New felt decoration "flown" in.

As my hand stitched felt partridges and matryoshka dolls have been well received I have decided to expand the range. I really enjoy making felt decorations and coming up with designs and colour combos.

 So here it is my latest design is a cute little bird house with bird. I'm rather pleased with this design. and feel it is quite on trend and quaint.  The front is done in a cream so the bird, bird hole and hand stitched climbing flowers can be seen. I've made the roof and base section the same colour as I think this works well and frames the other elements of the design.  The back section on each decoration is done in the same colour as the bird with roof and base pieces to match those on the front.
It has a hanging loop on top of thin white satin ribbon.

 A close up detail showing how the bird had an embroidered flower motif and is blanket stitched before being attached to the front of the bird house.

And a close up of some climbing flower embroidery on the front of the house. I do this free hand which helps make every decoration unique and adds a skilled touch you just don't get with mass produced decorations.

Like with the matryoshka dolls I have added a little ricrac and a button to give it abit of an on trend folk look and add interest to the front roof section.

 Here is a picture of the set of six I've made so far, I like working in sets like this as it is more time productive to cut all the pieces in one go and makes it easier to get a good spread of colour combinations.
These are now available in the shop and some will be appearing soon on Folsky for £5.99 each.

So what else in new in my crafty makings, The crochet quirky birds continue to fly off and find home with people who adore them so a few new ones have appeared to take their place and hang out on the tree with the others until someone comes to give them a home.

  Friendship teas also continue to be very popular and I suspect they will continue to do so with Christmas coming they make a lovely little gesture to pop in with a card and post to a friend you'd love a cup of tea with but they are too far away to do so easily. So iv'e made up this new set I'm really loving the colours and sentiments I've used on this batch.

I've also recently made a new batch of cards, as they are selling well in the shop and at events I attend, This is the third batch I've produced in this style but they always prove very popular here I have done six with mixed sentiments, such as Thank you, congratulations and for you.

And I've also got six that say Happy Birthday as this is always the most popular sort of card and with the mix of colours and patterns on the embossed cards there's something to suit everyone.
I'm hoping to be able to add more cards to the selection available in the shop soon, its just finding the time to sit down and make batches.
I'm also soon getting stuck in to me Christmas Crafting so check back soon to see how that is coming along.

Crafting for a party

Both myself and my Mum are celebrating big birthdays this year so we thought we would have a joint party with lots of family and friends. I'd thought it would be nice to do a blog post sharing all the little crafty bits I added to to the day to make it ours.

First off I had a collection of small jars (mostly herb and spice jars) which my sister had collected up to possibly use for her wedding last year. However she changed her mind and had these rather stunning tall vase arrangements which I made for her. These went much better with the overall theme and look of the day

So. I took the jars and dressed them with a mixture of things including ribbon like these two which had lace ribbon and a rather lovely green velvet one

These ones has a real rustic look with jute ribbon layered with lace or gingham and tied with paper covered wire.

 I was rather pleased with this set I have stamped them with stazeon ink which works on glass (it wont rub off but it will wash of thou so had to mind when I filled them) These also had bits of ribbon added.

and the last set I wrapped some washi tape around, its such versatile brilliant stuff.

 I then filled the jars with a mixture of flowers including September flower, achemilla, chrysanthemums , roses, poppy seed heads and pittosporum foliage to create an easy pretty county look

I popped a couple of jars on each of the tables

 Mixing up the different styles of jars.

I think they worked rather well since the tables were only small.

 To carry on the easy county theme I also dressed the hall using various bunting. I have two very pretty cardboard ones which went across two corners

 And some larger fabric ones across the end. The boys managed to sneak in to this photo they had just finished assembling the bbq and were popping it outside.

 I did also have lots of rain proof union jack bunting in the garden but I seem not to have taken a picture of it.

The other decoration in the hall consisted of this collection of pictures of myself and mum which I attached to the sliding doors. Our family and friends really enjoyed looking at these sharing memories and storied behind the pictures.

 The other bit of craftyness I worked in to the party which I was really pleased with was the cakes. We had purchased plainly decorated large cakes from costco and I add our own flourish to them. Here is mine decorated with icing buttons make with my lakeland button mold. Some of the buttons didn't come out as defined as they do when its used with chocolate but the colors are nice.

 I added my name using some printable bunting which I found on line this is super fun. I picked a chalkboard banner style and strung it between two skewers across the top corner.

 Each end had a wooden button on to carry on the theme here's a close up on the little wooden sewing machine.

 Mums had butterflies on which were made using these punch stamp things mum had picked up. They flutter across the corner of the cake.

 Mum also had some bunting made with a set of traditional shaped pendents which had pastel colors on and the end of her's had butterflies on to complete the theme.


I hope people liked seeing how I added some crafty touch to our party we all had a really good time.