Back to blogging

I have been unable to blog or craft for a little while as life seems to have got really very busy and stressful in the last month, but I am back and this post is a little late but I would like to thank the lovely karen for nominating my blog for an award. The award is for blogs with less then 200 followers, Im really pleased that she considered my blog good enough as I am still pretty new to all this.

The idea is that you pass the award on to 5 other blogs so here is my list of my favorite blogs which have less then 200 followers.

1) http://handmadebylou-lou.blogspot.com/
2) http://2pawprints.blogspot.com/
3) http://alcoholinky.blogspot.com/
4) http://anjenicgibson.blogspot.com/
5) http://skippereva.blogspot.com/ 

WOYWW 1st February

Sorry for the delay with posting my desk this week, haven't had a chance to look at Julias Blog yet but can't wait to look at what everyone has been working on later today.

This week on my desk I have some crafty goodies which Lou from http://handmadebylou-lou.blogspot.com/ sent me in the post. Crafters are such a nice bunch of people and I really was over the moon to receive such a great variety of stuff from Lou as a beginner I haven't worked with many embellishments or die cuts yet so am very excited to see what I can get making with all this wonderful stuff.

Hopefully will be making some cards this evening so should be posting a few in the next few days, keep your eyes peeled :)

Mini Cross Stitch

I love cross stitch but so far I have found that I don't have the patience for the bigger pieces so stick to small patterns that are fairly easy to complete.

I have a friend who is completely crazy about birds, she loves them and anything to do with them so when I saw a cross stitch of a little chick with a worm in my local craft shop a few weeks ago I bought it straight away.

I managed to complete the whole cross stitch in about 4 hours which I don't think is too bad for a beginner. I haven't decided what I am going to do with the cross stitch yet I want to make it into either a cool pressie or card for my bird crazy friend. I will have to get my thinking cap on.

Time....

I wish there was more time in a week. In the last couple of days work has been super busy so I haven't found as much time to craft as I would like. I have so many ideas buzzing around my head but haven't had chance to get properly working on any of them which is so frustrating. Does anyone else find this any super solutions for really portable crafts that could be done on the commute to and from work?

One of the ideas I have been floating around is doing something creative with some of my photos, I love to travel and am lucky enough to have been to some amazing places all over the world. I love to take photos much to the annoyance of my traveling companions so usually end up with hundreds of pictures from each place. I thought about scrapbooking these photos but I'm not sure I would re look at the books very often I was thinking of doing some sort of wall art framed montage type thing ( a bit vague I know any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated)

I thought I would end this post with a few of my favorite pics from this years travels which included a tour of Morocco and a Rhine Cruise.

WOYWW 25th January

Last week I managed to get around to about 80 of the other desks, and loved looking at the huge range of stuff on them so many ideas flowing for things I want to make and things I want to buy. It's really great that so many people visited my blog too, as someone fairly new to craft its brilliant to get so many lovely comments, tips and advice from other crafters.

Inspiration from Making Magazine

Felt! 

My desk this week has been filled with a whole array of needle-craft materials as you can see. I was inspired by a project in Making magazines January issue and decided to give it my own twist. I have been making a felt flower decoration but decided to make them into flower people as a fun desk decoration.

1930s book on needlecraft

This involved cutting out a range of different sized circles from felt and then sewing them together before attatching a pipe cleaner and placing them into a piece of floral foam in an old candle pot which I decorated with some fake grass I made. I managed to master blanket stitch for the first time which I was reallly impressed with. As you can see I have a very old needlework book which I think was actually published in the 1930s I got it from an antiques fair a few months ago, as well as being beautiful to look at it also has some really easy to follow instructions for all the various stitches.

googley eyes! 

I have a huge collection of googley eyes and managed to use some on this project, I think they add a great element of fun to most designs and am really happy with the way they have turned out here. I can't wait to put this fun flower pot ontp my desk at work and brighten up the otherwise mundane office.

This week I am going to attempt to make it round to all the desks over at Julia's wonderful blog, cant wait to see what you have all been up to.

Competed project :) 

Sewing Box

I have been working on a little needlecraft project, I am only part way finished so going to do a separate post on it in the next few days, keep your eyes peeled.

So today's post is just a a quick one showing off my fab sewing box. It was a present for xmas and its great all my sewing stuff is super organized in it and its really pretty.

The first section of the box is filled with tools, needles, a few buttons and sewing machine accessories. The second layer as you can see is a bit of an Aladdin's cave filled with cross stitch kits, embroidery thread, basic thread, wool, knitting needles a bit of everything really.

Although I am not the neatest needleworker I really enjoy making different sewing projects and trying to master different things. I prefer to sew on my sewing machine then hand sew but I think some of the effects you can get with hand sewing are definitely worth the extra effort. So keep your eyes peeled for my exciting new needlework project that should be finished in the next couple of days.

Origami

I was flicking through my Martha Stewart Craft Encyclopedia earlier looking for a quick project/technique to try whilst sitting in front of the TV. There are so many amazing projects in the book that I want to try but quite a lot of them will need extra stash so I decided to give Origami a go.

There were a number of different Origami projects in the book varying from beginner level to frankly hardcore paper folding genius level. I decided to give some beginner projects a go and went with the fortune teller and chinese lantern makes.

I started with the fortune teller, I remember we used to make these at school and have great fun playing with them on the playground. Martha's book suggests using them at dinner parties as table decorations one for each guest which I think is a great idea.

I then made a chinese lantern which can be hung over fairy lights to give a great effect. Both of these were fairly easy to make I think they would look slightly better if I had used a bone folder to get more accurate folding. As you can see I used some left over xmas papers I had and I think when folded they look less xmasy and can be used for any occasion so great for using up and left over festive stash.