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? ♥

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!

30 days of creativity

After reading Becky Button's blog post, I have officially pledged to @createstuff that for each day of June I will create 'something'! As scary as it sounds, I'm actually pretty excited to see what I come up with! Particularly on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd when I won't be at home and have to pack light, I will be creating on-the-move so that should prove to be rather umm.. interesting! I'll need a serious plan of action for these three days but for the rest of the month I'm hoping to just go with the flow and am really excited to see what I come up with!

Why not jump on the bandwagon and join in with #30daysofcreativity? Take a look at the website to find out more about it and how to get involved and if like me you are a little skeptical/scared, Here are 30 reasons to participate. 

Good luck! Let me know if you're joining me! ♥