My busy craft life

January Giveaway Winner

2012-02-08T16:32:00.004Z

Hi all,
It's been a few days and things are slowly looking up. I can see positivity again which is always a plus. Now I just have to hope that the perfect opportunity comes my way and I will be more than happy :)

But now for the giveaway winner in January with this lovely prize:

The giveaway ended last Sunday already but I just haven't gotten around to posting the winner yet. There were only two comments so there was a 50-50 chance (though only 2 comments was a little sad, I hope there will be more for the next giveaway!) of winning. And... I just realised the comments aren't numbered anymore, how did that happen? Oh well, I will find out before the next giveaway... For now, the first comment (by moois van me) has number 1 and the second comment by (gill) has number 2. Maybe it's not so bad that there were only two comments hihi... ;)

And the winner is:

Congratulations Gill who said:

Thank you very much for your lovely comment, Gill! Can you please send me your postal address so I can send the ribbon over to you?

I'm off to fix the comment numbering issue and then hopefully craft a bit more. I'm in charge of Valentine's this year and even though it's a little late to get started, I have big plans. The poor bf, it will be so cheesy, muahahaha!!

Number 6 and Off the Grid

2012-02-02T09:29:00.004Z

Good morning everyone!
First of all, thank you so much for voting in the contest over at the Sewing Directory for the blogger of the year award.

The results came in yesterday and my little blog made it to number 6! Whoohoo! Unfortunately 6th place is not high enough for any prizes, but I still made the top 10 and was mentioned on their website. So thank you again :)

In other news, a major event happened a few days ago and I need some time to digest this. No one died or anything and I don't want to splatter details about it all over the web, but it something I need some time for and I will be off the grid for a few days. I havent even been crafting this week! So I will slowly be dealing with this and hopefully craft again soon.

Thank you again for all your votes and please dont stop following my blog. I will be back soon :) Dont forget the giveaway that ends on Sunday, it may be only a small prize this time but a bigger one is on the horizon. See you all again in a few days.

January Giveaway!

2012-01-29T22:51:00.005Z

Hi everyone!
January is nearly finished and I am working on some more items for a few more giveaways, but for the time being, let's start with one. I have been wanting to do these so often and somehow time is running away from me, so let's make 2012 a year of giveaways :) I've been lucky enough to win a few over the past months, so it's only fair that I return the favour. Although maybe not via CSN Stores as I havent heard from them since it took me forever to post about their giveaway, but nonetheless I intend to have one once a month, so here is hoping I will actually manage it!

The weekend was quite good, though I have not done anything creative yesterday I managed quite some stuff today. Due to the late hour I havent been able to take any decent pics so I am hoping to rectify that tomorrow morning before work and I will be able to share all with you :) Am so curious as to what you think!

Anyway, let's get to business shall we? For January's giveaway I wanted to start of small. The rules for this one are easy. All you need to do is follow this blog and leave a comment that you are doing so. Curious about your prize yet?

About 5 meters of baby blue velvet ribbon!

This only a small giveaway, but as more will follow I'm hoping you wont hold it against me ;) It's not exactly 5 meters but very close to it, so I hope you will enter.

The giveaway is open to followers worldwide. Remember that all you have to do is follow my blog and leave a comment. The giveaway will close on Sunday 5 February at 8pm UK time.

Good luck everyone!!

Inspirational Visit to Hobbyworld in NL

2012-01-25T21:10:00.005Z

Hi all!
About once a year, I fly home for a family visit. This was one of those times... I still had some holidays left from 2011 which I had to taken in January so off I went last week for a few days in the mother country. Geez, if you thought it rained much in London! I think I brought it with me because for 4 days we ONLY had rain, and not just a little bit!

But anyway, as I was planning this, I mentioned this to a friend I met at EFF 2 years ago and we have been Facebooking ever since. She runs a craft shop and always invites me to come over. Sadly her shop is far far away and unreachable without a car so that was thus far impossible. UNTIL she mentioned that the shop had moved and she would gladly pick me up from the airport for a visit and drop me off at the train station in the evening. Score!! So we spontaneously organised this and off I went. Her store is amazing!! It has two floors and plenty of crafting space :) Sadly I didnt take a pic of the outside (it was pouring rain after all) but here is an idea, maybe you will get inspired also :)

This is Bep, she runs this place. Busy as always, here talking to two phone simultaneously. It was hilarious!

The crafting area downstairs. I'm sure it looks nicer with people in it but this space is great I think.

The crafting area upstairs, where this nice lady who ended up driving me back to the train station is helping out making this year's EFF dresses

These are the dresses they made here for last year's EFF, all still on display. I'm sure these inspire others :)

Like me, Bep loves Halloween and has a themed week or so in her store where they all dress as witches. This is the witchy corner with costumes they made in the store. I love these!

Of course I had to snoop around a bit and look, just in front of me, all purple buttons!!

And a whole space of purple fabric, ON SALE!! I wonder if that was done just for me? ;) Nevertheless, it was too good a photo opp to miss. Look, shiney!! Btw, am wearing my upcycled skirt here and this purple vest I got last week for £2 at the charity shop. I was nice and warm :)

During my browsing around the shop, I spotted this photo album. My friend's first crafting love is scrapbooking, and look who is on display in all her glory? Me! In the Mombi dress from when we met :) So sweet :) The group pictures is showing their group at EFF last year.

