You can never have too many sketchbooks.

Another installment in a recent crafting spree saw us having a go at an idea I saw on Wise Craft. We used bondaweb to cover moleskin cahiers with fabric, very simple and effective! Will definitely be making more.

On the left the fabric is 'Martini Mustard' by Amy Butler, a fabric I've used in other projects like my door stop, on the right is 'Floral Swirl' by Erin McMorris, both were bought from Isabelle and Kate's Fabrics, a great shop on Folksy which offers a range of interesting fabrics, it's hard to choose which to buy!

On another note, we were lucky enough to bag some free tickets to the Lincolnshire Show, a great traditional show for our county, I think this year was the 125th. It's a mix of tractors, stunt motorcycle displays, food stalls and animals. We packed a picnic consisting of homemade potato salad, garlic chicken done in a chicken brick (would definitely recommend to anyone!), vegan brownies and fresh berries. We even took meringues! This year however we took a look at a part not visited before- the flower display tent and were completely blown away by some of the displays, mainly the alliums.

The zesty green against the deep plum is my current favourite colour combination of late, I'd wear it if I could but I'd look like a flower so I'm trying to use it in my designs.

A hard day's work!

Yesterday Tasha and I spent an afternoon requainting ourselves with our sewing machines and the fruits of our labours were a pair of sand filled door stops and a pair of big button cushions.

We laughed, we nearly cried (many stabs from needles) but we had a great time and were very happy with our slightly imperfect makes.

Here the table is set for our crafting, sewing machines fired up, wonky circles cut from the material for the cushion covers. Twenty minutes later we'd only just got sewing after a few machine malfunctions. Note the cactus pin cushion Tasha had made, it definitely got put to the test and was great!

Amid cries of 'it's got corners, why??!' we turned our covers the right way round and drew on our buttons and stuffed our cushions, I like to think the wonky lines just add to the handmade charm! The cactus got in on the photos again.

Next we attacked the door stops and stitched our inners out of a thick sack-like material. We realised afterwards that making a net for the pattern instead of individual panels would've been a lot less time consuming but the power of hindsight eh?! We both almost forgot to leave a hole to put the sand in, mine ended up down one side which wasn't very clever, then we both sat with dessert spoons stuffing the sand in.

Here is my inner sack ready to be covered next to Tasha's finished door stop, note the luxurious padded handle!

And here are the pair together, mine is on the left, covered in Amy Butler's "Martini Mustard" material from her Midwest Modern Line, bought from Isabelle and Kate's Fabrics on Folksy.

Tasha's door stop on the right is covered in a repurposed pillowcase from an Ikea duvet set, she used the duvet cover for her gigantic beanbag project. We're gradually working our way through our respective lists of things to make, I just hope we both remember to go back to uni in September!

Stool saga part 2.

Yesterday Tasha and I went bargain hunting, she got a very cheap table and I bought the foam I wanted to recover my very sorry looking blanket box, I also had to steel myself against buying a sewing box in a charity shop, good job I didn't have enough cash!

Anyway here's the pathetic blanket box-

The 'reupholstering' it had was not particularly nice, the staples were sticking out in places! So off it came and the frame needed a bit of tlc, I had to hammer some nails back in and one of the corners needed glueing as the joint had come apart. Here it is drying with a clamp on, my beloved car is unwittingly being used to lean it against!

Next to that in the garage is the frame from my first stool purchase which I'm just finishing sanding, then it will be oiled and reunited with the seat pad which I have covered, I'll save that until it's finished.

I've been having quite a textiles obsession lately since going to IKEA and buying some of the beautiful bird print Cecilia fabric for £1.99 p/m. I also splashed out on some Lena fabric too while I was there and recently snapped some more up on eBay, on the right in the pic, as I don't often get chance to go to IKEA and if I do it's always an expensive trip! Also in the pic is a pillow case Tasha gave me to amend to fit a small pillow, top left, and below that are two pieces of fabric I bought from Isabelle and Kate's Fabrics on Folksy. I've been planning to try covering some Moleskine Cahiers with fabric and I think the yellow and grey piece may end up involved.

Finally, for this post anyway, I have somewhat of a cactus obsession. I've been collecting a few cacti and succulents but a clear favourite has emerged, purely because it seems to have grown at least an inch every time I look at it. This is my prize prickly pear, which needs repotting as it had an accident in the car on the way home from the garden centre and fell out, as did most of it's soil, but despite that it has sprouted. I don't know a lot about them but I'm hoping it grows to be pretty big.

Spurred on by my cactus obsession and a search online I'd been wanting to make a cactus pincushion for some time and finally got round to it this week, infecting my friend Tasha with the bug too, you can see hers on her blog here. My next plan is to make a prickly pear one, but I need to get some purple felt first, then I'm thinking maybe a little bunch of cacti on a wrist band for mobile sewing and then ......

More on this and more shrinkle-ing later.

Fabric attack!

I've been hoarding fabrics lately and have had to come to the conclusion that they must be used, keeping them in a box and occasionally getting them out and refolding them is just mean. So I've decided on a few things I wanted to use them for and the main thing is to recover a few stools and boxes.

Poor hideous black vinyl stool- not for long!

I picked up this sorry looking fellow for a mere £1 from a local carboot sale, I was looking for a stool and this was really the only one I found but I'm really pleased with the design and the wood is an attractive one in good condition. I started to take it apart as soon as I got home. The plan is to sand and oil the frame and reupholster the cushion. Watch this space for a finished pic.

I also recently aquired an old blanket box for £1 (must be a lucky amount for me), it's a very tatty looking thing, badly covered and it's plywood so I think it will have to be painted, I hate painting wood but this is okay. Once that is finished I will have somewhere nice to store my fabrics while they wait to be used, plus I keep ordering more which I'll put pics of on here soon.

Small stool/box with hinged lid, soon to be beautified!

I also got a small stool/box from a charity shop, not for a pound but cheap enough, that will be revived and tomorrow I'm going to collect an eBay purchase of a more modern blanket box that I'm hoping will recover nicely for my sister who wants a smaller blanket(/toy) box (+ padded = 8 month old starting to crawl friendly!) to go in her gorgeous redecorated lounge. I'll keep you posted on the progress.

Folksy fun.

I've been a bit loathe to post when I don't feel like I've much to show but I think maybe I should

just do more then I can post more often!

There has been alot of planning going on of late, I decided I wanted to start a shop on Folksy when I discovered it was a UK alternative to Etsy.

The things I was thinking of selling needed to be quite simple to make so that they wouldn't take up all my summer (which is supposed to be spent doing dissertation research!). So I came to buy some shrink plastic which I remember fondly from my childhood. I had a few goes with an idea in mind of the sort of thing I wanted then I took some sheets to a friend's house and fellow blogger Tasha and co, all had a go, the results were really interesting!

Group efforts.

Original 'Temporary gems' idea.

Brooch with my signature 'Trees' design.

'Forest' necklace idea.

The 'Temporary Gems' I'm going to make a range of based on different stone cuts, they're temporary in that they're credit crunch gems and perhaps can be upgraded to the real thing in the future!

The 'Trees' are based on a pattern I made for my course and I'm going to make a range of jewellery with combinations of the sizes. I've listed a brooch on my Folksy shop to start with, there'll be more soon.