Bunting Queens

I spent a lovely day yesterday with two good friends making bunting. Why bunting? well I belong to the PTA at my son's school and we are having an Easter / Spring fair. We normally have one at Christmas but last year we just did a craft fair and decided to do an Easter / Spring fair instead. As we are hoping to hold the fair outside, the PTA thought it would be nice to have some bunting up and it had to be pastels. The three of us volunteered to make some bunting as it would be cheaper to make than buy.

I arrived at my friends house with my sewing machine, a few pieces of scrap fabric and three large rolls of bias binding I had found. She provided lunch, and my other friend brought her sewing machine and more fabric. well we had to start with a quick cuppa and then made a template out of paper and transferred it to the fabrics and cut them out with pinking shears. I know we could have sewn the edges together and turned them through but we needed the bunting to be quick to make and also get as much bunting out of the fabric as we could. 

We pinned the triangles to the binding and two of us sewed them up, while another carried on pinning. Well we got about five long lengths made, despite interruptions for lunch, tea and cake, re threading machines and swearing at the machines and lots of laughter. I must say the bunting looked brilliant, I will hopefully get a picture of the bunting on the day, but in the meantime here is a picture of a practise run I made Wednesday evening. 

A bit of luck and Cloth Dolls

I have been very lucky in the past few weeks. First I won a pair of beautiful earrings made by Kayleigh of Cyndra Arts, and then I also was lucky to be picked out by a kitten to win a gorgeous bracelet by Faith of Abyjem. So if you see a giveaway on a blog or via facebook twitter etc go have a look you never know you might get something gorgeous like these.

     

You will find Kayleigh's Etsy shop here        and Faith's Etsy shop here.

I have been busy with making stuffed toys and Cloth Art Dolls. These two beautiful Elves went to new loving homes. 

 

I have also made a pirate girl doll which is for sale in my ETSY shop along with a Teddy Bear and Cat.

There will also be a Chicken in the ETSY shop at some point. In the meantime I'm going to make a goth girl doll for my daughter and then I want to make a Stump doll maybe two possible as a mermaid and the moon. So its been a busy start to the year so far, and lots more to create as well.

Holidays are over.

The school holidays went really quick and I'm now back to being at home on my own with my very daft Labrador. Which to be honest as much as I love the kids company over the holidays, I can get on with a lot more work when they are not here. 

Last year the jewellery sales have slowed mainly because of the financial climate and I think 2012 was the year of the Elf, lol. With that in mind I have decided to just make jewellery with my own beads, I also want to improve my lampwork and the elves will be ever present. Plus there will be more cloth dolls as I want to eventually have a soft version of an Elf. In fact I finally got a new sewing machine and I made my first cloth doll, I started it on New Years day and finished it the following day. I must say I really enjoyed making it and I now have so many ideas for more. 

In my last post I mentioned that I was firing coasters in my kiln one at a time and I couldn't show you what I had been up to. Well I gave them to my parents and they loved them so I can now show you, one is missing from the photo as it was still in the kiln at the time. I did really enjoy painting them and was very happy with the outcome and I will certainly make more. I would like to paint bigger items but I think that will have to wait for a long time as I will need a larger kiln. 

New Projects

Well I'm all ready for Christmas and this week is fairly clear of work and Christmas preparation. So I have been busy with some craft projects. One project was something I meant to start in the summer holidays but I have only just managed to get round to completing them. I was programming my bead cube this morning to fire some coasters that have been over glazed painted. Unfortunately the kiln is so tiny I can only fire one at a time so I either have to fire every day or twice a day. When they are fired I will take photos and show them off after Christmas  I can't show them before as they are gifts for my parents. 

But in the mean time I can show you another new project I have underway. 

These Green-men are Cloth Doll decorations, I bought a pattern from Colleen Babcock and they were very fun to make. I loved needle sculpting the faces and as you can see not one has the same face, which I like. Now there is only one thing, my sewing machine, its fifteen years old and apart from problems with the tension it does the job. But when I use it it smells like, well the only way to describe it is the smell of a party popper or a Christmas cracker when popped or snapped. So I think it may have had its day and its time to replace it. So you may see more of the cloth dolls from me in the new year. 

Christmas Robins

I have made Christmas decorations for sale this year.  Well not surprisingly they are made from glass. So my ETSY shop has glass Fairies, Angels, Snowmen and Robins.The Robins are in a brilliant Christmas Robin treasury by Nicola Dawber on ETSY.  Which is HERE if you want to have a look. Well as expected I had to have a go at making Elf Robins, I had great fun painting  them and sewing the eyes and beaks on the felt hats. I have a feeling you may see a few more bird and animal Elves next year.

Christmas Fairs and Something New

Its the Christmas Craft Fair season and I've just done my first one of two that I do every year. I only attend one or two Fairs at Christmas mainly because of family life and they are hard work. The Fair is admittedly the easy part, it is all the preparation before the Fair, pricing stock, checking stock , making new stock, printing out signs, sorting out displays and much more. Then I get to the fair and find the Body Shop or Pampered Chef nearby, which is frustrating but I will blog about that another time. 

So as I mentioned I've made new stock for the Fair, I have made some new Elves and the wooden Pig above which has been turned into a Blackboard  / Chalkboard. I had made some Chickens in the summer but they sold out completely, and I have ordered more so keep and eye out for some Chickens in the not to distant future. 

Halloween Elves

Yes its getting to that time of year again and I have made some Halloween Elves that have already been listed on Etsy. I had great fun with them, I already had the BOO! elves and the vampire elf Bite Me listed on Etsy. 

I thought it would be a good idea to make some more.  Well I had to make another vampire naturally but I didn't want to make wire wings as they can be a bit annoying to fix on. After a lot of thinking I settled on a design and made Count Dracula. I loved making him especially the bloody mess around his face and his cloak looks great even if it was a bit tricky to get it to stick on. 

I couldn't just leave it at the Count so I made a family set called the O'Lanterns, pumpkin elves.  Again I was so pleased with them as they turned out really well, also they seem to be popular on Etsy having been featured in a few treasuries. 

 Now I need to make a few beads and charms and make some Halloween Jewellery. Then it will be Christmas but as I have a few elves ready I have already started listing them on Etsy, which for me is unusually early especially as we haven't celebrated Halloween yet.