Thank you Kitty Thimble, that's just so, well, nice of you!
And thank you to Bella Enchanted for dreaming the whole award up.
I agree, nice does matter and I nominate the following niceties for the award too:
Sarah,
Vanessa,
Desiree,
Ali,
Betsy,
Kelli,
and I can't leave you off the list so I'm sending it straight back to you:
Ruthanne!
This bookmark (which Annie made) is David's favourite gift of all time. I can understand why: I was brought up to believe that a handmade gift is so much more special and touching than any bought in a shop.
Hand-made automatically implies
something that's been made with attention by someone who cares about
the finished results. It suggests individuality and a touch of the
makers personality.
I've noticed canny companies turn the latest crafting trend into a marketing tool. 'Hand-finished' is seen to be a good
selling point. This could be a sprinkling of glitter glued onto a mass
produced greetings card adding £2 to the price. And sometimes I see quilts for sale in shops labelled as 'hand-made' which have clearly been made on a machine and, I suspect, in a factory.
People have protested in the past about me labelling things I've made using a sewing machine as 'handmade'. I suppose I mean 'not-mass-produced-in-a-factory'. There's a huge difference between something genuinely hand-made and mass-produced 'hand-made' goods (I'm still struggling to believe there's such a thing!)
Of course, anything that comes into fashion will inevitably go out again, so it's a good idea to exploit the crafting vogue and enjoy it while it lasts!
And if I don't have time to make hand made gifts for my friends and family, well I'm just going to get myself on over to Etsy, which is hand made heaven. These are some of my current favourites:
Today we raided my felt and button stash and created little critters.
To make it nice and easy we used cookie cutters as templates.
Annie also made a mini pillow and asked me to knit a little blanket for her tiny ted. For some reason she also decided to stitch a length of ribbon to the top of hers.
Which gave me a brainwave. I've had this keyring since Christmas (check out the site: pakhuis oost.com) and
I really love it.
Apart from the cuteness of it and the groovy retro
fabric, I love that it's so huge and bright that I can find it in the
depths of my bag relatively easily.But (as it resides in the depths of my bag) it's become really grubby and tatty so needs replacing. Voila:
Now I am aware that the cute, rounded form of a gingerbread man doesn't lend itself perfectly to skeletal embroidery, but I decided to do the embroidery after I'd cut and stuffed the little fella. And with this alphabet/letter a day business, I'm on a tight schedule!
I used some felted wool scraps I bought from Betz White (you can also get felted wool in the most beautiful, muted range of colours from Purl).
The skeletal inspiration came from numerous sources, but my main influence must be Pandora's Button Box which I discovered recently and visit regularly.
Well, redwork, if you want to be precise.
But I don't as that doesn't begin with E!
For redwork inspiration you can't get better than Redwork in Germany's flickr set.
Check out Angry Chicken's weblog for someJapanese redwork love.
Here are some of my favourite family drawings of all time:
Still life by Annie 2006.
Self Portrait by Eliza 2007.
Life drawing by me 1995.
OK, so I know it's not a complete disaster, but it was supposed to be a fairy castle.
And I didn't actually cry, it was more of a stroppy sulk, but that doesn't start with a C.
At least the Birthday girl appreciated it.
Happy Birthday Annie!
I promise not to attempt to make your cake next year.
Here are some button rainbows:
I can't decide which background works best.
Before I stitch them down...
... tell me which you prefer!
I've been in need of fresh inspiration for a little while and it's finally come in the form of a meme on Bella Dia's blog. She's creating an 'Encyclopedia of Me', which basically involves revealing a little bit of information about yourself each day, using a letter of the alphabet as a starting point. Read all about it here!
As I've always been one to follow the rules, I'm going to rebel (I am an official 'rockin girl blogger' don't you know?!). Anyway, I'm not great at memes so mine is going to be a crafty alphabet, starting with A for applique. I want to give myself a creative kick up the bum, so I'm trying to make something every day. And as it's the school holidays the girls are playing along. Here are their appliques:
It's the most simple form, using bondaweb, but the results are instantaneous which keeps them motivated and they get to use an iron which holds so much excitement for a 3 and 6 year old, you wouldn't believe! (before I get arrested by health and safety officials, let me just point out they were heavily supervised).
I'm not promising to post every day, this may take me 52, rather than 26 days, and I may not go in alphabetical order, but hopefully I'll see you tomorrow with a B!
This is what we would look like if we lived in Springfield:
Groovy! Have a go at simpsonizeme.com.
I spend copious amounts of time making things and then blogging about them when I really should be working/cleaning/ironing/looking after my children.
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