Granny Delightful

Finally managed to take some photos of the finished baby blanket. I went with sewing up the seams, and it came together over a couple of evenings. I'm so pleased with it, I don't think I've ever been so chuffed with anything I've made for a long time.


The sewing method produced two different sides of the blanket, one with a little raised border round each square, the other is more or less smooth:


I like both. That's obviously a good thing! And after all the build-up about the wonderful yarn that I've bought for my highly-ambitious-second-crochet-project of an entire bedspread, I have made three squares:


Aren't they just gorgeous? The only pain is having to sew all the bloody ends in. When I was doing the one-colour squares, I could churn out one every 20 mins or so. These little beauties took me around half an hour each, and I spent a good hour beforehand splitting the yarn in two so I can make it go further. If I used it as is (10 ply cotton), I reckon the bedspread would cost around £200 and would weigh a good few kilograms. Warm though!

Just one more gratuitous close-up for those droolers. I know you're there :)


So I showed you mine, will you show me yours?

Another "thing"

I'm hoping that I'm not alone in this, but I love learning. And I'm always up for learning new crafts. My latest thing is crochet; I had an old needlecraft book and some really useful videos from mikeyssmail on Youtube. With these tools in hand I picked it up quite quickly, though I'm already a knitter. After a few practice granny squares in dishcloth cotton, I got cracking with some remnant wool from my baby clothes projects.


And here is the work in progress. I am in the process of sewing the 48 squares together; I tried to crochet them, but it was too fiddly for my liking, so I "cheated". I'm hoping to finish it this weekend, so will post finished pics then.

I am enjoying this new craft so much that I've inadvertently spent my Christmas money on some really funky yarn for an entire bedspread. I think I've lost my mind. Though really, with these colours, could you resist?


Glorious aren't they? Once I start on the squares, I'll post some pictures. There are something like 24 different square combinations with the main colours being leaf, teal, purple and chocolate. I'm going to make all the outer rows silver, to pull them all together, and hopefully make your eyes go kerazy :) If it looks half as fab in real life as it does in my imagination, I'll be very pleased.

What other crafts do you do? And which is your current favourite? Do tell ;)

Merry New Year!

May all you desire be realised through just the right amount of hard work to make it feel worthwhile!

May you have...

...a very merry Christmas, full of love, life and happiness. And turkey, if that's your grub of choice!
I wish all my readers and friends the best of everything for 2010, and I'll see you all very soon.

'Tis the season...

... to take silly pictures! Or rather, to improve my photography skills. I'm taking an online class by Cheryl Johnson (I've seen her work in Scrapbook Inspirations, and submitted some of my layouts to her for the readers' gallery!) (class registration is closed - unfortunately the class numbers were limited).

It's a class called "12 days", and it aims to improve my Christmas photography skills, which is perfect, because I have some pretty ropey Christmas photos. All that indoor lighting, bleurgh.

First challenge - take a festive self-portrait. Done. See above. I'd love for you to take one too, and post it, and then tell me :) Go on, I dare you!

12 days part 'a'

Do you remember that other class I'd signed up for this November? This one here? Well, it's started, and wow, there is an incredible amount of ideas and it's only been running four days. Only 2 official class days, but we got another bundle of tips, tricks and tutorials to keep us going this weekend. One of them was for a rather cute christmas banner type thing, but once I saw the flag images, I just had to do this:


(let me tell you, I'm so envious of Kirsty's colour sense. It's awesome. Just look at those colour combos!)

It's the flags all printed out together, resized to fit an A6 card and frosted stickles traced over the lettering. I really like it. I also did a large square one here:


but I don't like it as much. Might sneak the sewing machine out at some stage and stitch a grid inbetween all of the tiles. Any other ideas gratefully received!

Lists and links ahoy!

I made this ^ :)

Lists. Now I love lists (see Hallowe'en post for a good example). In fact, I'm often heard saying that it's one of my favourite ways to procrastinate. So, I thought that I'd give you all a glimpse into my surfing world, my other favourite way to procrastinate, blogs that I look at regularly. So here are 5 that are nearly always updated every other day. Perfect when you're feeling less than inspired.

