Southern Fairy Designs

Button Earrings

2011-11-18T13:09:00.001Z

Been busy... away to Barcelona, work, uni, etc... so not been around as much as I would normally... sad but I haven't really missed my blog much either, perhaps it's a sign to think about packing it all in?

Anyway here's some button earrings that I've been making recently and selling to friends and at local craft markets... there's plenty more button earrings up for sale on the facebook page for Southern Fairy Designs too.

Think my favourite pair has to be the white and purple stars below, tmepted to just keep that pair for myself instead of trying to sell them on...

Then I thought about playing with some other shaped buttons too... Love the little pink heart buttons... in fact I already have a pair for myself that are identical to the lower pair and I wear them to brighten up an outfit :)

Can Can Scarves

2011-11-10T20:23:00.001Z

So new thing for me to try AGAIN... my nan made a scarf a few weeks back and sent it to me with a note telling me how easy it was to make and how she was surpirsed I hadn't tried one yet... that was it the gauntlet had been thrown down..I had to have a bash at knitting and make one of these so called easy scarves!

After raiding my local Hobbycraft on their 25% night I came home with 3 balls of wool and no idea what I was doing.... or needles in which to knit with lol... so I went to a local charity shop and picked up a couple of sets of needles for 50p and then went the the wool shop for some advice... wish I hadn't as they were rude and unhelpful. Youtube proved to be much more successful.. search for can can scarves and find the video by BlackSheep and that's how I got started...

So here's my first Can Can Scarf... took forever, well 6 hours of an afternoon after the amount of times I dropped stitches and couldn't figure how to pull it back together so had lose a whole row lol...

And here's me wearing my first attempt a Can Can Scarf... I lived in it for a couple of days till I started the next one...

Then I started working on the green ball of wool that I bought.... this scarf went much easier and quicker... even managed to fix the few mistakes I had dropping stitches or accquiring extras as I seemed to for a few rows lol.

I can see these making some pretty neat christmas presents for friends and family :)

Guest Post Nifty Thrifty Things

2011-11-06T17:09:00.002Z

And here's the post I shared on friday over at Nifty Thrifty Things

Hi my names Steph and I post over at Southern Fairy Designs. I'm an aircraft mechanic, glider pilot and crafter... polar opposites I know but it keeps me ahppy and that's what really counts. I make jewellery, bags, home decor, celebration items (flags and bunting), brooches and recently I've started making some clothes for myself.
One of my favourite pieces of clothing I've made is the top in the photo below. I made it to take away on holiday, if you want to see what happened the day I wore it to Gibraltar then click the photo below.

To see the details of the projects below then just click on the photos.
Another of my favourite makes recently is this lace flower necklace... yes I've lived in it, hence it being in 2 photos in this post and many more across my blog

This cupcake pouch is my new jewellery bag for when we go travelling... been making these as presents for friends and family... in the last few weeks I've been making these for customer orders, plenty of lovely fabrics sat in my drawer waiting to be turned into many more pouches.

Then there's what seems to be the most popular post I have ever put on my blog... My Anthro Power Of 3 necklace knockoff tutorial... which well over 6 months after I posted it is still receiving 100's of hits every week.

Thanks for taking the time to have a read and I do hope you stop by and visiti my blog some time soon :) And thanks to Vanessa for letting me post on her blog!

Guest Post over at... Nifty Thrifty Things

2011-11-06T17:08:00.002Z

Oooops I forgot to put this post up on friday, got too busy in my week at university talking business, planes and all sorts of other rubbish... that's what happens when you mix civilian aircraft engineers and military engineers... then it's company based riuvalry and banter.. all good fun but very distracting...
On friday Vanessa from Nifty Thrifty Things let me do a guest post on her blog to cover one day of her trip away... go check out her blog and meet some of the other people covering her holdiay days....

Playing with Precious Metal Clay

2011-11-02T13:08:00.000Z

Last Saturday I got the chance to spend the day on a course learning to make things with Precious Metal Clay, in this case silver...this was the final part of my birthday present from my other half (yes he took the hint of all the links I sent him regarding courses like this one lol).

Never played with PMC before... in fact I've never even made my own earring wires before so this was a totally new experience for me altogether. Thankfully I came up with m ideas quickly and made them out of plasticine to practice the techniques for rolling out and texturing before I started work on my expensive little blob of PMC.

Several small blobs rolled out later... roll on some lace for texture... use small cookie cutters to get the shapes... punch holes for the ear wires... slip the flower onto the heart... set a cubic zirconia into the flower... then comes the waiting... let it dry out, or use a food dehydrator like we did...

Then we fired them... sorry, sintered them... with a hand torch... by then we had these horrid white powdery shapes... with a bit of force and a wire brush the powder came off revealing the silver underneath... solder a half ring onto the back of the large heart to make it into a pendant... chuck the pieces into a tumbler to remove any leftover powder and VOILA!

So what do you all think? I think I need to have another go at making some of these coz I have so many ideas left that I want to make!

Dahlia Flower Brooches

2011-10-23T19:08:00.000+01:00

Here's the felt dahlia flower brooches that I had left over from the craft market the other weekend... I absolutely love them, so I was quite hurt by some miserable womens' comments as they passed. One said 'Oh what are they?' The other replied 'felt dahlia brooches, darling', 'Oh well they just look a bit weird what would you do with it?!' How rude I was standing 2ft away from them and yes they are entitled to their opinions but perhaps they could have taken them away from my stall where there were appreciative customers looking to buy these lovely brooches that mum and I were sporting on our jackets that day too!

