Plenty of Purses

 There's been lots of purse orders over the last few months, certainly kept me busy!

 Black lace with hot pink cotton lining

Midnight blue lace with silver satin lining and hot pink lace with silver satin lining

These cute ones are doubling up as prayer pouches too.

In July I completed a Hen Do order where everyone got a purse with a personalised hen night label inside. The wedding colourscheme was midnight blue and ivory so I used that for the purses. This is the Bride's purse, she got the full size purse with scissor zipper pull as she's a hairdresser.

The rest of the hens got the smaller size purses which still fit in a pair of reading glasses or credit cards, keys and lippy.

Ivory lace with midnight blue satin lining

Smaller version of the brides purse, midnight blue lace with ivory satin lining

And here's the completed Hen Do order all together

Card Orders

 Been a long time again since I last posted but it means I have a lot of things to share... So I'll start with all the custom cards I've made in recent months.. some as orders and some we gave to our friends and family.

40th birthday for a friend

 

1st birthday for an order, colourful with bob the builder layered up

Order for a little boys christening card

Wedding card order for a couple mad on the London Irish rugby team

50th birthday order, hand drawn Harley Davidson with a butterfly incorporated into the paintwork

Daisy birthday card for our friend daisy

Nautical theme birthday card for my Grandad

30th birthday card for a friend who wanted to forget his age

Tuxedo wedding card for an order

30th birthday card for an order, dj decks with a Jamaican colourscheme

Dino birthday card for my boyfriend's birthday

MIL's birthday card

18th birthday card order for a judo mad lad

Wedding card for some of our friends whose colourscheme was midnight blue

Gift Exchange Time Again

So once again I've been a terrible blogger I know but finishing my degree kinda took over life... but now..... IT'S OVER !!!!!!! Back to blogging and crafting freely once again :)
To get myself back into the swing of things I signed up for the Gift Exchange over at Craftaholics Annonymous which I've done before, but this time there's a twist the person I'm making for doesn't make something for me, somebody totally different does so it's a bit more of a surprise for everyone!   My partner told me she liked bold prints, buttons and vintage things, with purses bags and scarves being on her list of loves.... so I've made her a zipper pouch using vintage butterfly print fabric with black satin lining and a flower brooch made with some vintage trim... all from a vintage retro fair last summer. fingers crossed she likes them and they arrive safely soon :) 

    

Ladies Night Stall

So a few weeks ago I did a stall at a Ladies Pamper Night at a local preschool fundraising event. Thought I'd share a few photos of how my stall looked.

 

  Managed to get myself quite a few useful props as well to make the table a little more interesting... the glass top jewellery box and the vinyl record display stands I used for the sweets.

 

 The sign made by the guys at work came back out again and I even whipped up a quick 'find me on facebook' poster to hang from the front of the stand as my business cards were made before I started the facebook page.

 The most popular item by far had to be the homemade chocolate truffles and coconut ice.. they went down a storm and the display stands got quite a few compliments too... well impressed that my £3 make was so well received... not bad for some charity shop vinyl records and end of line candle holders!

Christening Flags

 Ok so I know it's been an awful long time since I blogged, just been having one of those 'is it worth me blogging, what's the point?' moments and I've decided I do need my blog as so many of you that I chat with haven't yet ventured over to my facebook page to keep in touch, I miss you guys!

So anyway uni is still dragging on (only 3 months to go!) but I'm still trying to fit in orders and craft stalls when I can.... Here's an order that I got shipped out over the weekend for a lovely lady who wanted 50.. yes 50... of my celebration flags for her Godson's Christening..

Started off  with a couple of samples to iron out all the kinks and agree on the perfect design...

I even had an excuse to go out and buy an aeroplane shaped punch, love it!

 Have you ever hand tied 50 little 6" ribbon bows before? Neither had I but boy did my fingers hurt afterwards! Not to mention how silly did I look at work, fixing seats on a 767 with a little bag of bows that I'd been tying sat in my tooltray all evening so I could tie a couple when I had a spare moment lol.

Here's how the pile looked just before Mum helped me package them all up, she loves wrapping presents so she was ideal for the job...

...Just heard that they arrived with the lady yesterday and she's over the moon with them, so I'm glad to hear that, another happy customer of Southern Fairy Designs :)

Button Earrings

 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

 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

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

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

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!