Cacti in the Snow....

So on Friday we awoke to an almighty dump of snow. My friend Grace is currently staying with us from London and she'd asked the night before if she thought it would be a problem going to work the next day and I'd been so sure of myself when I told her we were too close to the coast for it to be a problem; more likely just get slush and freezing rain here! Oh how I gleefully ate my words! This was our view at 7am that morning!

Grace was a good girl and missioned it into work.I however had the day off to play with Thom and run around the fields at the end of the road :)

After we returned in from our play time I felt inspired to crochet; so I made a few cacti!

I'd spotted a pile of old pots in the garden so after I washed them all out I set to fill them with fun easy to maintain greenery.

 

This one i made by crocheting an oblong of ribbed by only going into the back loops and then used a running stitch to gather it in at the top. The others I created by crocheting in the round and then stitching the blobs together. I'm enjoying the fact that there are endless possibilities!

Unfortunately for now I'm not very well and am feeling very frustrated at my body for being weak and pitiful. I've had to turn the brightness on my laptop screen down to one to be even able to squint at it! Meh!! I do have Zorro keeping me company though.

Crafster Best of 2012!!

I'm a Craftster Best of 2012 Winner!

Ah I'm having a little gushing moment. I've just had my day made by my favourite craft forum. As most of my blog reader know I love Crafster and think it's an amazing way to bring crafty people from all over the world together to share ideas and how to's. 

Each January they do a sum up of the past year in their favourite posts and organise a top 5 from each of the catagories. Last year I was lucky enough to win a position in the list with  Core Blimey a jacket that I'd made for the first PrintHaus exhibition. 

 
This year however I won for 2 different posts! How awesome is that! 

The first is for a piece I made for my swap buddy sheepBlue using my space print and embroidering into it.  You can read the full post here

The other was for a post that I'd written at the begining of the year about my balloon screen prints showing the steps I'd taken to transform the fabric through from start to finished project as a purse!

Read the full post here

Ah what a rad way to start the day! If you have some time to kill I highly recommend looking through the full list of Best of's from across the whole forum; super inspiring!

Here's to 2013, more crafting to follow soon!!!

Happy New Year Work in Progress.

I've been struggling to get back into writing a blog post since the whole Christmas/ New Year tide but today in South Wales we have crazy snow and I am off work so thought I shouldn't waste any more time and get on with it!
I wanted to post about a beautiful embroidered cushion that I made before Christmas but eek my boyfriend managed to delete the photos accidentally from the memory card. Boooo! Hopefully the lovely Lucy (who received said pillow for Crimbo) will be kind enough to send me some photos and then I can share!

I do have a whole host of other bits and pieces I've been working on that I can just bamboozle you all with in the mean time. I'm in a phase of working on a few different things at the moment and not all are finished yet so bear with me and I'll explain all!

Record Bowls! 
Yes I have been making tonnes more bowls! They're the new sensation - I'm selling loads from the shop at the moment, even after the Christmas gift buying days are long gone. I was given a pile of warped 7"s so have been making miniature ones as well and playing round with different wave forms for the edges.

Shrinkies!
I've also been trying my hand at a new technique of making jewellery, well new to me - I am very aware that it's been around for ages and I'm slow to catch on here haha. Ah it is super cool being able to create pieces with my own drawings and for future ones I'm planing on screen printing onto the plastic instead of hand drawing everyone with permanent markers. I'm also in love with how small they go, great potential there! I will do a full length post on this once I've finished them all and created the final pieces.

Felty Badges and Necklaces too!
I've been stitching up some more little felt creations which has been fun. I've been making lots of little bits and pieces whilst idling the time away in the shop. Mr Foxy and Mr Panda were turned into necklaces which look really sweet. I attached jump rings to their ears and then onto the chain. They've already disappeared out of the shop with a lovely young gent buying gifts for his travelling friends; I hope they like them.

 
Hmm I'm thinking I may end it there for today and pick back up with another post over the weekend! Keep you waiting for the even better stuff haha. 
Here's to a crafty 2013 x

Parcel Tape Bracelets.

Screen printers go through huge volumes of parcel tape. I collected a bundle of the cardboard inners from Visible Arts and decided to make some bangles.

I started off by Mod Podging a layer of fabric to the cardboard. It becomes quite stiff with all the glue. I smoothed down all the lumpy bits on the inside.

Using the fabric as a base, I wrapped lace around the tube to create different designs.

I used a hot glue gun to add felt to the inside of the tube. They were slightly too big on the wrist with just the fabric and lace, so I thought it would help make them a little comfier and also a better fit. I ordered a pile of different colour felt off cuts from eBay a few months ago to make felt badges so had a few colours to choose from to match in with the designs. I actually decided to make a feature of it and choose fun colours.

In case I don't get to blog again this week, Merry Christmas everybody xx

Record Bowls Ahoy!

So I've had a pile of old records for a few years now. They were given to me by an old window cleaner on the promise I would use them in a creative way. Most of them are, fortunately for me, LPs that no one will ever really take the time to listen to again. I definitely couldn't have done this to any decent records I love the sound of vinyl.

I went trawling through on-line tutorials to see what method seemed best (there are so many different ways of doing this!) and ended up going with the picture below. Big ovenproof round dish, record, small oven proof dish!!

I originally set the oven quite high as per internet instructions but quickly discovered I needed it much lower. I'm not sure if this is because we have a gas oven not an electric one. I ended up having most success at around Gas Mark 4 for about 2 minutes, then it was floppy enough to have sunk into the dish and you can play around with the shape of the folds. I don't know whether I have no feeling for heat in my hands but i was able to touch and mould the vinyl with my bare fingers; I obviously used gloves for the dishes!! I unfortunately lost the first two to playing around with temperatures; as it was too hot the edges began to bubble and looked gnarly; you can see it in the picture.

When i did get the hang of it, it was really fun to see all the different shapes that formed, each one is definitely unique.

 

I've popped them in the shop, I thought they'd make good Christmas prezzies.

 

Snapped Up Dinosaur Christmas!!

Today has been the return of Snapped Up at the PrintHaus. Such a good day, it started off quite slow this morning but I guess people were just having a long lie in; don't blame them though I could really do with a relaxing morning in bed, I don't think it's gonna happen for a few weeks yet!!

I spent the day printing stockings with people and giving some tips. I love being able to skill share and these events are always a great way to introduce people to screen printing.

The design was just a big oblong on the screen, so I cut a paper stencil in the stocking shape which i taped to the back of the screen with parcel tape.

I also created a tshirt design which I donated to the PrintHaus to use. They always ask local designers to create a few designs for the day and this time had some great stuff from the likes of Phil Morgan, Ian Watson and Tom Kitchen some of the cream of the crop in Cardiff design in my opinion.

It's always a treat to see your design on a tshirt!!

I also had a stall selling a few bits and pieces selected from the shop.

I'm going to have a few more of the stockings for sale in the shop from Tuesday, so pop in and pick one up!!

 

Crochet Jewellery!

This week I've been working on some jewellery! As it's heading up to Christmas time I'm trying to work on the gifty things I can sell in the shop.  I created these crochet flowers with a tini tiny hook; I think it was a 2.5mm diameter. A tad on the fiddley side to make with my big fingers.

I also started on a few sea animal toy earrings! They're a fun way to recycle old toys.

The next 'Snapped Up' Market is next Sunday and I've started working on my drawings today ready to print!

If you're in Cardiff next weekend, it's always a great day with tonnes going on!