Some people do just annoy me, if it's not your cup of tea why make a fuss, just walk on by and go buy some generic shop brooch that everyone else has! I've made many of these as gifts for friends and family, donated a few as prizes for charity raffles and never had bad feedback on them. These lovelies are still up for sale on my facebook page and I'm always making more in different colours too.

Rant over, I just wish people were a little more openminded or stayed away from things they don't understand.

Butterfly Canvasses

2011-10-15T20:54:00.002+01:00

Been a little bit busy this last week getting myself all prepared for the craft market (see previous post) so I haven't had much time to be blogging, sorry!

Thought I'd share with you my new, improved version of my Butterfly Canvas...

Learnt a few things from the first attempt... don't use the same flower template with 2 different colour inks if you can't wipe it clean... coat in enamel not modpodge to seal the ink work in...

Clairabella (the craft shop running the market) have asked if I'd like to try selling these in their shop, so seeing as these 3 didn't sell today I've dropped them in to see how it goes instore...

I just love these canvasses, they got a lot of compliments today and I've had some lovely feedback from people I've given them to as gifts... hopefully people will snap them up in the shop or order different colours from me...

Once again far too many butterflies were punched out so there's plenty spare for more canvasses to be made in the future or added to other items... I foresee butterfly cards in the very near future!

Today I Went To Market...

2011-10-15T20:36:00.001+01:00

So today I went to market with my things for the very first time! Never really sold my items by anything more than word of mouth and via facebook... so this was a very big step for me!

The market was run by Clairabella a shop in High Wycombe that sells goods made by local crafters, that once a month has a market for sellers to get together and sell their new things.

First score of the day... I only booked a half table, to be on the safe side as it's first attempt... but when we arrived the lady I was sharing a table with had cancelled... so I got the other half of the table as well for free :)

So here's my set up at a glance...

Check out the snazzy sign I had made in the graphics shop at work... and the catalogue on the bottom right that my friend made for me the other night to display my custom order larger items..

Loving the 2 jewellery trees I had to display everything on...

Definitely needed the full table to spread out over though... don't think it would have all crammed on together very well at all!

And here's me looking cheerful at my stall (even though at that point I hadn't sold anything lol)...

So how many things that I'm wearing does everybody recognise then? I decked mum out in all the best pieces I've made her over the years too :)
Had a lovely day out, meet some wonderful people and hopefully found myself some new customers that will come back and place orders in the future.

Autumn Wreath

2011-10-06T09:51:00.001+01:00

It appears the UK is having somewhat of a late Indian Summer this year, it's hotter now than most of August was for us so making our house an Autumn Wreath may seem out of place, though the forecasts say by the weekend the weather could be cool and rubbish again so I'm prepared!

I've grown bored of my burlap wreath and whilst walking round Hobbycraft last weekend I saw all these lovely bits and pieces that would knock together and make a wonderful wreath... so I bought them and whipped up this wreath... (yes I should have been making things for my craft stall but the temptation to make something for us was too much)..

My favourite bit is the cute little wooden hedgehog, all the other animals they had were just too large or looked tacky. The leaves are from a long wire garland of leaves, still got half of it left so may have to think of another autumn based project to use them on at a later date. Quick, simple, yet very effective on our inner porch doorway... I'm even more impressed with the quality of the photos of the wreath from my new SLR camera :)

Lace Tee Revamp

2011-09-29T18:51:00.000+01:00

So now the weather is meant to be changing here in the UK (perhaps someone forgot to tell the weather today as it was 27C!) I thought I'd best start on my autumn/winter clothes making list. I started with a quick, simple one using Katy from Sweet Verbena's tutorial... the only thing I really changed was the neckline of the t-shirt I used, I'm not a huge fan of round necks I prefer my necklaces hanging above the neckline so it was a V neck for me.

And here's a pic of me modelling my new refashioned t-shirt... that lace flower necklace of mine seems to be a constant feature in all my clothes posts recently, anyone starting to get the idea how much I love and wear that necklace? It's about the only one I wear apart from my silver heart necklace!

Over the weekend I'll share the cards and presents made for the September birthdays in my life... my man and his mum.

Last Of The Summer Wardrobe

2011-09-22T21:49:00.004+01:00

So here's the last piece of clothing I had to make for the summer... didn't get finished till a few days before holiday so had to wait till I wore it on holiday to get a decent photo.

This top started off life as a length of jersey material and a strapless bra that was getting a little loose.. so with the help of Kirsten's tutorial it became the super top shown in the photos.

It even got worn out on our trip to Gibraltar... where I got climbed all over by the Barbary Apes!

I'm Not MIA...honest

2011-09-15T17:10:00.001+01:00

Hi all, I'm not MIA... just away on holiday, shall resume normal posting and comenting on the 22nd! Will have plenty of things to share by then as getting plenty of goodies here and more should be delivered by the time we get home :)

Cupcake Makeup Bag

2011-09-08T11:34:00.001+01:00

This week I've been starting to play with some of the fab crafty bits that 2 of my friends donated to me, yup they gave me a shed load of stuff for free! Got a heat gun and heat embossing goodies which have been used for the birthday cards for the upcoming birthdays... and then my other friend gave me a box of fabric pieces and more card making supplies...

So project 1 with the new fabric pieces is a makeup bag for me with my favourite bit of fabric from the parcel.... Cupcakes! And a super cute dusky pink dotty fabric for the lining that also came in the parcel.

These little bags have been pretty popular, made several now as presents for friends and family, had a few order enquiries about them for christmas... and after all that I didn't actually have one to call my own.. so I had to make one and had to do it before too many people ordered cupcake ones and there would no fabric left for me.. a little selfish I know but I really wanted one to show off myself as something that I had made!

Isn't the cupcake print just totally awesome though, nearly good enough to eat!