It's A Creative World is a blog contributed to by a number of very talented people. At least one of the team blogs each day, and I still haven't made my way through all the wonderful stuff I want to make just from ideas from this site. Plus, my gingerbread recipe is featured on it today, so I figured I'd return the favour :)

Banana Frog makes gorgeous acrylic stamps, but their design team have some amazing ideas that could easily be done with existing stamp stash.

Tollipop is a blog written by a very creative lady who illustrates her own delightful tales. She has a very dry sense of humour, which I most definitely get.

Craftastrophe is possibly the scariest collection of crafts ever. They trawl the web looking for those handmade objects which only a mother could love, if you know what I mean. It's always good to see others' crafting disasters; makes me feel a whole lot better about mine :)

And finally, It's all fiddle fart is a blog I found quite recently. The lady who blogs here posts regularly with pictures of her creations, mostly cards at the moment, though she does have an eye for bargains that can be gussied up to look pretty darn tooting. There're so many ideas here, you're bound to find something to inspire you!

There are many more blogs that I find inspirational, some are in the linky bit to the right, others perhaps I'll talk about another day.

(Two posts in three days! Now I'm sure a regular reader of mine might take the mick a little for that, but I'm pretty pleased with that count. It is theoretically day 4 of the "Blogging for scrapbookers" class, but I'm just going to work through the prompts as and when I feel like it, what with the dissertation blah blah blah :) )

Blogging for Scrapbookers day one

(I'm afraid that's about as imaginative with the title as I can get today! The Blog class officially started yesterday, but I'm fairly sure there's no-one watching to make sure I post each day)

If you're here through the links from that class, hello! Come in, sit down, have a cup of tea and a chunk of gingerbread (see recipe on the previous post). It's nice to see some new faces, hopefully I'll see you at your place too!

(If you're not here from that class, and you're interested in the sound of Blogging for Scrapbookers, then click on the square graphic to the right to be taken to Shimelle's website.)

So, my aim for today is just to make a resolution, a promise to myself that I will try to post more regularly on the blog, perhaps with a view to separating my blogs like my friend Trees (she has one crafty blog, and one blog for less crafty but no less interesting musings which is updated more regularly). Now I like that idea, and it sort of appeals to me because I do like this blog, but on the other hand I feel like if I waffle on too much about non-creative stuff then I'll bore you all rigid. And I'm taking this class because I want to record more of the daily stuff that goes on, not just that special picture every few months.

Resolution duly made. Watch this space!

You are invited...

to join the party! It's not my party, but I am a guest and I'm allowed to bring friends. So, pop along to see Kirsty Neale and Julie Kirk's double-blogged Hallowe'en inspiration party. They asked me to join in and make a little something Hallowe'eny, so I have.

I think I've realised that I get a little carried away when people challenge me to do things. Last time was here, when Shimelle Laine challenged me to make things with her printables during her weekend party. That was 4 things. Now, I've calmed down a little today; there are still 4 things, but I've only made 3 out of paper and digital. The first was the invite that you see at the top of the post. Dead simple, with a couple of digital scrapbooking kits from the Shabby Shoppe - I used "Boo" and "Bountiful", though mostly Boo for that project.

Then I made this:


A little close-up of that tag:


This repurposed Prima flower tin was covered in printed out digi-designed paper, using the Bountiful kit. I then printed out the phrase, the digi-rub-on bird and the lettering on card, cut them out and stuck them together. Add a touch of ribbon and ta-da! Possibly the prettiest thing I've ever made, apart from my darling daughter ;)

Now I can't promise you actual party cake, but I am going to give you a rather lovely recipe for sticky gingerbread, and for those of you who may be dairy-free, you can make this one, just use the veg/sunflower oil option :)

Sticky Gingerbread

Makes 1 x 25cm/10in square "loaf"

275 g (10oz) plain flour
5ml (1tsp) ground cinnamon
5ml (1tsp) ground ginger
5ml (1tsp) bicarbonate of soda
100g (4oz) butter or margarine or sunflower oil
175g (6oz) golden syrup
175g (6oz) black treacle
100g (4oz) brown sugar
2 large eggs, beaten
150ml (1/4pt) hot water

Sieve together the flour, cinnamon and bicarbonate of soda into a large bowl.
Melt the butter/margarine/oil gently with the syrup, treacle and sugar and pour into the dry ingredients (the heat helps to combine all the sticky stuff properly).
Add the eggs and water and mix well (the mixture will be very runny, but I promise you it does work).
Pour into a greased and lined 10 inch square cake tin, or 2 large loaf tins, then bake in a preheated oven at 180°C/350°F/gas mark 4 for 40-45 minute until well risen and springy to the touch. Test with a skewer to see if middle is cooked.

