The onset of Christmas!

So we're halfway through November already, which means time to make plans for Christmas projects! Last weekend was the Country Living Christmas Fair, which was very inspiring. I bought some fabric to sew some presents, and a pretty snowflake stamp and embossing powder for this years' cards.

And if we're halfway through November, it must be time to start prepping my December journal, inspired by Shimelle's Journal Your Christmas e-class. She's just hosted a weekend full of Christmas related crafty posts, including this one, about choosing a size for the journal. This year will be my 4th journal, and I love to experiment with different sizes for these. My first two were 8x8, and last year I experimented with 6x12 with page protectors and a homemade cover (as much for ease of cutting as anything and the cover was purely for practical reasons as AC discontinued their line of albums that size before I could get my hands on one)! This one is my favourite so far as it made me think outside of a square box and made me see it truly is perfectly possible to make the whole thing from scratch.

When I came to do Learn Something New Every Day this year (a similar daily journaling idea, but for September to coincide with back to school), I decided to try 6x6, and actually finished it! I will have to photograph it for a belated post at some point, but it is one of the things I've made I'm most pleased with as a snapshot of a moment in time and a way of making time for regular crafty doings. I'd love to carry that momentum into JYC this year, so I've gone for a similar size (4x6) made up with AC page protectors and another handmade cover.

Last night I gathered my supplies and sat down to prep my album and pages. First I spread everything out, as you do.

Then I started cutting pages: some into 4x6 pieces (more than I'll need, but some are to make smaller than the book itself for decoration so will still fit nicely on the base pages). I pre-cut some smaller coloured pieces explicitly for journalling, cut out the individual journalling cards in one of the papers and used my circle punch to cut some 2" circles and cut strips of trees from 2 of the papers with numbers or dates or just embellishment in mind. I also kept some offcuts.

I also got started on the journal itself. First I tied up the page protectors with blue bakers twine and attached the black covers. This took some fiddling to get right, but I got there in the end. That's it, propped up at the back of the box of carefully cut and stored paper all ready to go! What a happy sight. :)

Month in Numbers: October

I thought October would be a good time to get back into recording my Month in Numbers (as inspired by Julie), because this month contained some rather special ones. :)

4: the number of months of blogging hiatus that I finally broke halfway through the month, on October 13th. The last post before that one was May's month in numbers, so let's hope this return to the form doesn't presage another leave of absence!

2: new dresses. There's something about Autumn that always says new clothes to me! And I had a good excuse...

18: The number of handmade birthday invitations I delivered. Who needs Facebook when you can have pretty paper and ink?

30: the number that has dominated the entire month, because as of last weekend, that is how many autumns I have now seen. I really can't take credit for the gorgeous lemon chiffon cake below, Konditor and Cook did me proud - I just told them I like orange, purple and glitter.

20: the number of people that (incredibly) managed to fit into my 1-bedroom flat for an afternoon tea party! Among the deliciousness on offer were 4 kinds of cheese, 2 homemade quiches and 30 cupcakes baked that morning.

3: the number of taxis we needed to transport 13 guests from there to a nearby bar for cocktails in the evening! What I'm not going to do is count the cocktails consumed, suffice to say they were good, and one of them was even in a boat.

3: nights spent in Tallinn the following week. What a beautiful city, totally recommended for a city break. Especially loved the the cobbled streets, the many towers and spires and the tea!

2: the number of times I went to see Daniel Kitson's heartbreakingly wonderful storytelling show "It's Always Right Now Until It's Later". And this despite having already seen it once before, two Edinburgh Festivals ago. If you ever get a chance to see this, I positively urge you to go.

5.5: The number of miles 8 of us walked on stage 9 of the Capital Ring, from Greenford to South Kenton. This one went past Harrow School and took in some lovely views across the capital. I'm loving these walks around zones 3-5 of London, it's great to see areas I'd never go to otherwise and it's surprising how unlike London they can feel.

1: gorgeous sunset watched from Primrose Hill.

Yes, I may now be staring down the barrel of the next decade, but this was certainly a month to remember.  :)

Time flies...