Had to take a photo so you could see how cute the lining is too and how well it goes with the cupcake outer fabric! This beauty now lives proudly ion my bag for me to show everyone whenever they ask for a lipbalm or nail file :)

Wedding Order - Just Married Flags

2011-09-01T18:29:00.004+01:00

You know when you're out in shops and see things you think are cute, then check the price tag and think 'how much?! I could make them so much cheaper!' Well that's what these flags are... A friend and I were out shopping the other week talking about her cousins wedding, she's planning it, when we saw some simple just married flags in a shop.... they were £4.50 each! So I got her to hold up one of the flags so I could take a photo on my Blackberry for reference and make some up myself for her.

After messing around with fonts on the computer and printing out plenty of test sheets to position the words right for when the card gets folded round the dowel... test punching the hearts till I figured where the perfect position was to line up with the words... I finally finished up with these lovelies...I had to 'force' myself to buy the heart punch, as somehow it's the one shape punch I didn't already have in my collection... and then I found some super (now I won't call them kiddies, though they were near the kiddies craft section in the shop) shaped edge scissors - a zigzag pair and a scalloped pair. The scalloped pair were perfect for cutting the flag's edge, then I used a silver pen and made a dot in each scallop to just add an extra little 'zing' to it.
Only charged £2 a piece for them, so that's a super saving for her... and a lot of spare dowel for me so I think Imay be doing some more flags for other occasions too, I'm thinking babies, anniversaries and birthdays so far...

Wearing The Sailor Collar Top

2011-08-27T18:47:00.003+01:00

Couldn't be waiting for my bloke to be home to take the photos, it's days before he's off work and the weather isn't keeping the evenings light here so taking photos isn't exactly easy...

So bear with me and my attempts to take 'good' photos of me wearing latest creation in our gorgeous vintage bedroom mirror.

Wow how many attempts do you think it took to get a decent pic of the back? Well about 7... my hair got in the way or I just totally misaimed the camera and took lovely photos of the wall lol.

Blog Makeover

2011-08-25T23:18:00.002+01:00

The blog has finally been treated to a super makeover... thanks to Lindsay at Southern Lovely for picking me as the winner of the competition... and an even bigger thanks to Cindy of Blessed Graphic Design for creating the awesome design and putting up with my picky little demands on what I really wanted...

Don't you just love the new signature too:)

Sailor Collar Top

2011-08-25T12:38:00.003+01:00

Seeing as the bad weather seems to already be settling in I'm making a start on a couple of autumn tops to make along side the last of my summer wardrobe for my holiday, my orders and now the stock I need to get made up for my first ever craft market stall (EXCITE! but more news to come on that at a later date)..

Here's what used to be a plain white t-shirt till I read the latest issue of Cloth magazine.. they had this beautiful tutorial on how to make a sailor collar to just wear over dresses or whatever you fancied... I didn't quite like that idea so I thought I'd make it a permanent fixture on an otherwise boring top..

I kept the long ribbon bow from the original design as otherwise the collar would have fallen short of the centre of the neckline and left a void... and i love ribbons and bows so why not add the extra omph to the top!

If anyone wants the template and tutorial for this project then it's here but do check out the other projects while you are there coz there's some stunners in amongst them!

I haven't got a picture of me wearing it yet as there's no one else home to a photo of the back, so give me a day or so and I'll make sure I put another post up with the photos

Great Pinterest Challenge August 2011

2011-08-22T10:07:00.002+01:00

Morning ladies and gents... so here we go again Round 2 of the Great Pinterest Challenge voting has begun and once again I need help, please please plase come vote for me!

Here's my piece for the challenge...

To help me out here's what you gotta do...

Go to Honeybear Lanes facebook page and 'like' it
Go to my photo in the Great Pinterest Challenge album and 'like' it. Either click here, click the photo above or have a browse throught the album yourself till you find me.

There's some gorgeous projects in that album there really are, think the sewing category of the challenge will be a hard round to do well in.. so please everyone come help me.. much appreciated if you do :)

With A Little Bit Of Lace...

2011-08-18T19:47:00.004+01:00

British summer may be coming to an end (it's pouring with rain here and has been all day) but I'm still making myself summery clothes in the hope we have a few more good days/weeks.. and then of course there's the good weather and sun I hope for on our holiday (less than a month to go!) so I still think it's a good idea to plough on with the clothes projects...

This time I fancied myself a denim skirt, but not just the boring kind you find in the shops... nor was I keen on the denim ones with denim waistbands and scarf fabric for the remainder of the skirt...
So I hit ebay and found myself this New Look denim skirt with the little worn patches and tears...
A little bit.. well 3/4 of a metre of lace, pins, my sewing machine, scissors, needle and thread later this is what my skirt looked like. My sewing machine could be used for the majority of the lace but the trim round the pockets and flowers on the rear had to be hand sewn on as I couldn't get them to feed through the machine without stitching it together. The flowers and trim pieces came from a scrap of the lace used for the thick trim around the bottom of the skirt. I left it overhanging the denim at the bottom as it just looked a bit more girly and made the most of the scalloped edging of the lace.

It's not so short really.. and it looks great on..

The I thought it deserved a full outfit photo as well to show how ace it looks on... notice the lace flower necklace and nautical bow shoes... yup both things I've made
To see th

Featured over at... Wiccan Make Some Too

2011-08-14T11:09:00.003+01:00

Found another comment last night syaing my T-shirt stripy skirt was going to be featured as a highlight from last weeks party.. this time it was from Beth over at Wiccan Make Some Too She has recently started up a weekly linky party so drop by and join in!

