Monday, December 22, 2014

A Warm Glowing Snow Couple

Here's our version of snow people ornaments. We added a dollar store round glass votive holder as a base and we had glowing figures that stand on a shelf. They're a quick last minute project that's made from readily available supplies. Great present for Grandma or Auntie who has everything.


Make a ball of white STAEDTLER Fimo soft that will fit on top of a clear glass ornament.My snowman heads are about 1.5 inches. Push the ball onto the top of the glass ornament gently to create a guide. Use this guide to core out extra clay so the head will fit onto the ball.


Use black and tangerine Fimo to create faves and a carrot nose to decorate the heads.


Use some brown Fimo to make twig like arms for your snow people.


Place the arms onto the balls for baking. I use a tuna tin filled with rice to hold the balls while I work on them and for baking.


I added some Fimo hats, scarves and accessories to my figures and baked them in a preheated 260 degree oven for twenty minutes. I turned off the oven and opened the door and let the pieces cool right there in the oven.
I added some glitter with white glue to some of the baked accessories.


They're pretty cute as is but I thought we could do better.


I mixed equal parts white glue and water together then coated the inside of the glass balls and round votive holders with the water glue mixture. Then I sprinkled some snowy glitter into the balls and votive holders. I rolled them around until everything was coated in a glittery layer of snow.


They looked like this when they were still wet but dried to a clear glassy glitter. Then I used the white glue to glue the heads on and secure any of the accessories that had popped off after baking. Set the pieces aside to dry. After they have all dried you can place a battery operated votive into the votive holder and put the decorated ball onto it. The whole figure will glow! Way better than just a plain tree ornament!




Sunday, December 21, 2014

Christmas Tags 2015

We're pretty pleased with our Christmas tags this year.

Say Hello to the merriest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse!
We adjusted a bunch of head shots with Picmonkey and cut them out. All parcels are wrapped exactly the same with candy cane paper and green snowflake ribbon. There are no from tags, only these bobble head tags to show who the gifts are intended for. I have to admit, it's a wee bit unsettling sitting beside the tree with all these little faces grinning at me.

Hope your Holidays are just as fantastically full as ours.

Saturday, December 20, 2014

Sand Dollar Ornaments with STAEDTLER Fimo Air Light

We made some pretty beachy sand dollar ornaments with STAEDTLER's Fimo Air Light.
They were so fast and fun to make that we wanted to share them with you for Christmas!


They're spectacular on our turquoise tree.


I made 2.5 inch discs of Fimo Air Light and thinned out the edges. Using the tip of an old pen I made five irregularly spaced holes around the edge of each disc.



I used the tip of the old pen again to etch a flower shape shallowly into the center of each disc.



I let the sand dollars dry for a day on some wax paper,turning them once while they dried so the backs would get some air too.



I painted to edges with white glue and added sparkles.


Some very thin metallic floss tied through one of the holes makes a very pretty hanger for these delicate looking sand dollars.

More to come before Christmas!!!
Hope you're all having a cozy season.


Monday, December 15, 2014

Working On Christmas

Busy as a bee. We're working away on all kinds of Christmas presents around here. 


More project tutorials are on the way. Just have to clear some time on the gift making schedule to get them photographed for you.

Hope your gift making is going well.

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

More Lily Booties

Lily sure won't run out of knee high booties any time soon. This vintage pattern is so fast and easy to workup, I can have a pair done in a day or two. I think our favorite pair so far are the baby Jane shoe pair. She'll be able to wear those with everything!


Here's the pattern for anyone who needs to have these little bits of comfy goodness made up for Christmas.
Happy knitting!

Monday, December 1, 2014

Ahhhh, The Choices.

It was Mr. Jimmy's Birthday last week and we made him a birthday shirt. 

He picked out the fabric and we shuffled through the button stash to find some buttons to finish the shirt. Having such a problem deciding between the grey ones and the cream ones.


We used the usual Simplicity 4760


He also got the traditional meat cake!
Happy birthday Sir!

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Glowing Mushroom Mood Light Full Tutorial

I've been asked to share a piece that was published a few years ago so folks across the pond could make them. I loved making these glowing mushrooms and hope you do too!



The mycena lux-coeli mushroom grows in Japan. It is a bio-luminescent mushroom that blooms during rainy season and only shows for a few damp days. I wanted to try to keep this very cool glowing mushroom around a little longer, so I decided to make it from Fimo effects clay and add a little battery power to help it out.  

Things you will need to make the mushroom night light:
STAEDTLER Fimo soft and effect one 56g block of each in the following colours:
                Translucent red # - 204
                Translucent # - 014
                White# -0
                Caramel # - 07
                Night Glow # - 04
One piece of driftwood roughly 12in x 5in x 4in
Micro lamps 12V – 60 mA – wire terminal base you’ll need one bulb for each mushroom I show five.
9 volt battery holder – you’ll need three, and screws to attach them
Battery snap connectors with colour coded wire for 9 volt batteries – you’ll need three
Electrical tape
9 volt batteries – you’ll need two
Micro mini toggle switch (if you want to switch your glow on and off instead of unhooking batteries)
22 gauge hook up wire

Tools needed to complete this project:
Wire cutters
Double round nose pliers
Wire strippers
1/8th in wooden dowel 
Drill and drill bits I used a 3/16ths inch bit
Screwdriver
Oven
Clay roller or pasta roller for clay
Soldering iron and Flux solder (optional)

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

First Baby Dress New Look 6171

Been working on some baby sewing this week. We decided Lily needed a few more dresses so we went looking in our stash for patterns and some fabrics to make a test dress out of. This is the result.