Well, here I am, shuffling shamefully back to the blogging lark far too many weeks later! Still, I've not been idle in the meantime, far from it, and I'm planning to share things I've been doing while I was gone here by degrees.

Things like this pretty yoga mat bag that has been on my list of things to make for ever such a long time. Not only because my old one is looking a bit worse for wear after 4 years or so, but because I really like this pattern, with it's drawstring top and side pocket. My yoga teacher comes to our offices after work, so the pocket's perfect for keeping things like my pass and phone safe and with me during class and the strap is satisfyingly sturdy. 

This is not the best photo in the world, for which I apologise, it's not so easy to photograph such things, but propping it up is pretty much the only way to show off the lovely fabric! It is from Amy Butler's 'Love' collection, and the colours are closest to reality in the first photo. Because it rarely goes outside (it lives behind my desk), the cream colour should stay cream for a fair long while, hopefully!

 I think I've mentioned this book before now, which is where the pattern came from. It was pretty easy to follow, the most challenging thing was the drawstring but that was only because my stitched channel went a bit narrow somewhere along the line due to the line wandering off a bit, it still worked though! The only thing I would say about pockets is that you should definitely remember to stitch them on before you stitch the bag up - I had to do a considerable bit of unpicking because I omitted that detail! Still, it was worth it, my yoga mat is very happy in its new bag. Beautiful and useful, the perfect little sewing project. :)

Month in Numbers: May

Re-joining Julie's Month in Numbers bandwagon to record a real firecracker of a month!

4: bridesmaids at my sister's wedding on May 1st. Such a lovely day with lots of handmade touches, from the invitations to the church flowers to the cake.

3: days in Paris, in which 2 girls discovered that Mojitos appear to be the most popular drink in the city. To the extent where the bartender at a birthday party we attended (at which roughly 90% of the attendees had ordered the same) plaintively informed us "We do have other drinks you know..." Never ones to pass up a trend, the best ones we found were in a tiny bar on the Butte de Montmartre where the hand on the rum was liberal to say the least!

€27.20: The amount of cold hard cash we parted with in exchange for 2 ice creams and 2 lemonades on the Champs Elysees! Ah well, it was a hot day and almost worth it. :-o

2: 30th birthday parties, the last of which featured 6 birthday cakes, 2 barbecues and far too many bottles of wine to count!

2: nights at the theatre: The Tempest at the Little Angel and the wonderful Filter's Silence with the RSC at the Hampstead.

18-22: The score at our first ever rugby match my friend and I attended at Twickenham on bank holiday Saturday, which we found ourselves at entirely by chance! (Leicester Tigers v Saracens)

7: miles of the London Capital Ring walk from Wimbledon Park to Richmond completed on bank holiday Sunday. Featuring 9 intrepid walkers, of whom 4 managed to fit inside a hollow tree and it took 5 to join hands to make a ring around one of the great plane trees of London that we encountered along the way! And 3 jugs of Pimms and lemonade to refresh us afterwards. :o)

19: The number of songs in Belle and Sebastian's Roundhouse set on May 30th. A brilliant end to the month!

Bring on June!

A stitch in time

Well, I have been a bad blogger for the past few weeks! But in them there has been a family wedding and a holiday, so happy times to inspire new creative things. Soon I'll show you some of the crafty touches from the wedding that occupied so much of my creative energy in the run up to it!

While I was gone, new magazine Mollie Makes hit the shelves in the UK, and I wasted no time in getting my hands on a copy. Subtitled 'living and loving handmade', it's beautifully designed and full of projects and beautiful images to inspire every kind of crafty endeavour. Attached to the front was a little felt kit, which, after I had got it out and cut it up and found matching embroidery threads, looked something like this

The idea was to make a smartphone cover, but having so recently knocked up a cover for my new iPhone on my sewing machine, I decided to adapt the alternative suggestion of a coin purse to be big enough to hold the cosmetics I carry in my handbag for work since I'm always losing my lipbalm  and mini mascara in the detritus of the rest of it. I started by cutting the shapes (which I'd already done by the time I thought to take the above photo) and then stitched the colours to the grey using the most basic of running stitches.  Since mine was wider than the helpful template in the mag, I drew round a candle for my circle and adapted everything else to fit.

