Friday 19 June 2015

Quick little commission

Been doing quite alot of crochet recently I found some squares I had started for a blanket then changed my mind about I added an extra row to them and made a few more and they have turned in to a rather nice cover for a beanbag cube footstool I've got, will post some pictures some. I'm also busy making squares for some knee blankets for a commission decided to make them 8x8 squares so for three blankets that's going to be 192 squares to do and join together.
But I've taken a break from all the squares to make this little cutie. A quick commission from a neighboring business friend, who like myself is enjoying the new series of the clangers on bbc.
I didn't know if it would be possible as the original are knitted and there is actually a knitting pattern on the bbc website but I am a crocheter.
I did some searching and found a pattern here which I did some tweaking too to compleatly this. I had to first translate the pattern from american to english terms and it doesn't state a hook size so I went with a favorite 3.5mm.
   On the pattern they make their ears out of felt but I choose to do the back of mine in crochet and sew some felt to the front, My pattern for the ears is 5dc in magic circle pull up then 2dc in each stitch (10dc) tie off sew small piece of felt on to front and sew on to head. The pattern also has not clothes on the clanger but I had a look at some pictures and managed to cut suitable felt pieces and stitch them on. I think he's super cute and may have to make myself one as well now.








Thursday 11 June 2015

Christmas in June, latest craft style samples.

It really does get earlier each year.
I have recently completed my first Christmas crafting in the form of some samples for Craft style products. So here they are.

The items i was sent were more from the cut and create range this is a decoupage range where you cut the pieces out and layer them up with foam pads.
There was four new Christmas characters starting with this super cute polar bear.  Here I have built the topper up and put it on to a large embossed card blank which has been decorated with strips of pattered backing paper whic has been shaped at the bottom in to an on trend banner shape. A sentiment has also been added.
 The foam pads I used were not overly thick but the definition between the layers can be seen in this shot.





The next card is done in the always popular easel shape done using two smaller card blanks which have been folded and cut to create the desired shape.
This cute little gingerbread man character is so jolly with his hat and scarf. Hes backed with some plain and pattered paper and two coordinating strips are placed on the base section one raised on foam pads to act as a stopper.












Next was something abit different for me a tunnel card. this was created with a piece of embossed card as the back to which the largest piece of the reindeer topper was attached. A frame was created out of backing paper this has come out of a mixed pattern paper pad which craft style are doing this year, this is ones are mat and of a better quality to last years shiny thinner ones. in to the frame some patterned acetate as been placed  (sorry about the reflective glare on it) the backing piece and frame have been joined together with scored card
  as can been seem in this picture I found the good tip online of having two pieces folded like W for each side and sticking them together to create a flatter middle section to which things can be attached in this case the sentiment and rest to the reindeer topper. The topper is stuck to a thin strip of card to hold it in the correct place lines up with the back section.
I'm really pleased with how this card turned out since I have not done one before.











The last card I made in this set of samples is this rocking penguin. Using a round card base I attached a larger semi circle of snowflake backing paper which then gave me a larger area to attached the built up topper and sentiment. The sentiment on the sheet with the penguin is actually blue and I took this red one off one the other characters sheet as I thought it tied in better with the red snowflake background of the topper. I also added a few red diamante stickers to the backing sheet to give it abit of sparkle.


So there you have it jolly Christmas characters in June. See them being demonstrated on Create and Craft free view channel at 1pm today, hoping to see my samples on there.

Check back soon to see what I've been doing with some crochet squares.