Thanks for featuring my skirt Beth :)

and today (15/8) over at Dittle Dattle too

Featured over at... J and M's Eye Candy

2011-08-12T18:06:00.002+01:00

So I received a comment from Brit at J and M's Eye Candy telling me my stripy t-shirt skirt was going to be featured today in the favourites roundup from last weeks linky party.. Super chuffed with that... the skirt seems to have gone down pretty well and it seems I may have inspired a few more people to give the tutorial a try..

See I have the button to prove I was featured too :) Thanks ladies!

Lace flower necklace

2011-08-11T12:01:00.006+01:00

I seem to be leaving the sewing machine alone a little at the moment, so guess what I have gone back to doing... yup more jewellery.. can never have enough necklaces so I have made yet another...
I pinned the tutorial Ashley (Little Miss Momma) did over at Tatertos & Jello (it's here if you want it too) the other week and decided it had to be made, so with a spare few minutes the other morning I whipped one up with some stash from a recent fabric shop trip.

Look I even tried to copy the bathroom mirror pose too.. this is now my facebook display picture.. yes I'm somewhat of a poser but it never occurred to me to pose in my crafty pics, no idea why... so prepare for more posed pics in the future!

A close up just so you can see the large pearls hidden amongst the lace.

(for the sake of linking up to some parties, needing backlinks: http://makingtheworldcuter.com/)

Featured over at... Stay At Home Nation

2011-08-05T20:33:00.003+01:00

Found a comment on my blog this morning from Iffy (Cameron) from Stay At Home Nation telling me that she had featured my Scrabble Wordplay Decor for this weeks Spotlight.

Thanks very much Iffy!

T-shirt Stripy Skirt

2011-08-04T21:04:00.003+01:00

Let me start by saying how over the moon I am with this skirt! So glad it all worked out right in the end after all the confusion trying to figure how to pin all the strips together so it all flipped out the right way... very very happy with the result!

So here's my stripy skirt made from strips cut from t-shirts...

LOVE IT! So I took the tutorial from Cutton And Curls here to make my skirt... yes it's another idea from my Pinterest board I know I'm on fire working my way through my boards projects but there's still so many left to try!

Can anyone else tell I'm totally in love with this skirt yet? Only thing I'm thinking is that if I make another one I may take a t-shirt of a smaller size to make the waist band to save taking it in... or making little belt loops for some ribbon to hold it up better and look pretty too?

Should mention that my man loves this... not only is it a nice skirt to him but it's black and white stripes just his football team's kit.... Newcastle United lol oh dear!

Voting required please!

2011-08-03T18:21:00.002+01:00

Hi there lovely readers of my blog... I'm hoping you can help me.. see I've once again entered myself into a competition that needs you lovelies to vote for my piece in order for me to win. Sorry can't help my competitive streak, seems to be about quite a bit recently lol.

So... Amie over at Kitty Cats and Airplanes ran a competition called 3...2...1... Craft! where the challenge was to finish off or even start and finish a summer sewing project. She then picked her top 5 entries to be entered into the final stage of the competition... Guess what my scarves to summer tops were included in this top 5! (To see them again click here)

To vote for me all you have to do is click on the picture to get to Amie's blog, scroll to the end of the post and vote for my 'scarf to tank upcycle'. Pretty pretty please?

Scrabble Wordplay Decor

2011-07-28T11:08:00.003+01:00

Here's another idea that's been sat on my Pinterest board for quite a while waiting to be done.. finally starting to make a bit of a dent on my to do list of projects, till I find a load more that is!

I found this frame in the Hobbycraft sale ages ago and I used it for a Valentines frame to sit on our mantle, if you wan to see it again then it's here.

I just thought that it needed a bit of a change ok so this is still a bit lovey but isn't as Valentines Day in my head. The backing paper is actually a sample of wallpaper that I picked up walking round a DIY store and then I glued some scrabble tiles on top to finish off a simple, yet cute frame to go on our mantle till the next piece of holiday decor is needed.

Scarves to Summer Tops

2011-07-21T18:31:00.007+01:00

Whilst trawling through H&M over the weekend with mum on our girly shopping trip in Reading I found some awesome print scarves for £1 each so I grabbed one of each colour. One in blue and one in hot pink.... oh and I forgot to mention they are leopard print too! Mum's face when I went over to her was priceless, 'So what do you plan on turning these into then?', guess she knows me too well and knows what I tend to do to scarves... especially when they are cheaper than the fabric would be from a fabric shop!

Having seen all the pins on Pinterest of this Anthropologie top and tutorials on how to make one similar, like over at Sweet Verbena, this is what I decided the scarves had to be refashioned into....

and so they did....

Here's the pink leopard print one, love the yellow and black bits really brings out the print and makes it a little in your face (it's my fave of the 2 prints).
Ok so you can't see the bow in the photos as the print kinda gets lost in itself but I assure you it's there, it's kinda large. Took a photo of me wearing it (not a fab pic was took from my Blackberry by the OH), but you can see it's quite fitted. I had a slight fit doing this one as I cut the material thought it was too small and threw it into a corner till I'd finished the 2nd print slightly larger cut top then realised it would be a good fit after all. another slight difference with this top is that I didn't cut the fabric into 2 rectangles, I made mine like a tube to save losing any precious fabric that I'd need to make the top fit me right.
Here's the 2nd print scarf, leopard print again but a slightly calmer, less in your face colourscheme of blue, lime and white. The bow is a lot easier to see on this one too!As you can tell from the photo it's a lot looser fit than the pink one, but I like it makes them different and means it'll be ideal for the hot days out on our holiday in September. This top was made following the tutorial method of cutting the fabric into 2 rectangles and sewing them together to form the body of the top. The only extra thing I had to do on both tops was sew an edge for the underarms to stop the fabric fraying away.