I found this new look pattern in the pattern cupboard and it looked about right. I also found some sheet remnants I used to make this dress for myself a while back.Love the soft pink floral and the wash-ability of this fabric.


I changed the pattern a bit. I made a neck facing.


I added tucks to the top of each sleeve opening. You can see here that the sleeves are a bit big.


I drafted a collar as an afterthought. I just sewed the collar on top of the neckline.


I added some vintage lace. It's handmade and taken from the outside edge of a thrifted doily. The doily was stained and had moth holes so I couldn't salvage much else.


I also decided to use buttons instead of a half zipper and I shortened the skirt length by almost half. Pretty good for a pattern test. I'll have to re-adjust the neck opening, it gapes a bit on Lily. Maybe sewing the collar in correctly will fix the problem. We'll make the real dress, from fabric Maggie designed, next. Can't wait to work on more projects now that I'm beginning to feel stronger. 

Saturday, November 22, 2014

Speeding My Recovery Along With Knitting

I've been keeping as busy as I'm allowed. Knitting seems to be the perfect therapy right now. Maybe next week I'll move on to projects that have me moving about a bit more, but for now here's some of what I've been up to.


Made Lily a hat and stocking set. There are now a wee set of thumb-less mittens to go with these.


Maggs got the softest, prettiest set I could make. Love the cables.


Austin got some man mitts. 


Mercy's mitts are lengthened large child size. They'll fit her perfectly!

How do you folks take it easy?




Sunday, November 2, 2014

A Spot of Surgery and Some Knitting

Thought I'd better let you folks know why I've been away from the blog. I've had a spot of abdominal surgery. Nothing serious, just some maintenance work. I'll be fine and back to work in five or six weeks. In the meantime I'll be poking my head in here with wee hand made projects that don't require any lifting or long periods of sitting upright.

Found this bootie pattern online from a vintage knitting book called Beehive for Bairns. Both of my girls wore these when they were teensy people. I just had to make at least one pair for our Lily.


I've been having bouts of photo editing too. Just spurts really. None are finished well because I can't stick with things very long yet before I lose my energy and need to rest.

I'll be cuddling Lily if anyone needs me!


Sunday, October 12, 2014

Giving Thanks

Hope you're Thanksgiving weekend is as wonderful as ours has been!
We've been giving thanks for so many things, but especially our new Grand daughter Lily. The kids have been creating personalized thank you notes for the many many folks who have shared our happy!

We wanted to share how we made these cards with you.
We used picmonkey to create the Thank You banners in orange. We printed out pictures taken by the fantastic Nina from Neen Bean photography. (I'm still not sure how she captured not only one, but three photos with Lily smiling and her eyes open!) We used some foam sticky dots to raise the banner over the photo while assembling.



The kids also couldn't resist using some STAEDTLER Triplus color markers to sketch out some tiny Halloween friends on the inside of each card.

This baby thing is a hoot!

Saturday, October 4, 2014

So Very Blessed!

We are experiencing more joy than I believed possible. 
I'll be soaking up the happy for a bit and away from the blog. But we'll be back very soon with even more exciting news and projects. 

My goodness this is fantastic!



Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Fimo Professional On My Work Table

GAH!!!! Just got my very first FIMO Professional 85g blocks of clay! Look at that delicious colour! I can't wait to open up these resealable packs of awesome and get creating! 


I spied one of my projects on the FIMO Liquid page of the new STAEDTLER pamphlet. I've been given the go ahead to share the project here with you. So read on and click to see the full instructions for how to create these metal look pieces using FIMO Liquid and FIMO effect clay.

Thursday, September 11, 2014

Very Exciting News!

I've been kind of distracted away from the computer lately. I hope you'll all forgive me. I promise to be back soon. But this is happening! 





Our Maggie and her partner Austin are PREGO!!!!



These photos, that are overflowing with HAPPY, were taken by the very talented Nina at Neen Bean Photography. She seems to always be able to catch the happy. We love her to bits! 


Pretty fantastic news, Huh?

Stay tuned for more crafty bits!


Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Texturey Bits For Inspiration

We snapped a HEAP of photos for future inspiration and I wanted to post them here so I would have a record to pull from later on. Hope you find these inspiring too!

Warning: Photo Heavy!

Growing in the castle garden wall.


Rooftop in Roquefort.


Stone wall and rose bud at the Templar walled village.


Freshly baked bread at the Millau market.


Moss growing on the pool wall.


More pool wall moss and likens.


This looked like a juniper, however the "berries" were almost an inch and a half across. They were growing on a tree in the castle garden. Anyone know what this is?


Cool little wildflower/weed. Looks like it has sleeping fae cuddled up on each petal.



Walls in the Roquefort cheese caves.


Hens and Chickens growing on the garden wall.


Castle courtyard stone walls.



More moss growing out on a field edge near Millau.


Two thousand year old beads in the museum in Millau.


More wall succulents.


A calcified neanderthal skull in the museum in Millau.
Because there are only 57 more days until HALLOWEEN!!!!!!