Hi! If you saw the little Nordic Gnome I made in this post... you might know she was waiting for a little friend. Here he is!
He was also part of the same kit. I'm glad I have finally completed both gnomes, as I've had the kit a few years. They are very cute and will be nice to take out each Christmas. If I get round to putting them away... I want to enjoy them for a bit first!
What do you think? A cute little pair?!
I really want to try to finish some WIPs (works in progress) that have been languishing for quite some time! There seem to be so many projects I start and never finish.
Here they all are - unless I've forgotten some!
The first three I posted about in a previou WIP post in January 2020 - three years ago! These are the three that are still outstanding from that post - really should finish them!! You can read my comments about them in that post.
Monsoon Stole
Beach Hut Scissor Keep
Crochet Face Pads
Now onto ones started since that last WIP blog post...
Natica Cowl
You read more here. I love this yarn and pattern, so need to get going with this again!
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Lion Crochet Cushion
I started this not long before Max was born. It is supposed to be a lion cushion for his bedroom. I didn't have too much of a plan, but I would like to get it finished, as I think it could be quite cute!
Quilt
This one is quite exciting! I bought a new sewing machine last March and started sewing a quilt! I had a jelly roll of strips of coordinating fabric, and I started sewing them together in groups of three. I did the five you can see below, then stopped. It's hard to get the time with the children, but I really love the patterns and colours and would be so pleased to get this finished!
Notions Pouch
I bought the pattern to make this notions pouch by Indigo Bird Design and cut out my fabric ready to go - I just need to find time to sew it up! Below are my fabric choices...
Pink Knitted Chartres Cardigan
Another exciting one - I've started knitting the Chartres Cardigan by Ami Lowden. This will be my first knitted item of clothing, if I ever finish it! I really want to wear it, so need to get a move on!
Lots of fun lovely projects! I really hope to get some of these finished this year. I will be sure to post about them when/if I do!
I am already doing better than this time last year, and have actually completed something already!
This cute little Nordic Gnome was from a kit my friend Anna gave me for Christmas a few years ago. I'm so pleased to have finally made her!
The kit comes with a little man-friend whom I have yet to make... I must get on with that and finish the pair. I'll be sure to update you if/when I do!
Happy New Year - let's hope 2023 is a good one!
Well, 2022 was the year with the least crafting I've done since starting my blog over a decade ago! I really haven't done very well at managing two children, working part-time and fitting in crafting - I really hope to change that this year!
But here is what I did make... click the headings or the pictures to be taken to the relevant posts...
Cake Toppers using the Cricut Joy
Felt Gingerbread Man Christmas Tree Decoration
I am really going to try to do more crafting (and blogging about it) this year. As well as enjoying creating, it makes me feel productive and like I've achieved something. I really need to fit it in somehow!
If you are interested, here are my consolidation posts from previous years:
Hello! My last post of the year, with something that I made Emily for Christmas! She had been using an old muslin as a superhero cape, so I decided to make her a nice one!
It was made using things I already had in stash, which was satisfying. I used two pink cotton fat quarters - one for the front and one to line it. Emily is a big fan of pink, which is why I chose that colour! Some pink ribbon is used for the tie.
Then came the fun part...
I used the Cricut Joy to cut out SUPER EMILY, a lightning bolt, and some stars from smart glitter iron-on vinyl. I hadn't yet tried using iron-on vinyl, but it went very well - I love the result! It is so lovely and glittery in real-life too, but hard to capture the true sparkle on camera.
Emily seems happy with her cape!
It feels lovely to give her presents that I have made myself!
Tomorrow is the start of 2023 - I hope that I will be back soon with a lot more crafty makes! 2022 was far too sparse on the creativity!
I have managed to complete another item, ready for Christmas! Each year since 2018, I make a felt ornament for the Christmas tree.
This year, I made a gingerbread man...
I found him a bit of a pain to make, but I knew my daughter would love him as she does like a gingerbread man!
I embroider the year on the back.
Here is the collection I now have...
It is actually Christmas morning as I type this, so Merry Christmas! My son woke up at 2.40am... it took me till nearly 4am to get him back to sleep and I have been awake since then, very annoyingly! I just couldn't for the life of me get back to sleep. It's now about 7.30am and I thought I'd get this post done as I wait for everyone to wake up and the festivities to begin!
I have finally finished a crochet project - I think it must be the first yarn related project I've finished since Max was born!
I did plan for this to be a birthday present for Emily, back in May. Well, that didn't work out and it wasn't completed by then, but I managed to finish it in time for her December box. It's a bit like a Christmas Eve box, but she gets it at the beginning of December with festive things in for the month!
I used the free pattern for Brian the MBP Penguin. The only thing I changed was to do one less round on the feet, as mine were coming up very big. Oh, and the blue "coat" of the penguin came out bigger than the white body - so I added stuffing at the back of the body to fill out the coat so that it fit snuggly when I sewed it on. I'm not sure why that happened - maybe something to do with my tension - but stuffing the gap did the trick and you wouldn't really know!