Then I realised i hadn't actually done blanket stitch since I was about 12 and in the Guides! So out came my handy book of sewing stitches to remind me how it was done.

I made some adaptations to the pattern. I folded one piece of grey felt at the top and bottom rather than starting with two bits, and given that I wanted it to close somehow, I made a scalloped flap at the top, sewed on the cute button that came with the kit and fastened it really simply with a loop of thread.

Two peaceful evenings of sewing later, and it was done. I'll say straight off that the stitches aren't the most straight and even, but hey, I relearned blanket stitch and made something useful I really like! The colour combination is fab, it reminds me of Cosmo Cricket's Re:cycle line.

I'll be watching Miss Mollie with interest!

Bank holiday project: homemade iPhone case

Hello! What a lovely bank holiday weekend this has been. Well, it had this theatre in it, which makes any weekend a highlight.

The RSC's new theatre (The RST) is truly brilliant, and in Macbeth, it has a production that really shows off what it can do. I have been taking a photo from this spot every time I've been to Stratford since the building work began, and it is wonderful to finally see the vision realised. I sat on the terrace in the sunshine between plays and drank a private little birthday toast to the house playwright (The town celebrates officially next weekend, but it is in fact usually celebrated on St George's Day - Easter got in the way this year!)

So the purpose of this post was really to show you what I have been making today. April has bought this little guy into my life:

And not before time - a phone that was made this century is a definite step up from my last one! I've been carrying it around in an old sock since I got it,  so today I resolved to make it something more fitting. I have been perusing Etsy for suitable ideas, so today I decided to see if I could recreate one for myself.

I started by measuring the iphone (and googling for other case dimensions), and so began with with two pretty fabrics and some batting measuring 4.5 x 12 inches.

And this is what I ended up with! It might not look much, and is indeed extremely simple - just batting stitched between two bits cut off fat quarters folded up and turned inside out - but it is the first thing I have ever made on my sewing machine without a pattern. That's huge. I am seriously the most inexpert sewer you ever saw, but apparently I've done enough to see a picture and have some idea how to make it up as I go along. It's not perfect, and I wish I'd thought to attach a pocket for earphones, but I love the fabric, it's much better than an old sock, and I can easily replace it when I get bored. It's also made out of things I already had. Win!

Next Sunday is my sister's wedding (yay!), so I've also been making her a card - but more of that (and hopefully some pretty photos too) after the day! Until then, happy short bank holiday week, enjoy what's left of it, especially if you're on holiday for the duration! x

Happy weekend

How could I not love a weekend that started with a Waterloo sunset like this?

After a roundtrip to Wigan yesterday for a final bridesmaid dress fitting (yes, it fits!), today I was not good for anything more strenuous than a spot of scrapbooking with some of the pretty new things I bought from Ally Pally last weekend. Want to see?

This primary-coloured page is about a lovely night out at the London Word Festival (which is on right now, definitely worth checking out if you're London-based). Those suspended luggage tags you can see is a work entitled 'the tree of lost things', in which everyone is invited to write onto a tag a thing they have lost. These range from the pragmatic ("my gloves on the 7:35 from Brighton") to the prosaic ("my heart to a starship trooper") and reading them is an absolute joy.

The page is based on this one of Shimelle's from the March bit of the 4x6 photo love project, but mine is simpler with two landscape photos rather than three portrait and uses misting to replace further embellishment.

It features Studio Calico, Sassafras, October Afternoon's Thrift Shop and Mr Huey's hotdog mist. Is it just me, or does mist have a tendency to go absolutely everywhere? It got me, my oilskin crafting cloth and even the carpet (oops!) in the process, but I do like the effect. And I can recommend 'Vanish' as being rather good at getting mist out of carpets.

This page also involves misting, but as a method of distressing, along with some ink splatters, so it was even messier! More Thrift Shop and more Sassafras on this one, which is about the bookshop Shakespeare and Co, which is as much a refuge and a library as a shop and has a writers room, typewriter and piano amongst it's treasures. In a back room, I found a clock with a cracked face, which well suits the sense that time has stopped here.

