Bad Blogger!

I've been a bad, inconsistent blogger these past few weeks. Christmas did get in the way a tad but if I'm honest blogging just lost its interest for a while. That one threw me I can tell you because I usually love adding to my blog. I don't know what happened but I'm over it now and am looking forward to 2012 and lots more blogging. In fact I'm looking forward to showing you guys my garden creations and card creations as well as any furniture creations I do AND I just cannot wait to get a decent photo of the 8ft tall Wishing well I built from scratch with scrap wood all by myself! It's awesome even if I do say so myself.
I'm going to be making garden planters, bird tables, bird houses and heaps heaps more - roll on Spring and Summer!

But for now I've picked out just one of my projects that i'm particularly proud of for 2011. I was going to feature some of my favourite blogs for 2011 but I've been featuring on 'Wotcha Wednesday' for a while now and I just don't have the time to decide on a couple of favourites above all others right now!

So my favourite project for 2011 is

Scrap Wood Lamp.

I love this because it was so easy to make and it still looks as awesome as it did from the day I finished it! Plus it's different!

HAPPY NEW YEAR to all you guys that have made my blogging journey such a joy and Thank you to each and every one of you that has inspired me and taken the time to comment on my blog or email me.




So it's Goodbye 2011 from me and Goodbye 2011 from Huntly

Xmas tree ruffle skirt

With no real projects even remotely finished I thought maybe I would recycle some old ones. This is a mas tree ruffle skirt I made last year and looks just as awesome this year :)


Well I've been absent from the blog for a wee while due to a stinkin cold and a cough, lucky for me though I have a caring hubby that happily made sure I was warm, cooked meals and helped with the housework. Hmmmmm or maybe he did all that out of guilt because it was him that passed the bug on to me! Whatever the reason I was veeery grateful lol.

So, I'm all better now and to make myself feel better about not managing to make quite as many xmas cards as I'd hoped I decided to have a go at one of those gorgeous ruffle xmas tree skirts that are all over blogland at the moment.

This is what the finished project looks like:

Ruffles, ruffles everywhere.

Although there are a few mistakes in the skirt overall it looks quite pretty and I'm chuffed with it.

To cheat and make life easier for me (we're all for that huh!) I used our original tree skirt and just attached the ruffles to it.

Erm......what was I thinking?

Cute when we bought it many moons ago but a bit out dated and gruesome now isn't it!
I'd been looking for a new skirt for the last couple of years but couldn't find anything I liked. I know, I know pretty much anything would have to better than the monstrosity above but still.......

I have quite a bit of fabric stashed away that's come from many places including charity shops, giveaways of old showroom fabric, fabric sample books, old curtains and quite a bit from my mum.
I decided to use some quite thick cream fabric and had intended to use the glue gun to attach the ruffles but as usual I changed my plans!
I didn't want the frayed edge look to my ruffles cos I'd just be at them all the time with scissors to neaten them so once I'd cut enough strips for ruffles I hemmed the bottoms and the edges.
Then I figured that as I had the sewing machine out anyways I may as well just sew the ruffles on as well. I may have worked briefly as an overlock machinist and a bar tack machinist but I am no seamstress. I hate pinning stuff and measuring things just isn't in my vocabulary.
So I pleated the ruffles to the skirt base as I went - not something I would recommend. The end result was OK on the bottom layers because that's where the base is widest but once I got to the shorter areas at the neck of the skirt base I made some real whopper mistakes.
Once I'd readjusted though I just added some ties and that was it. In all it took me about 4 hours, it may have been quicker with a glue gun but I suspect I would now be nursing burnt fingers!

Easy Peasy tree skirt.

Thanks for taking a looksee, pop by again soon.

 

Linked to:

;Funky Junk Interiors'
'Family ever after' 
'TLHayden' 
'shabbynest' 
'My romantic home' 
'Thirty handmade days'

Xmas goodies

Xmas decorations (or rather the making of) are taking over my life right now. Just as I finish one project another just pops into my head - usually because I appear to be addicted to googling 'making xmas decorations' and a multitude of similar searches - and I suddenly have yet another project filed away.
Are y'all this bad? Is it normal for us crafters to have a hundred projects on the go and a further hundred filed away to start probably before any current ones are actually finished?
I'm thinking I need to learn to get this under control, maybe I'll even make it one of my dreaded 'New years resolutions'!!!!

Anyway here's a few projects for xmas I've been messing with. They're not brilliant and I'm aware of many faults on all of them and loads of things I either should change or should have done differently BUT in my defence this is my first year making all this stuff so I'm hoping improvements will be made as time goes on.
Maybe if I didn't leave them all till the last minute my projects wouldn't look so rushed.......

Let it snow sign.

I found the inspiration for this via google but I cannot for the life of me find the blog again so I must apologise to the original poster for that.
I found an old wooden bread board out in my workshop shed. It had seen better days and was obviously covered in grooves from blunt knives but it was just the right size and meant I didn't have to go in search of something else.
I gave it a quick sand down and then a coat of Blue Acrylic paint (I mixed my own) and once it was dry I stuck some snowflake shapes to the board and spray painted haphazardly in White.
Then I removed the snowflakes to reveal the original blue underneath only it didn't work and you really have to look hard to see the Blue - oh well!
Finally I used a Silver Pilot Pen to write Let it snow, added a ribbon and bow and stuck on some white snowflakes. Easy peasy!

Poinsettia posy.