As one of the goals of going home was to get all my stuff that was still there, I couldnt bring much back from this store, but I did buy a bottle of Powertex:

(image borrowed here)

I got the clear one, and I already have an idea for it, but I still have until June so plenty of time to tell you about that. This is Powertex, a fabric hardener. I saw what my friend did with the new EFF dresses and I must say I am impressed! So let's see what this will become :)

I hope you're a little bit inspired after seeing this gorgeous shop. For anyone in NL, go visit if you're in the area, just check here for the details or their online shop.

Hoping to create something tonight but it's quite late already so I better get started!!

Mod Podge Mirror

2012-01-20T22:57:00.002Z

Hi all!
It is time for yet another project! Yes another quick one but hopefully come Feb I will have time for a bigger project. Here is hoping! A little while ago I found a makeup mirror in my mess. It was silver (well plastic butt the colour was silver) and it was bashed up quite a lot with smudges all over the poor thing!

OMG, we're watching 'Unforgiven' while I write this and I can tell that I write like they speak in that movie! LOL not very handy ;)

Anyway, I've also been cutting out images from various magazines to make cards with one day, so I thought why not MP the mirror?

On the left the mirror, on the right the image I chose to MP with. NO this is NOT Barbie! Much to the amusement of my colleagues, this is a picture of a porcelain poppy doll from a magazine.

I cut out the shape and MPd the image on (this took a few tries) but in the end I think I got it right. What do you think?

Now I wont have to be embarrassed to take out the mirror! Though this pic is really not my best one, but just go with it for now.

I just love Mod Podge!!

Please dont forget to vote in the competition!

Knit Sweater to Skirt Upcycle

2012-01-18T21:41:00.001Z

Heyhey again!
Finally another craft to blog about. The crafting is not the problem, the getting someone to take pictures is! LOL... These are done with the self time so not the best but the idea is there.

Anyway, a few months ago, I bought a brown knit sweater in the charity shop sale for £2. It had a turtle neck and extremely long sleeves which had the same turtle neck idea but for sleeves. Confused yet? Yeah, so was I! So the first thing that had to go were the sleeves. I cut about half of them off and hemmed the sleeves. The sweater was now wearable but still not great...

What do you think? The knit design wasnt bad, but the stripes started about halfway down my middle and it did nothing to flatter my figure. One of the side has just sewn on buttons, on the other side the buttons actually open. That gave me an idea: a skirt!

Getting to the point already took some weeks, but once I had it in my mind I had to do this immediately. So I cut off the collar and the sleeves. I didnt have to hem the bottom or anything as that was the part I wanted to keep, so all I had to do was sew up the sides where the sleeves used to be, and turn over the top to be able to add a ribbon to tie it up. All in all this took about 10 minutes.

And taadaa! My new skirt! I absolutely love it! It is so nice and warm! And not too short so I can still wear it at the offce :)

The side split is actually really cute but because it is not meant to be a skirt split it usually overlaps and you can only see it a bit when I walk.

Honestly, this must be the warmest skirt I ever made! And all for £2 as I still had the ribbon in my stash :) Well, I would have discarded the sweater otherwise as I really hated wearing it. But now I love it! I kept the sleeves and the collar because you never know, I might find another project for those :)

I know not everyone dares to cut up something knitted but trust me, it's really not that scary. As long as you hem the cut edges it's all easy peasy. Have a look in your wardrobe, there might be a gorgeous skirt in there too somewhere!

Please dont forget to vote in the competition :)

Fatboys - the Sliding Doors Diner

2012-01-16T20:37:00.004Z

Hi all!
Ok, am pre-blogging this as I'm not sure how long this boiler thing is going to take, but I didnt want to leave you hanging on the next venue from yesterday's post. Remember I told you that I dont go to the very east much? Well, since I was here anyway... ;)

This is still Canary Wharf. The weather was amazing even though it was freezing but the sun was really nice. I like London like this. It's pretty, and all the annoying people stay inside because of the cold, muahahaha!

Artsy picture near Canary Wharf. I decided to walk to my next destination rather than taking the DLR...

On the way I got extremely lost, but I did see the Millennium Dome for the first time ever. Yes look, it's really there!

I also saw these apartments near the Dome, though it might be a hotel... My attempt at another artsy pic. I like it :) By the time I got here, I realised I had to backtrack all the way to the DLR station anyway as there was no way I would make it on foot to East India. No not actually India, the DLR station East India. Ha, hiking to India, not in this outfit... ;)

You see, some years back, my friend took me to this diner near the Hoover building (see above) and told me this was the diner used in the movie Sliding Doors which I LOVE. It didnt look like the one in the movie at all, and even the inside was different.

(image borrowed here)
See, this is what the diner needs to look like! From the inside anyway... And after reading my shiny new book Tired of London, Tired of Life, I realised that the diner my friend took me to was not at all the Sliding Doors diner! But the book came to the rescue and that is why I made my way all the way to East India to find it.

But after about an hour of what should have been a 10 minute walk, I made it!! Now THIS is the movie's diner! :)

I had a lovely lunch (in the cold as the place does not have heating and the weather was freezing!). I had a chocolate malt shake (yes like in the movie!), and a wonderful pastrami sandwich. Not something easily found in London let me tell you! I even had the same seat as they had in the movie :) The waiter was a little stressed on his own but very nice and I had a lovely time :) I tried to take a lot of pictures of myself with my lunch but I'll spare you those, not my best work...