See crappy British summer weather I defy you, I will still make myself lovely summer tops even if they don't see the light of day till September and then again next summer!

Seeing Double!

2011-07-20T20:27:00.002+01:00

This weeks Crafty Creations Challenge is 'Seeing Double'... can you believe this is challenge #128! Can't believe it's been so long since I left the design team there!

So my card this week is actually an order (for mum again) for some friend's that are celebrating their golden wedding anniversary at the end of the month... all I had as a specific detail to include was their wedding photo.. which I received as a scanned copy of a scanned copy so not great quality by time I tried to print it out. In the end i managed to Photoshop it to good enough quality to get decent printouts where I could use each of their heads on the card.

My doubles for this challenge are: 2 gold bows, 2 die cut scalloped heart frames and 2 die cut swirl corner pieces.
The corners, frames and background were made using my BigShot (yes it's still my obsession after my sewing machine lol), for the background I rubbed a gold inkpad over it to catch the embossed sections. I love the gold hearts ribbon, nice little extra that I found whilst rummaging the local fabric shop again the other week.

Baby Bib Featured!

2011-07-19T21:28:00.002+01:00

Just had a comment from the lovely Macy of Confessions Of A Stay At Home Mummy telling me that she has featured my Baby Bib along with some other really cute baby related projects that have been linked up to the linky party so far today.

Please don't forget to stop by and like the Better Life Bags page on facebook and like my baby bib too, I'm still running in 2nd place and need all the likes I can by friday evening. This post gives you all the deatils you need and the links to click on.

Thanks everyone, and thanks especially to Macy!

Better Life Bags Pinterest Competition

2011-07-16T16:59:00.005+01:00

Ok, so I've entered the Better Life Bags Pinterest competition on Facebook and now I need some 'likes' on my piece to try to win me a Better Life Bag. 'Likes' can be done between now and the 22nd, so please 'like' my baby bib, click the photo below to be taken the photo you have to 'like'.

(P.S you will need to 'like' Better Life Bags in order to 'like' my photo)

Thanks all!!!!

Baby Bib Gift

2011-07-14T09:21:00.003+01:00

There are some brill tutorials and templates out there for making bibs for babies... like here and here. I tweeked the sizing a little bit to make mine a tad longer than the patterns.

I've used a teal blue dotty fabric and glittery white towel for the back piece, seeing as the gender of the baby this is for is unknown it made life much harder picking fabrics, what exactly counts as neutral nowadays? So with that in mind I hand drew a teddy on some felt, pieced, layered and then hand sew it onto the bib, everyone loves teddies right? I've used a small metal snap as the closure for the bib, just to make sure it's secure when being worn.

Now I just got to hope that my friends like it when I give it to them. If they do then I may just have to whip up more for other friends who are expecting soon!

Ok so now I have entered the bib into Better Life Bags Pinterest Challenge on Facebook and I need as many people as possible to like my baby bib in order to win a Better Life Bag. Please go like Better Life Bags on Facebook here and then like my photo here. Pretty pretty please with loads of cherries on top!

Crafty Creations Challenge - Boyz To Men

2011-07-13T12:07:00.004+01:00

This weeks challenge over at Crafty Creations is 'Boyz To Men', this is my chance to share my Fathers Day cards I made... ok so I don't have 3 dad's just to clear that one up... the blue and gold plane card is for my dad, the cyan plane for my boyfriend's dad and the Edwin magnolia stamp image was for his stepdad. Cards for blokes= nightmare.... making 3 blokes cards= my worst nightmare! So awkward to make something for guys, everything comes with flowers and girly colours... there's a real shortage of crafting things for guys who aren't into golf, fishing or football!

For my dad (thank god he's into planes and flying or I'd have zero ideas!)...

For his dad....

For his stepdad...

Featured Over At Aunt Pegs

2011-07-09T18:35:00.002+01:00

Wow I never thought 6 months after I posted anything on this blog that people would still be talking about it... but I'm wrong (for a change lol)! This morning I woke up to an email from Amber over at Aunt Peg's Handmade Jewelry and Treasures saying that today they were featuring me and one of my tutorials... can anyone guess which it is?

Yes it's the infamous Anthro Power of 3 knockoff I did back in January, if anybody missed it the tutorial is here.

Never though I'd see my work kicking around people's interest this long, to be honest I'm quite proud of myself for this tutorial it's been featured across quite a few blogs now and is on quite a few people's pinterest boards too.
So thanks to Aunt Peg's for featuring me!

Handmade Gift Exchange.. Pt 2

2011-07-08T19:36:00.002+01:00

So Handmade Gift Exchange part 2... here's what I received from the lovely Linda from View from the Hamster Wheel.

A cute floral camera pouch, with dotty lining and a dotty flower embellishment... now I don't know if I told Linda I had a dotty obsession or if my blog gave it away or maybe she just had a good guess.. I love it, my camera's living in it already.

2 cute brooches... 1 floral print flower and 1 made from gingham rosettes with 2 strands of pearls between them, you can just see them at the edge of the brooch (struggled to get photos of everything together showing everything I wanted to).
Now I just need to pick bags/coats to put them on... or maybe I just need to make myself new bags to embellish them with lol!

Thanks Linda I love my gifts :)

Handmade Gift Exchange

2011-07-07T15:25:00.005+01:00

A couple months ago I decided I was going to take part in Linda from Craftaholics Anonymous Handmade Gift Exchange. My partner was a lovely Scottish lady called LeeAnn from View From The Hamster Wheel, we chatted away via email about things and I learnt that she too doesn't own a posh slr camera just a point and shoot digi camera like me and she's scared of sewing zips into projects...