I've had a load of white Poinsettias for years. I usually stick them in the soil of my Peace lillies but I'd used a load on wreaths this year so what I had left I mixed with these Red ones to make a posy.
Then I spray pained an old bottle with Gold, made a 3d tag, added a bow and some twirlies and put the whole lot together. Seeeeemples!!!!

Xmas table centrepiece.

This is a table centrepiece made from xmas scraps I had left over. The circle is actually a garland that I took apart and joined as a circle.
Then I just attached Baubles, cones, ribbon and berries with wire and a few other bits with hot glue and shoved 3 candles in the middle. Voila!

Xmas card tree.

These things are all over the net at the moment and originally I was going to get some branch twigs and spray them gold.
Instead I used some Cornus cuttings and left them natural as they're a gorgeous Red colour. Then I simply wedged them into a square vase, wrapped the vase in Red fabric, added one of those cheesy wrapping bows (I've run out of wire ribbon) and attached some of our cards to the twigs with craft pegs.
It honestly looks so much better in the flesh - this picture makes it look real naff but it isn't....honest!

Baileys Xmas attire.

Here's Bailey, you'll see more of him pretty soon because he started out life as a Brown, yup Brown doggie.
But for now he's just popping up to show you his Xmas attire - namely some cheap tinsel and a 99p hat - cheap as chips but doesn't he look cool as he guards our stairs!

Xmas wreath.

Finally, a wreath. It started out as a plain green garland so I made a circle of it and added bits and bobs with wire and hot glue. Then I made 3 bows with wire ribbon, stuck all 3 together and attached to the garland with wire. Job done!

There, all done! for now anyway! I have loads more going on but I'll have to put them on later. I hope you enjoyed these little projects and hope you get some inspiration form them especially if you're short on time as each one took a minimal amount of it!

Thank you for staying this far, pop back again soon or leave a comment if ya like.



Linked to:

'You had me at craft'
'Craft-O-Maniac' 
'Crafts keep me sane' 
'A world of crafts' 
'My 1929 Charmer' 
'Marvelously Messy' 
'Fingerprints on the Fridge' 
'Not just a housewife' 
'Sassy sites' 
'Todays creative Blog' 
'cherished Bliss'

Noel

So for the first time in god only knows how many years we have decided to get the tree and decs up now rather that 3 days before xmas day. The reason? Well we're kind of settled in our new home now and have so much more room than we've been used to these past 8 years so we figured it will be nice to make a bit more of the holiday season and spirit. Heck even hubby has done all his shopping! Not only that but he's wrapped everything too! Not bad considering he normally leaves it till xmas eve eh! His wrapping would be rushed and a disaster and if he bothered to put a tag on it it would simply say 'Linda'. Not very inspiring is it! Hence why I am very impressed with him this year, though I do draw the line at putting the pressies under the tree - I'm left alone here far too much to resist that temptation!

Look at that, I've managed to digress from a xmas tree to my pressies!

Anyway like I said I've been putting up the tree and decs today and what would normally have taken me a few hours has so far taken me the best part of a day and they're still not finished.

What I have managed to get finished though are some xmas blocks I recently made. They're not brilliant I'll admit because although I have the lettering down (finally) I'm not too hot on adding embellishments.
Here's the Noel blocks:

These were so easy to make. I simply cut out square blocks from any scrap wood, sanded the edges and corners and then lightly sanded the fronts and backs.
2 of the blocks were painted using Laura Ashleys 'Summer Pudding' and the other 2 were painted with Crowns Metallic 'Striking'. All 4 were given a good 2 coats.
Next is the bit I always look forward to and enjoy - the lettering.
I always seem to prefer opening up CS5 (though you could use any word document) and then typing the letters and playing with the fonts.
Once I have the font I want and have stretched it to the size I want I trace them onto paper from the laptop using the backlight as a sort of lightbox. I only do this because I'm having printer problems but I find it pretty easy and quick.
Once I had them on paper I turned the paper over and traced the image on the back from the front and then it's just a case of lining each letter up correctly on the block and scribbling over the letter to produce a vague outline to follow later.
With that done I nicked my daughters Calligraphy ink again (Eek) in Black and using one of her artists brushes I traced over the N & E outlines and filled in where needed.
The O & L were traced and filled in with a gold Pilot pen.
Finally I added a bow (albeit tacky one) and some strands to the N & E, glueing them on using a hot glue gun.
For the O & L I attempted to replicate snow but it kinda went wrong!

Next I finished these blocks:

These were mega easy to make also, using the exact same method as above.
The only difference is that I traced the letters from a book I have and the Black & Gold are both calligraphy inks and were used with a glass calligraphy pen (it's more of a glass stick TBH).
The top of these ones are simply some fake Holly leaves I found with some fake berries attached, hot glued on with some squirly ribbon.
Like I said, neither are perfect but still look pretty cool!

So thanks for taking a look. I'll be posting wreaths etc I've made soon and I've been enjoying checking out all your own Xmas crafts.
Happy Xmas crafting y'all.



Linked to:

'Finding Fabulous Frugalicious Friday
'Shabby Nest'
'Sassy sites' 
'youngancrafty' 
'I heart Nap Time' 
'Fingerprints on the fridge' 
'Not just a housewife' 
'Cherished Bliss' 
'Sugar Bee Crafts' 
'The Southern Institute' 
'Marvelously Messy' 
'Craft junkie too'