In other news, my basil is growing! Here are the first little shoots, watched over by Gabriel the Toad.

I am attempting to grow herbs and salad on window sills. My chives aren't growing at all which is surprising considering it is meant to be the easiest of the lot, but no, it's the rocket that's winning so far.

Happy new week!

Month in Numbers: March

Hello! Last month I began sharing my month in numbers, as inspired by the lovely Julie, who has also provided the rather smart image above. March then proceeded to come and go before I knew it! It had many quantifiable things in it though, so rather than hang my head in shame, I've decided to sneak in belatedly instead. So there's a start to March's list:

10: number of days late this post is!

2: weekends away: to Manchester (more of that anon!) and to Leigh-on-Sea, featuring friends and variable weather. (Packed optimistically for Spring, only for Winter to decide it wasn't quite done yet.)

46: the number of photos taken that weekend in Manchester, which happened to be my sister's hen party! It involved feather boas, glitter and the obligatory ball and chain, and we had an excellent (and suitably random) night out at the Birdcage. The dancers with fireworks strapped to their hips were a bit of a highlight.

0: The amount my visit to the Ideal Home Show cost. A free ticket came with February's mag and I surprised myself with my own restraint! So many lovely things in the room sets too. Well, I can dream...

3: Incidents of red shoes! Went to see Kneehigh's utterly glorious version of it at BAC, couldn't resist wearing mine for the occasion, and then noticed the 1948 Powell and Pressburger film was on the iplayer the following weekend - result! One of the greatest stories ever told, and so many ways to tell it.

1: farewell gig for one of the most distinctive venues in London. Bye bye Luminaire, you'll be missed.

19: days early in submitting my census. Me being that early for anything is definitely a turn-up for the books. I completed it online and that made it far less of a faff than writing in the answers and deciphering the form would have been. Describing my job in 44 characters or less proved an interesting challenge, twitter-esque compression skills put to good use there!

5: Easter cakes made with chocolate, syrup, cornflakes and butter and topped with 3 little eggs each. Yum.

2: cherry blossom trees outside Southwark Cathedral on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon providing cheering evidence that Spring is truly on it's way.

Happy new week!

PS: With luck I'll have worked out how to get that nice image to appear in my sidebar by the time we get to next month!

Some actual scrapping!

So the sun finally reappeared in London this weekend, and there was much rejoicing. It's been grey and miserable for so long, the little warmth was a welcome surprise, spring feels like it's a long tome coming this year. So at some point I have a lovely sunset on the river and some pretty cherry blossom to scrap from yesterday afternoon, but since I'm spectacularly behind with photo printing, that will have to wait. I've got a heap of CHA 2011 scrappy goodness on its way from Sarah's Cards, so I thought it was time to put a dent in some of the current stash and my teetering pile of unscrapped photos! Hence this layout with photos from the Latitude festival last summer and October Afternoon's campfire line.

I love the pictorial paper of a campsite with little pockets of trees, it was perfect for photos of the Latitude site, which is on an estate and has random bits of woodland and a manmade lake running through it. They spray paint the sheep pretty colours, and it was so hot on the Sunday that loads of them were sheltering in the tiny amount of shade behind the Latitude sign. It isn't really that shape, it's a straight line, and the photos don't quite line up, but I like the 3D effect of putting the photos together so it rendered my haphazard photo taking a happy accident. I wrote extra notes of festival highlights on the background, which blend in nicely with the paper itself. Pretty simple, but I like.

In other news, today I made some Easter cornflake cakes using a fab recipe out of Ideal Home. It involves dark chocolate, golden syrup and butter, yum. I usually just melt chocolate, but will be trying this again for sure. Talking of Ideal Home, I went to the show last weekend and fell head over heels for this room.

One day, when I have a house where I can actually paint the walls, some of them are going to be orange like this! Sigh. Design heaven.

February in numbers

I can't believe how quickly this month has passed! Slightly ashamed that this is my first post all month long. The best thing to do now is wrap up and move on I think, and hope March will make up for it.

So, inspired by Julie, here is my month in numbers.

Weeks spent without the internet: 2 (not good and part-explanation for lack of blogging!)

