Up-cycled Skirt

I wanted a new casual winter skirt, without spending much money though, so I bought a long flarey cord skirt from the local charity shop (it worked out at less than £1), and chopped the bottom off. (I measured to the same length at several point around the skirt, marked it with pins, and cut round by eye, joining up the pins, then hemmed it.)

With the spare fabric, I made some roses. (Cut long strips, folded them in half, sewed along the bottom in my largest stitch width, then gathered them up, and stitched them into place.)

 My new skirt.

Cake!

Some ring cakes I made for a New Year's Eve party (Not very classy presentation - the lids of Celebrations chocolate boxes... very handy for transportation!)

I didn't know how to make toffee icing, so I made up some plain icing with icing sugar and water, then mixed in some Condensed milk toffee sauce. Not bad.

Crafts in the Christmas Holidays

We've had a nice, pretty relaxed Christmas time, and once the kids broke up from school, we spent quite a bit of time just making and drawing etc.

A felt thing I sewed for an old school friend. 

I adapted the design from this book by Clare Kingslake.

Very simple Christmas card design, using wooden Christmas tree ornaments, which I bought when they were on sale after last Christmas. I like the new reindeer embossing folder I bought from Cutting edge crafts (Link to right hand side.)

A Christmas card for a quilting friend! (The layered cardboard pieces were from Cricut's Country Life cartridge.)

Jack, our 2nd eldest, started making this creature ages and ages ago, and Lucy decided to finally finish it off for him. I like that it has glow-in-the-dark Hama beads for its mouth!

An applique picture for another friend, similar to one I've done before.

 I was itching to do a bit of quilting, so made this Christmas cushion one evening.

 I sewing machined a snowflake pattern along the back, and hand-sewed on beads.

And last but not least, the first baking I have ever seen my husband do! He took part in a pay-it-forward handmade gift thing on Facebook, and decided to make gingerbread London Temples for two of our friends... Can't say they're not creative!!

(Incidentally, for anyone not familiar with the London Temple, of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, here's a pic I took recently. See! Almost identical! - down to the green copper spire, golden angel on top, and pond to the side...)

A few bits

Some cakes I made when my new little niece, Roberta was born. (The idea for these also came from the 'Planet Cake' book mentioned in the post below.)

When we went to the library last week, I took my camera with me to get a photo of this picture which Harry (age 5) did, and which was put up as part of a display of children's book covers. I love it!

Harry was also in his school play last week - Babushka - and I thought it would be nice to make a little felty Babushka for his teacher. (This is from a design by Paper and String - link to the right hand side.)

Recent Baking

The cake I made for the school fair 'Guess the Sweets on the Cake' competition. (178, if you were wondering...)

Cupcakes for Harry and his friend's joint Pirate Birthday Party. The pirate faces were made from ready-to-roll icing (coloured with food pastes), and laid on top of a layer of ganache. I copied this design from the 'Planet Cake' book, by Paris Cutler.

And I love these mini chocolate bar moulds I found on ebay!

Finally finished my Happy Houses quilt!

I finally got on and finished the quilting on what I call my Happy Houses quilt (started over a year ago). I did stitch-in-the-ditch quilting, and ended up with quite a padded look. It's not a true quilt, as there is no middle layer - just a top sewn onto a thick fleece blanket. We love it though - it is so soft!

Christmas things

I still love my good old Sizzix Gingerbread Man cutter!

Sparkly Pink Cupcakes

And finally in my little craft-catch-up, here are some cupcakes I made for the Macmillan Charity Coffee Morning, last week.

Sock Monkies!

I recently got the urge to make a sock monkey! My daughter, Lucy and I had bought a load of cheap socks a while ago, for that purpose, and then my brother showed me one he had made, and it spurred me on!

There are a few variations on how to make them - all fairly similar, using a pair of any kind of socks. There are tonnes of tutorials on YouTube.

 I think she is rather hip!

Then last week, Harry was off school recovering from a sick bug, and he wanted to make one too...
Meet Malcolm the (slightly lumpily stuffed) Monkey:

(Harry loves him.)

Quilt Show

A couple of weekends ago, I went to a local quilt show I had found out about from a friend's mother-in-law. I took my 5 year old with me, so I thought it would just be a flying visit, but on the door they asked Harry and I to pick our favourite quilt, and enter it in a secret ballot box. Harry then took great delight in going round each and every quilt to choose his favourite (He had about 13 favourites...)

This mini quilt most appealed to me.

The show was held in an old church.

Here's the quilt which Harry finally chose as his most favourite!

Oven Gloves

Earlier in the year I went to a Cath Kidston outlet shop, and bought some fabric which matches my kitchen nicely - I started making these oven gloves ages ago, and got round to finishing them off last month. I found doing the bias binding a bit tricky, but it's OK if no-one looks at them too closely!

Time to catch up! End of School Gifts

I have dismally neglected my blog - I know, but to be honest, I've been rather pre-occupied this year, and haven't actually done much crafting. (Not that that's stopped me acquiring craft books, mind you...) I'll catch up with what I have done anyway.

At the end of the school year in July, we decided to make all the teachers and teaching assistants some pencil cookies, which idea I got from one of my new books:They turned out quite cute, but I was there on the second to last day of term wondering why on earth I hadn't picked something simpler, instead of having to ice 80-odd pencils!

Kids' Cupcakes

The boys and I had fun after school yesterday decorating cupcakes...