January Make #3

I have had a very productive January and am very pleased to have completed 3 makes. I didn't have any real New Year's resolutions but did see it as an opportunity to push myself a little and try some new things. In my pursuit of inspiration and advice I have found some lovely felter's blogs which led to me to my third monthly make, a felted vessel.

Isn't that felt just a gorgeous colour? I am absolutely in love with it - it's the raspberry chocolate felting wool I showed you a couple of posts ago and it is a dream to felt.
I found instructions on how to make this vessel using a 2d resist on a lovely blog called rosiepink! They are a mother and daughter team who run a business and blog all about their felting. They have some very inspirational ideas and a few tutorials, one of which was instructions for a 'felt pod'. I have only made a couple of felted vessels before and, being very honest, found them a bit of a pain, but I was amazed at how easy this method is. 
I added the flowers and pebbles as part of a Valentine's theme.

I made the flower stems by felting over pipe cleaners and added needle felted heart-shaped petals and finished the flowers with shiny shell buttons.
I have wanted to make felted pebbles since finding the instructions for them in a copy of Making magazine last Spring. These were really easy to do and I finished the white one with a small needle felted heart, which I did very carefully at angle so I didn't break the needle!

So, I still haven't had a go at that book cover yet, but it is on my 'to do' list and at least I'm not adding to the WIP list so that's something!

I have ordered a new felting book which I am very excited about. I'm hoping it will be here in time for half-term so I can have a go at some of the projects, but as it is coming from Hong Kong I might have to wait a little longer than that.

Hope you are all enjoying your weekends. We did a super walk around the local reservoir this morning, fed the ponies on the way, had a bacon roll and carrot cake at the water sports centre and the children played in the park on the way back! So now we have all flaked on the sofa! Happy days!

I'm off to start tea then have a little hooky time planned!

Becky x

Edited to add:

Forgot to say thank you for your suggestions for fastenings on my last post. I am definitely planning to try some of them out. Thank you!

January Make #2

Mid-January and I have completed my second make of the month! I gave you a little peak in my last post, but now I've had some time to play with it...


Some white splashy needle felted waves, glass beads and shell buttons. I used blue hemp cord to sew them on and added french knots as I went.

I must admit, I really enjoyed making this one. It has taken an age to stitch and I will never make any money selling these, but they are great to make ;)

I have used velcro again for the closure, but I want to try something different for my next one.  It needs to be easy to open and close and durable. Mmmmm...Any ideas?

Meanwhile, I think I will take a short break from mobile cases and try something else for my next project. I have lots of notebooks which I would like to personalise, so the next felting project could be a notebook cover. I also want to make some heart brooches for Valentines day.

There are 82 of us sharing our Monthly Makes on Flickr now. Why don't you pop over and take a look at the amazing things people have been making? Or even better, join us and show off your makes too!

The new year prompted me to look back through my blog at all the posts I had done last year. I have friends and family that really don't get the attraction in writing a blog, but for me I have a wonderfully colourful record of a busy 2011 and some really kind and supportive comments from all of you. Then I realised, it's been nearly a year since my first post. A bloggerversary is approaching and, yes, I want to celebrate it! So, watch this space as I will soon be having a giveaway to say thank you for following my crafty chitty-chattah and leaving those comments that make me smile.

Wishing you all a lovely, craft-filled week,

Becky x

New Year, New Felting Projects

Happy New Year to you all! I hope it brings you health, wealth and prosperity - and, most importantly, happiness.

I have abstained from New Year's resolutions, but have started as I mean to go on with my felting - lots more of it!

So, another two mobile phone covers have been felted! Here is the first of the two.

I had made a prefelt from the gorgeous strawberry sundae fibres I put in my last post and, once dried, used my sizzix machine to cut flowers from it. 

 A plain citrus green felt was used for the first two layers and then the final layer was added using the lovely green wool and silk fibre mix. Finally, the flowers were laid on top and it was all felted together.

It was quite large at this stage, pencil case size, but as it was felted it shrunk down considerably.

