Sunny day stitching!

I decided to crack on with a craft project that I'd been meaning to complete for a while now, It's been sitting in a pre cut pack in my room since Easter!
It's a 'make your own felt doll' kit, and comes with all the felt and stuffing. I think it was meant to come with thread and a sewing needle too although mine didn't, but luckily I have plenty of that so it was no problem. I thought that it might take me a couple of hours to assemble but it actually took me all day, it turns out that i am a slow hand stitcher, or much slower than I though. I guess I could have done it by machine, but sewing at a machine is less theraputic I think as they're all noisy and such.

Here is the little before and after for you!

She may look a little scruffy or rough around the edges but I got a real sense of satisfaction from making her, I decided to name her Delilah!
I would really encourage you to do something similar just as a bit of mental therapy for the day!

New video: A good things jar!

If you're looking for a positive and newly crafty way to improve your outlook on your life then you could use a 'Good Things' jar
I originally saw this idea on Pinterest, and thought that it was such a great thing to begin in January and all you need is a jar!
Everytime something good happens to you (little or big!) write it on a note, and put it in your jar!

I can't wait to see at the end of the year all the great and wonderful and good things that have happened to me and to reflect on them, let me know if you're trying this too!

Bow-Tiful!

Making a bow dress is the easiest craft project imaginable!

 

 

This is how it goes down:

Take a plain dress (this works with vest tops, jumpers and tshirts too) in a pretty colour

And an assortment of bows, I have seven in lots of nice colours- I love pastel colours, you can make them yourself with leftover ribbon or buy them from ebay or craft shops

Lay the bows out on the dress and put them where you think works, make sure you don’t have two colours together that are too ‘samey’

You can pin the bows down where you like them, or just go straight into sewing them on

Take a length of white thread about 15-20cm and knot one end, then thread the other end through the eye of a sewing needle

Each bow takes out 4 simple hand stitches to secure them, then knot them at the back, and go onto the next bow

Then there you have it, a simple bow dress that takes all of twenty minutes but makes you look as pretty as a wrapped birthday present!

Classroom bird deco!

We went on down to my sisters classroom as the school summer holiday is drawing to a close to sort things out and make it look a little bit cuter! You don’t realise how much effort goes into ‘jazzing’ up a classroom, or at least I didn’t! I don’t remember my teachers making the classrooms I was in so pretty and fun and inviting.

So the theme for this year was birds, last year it was sports (for the Olympics) so we had to bird up a classroom which is easier said than done.
Here you can see me trying to sort out the reading area in the classroom, and make it look kind of like a tropical jungle with birdies sat on top. There’s green netting over the top of the plastic to make it look a little more ‘leafy’

I added painted bird eggs, birds with feathers (that probably look like the kids in the class made them…) and tissue paper tassles, as well as a green plastic sheet along the back to make it feel more secluded.

On another wall was the really fun ‘fancy word’ wall bordered in get this… feather boas! I thought that was just the funnest idea and would encourage me to use the more fancy words...

Nothing is finished yet but I sure hope they like it!

Crafty Monday ~ Reviewing a book!

When I'm having a craft-block I tend to turn to my crafty books for ideas, and my frquent 'go to' is "Generation T: Beyond Fashion: 110 T-Shirt Transformations" so I thought I would share my attempt at an unbiased review with you! You can get this book from Amazon, I got mine from TopShop.

