Little heart vest

Just a quick little vest I made for the little one before the weather got really cold. It's made from polar fleece and it was my first try at reverse applique. I made the neck waaaay too wide so I ended up putting a couple of little pleats in the front which turned out pretty good. In "real life" it looks like it's supposed to be like that so that's good. I made the best out of a mess up! I'm getting good at that, considering I mess up so damn often! lol

In case you're wondering what the heck she is doing in the photo, she is raking the lawn for me. She likes helping Mummy around the house, now if only I could get her to do the washing, the mopping, the scrubbing, the gardening .... lol. One day I guess, when she starts asking for pocket money, I'll be ready with my list! haha

By the way, don't look too hard at the background, our lawn was not looking so great at the time, hubby might have gone a little crazy with the lawn mowing and kinda scalped it. Ooops!

I'm a bad, bad blogger... tsk tsk tsk

So, I've been super busy with rellies over and participating in my first Craftster swap (or any swap for that matter). As soon as I get some batteries for my camera (which seems to chew through them like they're going out of style!) I'll take some more pic's from my sewing binge and post. Truly, I will. Cross my heart and all that crap...

Happy Crafting!

:)

Sewing Binge

So, I've been on a total sewing binge lately. It's coming up to Winter here in the land of Oz and Madam Muck (my daughter) doesn't have any Winter clothes yet, being that she outgrow's everything so fast at this age, so off to the fabric store I went. I got some great remnants which are perfect for her size. I also headed to the thrift store where I got about 3 metres of fleecey tracksuiting material (the jumper in the picture is made out of it) for $1! Score! Who could argue with that, hey!? I L-O-V-E a bargain. :)

So she's got a lot of light blue Winter clothes but at least they are all different. Anyways, this is the first. I made her the pants and the jumper (sweater) using pretty much no pattern at all because I totally suck at patterns. I seem to have this subconscious thing where I just can't do what I'm told and always have to go and do it my own way which probably explains the amount of screw up's I've made! lol

Oh yeah and Pssst..... I'm working on a pattern for a toddler trench type jacket which I will post a free pattern for when I work out all the kinks (and the whole pattern to PDF thing).

Happy Crafting!

:)

Meet Neville...

This is Neville. He's a Yowie, which is basically Australia's version of Bigfoot. He's my entry in to the Schmancy Olympic Challenge. Neville is a funny character. He pulls funny faces and tries to re-enact King Kong with the Olympic Torch but he's a really great Snowball thrower which is exactly why he was representing Australia in the Opening Ceremony.

He was so much fun to make! I must have sketched about 100 different creatures(ok, so I exaggerate a bit. 20 then!) before deciding that Neville was the one. Unfortunately though, he just didn't turn out the same as the sketch because here in West Oz, we have literally 1 main fabric store (which I can't stand because the people are rude and completely unhelpful) and I couldn't get the fur I wanted to use or get the colour either so I was kind of bummed about that. But he does look a lot like the original sketch just with shorter hair.

I made his little outfit myself too, including the shoes. Those shoes nearly had me in a hissy fit. I just about didn't enter the challenge because I just couldn't get them right. I eventually had a brainwave and decided to try and use my daughter's little Ugg boots to get the basic pattern from which seems to have worked out pretty well. I'm happy with the boots now, thank goodness!

I'm happy that I entered the challenge and it really pushed me to use my brain and create something completely my own which I'm pretty proud of, especially seeing as I haven't got a whole lot of experience in making toys like that. He may not be the best in the challenge or even in the category but I'm happy with him and most importantly, my daughter loves him! She loves him so much that she's already pulled one of the Olympic rings off his vest! lol

I hope you enjoyed meeting Neville and I can't wait to see everyone else's creations!

Happy Crafting!

Little Red

I have this fascination with Little Red Riding Hood lately and I decided that I wanted to make something for my daughter's room with "Little Red" on it so I decided to try freestyle embroidery. The design is completely my own. I started off with a quick sketch of "Little Red" on a scrap bit of paper. That's what I based the whole embroidery on and then I just made the rest up as I went along. I know my stitches are a bit messy and it's not perfect because my embroidery skills are a little limited but I'm happy with it. I love this crayon tinting thing with new embroidery. I think it looks super effective.

This was great fun to make. It's such a great craft to do while I'm watching my daughter play, see she's at the age that she wants to be Miss Independant and do everything on her own!So, I'm hooked on embroidery at the moment. I've even been to the library already to pick up a how-to on stitches so I can do another project. I'm not sure what it will be yet but I'll no doubt post it here when it's done.

Happy Crafting! :)

Chocolate Bark - mmm

The packaging with my little snowman dude:

Just out of the fridge and ready to be broken up:

I know, I know, it's Feb already! Well you can consider this either a "slightly" late Christmas post or a really, really early one!

Well for extra little gifts, Hubby and I like to make something for the family so this year as usual, Hubby made the booze (homemade Advocaat - yummm!) and I made Chocolate Bark goodness!

So, so easy and really tasty too! All it is, is a layer of melted dark chocolate, a layer of melted milk chocolate and a layer of melted white chocolate. I added some crushed nuts in with the milk choc and some crushed Candy-canes sprinkled on top. When it was set, I broke it up in to big triangular bits and wrapped in clear cello. I made the little snowman from some polystyrene balls, seed beads, felt and my trusty glue gun (Oh, how I love you, Glue gun!) I attached some ribbon to his head and tied him on to seal up the cello bags. I think they turned out really cute, it's just a damn shame I'm still soooo bad at taking photo's. Is that even possible? How can I still be so bad at it!? lol. The pictures don't really do it justice but you get the idea, anyway.

I also made some choc-dipped, brandy soaked cherries which I wrapped up similarly and they were absolutely delish! I should have made some for myself too, damn! Oh well, there's always next Christmas.

Happy Crafting!

Schmancy Olympic Challenge

Hi All,

I'm super excited about the Schmancy Olympic Challenge on Plush You!

What the friggin heck am I going to do though? Time to get the pencil and paper out I think. I got the "Opening Ceremony" category which is the one I wanted the least as I have no idea about Winter or Winter Olympics but even less about the opening ceremonies at these things. Us West Aussies don't get snow or freezing temperatures over here.

I have a couple of ideas, but I like to be a bit different so I want something that's going to shout out to me but I haven't had that brainwave yet. It'll come... maybe.

Well, Good Luck to anyone who entered and I hope you have fun creating and making!

Happy Crafting! :)