Happy (and full!) me at Fatboys Diner. In case you want to visit, it's on Trinity Buoy Wharf, 64 Orchard Place, London, E14 OJW. And by the way, this pic was taken by someone randomly standing outside the diner so I put him to good use. Maybe that's why the pic is crooked LOL!

Another thing mentioned in my book was 'take the driver's seat in the DLR'. I havent checked if there was a specific section or distance or anything, but that is one more thing ticked off :) See all the people in the distance waiting for my DLR? Hihi... For everyone non-London: the DLR has no driver so you can sit all the way in the front, which is what they mean by 'driver seat'.

Another gorgeous day in London. Yes, the same day but nonetheless. I arrived in Bank and walked to the Royal Festival Hall across the Golden Jubilee Bridge on my way to my very first creative meetup of the year. It was good fun, but by the time I'd finished that meetup and arrived at my London Sci-Fi meetup a couple of blocks away, I was dead on my feet! So I didnt stay long and went home to a well-deserved cup of tea and the sofa. How we love the sofa! :)

So yes, the Saturday went well. Not very creative but I got a lot of ideas from the meetup and I had a chance to see some new things in London. Let's see how long I can keep this going :) I will post more projects soon I hope. Please dont forget to vote in the meantime!

London Ice Sculpting Festival 2012

2012-01-15T21:38:00.007Z

Hello again everyone!
Is ice sculpting a craft? I'm sure that many of you will say but in a way something is created (i.e. a statue or very interesting ice cubes) so maybe it's more like upcycling ;)

Yesterday was the annual London Ice Sculpting Festival. Not something I would normally go fr but I am trying to let London convince me that it really is as cool as I am constantly told it is (yes, after 6 years I need it to show me something great!), so I decided to spend the whole of Saturday on the go.

The festival was in Canary Wharf which isnt really an area I get to very often, so I tried to do more than just the one thing. But more about that later. Let's sculpt!

There were 6 or 7 entries. They started on Friday but as I had to work, I could only go on Saturday. The progress was really amazing already!

Not sure if this is a dancer or a skater lifting his partner, but it sure looks cool!

This is the French entry. The only one I happened to take the flag in the picture I think.

This was my favourite, I just loved the mask! Well, my favourite until...

...until I saw this one! This was the UK entry. I love it! I dont actually know who won, and it's not even online anywhere, but it was really cool (pun intended!) to see these guys attack a block of ice with a chainsaw.

It gathered a lot of interest surely! There was also a food market with lovely winter food (including tartiflette!) but I had other plans already so I skipped that.

In another area, there was a DIY ice sculpting event going on. I registered at the inside venue (after some bozo pushed his way to the front at the outside venue and I just let him have it. It was nice and toasty inside and the organisation was much better), and this was my starting point. We had to sculpt a wolf's head like the one in the picture.

Sadly we were not allowed to wield a chainsaw in the shopping mall (pout!) but we got to it with a chisel. I was in luck as I was on my own I got to have my very own block of ice :) Dont worry about my posture here, I tried to demostrate me happily chiselling away but I was wearing a massive scarf so somehow ended up looking like the hunchback of notre dame (on ice? hihi) with the all the hair covering it. Oh well, I had fun!

The result! We only got 15 mins to chisel but the result isnt bad I must say! My very first attempt :) It's really difficult!

After I had fnished sculpting I took a walk to my next venue. But on that tomorrow! I have to recover from an epic boiler fail in the middle of having my shower and need to prepare for some hassle in getting it fixed tomorrow... Wish me luck and please dont forget to vote in the meantime!

$10 Shoebuy,com Voucher - Expiring 15 Jan

2012-01-15T11:01:00.003Z

Good morning everyone!
I wanted to post this yesterday already but I was out and about the whole day. I bought something online the other day from the US and I received a code for a voucher at shoebuy.com. Since I wont be using this, I thought I'd share it here.

All you have to do is the following:
Go to www.shoebuy.com
Select your shoes of choice
Add this gift code: P281857018632693
And check out.

Easy peasy. But it expires today, so I hope someone will be able to use it :)

Have a lovely Sunday everyone!

Let's Bento!

2012-01-13T20:51:00.007Z

Hi everyone!
TGIF :) Safe and sound at home and planning my weekend :) This has been my first Bento week! You see, a few months ago (I forget the occasion) the bf gave me the The Just Bento Cookbook: Everyday Lunches to Go book as a present, and after reading so many nice reviews in blogland, I really wanted to start bringing bento lunches to work. With some of the kiddy things of course too, one doesnt need to be grown up all the time, hihi!

Of course I havent read the book entirely yet and it took me months to find the perfect bento box. But around Christmas I was online and via a forum on moneyexpert.com I found the link to this plastic container, now lovingly called 'yoghurt pot'. I love it so much I even posted it on facebook! LOL

(to buy this click here)
Yes, I have to admit that I bought the pink one as eating yoghurt from a blue container just wasnt appealing to me.

As there was a sale on at the time, I also saw a box set in these colours with dividers! Granted, you can remove the dividers but these were just too cute!

