on the Table. I've really enjoyed doing the paper collages, there was something really theraputic about the cutting out, arranging and sticking.

I chose to do a geisha theme as I had lots of pretty vintage images of them and I gave them all butterfly wings as decoration but also as a metaphor for freedom as some of the women looked kind of sad and reflective.

Apologies for the dark pictures, it's a very overcast day.

I've not overembellished the pages as I want the geishas to shine and be the stars of the book.

Just some ribbons, stickles, buttons and sequins here and there.

The bindings are a fancy yarn, in brown shades with gold shot through it.

New Year, New Challenges

It's the New Year so it's time for me to start new projects and courses after the Christmas crafting frenzy. Firstly I've joined Tag Tuesday, a weekly challenge group hosted by Carolyn Saxby.

This first weeks theme is Snow. I really struggled with this theme until I just went into the studio and started pulling out anything white from my stash and within 30 minutes I was off and creating this tag. I decided the image is a Snow Princess (image courtesy of Graphics Fairy) and I edged her with white muslin for texture and little crystals for a bit of sparkle and some white stickles on her frock. The glass drop has the word snow glued to it's underside, taken from a vintage dictionary. The tag was collaged with vintage book papers, then gessoed over, allowing some of the words to come through. I then ruffled a scrap of white cotton straight onto the tag, sewing it with my sewing machine, and then put a scrap of muslin over that to breakup to background further and provide another layer of interest.

I've learnt a new crochet pattern - the ripple. Well I had to do something whilst watching all that Christmas telly, lol. A big thanks to Lucy at Attic 24 for the very clear tutorial.

I was just becoming confident with the pattern and then I was going to swap to making up a throw with some mohairs and ribbon yarns that I've had for a couple of years (should have been a knitted lacy throw but I just kept going wrong so I pushed it to the back of cupboard) but I've kept going as I like the seventies feel to this now scarf!

I've also been busy signing up for three courses. Yes, that's right, three!

Two are with Cristina Zinnia Galliher on Roses on the Table (link on the side bar). They are 'Just get yourself free' where we are creating a 14 page accordian collaged book. These are my pages above and I'm doing an oriental/geisha theme.

The second one is a Vintage/Victorian Make Do Heart project, somewhere I can put some of my vintage brooches. I've watched the first video but not make a start on this project.

Then I've enrolled on an embroidery course at a local collage, starting in a couple of weeks. I thought it was about time I went out to a class for a change. I love online classes but I've missed not doing a night class. I can also use the collage's sewing machines to learn freestyle stitching (something my machine won't do) and see if I take to it without going to expense of buying a new machine.

So this year looks to be as busy, if not busier than the last but I'm enjoying it so far! Happy New Year folks, I'm looking forward to seeing what we all create this year x