Wedding invitations made and delivered: 30

I got the job of creating my sister's wedding invitations, and after a huge joint effort between mam and I, they're all finally finished and out in the wild, so I can give you a little peek...

(We've made just over 80 of them in total, this month was the final push. The wedding's in May)

Nights at the theatre: 2 (Shoes the musical - the less said about that, the better- and a beautiful scratch of the Odyssey by Paper Cinema at BAC.)

Tickets for plays and gigs booked ahead for the coming months: 4 - some far off, some very soon

Sale purchases: 5, including a rug, a top for work, and some lovely bright plates.

Terry Pratchett books read: 3. Light relief after Ulysses continuing for a little longer than is entirely merited, but who needs an excuse to read Terry Pratchett?!

Lovely nights out with friends: 9 - pretty good going! This gorgeous bar was the scene of one of them, slightly industrial looking (it's a converted tramshed), but full of ramshackle vintage bits and pieces, including lampshades, armchairs, ornaments, and even a birdcage festooned with fairy lights. Nothing matches, but it's a glorious mish mash. We reckon they blew the budget on the chandeliers and borrowed the rest from their grans. :)

Days off work on holiday: 3 :)

Mice found stuck in kitchen bin earlier this eve: 2 - EEEP! Definitely not what you want to find in your house when you get home from work! They were trying to jump out but couldn't. Fortunately the girl next door is much more level-headed than me, and we carried the bin round the corner to the nearest grass and set them free. Far too much excitement for one evening!

The Bridge Project

So far, this month has been about finishing off, or more accurately, making a start towards finishing off, the many and various crafty projects I have on the go at any given time.

Last weekend, I had nearly 200 photos from last year printed. That's been the spur for completing all of my monthly photo pages for Document 2010, and also continuing to Journal my Christmas. I'm now 7 pages and a cover away from the latter being complete, which is probably the furthest I've ever got, and certainly the furthest after Christmas I've continued to keep at it.  It's much more a record of what I did than my previous 2 Christmas Journals inspired by Shimelle's great class, and it's my favourite yet.

Perhaps I have finishing things in mind because this week, I finished reading Ulysses! All 933 pages of it. This has taken me since August, plus a week to read the notes. This is one of those classic books an English student should read, and now, a few years late, I finally have. I must admit it didn't all make sense, but oh, when it did, it was worth every page that didn't.

I have also picked up something else, which has not seen the light of day for an awfully long time. Before I started making cards, before I started scrapbooking, before I acquired a sewing machine, I used to cross stitch. And several years ago, while still a student (yikes, more years ago than is entirely comfortable), my mum bought me the kit to make this:

That is a cross stitch version of Ashness Bridge, which is a Very Popular Lake District View, as seen on chocolate boxes and biscuit tins galore.

Now the thing about cross stitch is that it takes me a very very long time to finish what I start. We're talking months, years. Case in point: the last project I finished before I was bought this was an actual sampler, to the same pattern as one my mum had done years ago, but in different colours. I must have started that when I was about 12, and I finally finished that and had it framed as a Christmas present for her the Christmas after I left university, making it a good 10 years in the making.  Basically, I will pick it up every once in a while, and then put it away again for ages, before I remember it and contritely get it out again.

And so it has been with this. I can remember beginning it when I was in lodgings in Birmingham, and come March, it will be 6 years since I left that city for this one. And how far have I got now, a fortnight after beginning again?

Embarrassing!

One of the difficulties here is the colour, or rather, the lack of it. I started in the middle, as you do, and there's an awful many shades of grey in that bridge. I remember the sheer relief of getting to a point where I could do some green!

The other  difficulty is that it is extremely time consuming. My lack of expertise doesn't help, and nor do the extremely tight, tiny stitches required for this. The thing is though, it's very very absorbing. It's the sort of thing where the minutes pass by with remarkable haste, due to the concentration it takes to get the counting right, and the needle into the appropriate place. Or maybe that's just me!

At the beginning of this month, a bridge and the many shades of grey felt like a very apt metaphor. And so it was that it was dusted off and saw some activity.

