Birthday Celebrations

So it was my birthday last week and we went to one of my favourite farms, not just because it is a cider farm but because it is one of the most amazing locations and it has so many wonderful things to see. They even have an area where the little ones can go round and look at all the animals. 

One of the things I love about the cider area of the farm is that you can pour your own bottles and taste before you buy to ensure that the barrel has not gone sour or the flavour has been processed correctly. They press their own cider and perry in a small area in the courtyard and have some of the most characteristic staff it is an amazing experience. 

The next amazing surprise was when my parents showed up at work with all of the following cake, I have been on a sugar high every day since. It was amazing. 

 My mother is the best cake maker I know, not only do her cakes look gorgeous like my birthday cake below but the cake in the middle tastes fantastic. This one contained a PINK Victoria sponge with home-made jam and butter icing.

 Finally the birthday dress I made myself, smart enough for work and fun enough for me. I will be making another one soon as I bought some fabric in Brighton, and I will walk you through how I make my dresses.

Wanderings round London

So over the last few weeks I have had some wonderful free days during the week, thanks to the wonder of working shifts during the weekend, which means I get to wonder round the world with out the distraction that is the boyfriend. Saying that, shopping is probably the best time to take the boy out because he gets so annoyed with me looking in the shops that he just says yes have what you want.

The plus side to not having him there is that I get to wonder round and find some of the most amazingly cute little shops where, if I were made of money, I would buy everything they have. These shops are just round the corner from where I live in Islington, London. I have grown to love the Vintage Markets and the amazing things that you can find.

This is a fantastic shop where you can find anything you need for knitting, including two floors of every kind of wool you can imagine. They also have ladies in there who, if you are struggling with a pattern or a type of stitch, you can go in and get advice from. It's a brilliant service that should definitely be available in all craft stores 

This I found in far to cute in a coffee/ gift shop, one of the tiniest tea sets I have come across. I just couldn't resist taking the picture.

OK so the thought that went through my head in this next image was "How much cake can I fit on those stands?" Maybe I will have enough time one weekend to give it a go.

NPG Craft it up!

So Friday saw the first Birt and Barker Master Craft Class (Not the official, but it sounds epic). It was a great to have a chance to see what everyone knew and what they wanted to know, we also got the chance to make a little bit of mess on a very old and expensive table :) (We cleaned it all up in the end)  

 The most important way to start a lesson is tea and cake, so my lovely first class got both! I think this will definitely have to be something which we continue on for any future lessons.

 Look at the amazing concentration in there faces, it's like the world hangs on if they get it right :) I Love it!   Let's face it what would a craft session be without a good old gossip. A vital part of the process, please take note people, nothing comes out quite as good as when you have a good chat!



I love this picture Corinne she really used all the colours effectively and I should point out her cup is a tribute to her cats and Sydenham. 

We also attended a workshop a friend of ours was running on how to create photo books at home. She has some fantastic techniques and really make some gorgeous things. Her name is Jasmine look out for her in North London she does some amazing workshops, I will post when she lets me know the next one she is doing. I am now going to have to by more craft supplies in order to start making some of these :-)



A massive thank you to all those people who came to our craft class at the NPG Learning at Work Week. I hope everyone had a good time. Until next time my Crafty Bunnies!

A day of craft and creativity

So it turns out walking to Ikea Edmonton from Tottenham Hale tube station is actually a bloody long distance, a distance which I walked this morning in order to get a few items for a workshop which I am doing with Miss Birt on Friday. Having wondered round the isle and planning as we all do, what I would do with my own house (when I eventually get round to buying one) and finally bought a variety of items I came home with a new energy and made these.




They are for a lovely lady at work who ask for a few more after I made her one before. These are really simple to make and I found the pattern on burda style, it's quite a handy site for free patterns, you can also by patterns from this site and print them all at home which comes in handy. The one thing I would recommend is that if you are printing these at home then once you have printed the pages out piece them together and then cut the pattern out, not the other way round. I came a cropper to this when trying to piece together a dress pattern. Made a real mess and ended up with a few extra pieces (oops!)



I love these aprons for the reference to the "Day of the Dead" and because the fantastically vibrant colours inspire creations. These are reversible and very effective, they can also be resized and made into children's aprons too.

Porcelain Decoration

After a friend of mine posted about how well her Porcelain decorating went I decided to take a leaf from her book. Sarah posted Here about her Porcelain designs and here are mine.

They are really easy to make and you can buy the pens on eBay or if you are near a Craft shop the pens that I have been using are called Porcelain Painter. I would advise being careful with which pens you use. One set you need to bake in the oven, the other you can leave for 24hours and they fix themselves. I have found the second set easier to use 

Stamps galore

So a little while ago I was looking through etsy for someone who could create a stamp for my boy friend for a book that he received for Christmas. The book is "1001 beers to drink before you die" and he had mentioned that he wanted a stamp to be able to mark all the beers as he drank them. I had looked all over etsy for someone who I could get to make it and though there are loads of stamp makers it didn't look like there was anyone who could do custom made ones.