(to buy this click here)

Originally I had planned to use the blue one, but when they arrived it turned out the blue one was just gigantic!! So for now I use the pink. And it is very very pink... So now that all supplies arrived, let's Bento!

Breakfast: I used the yoghurt pot on Monday immediately. I did have other versions that looked much nicer but this was taken yesterday when I remembered to take the pic. This particular yoghurt had mandarins and apple pieces in the bottom, then yoghurt with banana slices in the top (the bottom part was full). I love it!!

Lunch: I havent tried a warm lunch yet, but with these insanely warm temperatures it's not quite necessary yet and this was most of the stuff I had at home already. Most of the time I had bread with something, here you can see three slices of bread with meat on one side, and a cucumber/tomato salad on the other side. My lovely car egg is added in a silicone cupcake holder (in blue to match the rest, got these at Poundland). I also have a fish shape but that one always falls apart. My colleagues were making fun of my car egg and my age but hey, food can be fun sometimes! :)

Afternoon snack: I used the green divided container for my 4pm snack: carrots with houmous. I also had some celery left which I used to fill the gaps when I ran out of carrots. Once again the houmous is placed in a silicone cupcake holder. Yummy and healthy!

I felt very healthy! Though because it does seem like a lot of food (it's not really, is it?) I do feel like I ate so much this week. But I only had one tiny chocolate a day instead of crisps and a massive lunch and about 10 chocolates so it's definitely an improvement. Plus I saved some money by bringing in my lunch (which I've done before but I was extremely lazy with it for the last few months). Now I just have to work it out so I'm not too stressed in the morning making all this! Maybe try the night before...

It's only the first week after all, let's see how long it will last. But that's why I bought the cute containers, my incentive hihi. Let's see what happens next week. I will take pics if I remember :)

Weekend is finally here and I still need to make something to bring to the show and tell meet tomorrow, as well as prepare most of the presents for my friend for when I am going to visit her. I have a busy week ahead, but lots of stuff planned for tomorrow so watch this space, please dont forget to vote in the meantime!

Frugal Spider Top

2012-01-12T22:15:00.002Z

Hello again :)
I have just finished my first item of clothing for 2012! Granted, it was a project long in the making and really only took about 15 mins, but nonetheless it is now done :)

My friend from work who is moving to the US soon kindly donated some of her clothes to me when clearing out her closet prior to the big move, and one of the things she gave to me was a tight longsleeve back top. Very simple but so comfy! Perfect size also :) But I didnt want to have yet another plain black top. It needed some spice. Enter spider top!

At the last B&B sale where I bought the corsets for the zombie dress, I found a tshirt with a gigantic red spider on it for only £1! I love spiders yes :) Once I got home the tshirt was ok but the location of the spider gave my figure a really strange look, so I cut out the spider and the sign of the back which related to the (what I think is a) band. Sadly I didnt take a pic of the items but only of the finished product, but you'll get the idea.

It then took me a while to find the right spot on the top for the spider, hence the delay. But then I suddenly found it! I just sewed it on, no WW or anything, and a plain zigzag stitch to keep it all stretchy. I now LOVE my new top, especially for only £1 :) And I'll wear it tomorrow at work (casual day). Am curious what my friend will say about it!

This is the top. I tried many different ways for the spider, but found this the most appealing. Plus it will scare the hell out of my mother! Muahahaha... nah, I wont wear it when I go and visit.

The band's name (I googled). This part is in the same place as on the original top. I should probably listen to some of their music now ;)

I'm thrilled that I actually finished some clothing again, it's been too long! I have sooo many projects planned still and fabric is piling up but I never know where to start. I guess I'll just decide on the spot for most of it then. At the moment I think I will fix the mending bag first and create more later. After all, EFF is coming up again and I need to get started on my dress!

More soon, time for my beauty sleep... Good night everyone, please dont forget to vote in the meantime!

Homemade Sushi - Take 2

2012-01-11T20:36:00.001Z

Heyhey!
After my lovely trip to the Museum of London, I went by Selfridges for some sushi-grade fish. I heard this from someone at work and it is correct, so for all Londoners: if you are looking for sushi-grade fish, they're selling it at Selfridges' Food Court at the Yo Sushi stand. I'm sure there are other places but I havent found them yet, and since I was in the area anyway... And it is so much better here than in Tesco!

Luckily (I checked this beforehand), I could buy the fish on Saturday and make the sushi on Sunday. While the bf was working on his Warhammer, I was making sushi. I had done it once before, back in July, but this one worked out even better! Maybe it was the fish? ;)

Taadaa, the result :) I had a selection of salmon nigiri, tamago, cucumber maki, yellow pepper maki, and salmon maki. I also added some slices of salmon on the sides. Still not so many new fillings, but these are my favourites.

For the bf served in style with some Asahi :)

Not the best angle as all the pretty pieces were on the other side for the bf to take, but you get the idea. My tamago is getting better and better :)

Yes, I was quite proud of myself! Plus there were about 7 pieces leftover which fit perfectly in my shiny new (pink!) bento box. More on that another time, but I had a lovely lunch the next day with sushi and cucumber/pepper salad in one bento :)

I've also done some sewing, nothing major but I will show you tomorrow! Please dont forget to vote in the meantime :)

Visit to the Museum of London

2012-01-10T21:13:00.002Z

Hi all!
I am supposed to be crafting something but as I cant decide where to start (too many projects!), I thought I'd tell you all about my weekend :) Hope you dont mind!