So with these thoughts in mind I decided to make her a zipper pouch/make up bag and a strap for her digicam.

The zipper pouch is made from a pale pink 7" zipper, white cotton lining and the funky pink print jersey... I actually bought too much of this fabric in overestimating how much I'd need so now I've got some for me to use in the future too :) Sewing this took some patience I had no idea how frustrating it is to sew jersey! I even finished off the zipper ends after seeing some easy tutorials to make the zipper look finished.
The camera strap is a funky red/pink floral pattern material a bit like a scarf... it actually came from my emergency stash of offcuts that Mum sent me from her last fabric shop trip.. while making this one I realised how quick and easy they were and made myself one out of an old scarf, but I'll show you that another day.

I'm glad LeeAnn likes her gifts and I'm glad I had such a lovely partner for my first swap, I shall have to play again next time!

Tomorrow I'll do a post on the gifts LeeAnn sent me

Crafty Creations Challenge - Thank You!

2011-06-30T12:15:00.002+01:00

Wow it's been a while since I've had a card to join in the Crafty Creations Challenge! This weeks theme is Thank You and I have a crad that fits the bill, this is actually for my Handmade Gift Exchange partner LeeAnn she won't have seen it yet so I hope it doesn't spoil the surprise too much!

For this card I've whipped out my favourite Forever Friends bear stamp and dug out the marvy le plume pens to colour him in. The papers are leftovers from the days that I was on the Kaboodle Doodle DT, shame I've lost all the digital copies of the papers but I had this little piece floating in my scraps box and had to use it!

I just love the bright colours on the card and the ribbon coz it's that funny crepe paper like material and is so easy to work with!

Anthro Inspired Pearl Headband

2011-06-30T10:49:00.005+01:00

This headband has been stored in my Ideas folder (crikey before the days of me being on Pinterest!) for ages, since March when Lindsay posted it on her blog Lee La La. The tutorial for it is here.
I spent ages wanting to make it, but it was worth the wait it's brillian, just need more excuses to wear it now... don't think I'd get away with wearing it to work though :(

So here's my Anthro inspired pearl headband...
And here's a (yet another posey, sorry!) photo of me wearing my fab new headband... I love it, a tad heavy but beautiful all the same!

Another Fascinating Fascinator

2011-06-23T16:34:00.006+01:00

In May I posted my fascinator refashion for going to Royal Ascot to the races with the girls (if you've forgotten my fascinator is here)... well after I finished mine one of my friends was struggling to find a fascinator that ticked every box for her. She wanted the right colours, a good size but most importantly it had to be on a separator clip not a headband or comb grip... So guess what happened...

I made her one!

Back to Claire's Accessories we went and ended up with the same fascinator that I bought but in ivory, then we went to the local fabric shop with her dress and found matching ribbon, feathers and a cute little butterfly for the centre to hide the stitches... Then came to the assembling... starting with carefully removing the fascinator from the headband, not as easy as I had hoped, and attaching it to a separator clip...then making it look awesome!

This is what we ended up with after an hour of working on it...

And as I promised a photo of me wearing my fascinator with the dress to give you the full effect of the outfit. The necklace was a refashion too, a cheapy black necklace from Primark that had been through the wars... only cost £2 in the sale and with some black spray paint and white paint it's interesting and blends with the dress...

So here's a photo of us together sporting the refashioned fascinators.... yes the stripes clash terribly we learnt to not stand next to each other in photos after this lol!

Chevron Earrings

2011-06-17T15:19:00.003+01:00

So it was nearly a month ago that I 'pinned' Jen from Craft-O-Maniac's chevron earrings for me to recreate... sadly revision and uni work got in the way too often so it's taken ages to get my pair finished.. a bit of taping out here and there, odd coat of paint, touch up, gloss and reassemble... but now my exams are over (ok so there's still a little bit of project work and an assignment to do) I have some of my free time back again, hurrah!!!!

Here's my finished pair of chevron earrings....

Seeing as I don't have a silhouette I had to use masking tape to create my chevrons so mine are pointed unlike Jen's wavy shaped chevrons... I'd love to say the centre black strip is deliberately wider but I didn't notice till after I'd finished painting, but hey at least both earrings have chunky black middles.. think I'll just pretend that's how I planned them to look lol!

Keep calm and have a cupcake!

2011-06-09T16:29:00.004+01:00

There must be keep calm and... well just about everything out there but I love this one the most.. Keep calm and have a cupcake!

I took an old tile, attached a hook to the back and rubber pads to stop it damaging the wall. Then I found some scrapbook paper that matched the pink of the keep calm image... a few coats of modpodge and hours later I have a completed tile to hang up in the kitchen above our heart chalkboard.

Sometimes I just wish i could keep calm and have a cupcake, especially as I'm now in panic with my uni exams less than a week away... but a cupcake would be breaking my diet regime :(

Blog Button!

2011-06-02T11:59:00.009+01:00

So I must be the slowest, lamest blog trying to get somewhere as I didn't have a blog button... till now that is! I've just finished photoshopping it and now I'm writing the html coding for it.

Yay, here's how it's going to look!

Update: coding is now done, it's all on the right hand side ready for you to grab! Happy Days!

Make up Bag Mk 2

2011-06-02T09:24:00.004+01:00

Here's make up bag mk2.. well actually it was mk1 I did it before mum's zipper make up bag but never got round to blogging it.. this one's mine and seems to be getting multipurposed, it's the perfect size for a make up bag or a small clutch for a night out.

I made it using Amie from Kitty Cats and Airplanes tutorial that she posted over on Better Life Bags back in January (here's the tutorial link).

