more finishing

As I mention, a lot, I've not been crafting much outside the classes I take with mum, but I have been doing something, I've been finishing a few things off.

I made these enamelled copper pieces at the Manor House hotel, 2 years ago now.  You can see the original post http://thecraftersapprentice.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/manor-house-enamelling.html.  They have been lying in my jewellery WIP box ever since.  I'd open it, look at them, put them back and forget about them!  This time I took them out so I wouldn't forget and they sat on the table for a couple of months instead!

I made each one a different pendent, using various pieces of chain I have.  I often buy fancy chain at craft shows and this seemed a good use for it as it can overwhelm a beaded pendant.  I've forgotten how to spell pendant again.  I could have made kumihimo or beadwoven straps for them, but I quite like them simple.

In my last finishing post, I showed you that I'd finished this goldwork piece.  I had to order an embroidery hoop for it as I wanted a 4" hoop but only had 3" or 5" ones at home.  Then it took me an age to decorate it as I wanted to paint it but couldn't find my paints anywhere.  I still can't find them and, as I'm sitting here typing this, I remember where I put them!  Too late now.  I decopatched it instead.

I chose red, gold and silver papers and stuck then down in the same order each time.  I'm not sure if this will damage the embroidery, but then it's hardly a heirloom piece and I don't have any heirs anyway!

Finally, I finished these pieces.  I made a really long red kumihimo cord, then cut it into two.  I threaded a bell flower on the necklace piece and made the other piece into a double-wrap bracelet.  I'd be nice with some charms on it so I may add to it at some stage.  The necklace on the right was actually made by my friend Kerry, but the ribbon was too long.  I'm short and very chesty and long necklaces looks stupid on me and are probably dangerous with the way they swing!  I shortened it by a few inches and added new ribbon clasps.

Now I just need to buy some red clothes...

What have I been up to?

Not blogging, that's for sure!  I'm struggling to get back in the rhythm of it, bear with me...

There has been some craft going on though.

A bit of this:

A smattering of this:

A dose of this:

A handful of this:

A smidgin of this:

A soupçon of this:

And a LOT of this:

You know me, attention span of a gnat... maybe my word for '14 should be "focus"!

Splash mat

I haven't shown you a kitchen update for a while and that's because it's nearly done!  We now have a working sink, fridge-freezer, oven and hob (possibly stove in North Americanish?) !  So exciting.  We are still waiting for one more worktop to be fitted and then it all needs tiling which is when I will show you, don't want to ruin the surprise. 

It wasn't until we got to this stage that I realised I hadn't made all the stuff I wanted to make for the new kitchen.  During the building work and prior to that, I was too depressed to even think about it.  But now I can and so I'm sewing up a storm.  I really hope to have lots of projects to show you for our new kitchen over the coming weeks.  

First up was the curtains.  Except I haven't made them yet.  Making curtains is boring.  So first up became a splash mat to use in front of the sink.  Can't have that lovely new floor (that hasn't even been chosen and bought, let alone laid yet!) getting wet. I knew exactly what I wanted to use.  Nancy very kindly sent me two mini charm packs of Marmalade yonks ago and I was waiting for the right project.  This was it. I decided to go for alternate patterned and white squares, all starting at 2.5" and finishing at 2".  The picture above shows how I kept track of what went where whilst chain piecing.

I didn't go random, I went for diagonal lines of each colour.  

I then straight line quilted it.  I used white thread to go diagonally through all the white squares, then used matching thread for each colour diagonal.  I kept white in the bobbin as the back is white.

I don't think my points were too bad, quite a lot of them match.

Not all of them of course!

The back is an old bath towel.  I didn't want to use a new one as they shrink and I don't want this ruined when I wash it, which I will have to do often as it is white!  I was worried that the coloured side of the bath towel would show through the patchwork, but it doesn't so I'm happy!

1 kitchen project down, 96 more to go (more or less)... I feel a list coming on...

moooo

Good morning ladies.  I am so glad it's finally the weekend, it's been one hell of a week and a budding migraine at work yesterday didn't help much.  I killed it off with my tablets but they make me feel really strange and quite ill, so it still wasn't a pleasant, fun day.  Oh, hang on, I was at work, so it wouldn't have been anyway...

Look what I got in the post!  It came from Homecrafts who sent me the stag's head for free if I would agree to decorate it.  Apologies for the above photo, we have some serious lighting issues in our house!

The first step was to paint the head white so the brown wouldn't show through.  I took him out to sit on the bench and the bunnies were rather bemused.

A couple of sheets of decopatch paper and some decopatch glue later and he became a she!  I suppose he could be a rather camp stag, but to me he looks like a girl.  I have just realised that girls don't have antlers.  Oh dear.  Or rather oh deer.

