Second Toy Society drop!

We dropped our second toy for the Toy Society this morning! 

It was hard to get a decent photo as the light was pretty bad and we were in a rush to get away before we were spotted.

 We left Borisova on the back of the children's toilet cubicle in Bexleyheath mall in Kent, UK.

Bye bye Borisova!  I hope you find a good home...

Borisova

Doll crazy

Not even my bright and cheery dish brush could disguise the dull and drizzly weather here today.  My third day stuck at home with bone crunching arthritis.  Best thing to do though is keep moving as much as possible, soooooo....

Meet Ivana...

And Gertruda...

And also Borisova...

And, er, Julia...

And, lastly, Biata...

They are joining Roza and Sashka and I am not quite sure what to do with them all!  I have just really got a kick out of making them and seeing them all take on slightly different personalities, very addictive. 

Roza is going to Lillia as she fell in love with her.  Biata is going to make her way to a friend of mine working away from home and in need of a friend to keep her company.  As for the others?  I think one will be destined for a Toy Society drop, and of course I am sure more then a couple will be donated to Craft Hope, when donations are accepted again in two weeks time.  Every little counts after all.

I do love my new friends!  But right now the felt, the thread and the sewing machine are being packed away as in about twenty minutes we have family arriving for the weekend: four adults, one teenager, a pre-schooler and, of course, 7 new friends in our tiny two bed cottage for two nights and two days!  Eeek!

Have a good weekend all :)

xx

Day 358: Little gifts

"I need neither future nor past, but to learn to take today not too fast. "
                                                                                       Jeb Dickerson

Christmas is a mad time for us, we spend a most of our weekends during December on motorways travelling up and down the country visiting our various parents and step-parents.  Creation continues though; car travel affords a bit of time to crochet or plan the next exciting crafty adventure in my head. 

Visiting friends and family means gifts are needed too, and what is more personal then a few little homemade treats?

For various friends and family around the country (and one international friend too) some radiator smellies were posted out this week...

I have to say I made rather a lot of them.

These are just a teeny sample.

They are extremely easy to make and the smell of the crushed cinnamon and cloves is just pure christmas indulgence.

 

                    

Here they are all wrapped up and ready to be posted out.  Excuse the office paraphenalia, I took these pictures at work as it's always too dark when I get home to get any pictures.  I expect they made the post office sorting room smell delightful!

I do love wrapping things up...

With lots of sparkle and festive touches...

Little fimo hearts and string made from recycled paper...

I also have a weakness for stickers, yum!

I hope the recipients are enjoying their little gifts as I write :)

For a much younger family member some more of the felt post I first made back in September...

Little Gracie is only 2 years old so she is just the right age for a bit of postal make believe!  I made sure nobody was left out of the fun of course...

The little letters to go inside have cardboard inside to make them a bit sturdier and easier to get in and out of the envelopes...

I love creating things as gifts, it is such a pleasure, I just wish I had more free time to do it!

xx

Day 336 - Name tags and ancient deer

Lillia needed a name tag for her nursery bag and I was in a crafty mood (as usual) so I made this...

My embroidery needs improvement of course but it does the job!  It occured to me afterwards that something this simple would make a good little smelly lavendar pouch. Or maybe a nice christmassy cinnamon and clove pouch, hmm, yes I might have to do that.

I am loving using lace on things at the moment.  It makes everything look feminine and pretty.  Unfortunately I failed to get a good snap of the tag in situ on her bag as the light has been so bad. 

In fact we decided today to face the drizzle and gloom head on and we took a little time out at Knowle Park.  It's a 10000-acre National Trust deer park in Kent not far from where we live.  Despite being a blustery and slightly damp autumn day, or maybe because of it, it was an amazing place to visit.

The deer herd has been there for 500 years...

The deer roam freely and visitors have the freedom to roam just as free!  There are paths and grassy routes but you can wander off into the woodland and undergrowth and really get muddy and explore.  The house itself was closed today but it was still lovely to look at from the outside...

There was a little shop selling all kinds of lovely National Trusty things and it was filled with Christmas paraphenalia.  I only wish my little camera was sophisticated enough to have been able to capture the glow of the christmas trees shining through the leaded windows into the gloom outside, it was like something out of Dickens.

We found an "eeyore house" - a little shelter made from sticks...