Then I was talking to a friend who told me about a shop called skull and cross buns (http://www.etsy.com/shop/skullandcrossbuns) who could make it for me, and she did. She asked me loads of questions about what I wanted, many questions I hadn't even thought of and we came up with the perfect stamp for him. (It makes no sense to anyone else but for him it was perfect)

This post is mostly to give her a massive thank you because she was amazing, and to say to anyone thinking of stamps this is THE woman to go to.

What a wonderful weekend

This weekend was definitely needed, a wonderful combination of drinking and laughing and films. I really needed it and would like to thank all the lovely girls who turned up, I am suitably relaxed :) 

In other News I now have a new sewing machine the one that I had broke again so Tesco can have there stupid machine back. What a bloody joke of a machine that was I got one at Christmas and after two uses it broke, then I got another one and that broke after only baking the basic version of a dress! How useless can you be! Anyway I have now decided to move in a reliable direction a have bought myself a Singer and OH MY GOD she is amazing so smooth and very amazing. The beautiful dress that I have been talking about for ages is very nearly finished (a small post by the end of the day I promise).

Over the weekend I also realised that I haven't shown you all my fascinators! I have been working on these for a little while and though they have been on the back burner they are a little bit of fun.

Thank you to my wonderful model Toni for letting me get carried away with my camera! and to Ciara for being my creative director.

A Brithday gift

So as many of you know I am a baking freak, I seem to find cooking soothing and people like it. This cake though has got to be one of my best.It is a triple layer rum cake with sticky rum sauce and rum icing, perfect for a whole bundle of boys and there drinking weekend of bad films. It means I get the flat all to myself :)

I hope Richard likes it, that's all for now it's girls film weekend from now on so I'll catch up with you all the other side of the weekend, if I haven't got the worlds biggest hang over!

New Bag

With a little help from my amazing mum we have a new bag style, it is amazing fun!

This is a one of a kind fabric for my Mumma as it was the very last in the store, but I can make the same style in a lot of other fabrics which I can get my hands on. And I can also do the strap to match the bag fabric. It is really light weight and is in a variety of sizes. Watch the pages for a whole variety of them :)

Pin cushion

So after a day of pinning my dress together (which unfortunately is still in the making) I got very annoyed with my little pin and needle cushion and decided it was time for something new. With the very last remaining material from a beautiful skull and roses fabric, a tea cup and some shards of cut fabric I decided to fashion my own pin cushion. This is the result it made my very excited and happy, think I squealed a little much as I woke my boy from his nap, oops.

So I got a little carried away.....

As I am sure you will have noticed by now I have changed the look of my blog it has a new design and layout, I decided it was time for a change. This year I am going to attempt projects which challenge me and help me to increase all the wonderful creative things which I can do. The first of which it this hat. I have never made a hat from scratch before and I can now completely understand why Mr Steven Jones makes the money he does as it was a very fiddly process.

It hasn't completely turned out the way that I had envisioned and admittedly is a very simple first attempt but not bad for the first hat I every made. The quilt is also coming along very well. It has become about the size of a pillow case and should be ready for a bed spread in about 3 months, if I actually get my bum in gear. 

Next of my list of things to do is start felting, I am going to try it without a pattern and see how it goes, the aim is for a day of the dead garland. There was a hummingbird i was thinking about giving a go but I think I will start simple and work from there. 

That's it for now, hope you like the new layout and my attempted hat, catch you all soon!

Excited!

New bags, new sewing machine, new dress pattern, and lots of new fabrics!!! Bring on the new few weeks!

New pictures coming soon, in the mean time check out the new pages on my blog.

Disaster Strikes!

So having bought new fabric, bias tape, piping cord, ordering dress patterns, a rotary cutter, an invisible marker and wadding, I am now unable to make anything because my world has come crashing down around me.

My sewing machine broke!

I will be unable to share the wonders of my new hat with you due to the fact that it is still in pieces on my table and unable to be pieced together.

So now I shall be quilting like there is no tomorrow and this means lot of hand sewing. I'm thinking one massively frustrated colourful piece is the way forwards

Shorts, Fabric and looking forward

OK so one trip to buy fabric wasn't enough, I had to go again. I believe now that I am seriously addicted and I LOVE it!!!!

In other new I have been busy trying to create new things, on the list this time are Ear-warmers (just as the weather get warmer grrrr), tried to create a pair of shorts and a very cute bird, made out of scraps of material, which I will make into baby mobile when I get some more scraps. I think this involves more bag making, Oh what a shame :)

Fabric Hoard

I'm sorry people I got a little carried away! These are the latest editions to my fabric collection which seems to be rapidly growing. I am still undecided as to what to create with it all yet but at the moment I needed them because they are gorgeous. 

These are from a wonderful vintage stall I found in London. Maybe a patchwork blanket or a pillow?

These were far to gorgeous to resist, they are inspirational and I only wish I could have collected more from the collections, some are from Liberty and the others from Amy Butler. Can't wait to start making things from these!!! 

Christmas Fabric bags

Just a few little bag I spun together with some left over Christmas fabric. I know it's a little late for people to use them this year but if your crazy as I am, and have started buying things in the sales for next years Christmas then you will understand.

I used these for stocking fillers this year filling them with chocolates and sweets for various different family members. but you can put pretty much anything in them. One of my friends uses hers to put her make-up in, another puts her keys and phone in so she can find them in her bag.