I made the size dimensions suit me a little better than the original as my poor blackberry would have never fitted in with my purse or camera lol. I just love the chunky black button I found in my stash to seal the bag, think it's off an old coat I threw out years ago actually. Ok so the sewing isn't perfect but it was the first project I had a proper crack at when I bought the new sewing machine... I'm just chuffed that I made such a good job of the button hole, never done that before!

Blog Swap with Kassi From Truly Lovely

2011-06-01T23:12:00.002+01:00

Well today is the start of something new for me.. I'm having my first ever blog swap.. with none other than the lovely Kassi From Truly Lovely.. enough of me nattering I'll hand you over to Kassi....

I am SO excited to be blog swapping with the lovely Steph here today!!
If you're having Steph withdrawals (as I'm sure you are...)
You can visit her over on my blog, Truly Lovely,
today where she is guest posting as well!

In the meantime, I am Kassi from the blog Truly Lovely!

We are just over TWO WEEKS from our June wedding!!!
Right now much of my life and my blogs are consumed with wedding planning.... Trying to wrap up all the last minute details of course!

If you'd like to follow my wedding planning in more detail,

I have a 'just for the wedding' blog over here. :)

A wedding craft that I did just for me, just for fun, was my Bride Bag!

Every bride needs a handy little bag to carry around the wedding planning essentials!

So...

I am so excited to be able to share my Bride Bag tutorial with you today!
The same concepts can be applied to make a Momma Bag, Shopping Bag, or work tote!

Materials Needed:

Plain Tote

Sticky backed Vinyl or other stencil

Fabric Paint

Iron on embellishments (I used my wedding flowers, daisies)

Cute little craft iron... Or a regular iron will do ;)

(All these materials were Christmas gifts from my sweet sister, so thanks Miss Kayli for gifting me some awesome craft supplies!!)

First, I used my new Silhouette SD (Christmas gift from the hubs-to-be) to cut out the lettering, "Kassi's Bride Bag June 2011".

Next, I pulled the cutout lettering away from the vinyl sheet.

This became the stencil.

Then I peeled the backing off of the vinyl and stuck it to the tote.

*Tip - Sticky backed vinyl is great because once the backing is removed you can stick it onto pretty much anything and it'll last long enough to work as a stencil.

The only fabric paint I had at the time was puff paint... but that wasn't the look I was wanting for my bag... So I improvised...

I just used a small paint brush to brush the puff paint onto the stencil... I used pink and turquoise paint, my wedding colors of course!

It took a few coats of the puff paint to get it dark enough on the black tote to pop, but once I got those coats on, I just left it to dry overnight.

The next morning I simply peeled the vinyl stencil from the tote and walla, insta-tote wording!! :)

To spice it up a bit, I ironed on a few daisies (my wedding flower of choice) using my nifty little craft iron! (Again, thanks Kayli!)

The next, and final step is to fill your new Bride Bag with all the wedding planning essentials!!

In went my wedding planning notebook, wedding ring brochures, hand written guest list draft, and our engagement pictures CD.

I literally carry this bag with me everywhere I go!!

At less than two weeks til the wedding, it's so nice to have everything I need right on hand in my handy little Bride Bag!

This picture was taken by my Maid of Honor, Miss Kayli of course, after a LONG day of trying on wedding dresses!!!

As you can see, it'll wear a girl out! ;)

But the Bride Bag in tow means less stress for the bride-to-be!!!

Thanks again to Miss Steph for having me over!!! :)

Always happy to share with my bloggie besties!!!

Fascinator Refashion

2011-05-26T16:14:00.003+01:00

In a few weekends time the girls and I are heading off to Ascot for a day at the races (for my non UK readers, Ascot is a posh little town in Berkshire that's very expensive for everything, google it, it's lovely), so it's posh dresses and hats/fascinators all round! So after spending quite a bit on my dress I was reluctant to spend a further £50 for a fascinator seeing as it's not something I will probably wear very often after Ascot I decided to do it the thrifty way... also means I don't have the same fascinator from Debenhams as everyone else there lol.
I started by raiding all the charity shops for a basic black fascinator and failed miserably.. mum even tried although she confused one poor old lady who thought mum was asking to be fascinated rather than asking if they had fascinators lol! My dress is black and white stripes.. will add more pictures come the weekend in june.. so a simple monochrome fascinator is all I need.
I ended up with a cheap cute black fascinator from Claires Accessories and took it to my local fabric shop to buy some goodies to dress it up a bit.. I bought white ribbon with glittery edges, fluffy white feathers and a black+white flower to replace the rubbish plastic gem in the centre.
Here's the before and after shots of the fascinator...

..and because I know there will always be someone who wants to see it on, here's a photo of me total underdressed wearing my fascinator :)

Zipper Make-Up Bag

2011-05-19T12:34:00.003+01:00

Tuesday was my mum's birthday, so I thought today I'd share with you the zipper make-up I made her as her present. I found the tutorial for making this over at See Kate Sew. Mum was so impressed with ehrs that I'll be making more for her to give as gifts to her friends for their birthdays. Good thing I have a plethora of fabrics in many colours and patterns stashed away to amke some different ones in.
So this one is made from black lace, with a white silky layer behind it and then a silky thick, deep purple layer as the liner, which she can easily flip out to wipe out any mess without turning the whole bag inside out. quick, simple and mum loved it, what can I ask for?

1st 'proper' scrapbook page

2011-05-18T23:26:00.002+01:00

This weeks challenge over at Crafty Creations is to make something with a flower on it, a bit of ribbon and some patterned paper.. so I think this scrapbook page fits in perfectly with this :)
My patterned paper is the page, there's plenty of flowers on it and 2 different types of ribbon too!
It's the first ever non-digi scrapbook page I've made and although it was fun to do I prefer my digi, it's quicker, easier and doesn't take as long to find all the right elements to make the page work.. plus digi doesn't need a careful home to keep it safe lol!

