Running through fields.

This Saturday my baby sister and I spent the whole afternoon running through fields and through woodland taking hundreds of photographs. Here are just a few of the images we came away with. It's so lovely to shoot portraits again, it's been so long!

Yes, she's wearing the BEAUTIFUL leaf dress that a friend made me last year. 

♥

Cheeeeeers Becki ♥

Sweet, simple, lovely wooden and vintage lace bunting necklace. I LOVE this, so so much! The laser cut flags were a gift from the wonderful Becky Button, and I pieced them together one evening not long ago. I'm becoming ridiculously obsessed with bunting. What with the bunting note cards I made earlier this month, I even made another bunting related craft for my 30 days of creativity which I'll be sure to blog about soon!

Stash-busting Cupcake Brooches!

I don't know about you, but my overflowing stash boxes are getting a little bit out of hand. It's getting to the point of it taking me 10 minutes to remember where I've actually put something in my studio. Possibly the worst culprit is my scrap stash. Boxes - Drawers - Bags. They're everywhere. There is literally stuff - EVERYWHERE.

So in an attempt to scale down the ever growing colossal mountain range of stuff, starting small I came up with these little free machine embroidered applique cupcake brooches. The fabric used in these came straight out of one of these super-amazing Japanese fabric scrap bags from The Eternal Maker, backed with felt with a pin sewn to the back.

I think these are pretty nifty! What scrap stash-busting projects have you done? ♥

Oh, hello MOO!

THEY HAVE ARRIVED! Yes, that's right. My MOO rounded corner business cards have made it all the way from moo headquarters in London, straight into my hands and I'm so so happy with them! Look at the loveliness! They arrived 3 days early too. I'm not sure if I'll be able to give any out now though, I want to keep them all for myself!

 Do you want some MOO cards of your own? ♥

Odd things

OK ok ok, I have a huge stack of handmade bits and pieces to show you all in the next few days from my 30 days of creativity, I'm not going to go through all of them as some I haven't photographed properly and some aren't exactly blog-worthy.. Anyway, I'm going jump right in and start with day 7. 

Now, for day 7 I created what I can only describe as (one of) the oddest looking things I have ever made, and I've made many, many odd looking things in my time.. This odd thing came From a 1965 Simplicity rag doll pattern I found hiding in my pattern drawer. I've always wanted to sew a rag doll but after this little incident I'm not sure if I want to sew any more..

 

FEATURE - Peculiar Forest

Not too long ago I was lucky enough to get my little paws on this beautiful cherry blossom pendant, hand pierced by Peculiar Forest's own hands in copper, hanging from an oxidized sterling silver chain. If you're not familiar with Peculiar Forest then read on, because we've done a lovely little interview for you!

Look, look, isn't it beautiful! Want your own? You will find an abundance of beautiful jewels in her etsy shop so I urge you to go and take a look!

(Psst - She even takes custom orders!)

TUTORIAL - Decorated Memo Pegs

Got lots of note pages with important scribbles on? Drawings? Photos waiting to go into albums? Recipes waiting to go into books? Ribbons? Samples? Phone numbers? Need somewhere to keep them safe until they have a home? 

Yes? 

Then this super-simple tutorial is for you! 

For day 6 of 30 days of creativity I 'borrowed' some wooden pegs from the peg bag and gave them a little spruce up.

Floral Crown.

Wire, floral tape, artificial flowers and a bit of bending, and this is what you get. For day five of 30 days of creativity I made a floral crown. I can't wait to use it in a lovely summery photo shoot some time this year! Fun, easy to make and adaptable. 

 Butterflies next time? ♥

TUTORIAL - Bunting Note Cards.

My first full day back home after my wonderful break in Dorset, sat in my studio surrounded by boxes, bags and drawers of all my 'stuff'. Aah precious 'stuff' how I missed you! Day four's project for 30 days of creativity was a simple set of bunting note cards. 

They weren't exactly rocket-science to make, but as I'm feeling generous today I thought I'd write you a tutorial so you can make your own.

Recycled Silk Sari Ribbon Nautical Jewellery Wrap.

Day Three of 30 days of creativity. I love plaiting things. In fact, the only thing I can't really plait is my own hair because I can't quite get to grips with the whole backwards-upside-downiness of it (I WILL learn one day!). Plaiting fabric though I definitely can do, and I love making these jewels so much I've got a whole load in my back-up stock, and a few in my shop!

This one was created using recycled silk sari ribbon. If you don't know what sari ribbon is then all I can say is this: you need some in your life and whilst we're on the subject, sari yarn is also mighty beautiful - I can't knit or crochet and even I have some!

I picked out and cut three strands that complimented one another (in this case, turquoise & golden, red & white striped and chequered navy & cream). I secured one end in a loop, plaited my way down the strands, secured the other end in a loop and added a glass cross pendant. Sure, for my nautical-themed jewellery wrap I think an anchor, boat or seashell charm would have looked better but I couldn't find any in my stash and the glass cross had not long arrived in the post amongst dozens of other 'things' I've ordered for no specific reason other that 'it was shiny and I wanted it'. It just seemed to 'go', so on it went.

 

The longer these are, the more uses they have. This one measures  26 inches so it can be worn as a bracelet, anklet, necklace or anything else you can think of! Lovely ♥

Origami Butterfly Garland.

Day two of 30 days of creativity was slightly more thought out than day one. For a start, I sort of knew what I wanted to do, all I needed was a sheet of wrapping paper and some string. Sounds simple, right? Do you think a single shop in Wareham sold string? Twine? Cotton? Shop keepers were looking at me as though I was asking for magic beans and by the time I'd rushed around all the shops being told I wouldn't find any string there, it was too late to buy wrapping paper as all the shops had shut. So I went back to the house minus my two vital (and only) components necessary for my project.

Raking around in the house looking for inspiration again, I managed to find a little brochure with pretty images throughout it's pages and found a needle and thread in a drawer. Excellent! I poured myself a glass of wine, sat out in the garden admiring the beautiful view with the sun setting to the wonderful sound of birdsong and Daughter.

 

I cut out nine squares from the pages of the brochure and started folding little origami butterflies. I've never really tried origami before, but I wanted to try something new and I'm so glad I did!

After all nine butterflies had been folded I hand stitched through their middles one by one creating a little garland to hang in the house/garden etc. I was really pleased with how this project turned out given the failures earlier that day trying to gather my materials!

♥ Origami

A photo of a photo of a photo.

The first day of my '30 days of creativity' was a tricky one. After working in the morning I had to run to the train station with a little hold-all filled with all my essentials and hopped on a train to Wareham, Dorset for a mini-break with my family. This meant that I had to pack light and I deliberately chose not to pack anything specifically to 'do', but gave myself the task of improvising for day one, two and three of the project to keep me thinking on my feet.

Fine, I thought - without giving a second thought as to just how much 'stuff' we were going to be doing in Dorset (I'd even been down there the weekend before so should have already known I'd need a plan what with all the 'stuff' we were busy filling the days with then, too)! The only chance we all had time to sit down was when we got back to the house in the evening to have dinner, and then passed out on the sofa for a bit until we were all so tired we had to go to bed!

I tried to do some drawing to begin with. I was sketching a cheeky looking pony with it's tongue poking out, using reference from a photograph I'd taken earlier in the day via my camera's LCD screen. Not ideal, I know but it was the best I could do!