It was really tricky getting a need line where the antlers and head meet.  I didn't get them level but then I remembered I was planning on sewing her/him/it a sunhat anyway!

It was a nightmare of construction, but take 3 worked OK!  I added a beaded daisy I made ages ago, it was the perfect match.

The head and antlers are decopatched, this is where you tear up strips of the special thin paper and glue them on randomly, but the ears are all one piece.  I cut the piece to size with the intention of decopatching over it, but using the shape to make a nice edge.  When it was in place, I liked how it looked so I left it.

I finished her off with a broderie anglais collar, perfect for the dreaded v-word look that she seems to be sporting.  I can't stand the v-word.  It's not really a style that's to my taste, but that wouldn't be a problem if the v-word wasn't so overused!  It seems anything can be v-word these days, even if you bought it yesterday.

It was at this point that I decided she looks like a cow.  I know, cows don't have antlers, but then neither do girl-deer.  She's special.  In all senses of the word.  Look how she's giving you the eye...

Thanks Homecrafts, I really enjoyed this slightly-daft project, you can't beat slightly-daft, can you?  You can see what the other bloggers did with their deer heads on the Homecrafts blog.

Ripping and sticking... again

I picked up a plain mache desk tidy from Hobbycraft for £3 during one of their recent sales.  

I snapped it up as I keep my pens, scissors etc on my cutting table in glass jars. They often fall over.

Add a bit of decopatch paper, not right down to the bottom on the big ones, my hand wouldn't fit.

You can't tell from the side though, so it doesn't matter.

You definitely can't tell when they're all full up. I'm rethinking the rotary cutter though - I can see me cutting my own hand off...  I'm so happy I have somewhere to put my seam ripper, with my house being decidedly wonky, it always rolls on the floor.  No more!

M is for

A busy bank holiday weekend called for a relaxing craft in front of the TV of an evening.  Enter decopatch...

I'd bought these MDF letters at the craft fair along with a load of decopatch papers.  I also bought a desk tidy and my plan was to do a rainbow sweeping across the letters and the tidy.  

So I got out my papers and sorted them into colours.  Blue, purple, red, white, black, gold...  hmmm, no yellow?  No green?  No pink?  OK, so a rainbow is out then!

I covered the fronts and sides of all the letters, including that tiny gap in the "A" (these letters stand 3.5" tall), and getting into some of those spaces was tricky.   Rude words were said.

It may be considered as a kiddy craft, but I like some kiddy crafts and I like decopatch.

My skinflint side insisted I spell out the 4-letter MAKE rather than the 6-letter CREATE!  Currently, they're residing on a shelf in my craft room (which seriously needs a sort out and tidy up!).  As I was framing the photo, I was pleased to see other handmade items in this little space, my inspiration wall!

Oh, do you like what I did with my bobbins?  That's a piece of L-shaped plastic extrusion from B&Q, taped onto the edge of the shelf so the bobbins can lie in front of the the spools.  If you do this, use A LOT of tape.  The first time I didn't and came up to my craft room to find bobbins everywhere, I'm still finding them now!

tear it up and stick it down

I've been LANTing up a storm recently!  Welcome to WIP #59 - decopatch.

I bought the equipment for this from a Hobbycrafts show a while ago.  I say "equipment", that actually consists of a pot of special glue, a paint brush and some thin patterned papers.  It's a really easy craft where you tear the paper into small pieces and glue it down.

I'd bought blue and red papers, so made this picture frame using both.  I didn't want to mix them up though.  I had to make sure my papers went right round the edges to the back so none of the wooden blank would be on show.

I bought the picture frame (which is about 8" tall) from a local craft shop for about £2. I've got another one and I enjoyed making this so much, I was tempted to do that one too, but thought I'd save it and try a different design.

This little basket (about 5" long) is made from papier maché (not made by me!) and came with the set I bought at Hobbycrafts.  I did the outside in blue and the inside in red.

I probably should have done somethign with the handle - mind you, it's not too late.  I tore my papers and overlapped the pieces to give it a more organic feel but you could also cut them into squares and stick them down carefully to get a patchwork effect.

(That's the bottom).  The papers aren't cheap, I don't know how much I paid at the show, but they're about £3.50 for 3 papers in Hobbycraft, having said that, I had 4 different sheets and used about a third of each making these two items, so they do go quite far. 

I have a large papier maché box that I want to make into a wedding memories box.  I'd bought far too much of the scrapbook paper I used to make the wedding stationery and would like to use that to decopatch the box... I'm not sure if it will work though as the Decopatch paper is very thin.  I'll give it a go and see what happens.

I really enjoyed doing this.  Again, like the Scraperfoil from the other day, it's not incredibly creative, but it is a fun, relaxing craft to do whilst watching TV, expecially if you're feeling under the weather.