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I think he's rather cute, and Emily is very happy with him which is lovely!
I hope to be back soon with more makes!
Goodness me - I've not posted since January, and it's now December tomorrow! This is by far the least I've ever blogged since starting my blog back in 2011!
It seems that having a second child has had a big impact on my crafting - it is so difficult to fit it in around working part-time and looking after the children, and being very tired from the lack of sleep I'm still suffering from!
But something I did make - back in May and June - were some cake toppers for Emily and Max's birthday cakes. I designed them in Cricut Design Space and cut them out of gold card with the Cricut Joy.
The shiny gold of the card shows better in the pictures below, on the cakes!
Cake making and decorating really isn't my forte, so excuse this rough and ready cake! Emily loved it, which is the main thing - she adores rainbows! (I bought all the decorations apart from the "Emily is 3" topper I made.)
Max's topper was the same but with his name and age. For both toppers I cut them out twice, with one a mirror image of the other...
I then glued them together, so that both sides of the topper were gold. I stuck the toppers to a wooden stick thingy, tied some ribbon into a bow around the stick, and jabbed them into their respective cakes!
Another very simple scruffy cake! Candles were added to the cakes after these pictures were taken.
I do enjoy making things with the Cricut Joy, in the rare moments I get to use it. There is so much potential that I will hopefully get chance to explore more at some point!
I have very recently completed a couple of other projects - a crochet one and a sewing one! I will try to take reasonably decent photos, in the dim light we have this time of year, and will share them soon - so watch this space!
As per my standard practice, I am rounding up my creative makes of 2021. I started pretty well, but things ground to a halt when my son was born!
So, first I'll share my biggest and best creation...
Our little boy Max was born in June! We now have Emily and Max - two adorable little children! As gorgeous as they are, they certainly take up a lot of time and effort! I need to try to find some time for creating again!
But here are my crafting makes over 2021. Click the headings or the pictures to be taken to the relevant posts.
If you've been following for a while, you will have seen that I started a tradition in 2018 of making a felt Christmas tree decoration each year.
This year I made a cute little penguin, with Max's name on it, to celebrate that this is the year he was born!
Each year I embroider the year on the back...
I made a special decoration in 2019 too, the year Emily was born - here they are together...
And below are all four I've made...
You can see my posts on them as follows... 2018 Star, 2019 Mouse in Stocking, 2020 Pudding.
The collection is growing!
I hope you have a merry Christmas and a healthy and happy New Year!
I'm hoping to have more chance to create and craft next year. If we can get Max sleeping at a reasonable hour in the evenings, then I'll have an hour or two then to work on things... trusting I'm not too exhausted!
Emily loves playing with stickers, and Santa is putting some in her stocking this year! I thought a little notebook that she could use to stick the stickers in, and for drawing with her crayons, would be a nice idea.
I bought a kraft notebook from Amazon and decorated it with shimmer permanent vinyl cut on my Cricut Joy. Very quick and simple, but hopefully she'll like it. She can't read yet, but she knows a lot of her letters and hopefully will learn to recognise her name!
A cute little personalised Christmas present for under the tree!
Well, it's been a while!! As the subject of this post suggests, there has been a new arrival! Not so new anymore...
Max was born back in June! Here he is looking festive in a Christmas jumper and hat my Mum knitted for him!
And here he is with his big sister, Emily, also in a Grandma creation...
Having these two doesn't leave much time for crafting I'm afraid! I do have a couple of things to show you though, so will aim to get those posts in before the end of the year!
Not long to go until the baby is here, all being well! I have knitted him a little blue hat to wear in hospital...
The pattern I used was the Tegan Baby Hat that you can find here. It is the same pattern I used for my daughter's hat two years ago.
Here they are together...
This isn't my usual "look what I made!" blog post... but I'm sharing it as I experienced this problem and I couldn't find anything online about it!
When I first got my Cricut Joy, I also got some Insert Cards and a Card Mat. However, when attempting to make a card, I found that the whole design wasn't cutting centrally on the mat, it was cutting too high, and therefore the corner slits were cutting off the card! One, this didn't look right; and two, it didn't function correctly - the top slits were unable to hold the insert rectangle of card. You can see two examples below...
After searching high and low on the internet for some kind of solution to my problem - what was I doing wrong?! - I called the Cricut helpdesk. They were so helpful, and after us trying a few different things while on the phone, it turned out...
...the Card Mat was faulty!!
This is something I didn't even consider! The border at the top of the Card Mat was actually too big, so when the card was positioned correctly on the mat, it was actually lower than the Cricut Joy machine expected it to be. The machine cut as it should, but because the card was lower down, it was cutting the design too high, and off the top of the card.
The Cricut helpdesk arranged for a new mat to be sent to me, and all was well with the world!
You can see the difference in the top border sizes below... the correct one is on top.
The new mat made all the difference, and I could now make the cards correctly!
I hope this helps anyone who experiences the same problem - as there must be a load of these faulty card mats out there!