(adapted from the classic 1000 cake and bake recipes, Wendy Hobson)

I'm afraid I didn't have time to bake one to show you (plus there's only me to eat it, although it freezes VERY well), so you'll just have to imagine a chunk of sticky, moist cake delicatey placed on a pretty plate alongside a steaming hot cup of tea, coffee, or whatever you fancy!

Now for the last one. It's a layout that I've decided will join this one to become part of an album on "5 things". The first layout was published in Scrapbook Inspirations earlier this year, and I really enjoyed messing about with the photo. My new layout came from this photo taken on my web cam:


(a pretty scary photo in itself I think you'll agree!). Then by resizing, fiddling around with the brightness and contrast and then applying a cut-out filter effect, I ended up with this, on an 8" x 8" document:

Woah, look at those pink eyes. Can I hear you say "conjunctivitis"? :)

Now, I am currently working on the title and journalling on this, and later this morning I hope to photograph and upload a picture of the finished article, but I really wanted to make sure that this blog post was ready to go for when it all kicks off. So, pop back later and find out exactly what this layout is all about...

ETA: Done, done and done. Here you go:


I used "Thriller" font, the bargain pound alpha stamps from studio g, some my little shoebox alpha stickers, and my trusty bare chipboard American Crafts Thickers. The thickers got covered thickly in copper acrylic paint; I then sprinkled a bit of dark blue embossing powder on them and gave them a good blast with a heat gun (until it all went a bit bubbly). Great fun.
I'm very pleased with the finished article, and am now racking my brains for other "5 things" to do. Any ideas gratefully received!

Thanks for looking, and if you haven't come from Kirsty or Julie's blogs, go look at their individual and their joint copy and paste challenge blog as well. Maybe see you in the kitchen :)
ETA Apparently if you sign up for their 12 days class this weekend, you get a bonus set of printables... look here for details. I love freebies!

OK, so I lied...

...I may be fitting in a little crafting, but not so much of the blogging.

Crafting for November starts here for me. It's a 12 day crafting explosion, with gorgeous crafty ladies Kirsty Neale and Julie Kirk. I quote "With twelve full projects, plus a whole bunch of bonus ideas, downloads and tutorials, it’s designed to help you make the most of your creative supplies in the run up to Christmas. What's even better is that we’ve designed each of the main projects, and many of the additional ones, to be adaptable, which means that, instead of turning into giant crafty pumpkins the minute Boxing Day arrives, they’re just as relevant at other times of year. "

I've been lurking on the Copy and Paste blog for a few months now, dabbling my toes in their challenges,but mainly just being gobsmacked at their creativity. BUT, now they're sharing it with me. Well, not just me, other people too. I just had to go along for the ride. The idea is that they are providing 12 projects for 12 days for a handmade Christmas, using (hopefully) things that you have around your house for minimal outlay, which in this climate is purdy darn tooting, if you ask me (but then, any old excuse will do for me to have a Christmassy play with card, glue and glittery stuff, really). It all looks wonderful, and if you have a browse through their blogs, I'm fairly sure you'll agree.

So, maybe I might get round to posting a couple of pics, like the advent countdown calendar I've made out of BIG matcheboxes, or a recipe book out of an old filofax-type organiser, or some of the results of the new class. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

In addition to this, I also signed up for this class, Blogging for Scrapbookers. But that was a given really, since there's only one class of Shimelle's that I haven't taken. It was inevitable I'd sign up for this one, as it was part of my plan to change the blog layout after new year. Perfect timing. So who knows what this class will prompt me to do, I'm sure I'll love it, Shimelle has a lovely way with words and will get me thinking I'm sure!

So, I feel my evenings are going to be fraught with tricky decision-making... craft, blog or dissertation. Which would you choose?

P.S. Amazing blog candy here - go see! A silhouette die-cutting machine. Love my cricut, but I think this looks even better.