An eclectic collection of all sorts of projects for your tshirts that are too small, too big, stained or old.
A good book for the open minded crafter, rather than the fashion conscious stitcher as some designs are beyond hippyish, an example is the 'knot above the rest' shawl that I can only imagine would be good as an addition to a witches Halloween costume, and the gaucho pants which I would only wear as Jammies and therefore probably not go to the effort to make them.
A problem with the designs in the book is that lots of the ones that appeal to me require multiple tshirts in size Large, therefore to make the design I would have to go out and purchase several tshirts in that size- which goes against the recycling message of the book.
Despite this, there's a lot of sweet and very wearable ideas in the book, I found the children's section to be the most inspiring and innovative in terms of variety of designs and just downright good ideas. Many that I could and would make as they're practical fun and appropriate for little kiddies that grow fast. Contrastingly, I thought the home-wear section was the weakest and would only appeal to those who can't get enough of 70s interior design, the most memorable being the fabric square coasters stitched with a raw edge, the table runner which is essentially the coasters stitched into a long line and the fluffy toilet seat cover that is probably the most unsanitary concept I ever saw.
It became apparent in many ways that the author was running out of ideas in every category, which detracts from the 50% of very good, and inspiring ideas. I would think more favourably upon this book had it been half the size and containing just the best ideas. Perhaps its extensive range was a way of appealing to as many people as possible, while I may think the 'legalise pot holders' were gaudy, of course many out there won't.
To widen its potential market further there is a large selection of 'no sew' options and designs that could be stitched together by hand making sure that no one with a bit of a creative flair is excluded.
As a whole, the book is an original concept with many good ideas that encourages a tshirt crafting party with a playlist at the start of each chapter, but nothing will blow you away, nor is anything suitable for wearing as anything other than very casual- everything is made from old tshirts after all!

I just want to reiterate that I do love and use this book really often, but I also know that for this to be any use to anyone else, I'd have to find things to criticise too sot that you get the full picture because not everyone is me, or has my taste!

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Tshirt drawing time!

What do you do when you have spare white tshirts, fabric pens and a free evening? You combine it all together for a crafty evening or surprise tshirt presents!

We made a tshirt for eachother and created a cereal box wall on the table so we couldn't peek at eachothers design!

This is how my design began, I wanted to make a dragon/knight theme so started with scales on the sleeves

Two hours later the crafting had finished!
I was worried the dragon looked a little too happy for a tough warrior to wear

A shield on the back that it wasn't until afterwards that I realised it was kiddy-sized!

This was the cute design I got back! covered in candy treats with cotton candy clouds and cookie angels, all my favourite sweet things in one place!

Pinterest Spamterest

Pinterest is a great ol' hub of creativity mixing together, if you are a bride to be then you need to make your way over to Pinterest.com for every creative, beautiful, money saving, romance making, awe inducing creations, themes, colour schemes, locations and dresses from the most stylish and savvy brides of the world!

I have created seperate virtual pin boards for clothes from my dreams, places I thought were only in fantasy lands, foods that are so pretty I want to coat them in a clear preserve to look at them forever and other boards just to collect all the crazy and outlandish world statistics that I never knew about and others are there to gather the craft projects of my dreams, I wish we didn't need to always be in the real world and going to the places that we have to go to like work and school and instead we could have months of empty time just to make and stick and stitch and paint.

Just lately though my boards have been corrupted by spam, I don't even know how it could have happened but my account has just given birth to brand new boards all by itself titled completely lame things like 'The best paid jobs in the US' ... i don't even live in the US- that's not something that I would put on my lovely array of pin boards! And the more I delete it, more boards seem to spring up that I didn't even create!
I just hope if i keep reporting it, it will go away but I won't let it plague my oasis of favourite things on my pin boards.
Here are some of my favourites!

www.pinterest.com/alexiaesque

Hey...am I doing 'it' right?

When I think of scrapbooking I think of little old ladies crouching over a table of war time photographs and musty magazine cut outs. Which maybe isn't such a kind perspective
But when I came across a bundle of just 'stuff' I had no idea what to do with it all. It included so many train tickets that I couldnt even count, cute little messages from friends, snippets and treasured photographs.

I wanted to combine them all together in a fun way than just sticking the photographs in a photo album and putting the knick knacks in a dusty shoe box.

And the solution was...scrapbooking!

