Return to Crafting

Hi all you Tiddlybobbers!

Sorry for the long absence but a lot of personal problems have kept me away from blogging for a bit. However, things have now begun to steady out a little so back to my craft desk I go.

I am lucky enough to have incredible friends and a group of them bought me a Hobbycraft gift card for my last birthday. I have spent hours on the site putting things in the basket and taking them back out and putting them back in again but finally I selected my chosen items and my box of awesome craft supplies arrived yesterday. 

Mmmmm... crafty goodness!!!

And it was just in time as today is the rainiest day in a long time so absolutely perfect for many cups of tea and lots of crafting. 

I've made a few projects today. I've become quite self-reflective in the last few months and have begun journalling. A bit part of that has been jotting down all the inspirational quotes I come across.

So I decided to bring this into our house and energize my housemates with an inspirational word on our wall. 

The wooden word is from Hobbycraft and was super cheap. I painted it in a lovely acrylic blue and popped it on the wall with Bluetac so now, as we descend our stairs every morning, we are inspired to do what we do best. 

The wall above my bed is very blank and I've been contemplating what to put on it for ages. I saw another wooden word on the Hobbycraft website and it instantly stimulated a project idea in my head. 

I painted the word in the same blue acrylic paint and then added gold glitter to some wooden pegs. I then hung some string with clear tape and hung up some clouds I had cut from white paper. Voila! A super cute way to brighten up my blank wall.

The final project involved my favourite crafting skill - embroidery. I bought a plain pencil case to keep all of my craft tools (pom pom makers, paper cutting knife etc.) in and brightened it up with some simple stitching and my favourite buttons. 

Feels so good to be making things again and I can't wait to post about more of my creations int he future. Sorry if I bore you to tears!

If you go down to the woods today...

I have been waiting on my sewing machine being delivered before taking on any sewing projects but I couldn't wait to try this one. I came across this picture tutorial on making a teddy bear from a sock quite a while ago on Pinterest and it's been playing on my mind since. So last night, out came an old pair of socks and my sewing kit. The socks I was working with were a pair of knee high socks so a LOT bigger than the ones in the tutorial and then I messed up cutting out the head so I ended up working with my own imagination to make my own version! 

I'm not too happy with the stitching in places and how visible it is so that's something I will work on when making another one. I also got very impatient when sewing so the gaps between stitches are quite big which I'm sure means that the stuffing will start making an appearance at some point. 

My plan is to redo everything when my sewing machine arrives to prevent the stuffing escaping and to make it neater. I also want to work on my hand stitching to be able to hide the stitches when I have to attach certain bits by hand. 

BUT in saying all of that I absolutely love this little teddy and I'm quite proud that I was able to make it myself! I am very excited to make many more and possibly try this monkey if I'm feeling brave! But first I've got to think of a name for him...

Button Biscuits

As it was biscuit week on Great British Bake Off and in honour of my new blog logo I decided to try my hand at baking some button shaped biscuits. The recipe I used was from this blog post by 2011 GBBO finalist, Holly. 

It's a great recipe but unfortunately I didn't have the equipment so I improvised with the cookie cutters and glasses I could find in my house including using a chopstick to create the holes! This meant that my biscuits were a lot bigger than the ones Holly made and this affected the cooking time so I wasn't sure when to take them out! In saying that I think I guesstimated pretty much on the button (PUN!!!) and they came out looking great if a little uneven in thickness! But who cares once they taste great right?