...and some very interesting funghi...

Ew!

It was a perfect autumn family day and definitely a place we will be visiting again throughout the coming months.  So now it's time for a spot of crochet and hot chocolate, mmmmm :)

Discovering felt

I've been incredibly busy with a million things this week so I have neglected my blog. Bad blogger, bad.

However it has been worth it as I have been having lots of fun with felt! My daughter had picked a pack of felt as her treat when we were out shopping and it reminded me of a post I had seen on the June at Noon blog. June had made cute little felt envelopes with felt letters and cards to go inside, and interchangeable addresses and labels. June kindly agreed to let me copy her idea and I spent a happy evening stitching away on the sofa...



I made everything as childlike as possible,though I can't say I originally intended for the addresses to look like child's writing - this was because I couldn't face leaving the comfort of the sofa to get a pen to write the names properly before stitching! But I like how they came out.

I made little postcards by stitching two pieces of felt together and popping some cardboard inside to make them stiff, this makes it easier for Lillia to push them into the envelopes...

I am hoping this will help her learn her alphabet and I am going to make more. She has already learnt L and D through playing with these, the letters represent who the mail is from, and we talk about the sounds they make - D is for Daddy and so on.



She has really loved these and she now wants me to make a post-bag to carry them in! Daddy has promised to make her a post box today which I am sure will involve a lot of glue and red paint. Thankfully I will be out most of the weekend for a hen night so I won't see the carnage.

Speaking of the hen night! I am bridesmaid at my best friend's wedding (in Cyprus!) later this month and today is the start of the hen weekend. We will be having wine tasting, massages, manicures and general silliness at her house all afternoon and evening.

Having discovered the joy of felt I made some gift bags for all the hens and the bride-to-be. The colour theme is pink and black...

Inside the bride's is some pink fizz, sweets, a "luxurious" (ahem) eye mask, an antique perfume bottle (spitalfields market!), a bath bomb from Lush and a few other bits. And yes that is a lobster you can see...because, of course, she has found her lobster...



Inside the hens' bags are face masks, sweets, mini fairy wands, bath bombs, stickers and bookmarks in the pink and black colour theme. I wrapped the bath bomb in tissue paper and held it all together with cute little bird stickers. I really like the love-birds one for the bride's bath bomb...

Well I am off to paint my toe nails pink and black! Have a lovely weekend everyone :)

Vintage sewing and embroidery bits

Working in the City has a lot of disadvantages (commuting, train delays, terrorism, numpties etc) but one advantage is that I can walk to Spitalfields Market in my lunch hour.

Thursdays at Spitalfields is antiques day and this month I decided to treat myself.

First off I bought a vintage watch face...

It reminds me of my great granny's pocket watch, I love the sparkle. I have plans for this watch face - both mosaic and sewing related - fortunately the choice will not be a torturous one as there are loads more on the same stall so I can always go back for more.

Next up - buttons!

1960s blue button...


Pink sparkly buttons...

Actually these are clear but they have pink in the inside of the holes which shines through the clear bits. They are really very cool.

Pearly buttons...

On a strange silver foil covered card backing!

Next I found a 1930s embroidery pattern booklet, a freebie with the magazine "Woman's Friend"...

There really is not enough use of the word "undies" in the world anymore, don't you think? This little booklet is very cool, can't believe it is almost 80 years old. Some of the transfers have been cut out and used of course but the remaining designs are really good...



















I am not going to cut the transfers out, no it's too old and lovely for that. So I have photocopied them and I will create my own transfers from the copy (I say that like I know what I am doing..!) I have saved the copies as a PDF so if anybody would like me to email them a copy of all these designs just drop me a comment or email and I will send them to you.

I also found a 1940s Needlecraft booklet full of great and somewhat old-fashioned design ideas...



An "all purpose" sweater anyone?


Or how about a nice cockeral egg cosy?


Amongst the wartime charm there are some really interesting embroidery ideas which I would love to have the skill to try...











I love the flowers in the background of this one...




This is the advert on the back...


So as you can see I did rather well in my lunch hour yesterday!

Today I have a day off and I have taken over my house with sewing mess. I am making bags, and I have a rather exciting addition to add to them today, more or that over the weekend!

(I have used a different method of posting photos in this entry so please let me know if you have any problems viewing or uploading any of it! Thanks!)