Once dry, I cut one end to create an opening and hand embroidered it with french knots and and back stitching to accent the flowers.The closure is made with baby velcro. It has smaller loops so it doesn't snag on the felt.

The felt is quite thick so it should protect a phone well from bumps and knocks. It would fit most mobiles, here shown with my Blackberry and my husbands iphone.

 A few close-ups and back shot:

I haven't finished the other cover yet. I'll give you a little peek...

A definite sea theme for this one!

So, I have already completed my monthly make for January and posted it on Flickr in the Monthly Make - January group. Others have been busy too so don't forget to pop over for a look!

I am enjoying doing some wet felting after needle felting so many brooches before Christmas.

There are now so many projects that I want to try: bags, felted silk nuno scarves, vessels, flowers and maybe even some baby shoes. I'm not sure where to begin but being signed up to the monthly makes will get me into gear for achieving some of these.

Two flowers to go on the Japanese cowl - a tah-da is on the horizon!

Have a lovely weekend,

Becky x

Monthly Make 2012 and Time to Craft!

I hope you have all had a wonderful Christmas.
After lots of preparations, celebrations and entertaining (thank goodness for the dishwasher!) I have finally paused for breath and a bit of crochet, felting and blogging.
Aaaahhhhhhh..... there's the the pause...... and it feels good! Even better when accompanied by by a fresh latte and homemade lemon cake!

I've joined Annie The Felt Fairy 's Monthly Make 2012 and joined the flickr group to share our makes.

I'm really excited about it! I have loved following some other blogger's monthly makes and I'm sure it will motivate me to get creating!  Why don't you join us - the more the merrier!

I have made a little more progress with the Japanese flower cowl, 14 flowers so far (almost!) and I'm aiming for 20-24. Here it is with 13 flowers (no. 14 still on the hook!).

I have a new winter coat that it will look amazing with if I can get it finished before Spring!

I also want to get this done so I can go back to my little (hem, hem) ripple crochet blanket. It has been weeks since I have added any new rows and I'm really quite missing it. Too may projects, too little time.

I received two new crochet books for Christmas. I knew they were going to be good as so many of you have recommended them on your blogs and given me a sneaky preview into their contents.

I haven't seen this scarf in any of the previews however and have completely fallen in love with it.

Yesterday a spot of wet felting was done and it did feel good to get my hands all soapy with the fluffy stuff. I forgot to share my new supplies with you, didn't I?!
Here are my lovely new fibres.

OK, in the bag doesn't show off their beauty at all so here are a few pics out of the bag!

Spring Green - a merino tops and silk mix

Strawberry Sundae - a merino tops and silk mix

Raspberry Chocolate - a merino tops blend (good enough to eat!)

Lagoon - a merino tops blend

White, turquoise, deep turquoise and citrus merino tops 

Damson - a rich purple dyed merino top

All gorgeous. I haven't used any yet, I'm saving them for some special projects - don't know what yet! I also couldn't resist this Gillian Gladrag kit which had been reduced from £25 to £16.

She is a brilliant felter. I have one of her books and follow her blog - quite inspirational.
Yesterday's felting was a little experiment I have wanted to do for ages. My Mum's birthday is mid-January and I noticed that she has a raggedy old cover on her new iphone so I thought I would have a go at felting one. What do you think?

I used a blue shell button and elastic for the closure. The lining is bright pink like the ring around the turquoise spots. It's beautifully soft and quite thick so it should protect the phone well.

Well, I have rambled on for long enough now, thank your for your patience and well done for making it to the end of this blog post!

Hope you are all finding some post-festivities time for a little crafting too!

Becky x

Happy Holidays and The Liebster Blog Award

Holidays are here- HOORAY! I am quite organised on the Christmas front this year so I am hoping to be able to find a little time for some crafting. I have some lovely new supplies and several projects to finish so I won't be bored!

I promised I would pass on the Liebster blog award in my next post so here goes...

First up, Twinkle Star of Twinkles, Tutus and Twirls for her brilliant 'Tutorial Tuesday'. She is a source of endless ideas - where do you get your inspiration?!

Secondly, a blog I am quite a new follower of, Cute and Cosy by Claire. She shares some lovely patterns that she has found and tried on ravelry.