Jujub Jersey Bracelet

2011-05-16T10:02:00.003+01:00

On my daily stalk of Ucreate on saturday I came across a fab tutorial on how to make a jersey rosette bracelet fraom the ladies over at JuJub, so as a break from doing my uni work I decided to make myself one... no doubt there will end up being more in many different colours too as they are great!

For mine I used an old thin knit scarf that I'm told by my boyfriend makes me look too studenty so I shouldn't be seen out with him wearing it... so it's being repurposed again into something that I can get away with wearing.. as if I'd throw one of my favourite scarves away permanently!

So here's my jersey rosette bracelet...

Clutch bag makeover (take 2)

2011-05-13T20:19:00.002+01:00

Seeing as blogger rudely deleted my post from yesterday of my clutch bag and didn't return it to my blog as their maintenance page informed me it would I'm having to repost it again!

So a small dilemma happened when I last wanted a black bag for night out.. my little black clutch bag looked sad, worn and well, hideous to be honest... in the end I changed my whole outift as I didn't want to be seen with such an awful looking bag. The other day I had a brainwave and thought I could make it over as it's only the outer fabric that's shabby.

And after a little bit of thinking and throwing fabrics out of the drawer this is what I came up with....

If you want have a go at this too then you'll need:

a clutch bag
complementing colour fabric
fabric flower
22 x 6mm beads
glue gun
scissors1. First I cut the lacy fabric off (this was the bit that was amking my bag look awful so it had to go). The fabric underneath is great and is the same as the fabric I used for the leaves to cover it.
2. Take your fabric and cut it into little pieces, one for every leaf. Make a small pile of fabric, draw a leaf on the top piece and cut it out, repeat till you have enough to cover the bag. (I needed 36 to cover my bag)
3. Start by glue gunning the first leaf at the bottom of the metal frame.

4. Continuing glue gunning the leaves along the bottom of the bag.
5. Continue by sticking leaves in layers that just about cover the top of the leaves on the layer beneath.
7. Glue the top layer as close to the metal frame as possible. Don't worry if there's a little glue overspill as the beads will cover this.
8. Start glueing the beads along the lower edge of the metal frame, removing excess glue before it dries.
9. Continue glueing beads on till there's enough along the frame to mirror the starting point on the opposite end. 10. Add the fabric flower as an embellishment and then the bag is finished!
Looks 100 times better than it did when I started and now I'm more than happy to take it out with me :) If the fabric flower isn't your taste then skip the last step as it still looks good without it, or perhaps add a different embellishment to suit the outfit you want it to go with.

Clutch Bag Makeover

2011-05-12T13:27:00.000+01:00

Just in case anyone missed it here's my bag makeover tutorial that was featured on Making The World Cuter at the end of April...

So a small dilemma happened when I last wanted a black bag for night out.. my little black clutch bag looked sad, worn and well, hideous to be honest... in the end I changed my whole outift as I didn't want to be seen with such an awful looking bag. The other day I had a brainwave and thought I could make it over as it's only the outer fabric that's shabby.

And after a little bit of thinking and throwing fabrics out of the drawer this is what I came up with....

If you want have a go at this too then you'll need:

a clutch bag
complementing colour fabric
fabric flower
22 x 6mm beads
glue gun
scissors1. First I cut the lacy fabric off (this was the bit that was amking my bag look awful so it had to go). The fabric underneath is great and is the same as the fabric I used for the leaves to cover it.2. Take your fabric and cut it into little pieces, one for every leaf. Make a small pile of fabric, draw a leaf on the top piece and cut it out, repeat till you have enough to cover the bag. (I needed 36 to cover my bag)3. Start by glue gunning the first leaf at the bottom of the metal frame.

4. Continuing glue gunning the leaves along the bottom of the bag.5. Continue by sticking leaves in layers that just about cover the top of the leaves on the layer beneath.7. Glue the top layer as close to the metal frame as possible. Don't worry if there's a little glue overspill as the beads will cover this.
8. Start glueing the beads along the lower edge of the metal frame, removing excess glue before it dries.
9. Continue glueing beads on till there's enough along the frame to mirror the starting point on the opposite end. 10. Add the fabric flower as an embellishment and then the bag is finished!
Looks 100 times better than it did when I started and now I'm more than happy to take it out with me :) If the fabric flower isn't your taste then skip the last step as it still looks good without it, or perhaps add a different embellishment to suit the outfit you want it to go with.

Lollystick bracelets

2011-05-07T21:55:00.003+01:00

Working through my pinterest board of ideas and again.... todays project was lollystick bracelets made using Suzy's tutorial over at Suzy's Artsy Craftsy Sitcom...

I didn't paint mine though, I chose mod podge and tissue paper to decoupage them instead :)

So here's my take on Suzy's tutorial...

Long Sleeve To Bow Cap Sleeve Top

2011-05-05T11:23:00.007+01:00

Here's another of my top refashions from the clothing spree I seem to be on at the moment... this one's made using a tutorial from Emma over at Ruby Murray..

Found myself a long sleeve stripy top in the New Look sale for £4 qhen I was shopping for some simple summer tops and knew I had to get it so I could try this refashion, it's been sitting on my Pinterest board staring at me for a while now...

Didn't quite follow the tutorial exactly, I left the stage of sewing the scrap from the cuff round the neckline as my top already had a pretty good collar anyway.
Even got a photo of me wearing the top as well...

Linking up to the parties on the party page and Gluesticks