I don't know if I'm 'doing it' right I wikipedia'd 'scrapbooking' to see if what I considered scrapbooking was the actual definition and quite frankly I'm still not sure!
But from what I gathered it is basically, a mish-mash of collages, little embellishments and snippets on a page and two approaches can be taken

1.A neat pristine and rather expensive looking approach with clean and concise scrap books

2.Or the 'Alexia' approach where I basically cut up everything in sight and purpously tear pictures to give them a breezy rough edge to cover up my horrible cutting and slap it all down on the page where I think it looks good

For now, I'm quite happy with my approach! And the scrap book cost the grand ol' price of £3-ish which is cheaper than a photo album and much more fun!

So there you have it, perhaps I am a convert and I join in scrapbooking alongside the war time grannies from my head.

I HEART your corset

So you're going to:

a) Alice in Wonderland Fancy Dress party
b) Tea party
c) Relax in the garden?

and you have a:
a) Few packs of playing cards
b) Ribbon
c) Hole punch
d) Staple/Glue gun


Then you can join in on this crafty creation!

-Get a willing model (the same size as you) and shape the cards around their torso
-Staple or glue gun the cards as you go, be careful not to injure your willing model
-Try and keep the cards in line for a neat patterns, or if you don't mind a 'scattered' look then attach the cards with less care and more haste
-Don't join the cards to fully meet in a circle so that the whole torso is covered as you need a gap about the width of a playing card to thread the ribbon
-Remove the corset of cards and evenly hole punch down the side
-Thread through a red ribbon

Wallah!

If you're feeling brave, you could try and master a skirt too!

Top tip:
You can buy playing cards super cheap from charity shops (literally pennies!)
You can create a theme by only using cards from on suit, but then you'll need more cards!
Wear a strapless cotton top underneth your corset for comfort, the edges can be sharp (and modesty incase any cards tear!)

Storing up nail polish!

Sometimes the best, and easiest way to decorate your bedroom, is to use the things already in it, but arrange them in a decorative way!
You may have read my 'tired of untying your necklaces?' post, where I show you how to store your jewelerry while decorating a blank wall.

Well here, I give you....

The nail polish rack!!!

What do you need? A spice rack and a pot of paint.

If you're a little less patient you can use a spray can .

You could but a new spice rack, get one from a second hand store or even from ebay to really keep costs low.

For the hot nail colours of this season for the teeny price of £2.99 a bottle see Fridays post (30/03/12)

Mother Mummy Mama Mom Mum Ma

Defined as:
Heart healer
Happy maker
Supporter
Comforter
Sacrifice maker
Listener
it goes on and on and on and on!

This day in England is Mothers day, or Mothering Sunday.
A day to cherish our mothers, but remember- you don't need a special day to cherish your mother, they're beautiful diamonds in our hearts that should be admired always!

Maybe things with your mum aren't so peachy, maybe you have an Aunt, Grandma, Sister or friend that has been a mother instead!  Let them know how thankful you are to have had them when it felt like we had no one.
Mothers treasure kind words more than fancy presents, a home made card says so much more than a shop bought one- everyone will tell you that, not just mums!

If you want to get your mama a little something but are out of cash or time , watch my 2 minute video on how to make a foam boquet of roses.

All you need is:
Foam (colour for the flowers, and green for the leaves)
Scissors
Pipe cleaners

What you don't need:
Glue
£$£ a lot of money!$£$
a creative 'flair'



1. Cut out a strip of foam and keep one edge of the strip with a straight cut edge, make the other side kind of wavy to look like petals

2. Cut out a doughnut shape foam (circle with a hole in the middle) and cut the edges kind of wavy, so they look petal-like

3. Take a green pipecleaner (this is your stalk) poke it through one side of the jagged strip and wrap the strip up tightly, secure it in place with the doughnut shaped part pushed up and over the rolled up strip

4. Cut out a leaf shape (2 per flower should be enough)

5. Poke the leaves through either end of another green pipe cleaner

6. Wrap this around the stalk pipecleaner (the one attatched to the petals)

7. Gift it to someone, or keep them for yourself, on your jewelerry table, dresser, window ledge, wherever!

Happy Mothers day to everyone!