Well, I am left with one little robin brooch after making 11 reindeer, 8 robins and 5 xmas puddings, so that's quite good going! It has paid for my latest order of wool tops which I can't wait to get my hands on! All very soft and gorgeous - promise to share in my next post.
I also need to share my progress with Japanese flower cowl with you which is coming along quite nicely.

Hope you enjoy the rest of your week.
Becky x

T'is The Season... To Be Busy!

Oh my! Are you finding it hard to keep on top of everything at the moment? I love this time of year, but it doesn't half leave you feeling exhausted. By the time Christmas Eve comes I will just want to flake in a chair and sleep for a week!

I have sold lots of christmas brooches in the last couple of weeks, some through folksy and quite a few at work. Next year I'm going to try and get started making them a little earlier.

I hadn't sold anything on Folksy for ages and then all of a sudden I sold 5 brooches and a necklace. I thought I was on a roll, then they went and changed the Folksy site... is anyone else disappointed with the changes? Don't get me wrong, I like their ethos and the site looks great, but I'm not sure the new categories or searches are working for me and you can't tag your items in the same way as before. I can't even tell if people are looking at my items as they have taken the 'views' feature away and I haven't got time to work out google analytics at the moment.

A few weeks ago I received a blog award from the lovely Emma of Sweet Williams.

I am particularly grateful and surprised considering I feel I have been a little neglectful of my little blog recently. I hope to catch up a bit over the Christmas break. So a huge thank you to Emma and I will pass this award on to some deserving blogs in my next post.
If you didn't know, she has opened a fantastic little shop on line 'Sweet WIlliams - handmade soft furnishings, cards and gifts', pop over and have a look!

Twinkle Star of Twinkles, Tutus and Twirls has received my decoration swap goodies and has blogged about them tonight, so pop over and see what I made - all very 'pink', I had so much fun!

Hope you have a great week.
Becky x

Decoration Swap Goodies

Quite a while back I signed up to a Christmas decoration swap organised by Hookin' With Laalaa. She paired me up with the lovely Twinkle Star of Twinkles, Tutus and Twirls blog. We sent each other several messages about likes and dislikes and agreed a theme. My theme for making was 'pink' and Twinkles star's was 'traditional'.

So the weeks passed and soon I received a message to say my parcel was ready and winging it's way to me! I quickly finished the last of my bits, wrapped them all up and posted them off. When Twinkle Star's parcel arrived the excitement was HUGE! ...and so was the parcel! (Twinge of doubt at this point - will my goodies be good enough?)

Twinkle Star had put so much love and care into the choosing, making and wrapping of every single gift, I was really quite overwhelmed.

My first parcel was the decoration itself...

A beautiful twig wreath wrapped in red organza ribbon and decorated with wooden hearts, and poinsettias and the letters FP - fluff pot! There were also some other letters and spare pegs, MC for Merry Christmas and JF for the Johns Family!

Two packs of assorted fibres which I can't wait to use with my felting.

A beautiful handmade necklace and brooch.

A sweet little birdie decoration (bagsied by Lulus for her room!). I LOVE the curly ribbon on it's head!

A gorgeous felt stocking from John Lewis (so spoilt - big twinges of 'oh no, I really should have tried harder' now).

Some yummy nibbles. I'm not sure that chocolate dipped marshmallow on the spoon will make it to a cup of hot chocolate!

A scented candle and santa playing cards.

A winter pamper kit filled with an amazing selection of goodies.

I'm looking forward to snuggling up on the sofa and wearing those fluffy socks!

And finally a HUGE box of thorntons chocolates - yum, yum!!!

SPOILT, SPOILT, SPOILT!

Now I am really feeling very inadequate! I did put a lot of thought, time and care into my gifts but I'm not sure they are going to live up to Twinkle Stars superb efforts. I want to say a massive thank you to Twinkle Star for being such an amazing swap partner and an apology for my tardiness in replying to emails. You've been a real star!

Hope you are all enjoying your week. I'm very excited as we are decorating our tree tomorrow! I think I love the festivities more than the children!

Becky x