Eye Spy... a favourite corner in my house

Here is a little spot at my place I have grown quite fond of. Our art wall (I think we need another "art clothesline", one just isn't enough!) and little table and chairs. Art and crafting in progress here, Jemima glue in hand returning to her work.

More favourite corners over here!

I forgot my own blog's birthday

When Jemima turned one I did not forget. Not that she was impressed.

I just realised that my blog turned 1 year old on Wednesday. I obviously celebrated by giving it no thought what-so-ever.

But I would like to do a giveaway of some sort. I will have a little think over the weekend and let you know when I have thunk it out.

Have a great weekend!

Making stuff up

I bought a stamp making kit from The Haby Goddess last week. No reason. Just did.

Last night I started carving some stamps. I carved a raindrop, inspired by this artist I saw over at A Little Hut, a granny square and a doily. It's pretty fun.

I have never been a scrapbooker or anything like that, so I don't have any stamp pads apart from a black one, so most of my mucking about with my stamps has been with paint.

I have no idea what I am doing at all. Just making stuff up. The granny stamp practice will become gift tags for Christmas as I have chopped them all up in haphazard fashion. It reminds me a little of a flag, for a crafty nation of some sort.

I like the repetition visually of tiling the stamps. It is calming. I am hoping to produce a masterpiece of reasonable size to hang somewhere in the house. But first, I need to figure out what I am doing!

Not-so-russian dolls

I'm feeling rather organised because I have nearly finished my first bit of Christmas craft.

I bought a 5 piece unpainted babushka doll from Russian Treasures at the stitches and craft show. I had been umming and ahhhing about what to paint on them, and in the end I just thought, "oh just do it," and this is what I came up with last weekend.

I like the concept of my work, but the execution is a little weak. It's really hard painting around bends! I have no doubt Jemima will love it. She is always playing with this set which is less than half the size so members of the family are forever going missing!

I still need to gloss it up a little. I want it to be super shiny, but the varnish stuff I have is matte finish. Hmm do I make another purchase, or do I just make do?

This will be a gift for Jemima, but Caleb saw me working on it and wants a set too, so I might be making an online purchase in the near future.

Eye Spy... something I shouldn't eat but do.

Chocolate mud cupcakes from Coles. Very very soft, but admittedly the icing tasted a little plasticy.

More food confessions here. Thanks to Jennifer Rose for the theme!

The evolution of 2 pot holders

Sometimes the best laid crafty plans go awry.

Plan A: I saw this tutorial an age ago and about 3 months ago set out to give it a try. Old towel? Check. Cool vintage fabric? Check. Ability to be precise? ummmm. My measurements and cutting and so on were not nearly accurate enough it turned out and the project started turning into a disaster.

Plan B: I decided against proceeding with the criss cross business and thought I would just quilt a couple of towels together with my fabric using this method and my new walking foot. Did my walking foot come with instructions? No. Did I try and just "figure it out"? Yes. Did I do it right? No. Did it make a mess of it? Yes.

So I abandoned this project and put it in the scrap bin. A month or so later I made an unfortunate discovery involving a cockroach and my pot holders at the time. Out with the rubbish went my old pot holders. That's all I want to say about that.

Plan C: I saw this tutorial via this post on Soulemama and rather than do the fabric collage I just used the best bits of my bath mat massacre. I pulled out the light blue backing from my stash. The pot holders have 2 layers of towel making them too thick to top stitch them closed, so I hand sewed the opening closed in front of the telly on Wednesday night.

Come Thursday these things were hot property in this house. Cries of "Give them to me!", "I don't want just one, I want both of them!" could be heard. I drew the line at allowing them out of the house with us when I took Caleb to his Speech Pathologist.

So there you have it. A pot holder's journey into existence. A not quite fascinating tale of making do with what you have, assisted by the crafty interwebs.

Bizarro! Gorilla Portrait on a Plate!

I bought the book Stencil 101 late last year with a plan to use stenciling as a part of Christmas crafting. I didn't end up using it, but I am really pleased to have it in the old craft library. Yesterday afternoon I found myself feeling a bit crafty and pulled it off the shelf.

I saw a plate on etsy (I have looked and looked for it but can't find it anymore) which I have had on my mind for a while. It appeared to be a vintage plate with something painted on it.

I bought this little plate- maybe it is even a saucer, from the oppy a few weeks ago with this little plan in mind. I used a paint medium for glass and tile (I did want porcelain paint, but my local junk/art shop didn't have any). I did want to do the little deer, but she didn't fit on my plate, so Mr Gorilla it was! He looks strangely regal hanging on the wall!

To practice my stenciling technique I made some cards with another stencil. It's pretty fun.

Don't stand still, I might stencil you!

PS The man of the house is home safely from his 2 weeks abroad which feels luxurious actually! Thanks to everyone who expressed empathy during this period without him!