After spending a fun evening on Friday with a friend from work who was having her leaving party, I was very much in a London mood the next day. But what to do? Strangely enough, Facebook came to the rescue! I found a post about a book called 'Tired of London, tired of life' which I thought was a very striking title. After some googling I realised that this book had only been out for a short time but was sold out virtually everywhere! Again, FB came to the rescue as someone posted that the Museum of London sold copies. Excellent :) So off I went. I figured I may as well visit the (conveniently free) museum at the same time for some inspiration.

Something that never clicked... before the Great Fire of London in 1666, THIS is what St Paul's Cathedral looked like! I never realised that it used to be pointy :)

Through the medieval section I found this 'try me on' hood. Cool huh! ;)

I also saw this mockup of a normal house in London. You see, each room which was then really just a room, is now an APARTMENT! So one building which used to have servants and cooks and the rich owners, now has about 8 families living in it. It was intriguing to see what it would have looked like back in the day.

I also saw this dress that was worn by Ann Fanshawe in 1751 as the Lady Mayoresse of the City of London. This is a big dress! Complete photo can be found here. The detail in it was stunning.

Some more detail of the sleeves.

I spent a LOT of time in the Pleasure Garden where there were many mannequins in gorgeous clothes. Yes, I did take several photos of each outfit but I dont want to make this post too photo heavy. They were all amazing though!

For one, I loved this 1760s hat. Such detail! I saw someone wear something like this once (yes really) but somehow the detail got lost on account of it being a hat. Not entirely sure this would happen here too, but somehow I doubt it ;)

This costume gave me an idea on what to do with all those fabric scraps. I could make something like this but in a dress. What do you think, would it look nice? Not for everyday wear of course. Costume people, costume! ;)

This was also gorgeous, the hat really finishes it. Is anyone else thinking Royal Wedding? ;) It is actually a dress from 1823 which was part of the clothing of a bride.

A little further on, I found this Victorian tailor shop. No sewing machine but the rest was surely there!

Including this 'West End Plate of Men's Fashions'. You can really see the different styles that were fashionable at the time. I loved it :)

Then it was off to the 1900s. Taxi anyone?

This dress just said 'Dress with Chinese embroidered panels' but it looks really nice. I think I might use this as inspiration someday. It is from 1912.

This gorgeous wedding dress was worn in 1910 by someone named Minnie Long. The sewing machine is from 1876, and the jacket was from around the same time and was classed as the main design for boy jackets at the time.

LOVE this dress! So Twiggy!

70s display. Ok I admit it, I am a hippy!

I LOVE this dress. I will definitely try to recreate this. I think it's a plain pillowdress but a little longer and a tad more waisted. Any suggestions anyone? I dont have this exact fabric, but I do have some very hippy fabric lying around that would be perfect for this :)

The last item I saw in the museum was this carriage. It is used to carry the Lord Mayor through London in November every year, and is originally 250 years old. I photographed the text card next to it ;)

Of course, as the Museum of London was just off St Paul's Cathedral, I had to make a stop at Bea's of Bloomsbury and buy some (a lot!) cupcakes. I actually got lost walking there, oops! But in the end I found it after buying a purple strap at the Watch shop (finally!) and joking with the staff who didnt know BoB which was just on the other side of the building! Anyway, one raspberry vanilly cupcake, one double chocolate fudge cupcake, and four (yes 4!) red velvet cupcakes. Mmm, so good!

Afterwards on the way home I dropped by the sushi place to buy some fish to make sushi for the bf (pics will follow also), and made the mistake of going into Primark on Marble Arch. OMG Never Again! I literally fled the shop as there were too many people!

That last bit was definitely the last straw and I went home exhausted but pleased to have seen something new in London. Now I have to read my book and find some more things to do :) Oh yes which reminds me, the link: Tired of London, Tired of Life: One Thing A Day To Do in London. I've already found several things to do next weekend. Try it, I hope you'll like it too!

And please dont forget to vote :)

Another Needlebook

2012-01-09T19:29:00.001Z

Hi all!
See, told you I would keep posting ;) Hihi...

As a Christmas present, I made a needle book for one of the girls in my team at work. She asked me several times for mine to she could fix something, so now I made her her own to carry with her when I'm not around. I made it so that she wouldnt need a bag with several things but an all-in-one item. She loves colour, so I used some lovely colourful felts.

The front. It closed by putting the elastic on the right around the butterfly button. The stitching is a little uneven because I used the inside as a guideline. On the plus side, the inside looks very even! ;)

The back. The elastic starts with the blue butterfly button.

Folded out. I put some cardboard in between two layers of felt to make it stronger. I love this felt, it's so cute!

The first 'page'. On the left I added safety pins and buttons.

Centre page: sewing needles in various sizes on the left, and pins on the right.

On the last 'page' I made a pouch to hold some spools of thread.

I made the centre page blue not knowing she LOVES pink (she is not very obvious about it), but at least I included some pink thread, hihi. She was surprised by this gift and I think she liked it, but just in case I bought her a lovely tin of cookies that I will bring her tomorrow as well. Just in case...

This weekend I had a London day but more about that tomorrow. Please dont forget to vote in the meantime!