Mothers day! Time is running out...

So Mothers day is this weekend and you just glanced into your purse and moths fly out.I know the feeling
We have all been there!

Never fear, I have a crafty project in order-

If you're real crafty, you can make it all yourself! (I wish I had, but I didn't realise they'd be so darn simple)

If you've got less time and a budget of a grand total of £2, then mosey on over to Morrisons and pick up the kit for £2 in the crafts section:

Here's the super quick video, to show you how I did it!



Instructions are as follows:

1. Cut out a strip of foam and keep one edge of the strip with a straight cut edge, make the other side kind of wavy to look like petals

2. Cut out a doughnut shape foam (circle with a hole in the middle) and cut the edges kind of wavy, so they look petal-like

3. Take a green pipecleaner (this is your stalk) poke it through one side of the jagged strip and wrap the strip up tightly, secure it in place with the doughnut shaped part pushed up and over the rolled up strip

4. Cut out a leaf shape (2 per flower should be enough)

5. Poke the leaves through either end of another green pipe cleaner

6. Wrap this around the stalk pipecleaner (the one attatched to the petals)

7. Gift it to someone, or keep them for yourself, on your jewelerry table, dresser, window ledge, wherever!

Top tips:

About six flowers makes a nice boquet
You can add glitter if that's your mamas thang'
you can present them in a little wicker-spring time basket (available from florists)
You can spray them with perfume so they're scented like flowers!
If your mum asks why they're not real you can be real slick and say:
''Because, like my love for you- these flowers will never die''

Happy crafting!

Don't throw away your sweet wrappers!...

Wear them instead!!!

That's right, there are people that take recycling to a whooooole new level!
I give you...
The candy wrapper corset!

I'm not much of a corset wearer myself, but I might just make an exception for this one.
I can't quite decide if it's hobo-chic or sugary sweet though.
What do you think?

This one will set you back a pretty penny at £193.53 or $299 from here
But I'm pretty sure you could make one yourself providing you're willing to eat a few bags of sweets! I'm sure freinds will be willing to help with that.
Then preserve the wrappers and with a cheap corset (ebay) and a hot glue gun (craft store) you could put it together yourself for £10 or less!

You could go to a fancy dress party as a bag of sweets! With a little of everything you're sure to be everyones favourite!

Cakes can be art too!

My beautiful friend makes to most incredible cakes, they are so delicious and cute- with iddy bitty icing detail so perfect it looks like it's been modeled from clay.

The most amazing part is that she's had no professional training, she just taught herself!

But she has oodles of talent and creativity, I hate having to cut into beautiful cakes like these...

I love the detail on the motorbikes- that would be so fiddly and need such a steady hand!

My favourite part of these is the iddy bitty rubber ducks! They're so cute, and the ruffly icing- I never saw ruffles in icing before!

I love how this compiles so many of Gagas looks, with a little icing version of her shaking her hiney!

Does this remind anyone else of a real life Farmville! The perfect little rows of cabbage and the white picket fence, so dreamy!

I sure hope these pictures made your day a little sweeter! Personally, it's gotten me hungry for cake...

Which ones your favourite? Mine is the last one, the perfect garden!

You're just 'write' for me!

Need a valentines day present in double quick time?

Try one of these adorable pencil holders with a sweet little note on it!
This owl is just the sweetest one ever and perfect to hand out to all your friends!

http://inspirationforhome.blogspot.com/search/label/Craft



The one that I'm going to make is a holder in the shape of a heart and then written on it is 'your just write for me!'
Especially fun if you have a friend or loved one that likes writing or drawing
OR...
If you have got less than 5 minutes to bring together something then grab a sticky note and on it write 'I love you today because...'
and then maybe just a few words on why you love that person nd stick it somewhere they'll see (fridge, bathroom mirror, school locker, tucked under car window wiper, in a coat pocket etc)
You don't need to spend out on fancy boxes of chocolates or teddy bears or any other extravagent goodies really.
Kind words mean so much more to those that we care about!