And now? Well, now I've shared it with you, I would like to be able to show you a bit more at some stage. Maybe even finished and hung up on a wall. As for the metaphor, well, now I'm a lot closer to the oranges and blues than I was when I picked it up a couple of weeks ago. Much closer, in fact. :o)

Happy 2011!

Hello, and a very happy New Year to you, albeit 5 days late. It's not quite Twelfth Night yet, but come tomorrow, when it is, that will finally close the door on this Christmas. Time for a fresh start and new beginnings.

I managed 25 blog posts last year. Not bad, but not brilliant either. I'd like to blog more this year, and to find more of a balance between the things I make, the things I do, and the things I like to share with you.

Other goals? On January 3rd I opened my fabric scrap box and finally saw my starting point for a patchwork throw. I have the colours, I have the scraps, and now I'm on the lookout for a suitable pattern and the time to make it happen. The plan is to ease myself gently into quilting, starting by covering an old blanket, while it's still cold enough to need it. I'll take photos of the said starting point when I have better light!

A pretty standard one next, which is to take more exercise. I've signed up for another evening class, and also have in mind to take more walks, as I've enjoyed getting out and about in these past few days before work began again. On Monday we spotted this bird in a tree and have no idea what it is or what it was doing in Regents Park. Since I don't have a handy book of birds any more, if you know what it is, I'd love you to to tell me!

This year I'd also like to make time to record and reflect. Whether it's photos, my journal, or even a blog, I would like to note and remember more of the little things and to keep a track of where I am and what I'm doing. I loved Document 2010, it went a long way towards pulling together my various ways of doing this, and I'd like to continue with a modified version of it this year. I'll never be the type to regularly sit down at the end of every month and make stunning feature pages, but I loved having somewhere to put the random bits and pieces I pick up along the way and collect together with small selection of photos, and that alone has been and will be a pretty amazing account of my goings and doings.

The common thread appearing through all of this is making time for me. That's definitely the guiding theme of my goals for 2011.

(I know you've seen the bird already, but no-one who knows me is going to be surprised by this second picture, as it's such a pretty bare tree, even with the murky sky!)

Finally feeling festive!

It always seems that after the clocks go back, the countdown to Christmas properly begins. I wasn't feeling at all Christmassy until last weekend, but then the Country Living Christmas Fair came to town!

It may have been pouring down outside, but the sight of this really did brighten my day. :o)

This year I've developed a real love for magazines with an interior design theme. It started with Ideal Home, I bought an issue when I moved house in March to get some idea of where to put things, and I haven't missed an issue since, despite having limited space and an even more limited budget - it's aspirational to say the least! Country Living was a later discovery, but oh, their designers are brilliant, I love their look. The display above is entirely typical.

So I went to the fair fully expecting to find cute festive things to decorate my house with and present ideas. I wasn't expecting to find stash for things I'm planning to make, but that was a bonus! Fabric, and ribbon, and even pretty tape for wrapping and scrapping! Here's a sneak peek:

These colours - red and white - are very much part of my world at the moment. Having come up with a design that can be feasibly repeated 80 odd times, I now have the job of making a third of the wedding invitation folders for my sister, and these are also her colours. My mum and my sister are helping to make the rest, so I had the interesting task of writing instructions to recreate what I'd done, which proved trickier than I imagined! I wouldn't dream of revealing what the finished article is going to look like before the guests find out, but I can show you the beginning of the work in the progress:

The trick is going to be to finish these before my making of this year's Christmas cards kicks off. If only I could slow down the clock! Five weeks to go and counting... x

Happy Halloween!

Say hello to my first ever carved pumpkin! Things I have learned: if you're going to carve a pumpkin from the bottom, don't think that means it's fine to put a small pillar candle into it. I nearly set both pumpkin and kitchen on fire that way. Oh dear. Here, we're back to tea lights and happily it's still glowing away behind me with both pumpkin and kitchen intact.

I decided to bake some Halloween treats - chocolate brownie cupcakes. No trick or treaters came to call, but they missed a fine feast! We also had a fair amount of cheese, and jelly babies for biting the heads off.

Happy Halloween to all (at the witching hour)!