Easy Bag Transformation

2012-01-08T20:21:00.002Z

Hello again!
When we went to Hyper Japan last year, I got this bag from Yelp for registering on their mailing list. The size and shape is so handy that I actually carry it to work nearly every day, so this is definitely a very handy bag for carrying shopping/lunch/parcels or anything else. The only thing that really annoyed me was the Yelp logo... It is so red and not crafty looking at all! Enter Halloween fabric stash...

The original bag.

After I'm done with it :) I chose this fabric from my Halloween stash because it was purple (which was already my favourite colour but is currently a bit of an obsession), and because the fabric was a little thin for quilting. I still have a little bit left but it makes the bag a lot more fun :)

I just sewed the square (well, rectangle) onto the bag without wonderweb or anything. It wont be washed anyway so it should be ok. The bag isnt that stable that it will keep for 10 years hihi. So the first personalised item of 2012 is here! :) Also, please dont forget to vote!

Happy 2012 Everyone!

2012-01-07T22:24:00.007Z

Hi everyone and Happy New Year!
My my, the year is already a week old, can you believe it? Have you made any new year's resolutions and have you stuck to them yet? LOL, it is always a bit tricky... For example, I really wanted to start the year off well with the blog and do much more than I did in November/December, but as usual work got in the way. HOWEVER, I have a ton of pics to share with you about various projects and more will be done soon so I'm definitely having a comeback :)

But first things first. I hope you all had a wonderful NYE! The bf and I stayed home for the evening after spending a good hour at HMV picking out the evening's entertainment which funnily enough turned out be a Marvel evening. We watched Captain America and the Green Lantern. For some reason for the past 3 years we've ended up with Transformers so it was time for a change hihi. Old habits die hard and completely unintentional we ended up with more Marvel. But it was a truely Marvel-us evening. Get it? Marvel-us? Hahaha... ok maybe my humour needs some work this year ;)

After the massive dinner on Christmas, the bf said I was in charge of cooking for the next holiday. I shamefully admit that I only prepared a main course as we only had breakfast really late. I made the bacon&eggs in a basket again like I did for Christmas Day breakfast, but this time they were even better!

I used the large muffin tins so the egg didnt stick so much on the bottom and used proper bacon instead of bacon bits.

Yumm! Unhealthy but so good! Martha Stewart defnitely convinced me for this one! Though I did add oregano which made it even better :)

For dinner I made Chicken Pot Pie. The brown things on top are biscuits. I had a pack of Bisquick which I happened to fnd in Tesco the other day (very hard to find in the UK). I should have used more and cover the entire dish but it was ok nonetheless. The (very easy!) recipe can be found here (and with much better pictures). So with this very American dish and the Marvel movies, it was really American!

And then it was midnight! As usual I stressed the bf out way much about getting ready in time to do the countdown and be all romantic for the New Year's Kiss (yes, girly I know but smooching is a must when the clock strikes midnight on NYE!). So here we are all cheering in the new year. I thought it best not to post a smoochy picture hihi.

So that was our very quiet new year's eve. After the clinking we watched yet more TV and played computer games. It was really relaxing :)

On another note, I have just spontaneously decided to enter the Sewing Blogger of 2011 Awards over at The Sewing Directory and Backstitch Blog. It would be great if you could spare a minute and vote for me :) Please click on the icon below and follow the instructions there. You have three options on how to vote so it should be easy enough. There is even a voter's prize so you can win £50 just by voting for someone (me please hihi)! Thank you in advance!! :)

I hope you all had a great NYE too! Have a wonderful and happy and crafty 2012, and thank you for following my blog!

Another Phone Pouch

2011-12-29T16:45:00.005Z

Hi everyone!!
I did it! I left the house this afternoon :) hihi, not so weird you may think... BUT! I have spent the last several days inside, eating and watching tv and just enjoying the fact that I dont HAVE to do anything (well, the usual laundry and cooking but on the whole that is really minimal). I really wanted to sew or bake or something but I really didnt know which project to sew first and I figured my waistline is not going to be happy if I bake much more, especially that cinnamon bread. That was just to die for!

So today I dropped some stuff off at the charity shop (really, I cant recycle/re-use everything!) and I just happened to catch the tube in time for the hobby shop. Oops... *angelic smile while polishing halo*. Strangely enough I hardly found anything for myself. Really, the items on sale just didnt appeal to me at all. But then I literally bumped into a shelf full of discounted Warhammer paints! And a ton of the colours the bf needs to his Warhammer projects. And all at 55% off! SCORE! Yes, I pretty much cleared the shelf of all the good stuff, all the reds, and one of each of the remaining ones as I had no idea which other ones he needed. I went for the dramatic effect by giving him one jar at a time, hihi, that was so funny! But I think he liked it and now he doesnt have to buy paint for a while :)

It seems I have been bitten by the December-Shopping-Bug but I didnt buy everything. I also made something. Sadly enough not nearly as much as would have liked, but worked has been crazy this past month. So crazy, in fact, that I even forgot to pay my credit card bill on time! There goes £12 I could have used for something better... But this time it really wasmy own stupid fault so I have now added a calendar entry to never forget again.

