This is a metal jigsaw piece I found on the floor of a club. I liked it, so I picked it up and brought it home. A few days later whilst looking through photographs of the night out I noticed a friend’s friend wearing it as an earring and felt I should return it to it’s loving owner.
I saw the little hole in the top and couldn’t resist adding something to it, so made a tiny-weeny label (about 15mm by 8mm), reading ‘To Emma’ on the front, and ‘I missed you’, on the reverse.
Last night I was in the mood for baking. I flicked through all my cooking magazines and after a suggestion from a friend eventually settled on the rocky-road cupcake. Mmm, sounds good doesn’t it?
I can’t eat marshmallows myself, so decided to have a go at both the mallow top for others to try and nutella for me! I also changed the recipe a bit, substituting pecan nuts for the walnuts, and adding glacier cherries to the mix. These are how my little bad boys turned out!
For my best friends 21st birthday I wanted to make her a photo album from scratch. I know how to make paper, and I know how to bind, so surely I could put the two together and have a completely homemade gift for her.
I already knew I was going to make the album when I noticed the blackberries across the road from me were ripe and ready for the picking. I managed to persuade a happy little helper of mine to help me get as many blackberries as humanely possible with out feeling guilty for scrumping them (or whatever the blackberry equivalent is).
We managed to get a bountiful booty of blackberries and were ready for business!
We squished them to get all the juice out we could and added this to a blender of scrapped paper, torn into postage stamp sized pieces.
This mixture was then added to a deep tray of water and using my paper making kit, a mesh frame and a damp sponge I slowly but surely made each of my sheets of paper and left to dry.
I bound the sheets by sewing booklets of them together and covered the hardback cover with some gorgeous paper from Paper Chase.
As you can see the blackberries did not really do much in colouring the pages, but it did at least give them an added bit of texture.
Happy 21st Birthday Amy!
The reason there had been such a long gap in my blog entries is because of these gifts. These are the gifts I made my sister for her birthday, which was on the 5th June. There is a cushion to go with this set, but I had never got around to photographing it.
So, this top image is a wooden trug I filled with all the things needed to grow some sweet pea flowers. You have to understand sweet pea is one of the many nicknames my sister calls me, so it’s a very cute idea for a present. I hear the plant is doing very well, but is yet to flower, although I’m sure it will fill her flat with a lovely smell when it does.
This is an apron I made her for when she is cooking cupcakes. Made from an old bed sheet and hemmed around the edges. I then ironed some super cool sukie iron-on animals.
I lost my pencil case. I love my pencil case, it has all my favourite things in it, things like fine liners, muji pen and pencil, propelling pencil with different sets of coloured leads as well as glue that comes out green but dries clear. So naturally when I lost it I was sad. It felt like I had lost a pet so I made myself some posters to stick up around Uni in hope of someone finding it and returning it to me.
After sticking photocopies of my poster up all around Uni, I found my pencil case… It was under a pile of mess in my bedroom. Oops.
In effort to encourage me to use my blog more, I am going to make this a much more casual affair. Hopefully it will also make it a bit more personal to you guys too.
Here is a batch of button earrings I made last night. I just super glued some silver earring backs to these buttons that I managed to pick up from a local bead shop – fill a bag for £2! Bargain. So that’s some Christmas presents all finished and ready for wrapping.
I also got a little distracted with the left over buttons. I call him Button Face.
It seems I have no problem making different creative things, but I do seem to find it hard getting round to photographing them and writing about them to get them online. Hopefully I will get a whole batch of photos up here of all my recent projects, for all to see!
I got the idea for this notebook from opening some post and noticing the lovely security pattern inside.
The book is a simple hardback, although I have tired out a different way of stitching the booklets together to create ‘bow’ stitches to encourage the booklets to stay tight together.
Measures about 8Omm by IIOmm
I chose to make the pages a random mixture of lined, plain, grid and whatever else I could get my hands on. Makes it more interesting as you are working through it.
I made this next notebook as a gift to my dad as a Father’s Day present. He regularly has ideas at night about different things to make or things to do but generally forgets them the following morning. I made the book for him to keep on his bedside in case of emergencies. I chose to give the book a hardback cover to create a hard surface to write on, but cut it just short of the spine so that you can still fold the ages around the back of the book. This meant that the stitches holding the booklets together were visible but I have made a feature out of them by using a bright blue cross-stitch thread.
The next book was made purely just because I couldn’t force myself to throw away the cut offs of lined paper created from another project (note to self: must photograph and upload cookery folder). I am a big fan of long, thin books too and decided the paper would be a good size for use as shopping lists and the like.
Covered in a scrap of a wallpaper sample. I found by covering in wallpaper the book also gained an interesting tactile feel.
I took this set of photographs back in May, but as that is when I had started seriously thinking about starting a blog I have decided to add them as my first proper post.
This first photo was taken in the car on the way back to Lincoln. I couldn’t let the weather and scenery pass me by with out proof of how fantastic it made everything look. I snapped away but this was my favourite picture of the journey. Luckily I managed to take it just at the right time going quickly under the pylon. Love the shadows it has cast on the road.
I just happened to look out of my bedroom window in Lincs at the right time and spotted this beautiful rainbow. Check out the faint second rainbow outside of the first and how the sky inside the rainbow is much lighter.
After we had our portfolios returned to us from the end of year assessments a group of classmates and I headed down to the arboretum to soak up the sun and I swept up this photo of the house overlooking the park.
The next three photos are all taken up ‘Steep Hill’ in Lincoln. I love being up the hill, it’s the most beautiful part of the city but it does take a hell of a lot of puff to get up the hill.
Strange, skinny house that’s only one room thick. I thought this frame had a lot of interest in and if anyone knows what the blue plant in the foreground is let me know!
Last photo of the series, included because I love the wave of green spilling over the edge of the brick wall and how the gate reminds me of the secret garden.
Hope you enjoyed the photos, feel free to leave any comments and let me know what you think.
Welcome!
This is the beginning of my blogging life, I have lots to show you and lots to say but for the time being you will have to bare with me and wait for me to learn how to do this properly!
Hope you enjoy the site.