Giveaway and Christmas

As you can see from the title I'm doing a giveaway and making things for Christmas. I'll tell you more about the giveaway later but first Christmas.

I decided in the summer that I was going to use the Troll pattern (by UteVasina) to make a couple of Santas / Father Christmas. Naturally they had to be made in green and red. Unfortunately I only had enough craft velour fabric to make one Father Christmas so I got on and made one while waiting for the Craft Velour to arrive.  He was great fun to make, I did a lot of measuring to get his trousers and clothing the right size. As usual I made the hair out of merino wool, putting on the beard was interesting and to be honest I wasn't sure for a while but I thought he certainly looked like a Father Christmas when I finished.

He is now ready to order in my Etsy shop and I will be making a start on the Red Santa at the end of this week. 

So to the Giveaway, I have been thinking of doing a giveaway for a while and I had just recently passed 100 likes on my FaceBook Business page . So naturally it seemed the right time to do the give away, but what to giveaway.  Well I have also been meaning to make my own original Cloth Art Doll from my own pattern design. Also I wanted to make a smaller doll that would not only use up the doll fabric scraps but would also be a little more cost effective for my customers. This is the first one of the Scrap Fairies.

I will need to make some very small changes to the pattern, but I'm pleased how the pattern worked out. So this original and first scrap doll is up for grabs on my facebook page  until Monday 14th October 2013 and the winner will be announced on Tuesday 15th Oct 2013.

see you next time

Vic xx

Stoats and Hares

Traveling to Bude this week has inspired this second blog post. The road I sometimes use is great for spotting wildlife. When I used to work at the newsagent, on the early morning journey I would see Deer, they would run down the middle of the road and jump into a field when they got to a gate or into the woods. 
This summer has been fascinating as we have seen lots of Stoats. We were going to our local beach one day and spotted a pair in the middle of the road either playing or fighting. Its times like that I wish I could blink and take a photo, but here is one from the internet, they look really cute but I also know they can be vicious but that is the way of nature. 

Not only have we seen deers and stoats, we occasionally see lots of Rabbits, foxes, badgers and birds of prey, we once saw a barn owl flying along the hedge, that was an amazing sight. The other animal we used to see a lot of are Hares, though over the last couple of years we haven't seen them as much, which is a real shame.

Talking about the hares brings me to what I've been busy at this month. Some of us on the Craft Pimp Forum Etsy team have been taking part in Mentor Month. I have been teamed up with Jill of Kiln Fired Art, she makes lots of beautiful items like fused glass, jewellery and my favourite her hand painted ceramic. Her mugs, plates and vases with Hares on are just beautiful. You must go and have a look at her shop on ETSY.

See you next time
Victoria xx

Pumpkins & Dark Elves

The weather has suddenly decided its autumn, lots of showers and its noticeably cooler. Naturally now I'm thinking about halloween. As my friends and family know I love halloween and we try to grow our own pumpkins, unfortunately the past two years I have had to buy a pumpkin or two from a supermarket. This year our pumpkin plants have decided to fruit, unfortunately I didn't expect only one and certainly not this big.

Carving this pumpkin will certainly be challenging, I may have to get my children and their friends to help. I usually have the pumpkins in our porch but I think this year this one might have to go by the gate.  

I love dark things and after recently creating a treasury on Etsy called Dark Times with some gorgeous Art Dolls, I was inspired to make an elf into a dark art doll. Well I found an old wooden body that I had sanded down, the shape was ideal for the look I wanted and I had two, So now I was making two. After painting the bodies with a gesso primer and then acrylics I handpainted the face. If you follow me on twitter and facebook you may have seen sneaky pictures of their progress. Yesterday I finished off Marnie & Hester, as I was now calling them, by adding the merino hair and hand sewing witches hats.

I'm really pleased how they both turned out and I think I will be exploring the dark side a bit more.

See you next time

Vic xx

Cupcakes and Tan Danglers.

Today I decided I would make some cupcakes and it seems like forever since I made any. My two children wanted me to make chocolate ones but me being me I just had to make them a bit different, so we ended up with Turkish Delight cupcakes. I just made a basic chocolate cake mix and baked them then I had to wait for them to cool. While they cooled I cut up two Frys Turkish Delight to put on top. 

Next came the fun part I used the apple corer to make a hole in the cakes. I then spooned some Rose Petal Jelly into the cake, I got the jelly from a local herbery called St.Kitts, then I covered up the jelly with the little plugs of cake I had cored out earlier. Then the fun part I iced the top with chocolate frosting which I added a dash of rose water to, now It just need the Frys Turkish delight on top. I had to test one out with my lunch of course and it was delish, perhaps the frosting could've had a bit more rose flavour in it but it was still nice. Next time my children want to make Lavender biscuits, yummy!