You wondering what I made as a Christmas present then? The ONLY Christmas present I actually made? Well, I made the cookie-in-a-jar gifts as well of course, but I mean an actually SEWN present. Long ago, after seeing my sister's Blackberry pouch that I made, my niece asked me for a phone pouch also. I am indeed very guilty in making this at the last minute but in the end she got it on time, and she loves it :) Below is the result:

Side one

Side two

This one doesnt really have a front and a back. I used the colours that she asked for, something burgundy with silver in it. The B&W fabric has silver stitching in it, it's hard to see in the photo. Plus she loves mandalas so this is right up her alley. I am so glad she liked it!

Hopefully next year will be a better year than this one. We didnt think it could be worse than 2010 but it turned out to be anyway. Well, it wasnt awful but I do hope that 2012 will bring some progress anyway! Next year I am going to back to frugality. I have bought some nice containers and will start making bento lunches for the bf and myself from Jan onwards. I just have to find a way to make this the night before so I dont have to get up at 5am... Any tips are welcome! :) I will also try to buy most of the crafty items I need now before the year changes and the prices and VAT go up again so that will hopefully also save me some money. What are your plans for 2012?

Anyway, I'm sure I will blog some more before the year is out, but just in case something prevents me to do so, I want to thank you all for following my blog and for staying with me even through tough times when my 'busy craft life' turns out to be my 'busy work life' for a few weeks. So thank you all and see you soon!

Our Christmas 2011 + Recipes

2011-12-28T01:03:00.004Z

Hello again everyone!
I hope you all had a lovely Christmas with friends and/or family and lots of food :) As for me, it was quiet but relaxed and nice. Well, I didnt have to cook so it was definitely relaxed, hihi...

Because I HATE travelling around this time of year (really, someone is always on strike, flights are packed or delayed, luggage gets lost, and my present never fits into my suitcase), the bf and I just stayed home and had some nice food, some presents under the tree, and a LOT of television for the last few days. I had honestly forgotten what it was like to just sit around and don't do much at all! Slowly but surely the work-stress is leaving me and I seem to find myself baking a lot. Joy for my creativity, not so much for my waist line ;)

At the moment it is 1am and I can't sleep. Luckily I dont have to work tomorrow (am off for nearly another week, whoohoo!) but it might have something to do with a coffee I had at 1pm today... and of course I only just realised that I could have just for decaf actually oops! I've been planning to write this post for days now but just didnt get to it. Yes lazy... Originally I had planned to write all separate posts with each recipe etc, but in the end it was easier to just share my Christmas with you and link to the recipes as we go along. Hope you dont mind!!! Let's start (in true Hobbit style) with the food:

So Christmas Eve had started (as per my rather German upbringing, we give presents on Christmas Eve, giving you at least 2 days to enjoy them), and as we started giving presents, the bf had prepared this lovely plate of caviar (the cheap version) on blini and a lovely Kir Royale for little me. So far so good! :)

The main course was quail with grapes, green beans, and fries. This was made from a recipe from the Larouse cookbook so please dont ask me...

As always, I made dessert :) The bf put in a request for apple pie and voila, I made a proper American apple pie (this caused my sister to burst out laughing btw, but I can assure you that nothing weird happened to this pie, it was baked and then eaten!). The recipe for this yummy pie can be found here. It was so easy, that even for my first proper pie it came out really well :) Plus I got to use my purple pie dish of course.

For breakfast the next day I made bacon and eggs in a basket, courtesy of our dear Martha Stewart. I didnt have slices of bacon so I used bacon bits which you cant see as they're underneath the egg. The bf was very pleasantly surprised :) Recipe can be found here.

And to go with the coffee I made this gorgeous cinnamon bread. Despite owning a bread machine I made this using my purple mixer, meaning I had to wait and wait and wait each time for the dough to rise. It sure was worth it though! The bf found it a bit too cinnamony (I love cinnamon! But I did stick to the recipe so this time it wasn't me), so I ended up eating nearly the whole thing myself. Oops, there goes my waistline! The original recipe can be found here, really you must try this.

Now with all this food, you must be wondering if we still did presents... We sure did :) But we didnt take a lot of pics so I'll share the ones with you that I took the day after when it was daylight (still not a reason to do presents in the morning LOL).

Behold my sewing basket :) It's it pretty! I dragged the bf out to the shop and actually carried it to the register (bf: 'eeeew it has colours, am not carrying that!' Hihi, hilarious) and I love it :) My old one was just a plain box and the contents was spilling over so I opted for the largest one in the shop.

The inside. It's actually a lot larger than expected and even with only the tray filled up and the box about 1/3 full, am a little worried if the handle can hold the weight but it is mainly meant to sit snuggly near my desk looking pretty than be carried around a lot. I love it :)

And finally after years of trying to persuade me, I now own my very first official Doc Martins. Well, Solovair which are the English-English docs. They're even bought at the first even Doc store! Am I showing off? Maybe a little... I just looove them! And yes, they're purple *huge smile*. Some persuasion took place in the colour department but in the end I won. I haven't actually worn them yet, but I surely will soon. I need to mentally prepare my feet for weeks of torture first ;)

That was it, our lovely little Christmas. I think we were both quite exhausted from work etc so it was just perfect.

So better late than never: Merry Christmas!!