So to the Tan Dangler, well I had a couple of sales last weekend so I decided I would like to treat myself to a piece of glass art from a very lovely Cornish artist Tan Grey. Her Etsy shop Tan Grey Glass is full of gorgeous glass creations. I have to admit I struggled to choose and I was very tempted to buy a fish bowl or tan dangler but I went for my favourite instead a moon gazing hare. It arrived today not long after I had finished the cakes. I have it on my wall in the sitting room now and I love it. 

See you next time

Victoria xx

Off with her head!!!!

I'm not the Queen of Hearts or a Tudor monarch but I did have to chop the head off a stump doll I started making last week. She was going reasonably well and the grey faux silk with the white organza looked beautiful. 

So I had got her all dressed, arms and head sewn on then it was time to needle felt the hair on which was merino wool and angelina fibres. I was just adding the last piece and then snap my needle had snapped in the head. I tried desperately to get the needle out but it was gone and her head was stuffed very tightly so it wouldn't even squeeze out. I just didn't know what to do. I did have a lightbulb moment, I just needed to take her head off and make a new one which I did.  I still have the old head and took a photo of Selene holding it, and that needle is still in there it just won't come out.. 

Selene wasn't the only cloth art doll I made last week, I wanted to make a witch doll for myself. With this one I wanted to try out a new technique for the face which involves painting the whole of the face and head.  It went reasonably well I just need to get a brush pen as my fineliner didn't like the surface. Again I used the faux grey silk but with black organza this time, the hair colour was a problem I just couldn't decide, black was too harsh & grey too bland but I found some lovely magenta / plum wool. I feel she turned out really well. 

My next Cloth doll projects will be a woodland fairy and then a couple of Santa's, but in the meantime here are some more photos of Selene and Cerridwen the Witch.

See you next time

Victoria x

Butterflies, Bugs and Ducks

Yesterday my son came in telling me he saw a really pretty and maybe a rare butterfly on the flowers near our pond. We went to have a look and it was a really pretty Copper butterfly unfortunately we didn't have time to get our cameras as we were off out to lunch but I promised him we would be able to take photos when we got back.  

So a little while later and with the butterfly book to hand we stood and waited with our cameras at the ready. 

There were lots of insects on the fleabane flowers including my favorite Bumble bees. I also managed to get a lovely picture of a Hoverfly, they really fascinate me how they hover and flit about so it was nice to see one at rest. 

  

Unfortunately all the Copper Butterflies decided to disappear but that didn't matter as we had a lovely treat of about 5 or 6 Silver Studded Blue's flitting around. We had to wait patiently for them to settle on the flowers. I managed to get some really good close up photo's and then a Copper came back but my battery had died, so we decided to come back out again later. 

By the time our the battery had charged it was early evening and the butterflies had gone it was just the bumble bees and insects busy on the flowers. My son was trying to take a photo of a bumble bee but he got a bit close and she decided to crawl on the camera lens. So with no pretty butterflies and the wind swaying the flowers to much I decided to try and get a photo of our ducklings and ducks. This was tricky as they really hate you getting close but I managed to get a nice photo of the ducklings 

  

The adult ducks really weren't very sure and our dog wanted to play with them so I just had to take a quick pic. Hopefully we can get some photos of the other butterflies that have visited our garden this summer, maybe the ducks if they stay still long enough and hopefully our quails and chickens as well. 

See you next time.

Victoria x

Pinterest, Blogs & Sewing

I have just added a widget on the right hand side, can you see it? It will take you to my boards on Pinterest, I have lots of gorgeous things pinned on there as well as my own work, tutorials, etc. In fact I recently pinned a blog post on there about a problem I was having with my sewing machine. The tension was just not right and the thread from the bobbin kept getting snagged and however I tried I couldn't work out what to do. Well I had two options either send the machine back or find a solution on the internet. I always try the internet first and yes I found it in a blog post by rdrop and it worked. My tension was far too tight hence why the bobbin thread would just jam. I pinned the blog so I know where it was and others could also find it. Pinterest has become very handy for pinning things I want to look at later like tutorials and more. 

I was sewing a fairy when the tension needed adjusting, it was a bit of a challenge as she had wires through her legs and body so she can be posed. Also for some reason I don't like my cloth dolls at one point, this is when they are bald and with no clothes, I just think they are not looking good. But by the time I get the clothes and hair on I like them. 

For this fairy, who I called Oona, I used some of my favourite fabrics and some recycled from and old bridesmaids dress of my sisters. The skirt on Oona is a beautiful chiffon in a gorgeous blue that also has a purple sheen. The colours of her clothes also went well with her hair which was made from bamboo fibre. 

This is also my second blog post this month my first was for the Craft Pimp Blog, it was fun to write and was all about my first attempts at needle felting. You will find the post here http://craftpimp.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/ouch-that-hurt-crafts-that-bite.html  The Craft Pimp Blog has some great things on it including some regular items like The Market Place and Fridays Favourite. 

bye for now

Victoria x