Christmassing - 2011 Preparations

2011-12-23T23:20:00.007Z

Heyhey everyone!
OMG it has been so long! So sorry for not being online more, but work has been insane these past few weeks. BUT today my holidays have started and I can finally relaaaaxxx... well, after cleaning the entire house but maybe I'll start that tomorrow ;) As you have realised, I havent really been sitting still and Christmas preparations are well underway. Christmas Eve is tomorrow, oh my! So let me show you what I've been up to:

I put up the Christmas tree

Used some of my collected jars to make new Christmas lights for in the stairs (still prefer the Halloween ones though!)

Made 19 (!) Christmas crackers

Made cookies in a jar as a present for the girls at work

And upcycled jar lids to make some Christmas tree decorations for some people at work also.

See, some projects were still done ;) I will share the how-tos and links later, need some nice sleep now where I know I dont have to get up for work in the morning. Whoohoo!

Homemade Pepernoten

2011-12-04T22:38:00.004Z

Heyhey everyone!
Wow it has been a while... We went on holidays a couple of weeks ago and even though I had pre-blogged to keep all of you entertained while I was away (does that sound very bad?), I didnt actually manage to blog since we returned as I caught a really bad cold on the way back and was out of the running for a couple of weeks. Now that I am a little better I'm busy buying Christmas presents and trying to find time between work and social life to make some as well for friends and family who have been promised some handmade gifts. Aaarghhhh! So busy!

In the meantime, tomorrow it's Sinterklaas. To be fair, I dont really have the energy for it right now, but I do want to celebrate at least a little bit. So why not celebrate on Sunday when we have the whole day for it? Because I just spent the entire day trying to buy presents before the major rush starts... So tomorrow morning I have to decorate the house before I leave for work and then in the evening we do the presents (we each get one small present and some chocolates). Although really, I forgot to buy chocolates!! Oops... Oh wait, I can use the ones I had planned for Christmas hihi...

I did take some time out to make some pepernoten myself (last year my best friend sent me some) and they didnt turn out great but not too bad either. Most of them will go to my work colleagues anyway ;) I even pimped a plastic container with some wrapping paper to make it look nicer. Below are today's kitchen achievements:

My pepernoten, there are some in the container already as well. One batch is about 1/3rd of the container and I already spent 2 hrs making that one batch!

Some banana muffins in case the pepernoten are a disaster... I hope these are nice as I havent tried them yet...

So lots got done today... I still need to make a phone pouch for my niece and some lights for on the stairs... so much to do, so little time! Let's have some tea first :) Hope to be blogging again soon, just bear with me :)

Old West London in Pictures

2011-11-19T17:23:00.000Z

Hello again :)
I know, not so much craftiness this week but I have a lot of projects in the works at the moment and nothing is yet finished. But I borrowed this lovely book from the library the other day and I wanted to show you what parts of London looked like in the previous century. It had amazing pictures! The volume I had was on Hammersmith and Shepherds Bush (the only volume available at the time), but I know there are other parts as well which I will borrow soon.

Originally I wanted to include new pics of these as well as a comparison but finding those online turned out to be extremely difficult so this will have to do for the time being. Ready to be transported to another century?

Shepherds Bush in 1893. This now has a Westfield behind it and the houses are a little higher but it's pretty much the same!

Hammersmith Broadway 1900. This pretty much looks completely different now... I'm not sure the new Blogger way of showing photos allows you to read the text which I left in on purpose (does anyone know how to change this?)

Hammersmith Broadway 1912, showing horse and carriage

Hammersmith Tube Station (District and Piccadilly lines), 1920. I think they now use this line for the Hammersmith&City lines as it looks a lot like the current station for those lines. The D&P lines have been moved across the road. Or maybe just the entrance ;)

Olympia exhibition centre in 1924. Check out the cars!!!

Extension of the Piccadilly line in 1930.

Hammersmith Broadway 1930, with bus! I cant see which side this is, but that shopping centre is certainly gone...

1939, the Kennedys visit White City which was then an exhibition centre, now it's a Westfield. You can see JFK in the front right.

When I found this book I was amazed how some areas have completely changed and some havent at all. I just love stuff like this. And to think that I really didnt like history during my school years... ;)

I hope you enjoyed seeing this too :) More crafts will follow once done!

Tooth Felties

2011-11-17T19:11:00.000Z

Hi again!
Something more cheerful today than the graveyard ;) Although I do find visits (in daylight) very relaxing. Anyway... remember the Halloween felties I made from the tutorial on Paper and String?

Yes these :)

My friend at work said that the ghost looks like a tooth! Something I completely disagree with but it surely could be turned into one with a few minor adjustments... Her sister is a dentist and she asked me to make some tooth felties for her as a keyring. She wanted a good tooth and a bad tooth. Dentists... *shiver*

This is what I came up with! I used the original pattern from Paper and String as shown in the original felties post, and changed it a tad. I made a good tooth with white felt, black eyes, blue cheeks (they have to be squeeky clean after all), a smiling face, and a white ribbon with black dots. The bad tooth is made with light yellow felt, grey eyes, green cheeks, a sad face, and a black ribbon with white dots. I even has a hole in it!! I tried making the hole with just a 'spot' idea, but it looked horrible. I quite like it this way even though it may look a bit like a bow ;)

I was out of large keyrings, so I hung each tooth on a tiny keyring and then put them on yet another small one together. That way the sister can decide how and where she wants to use them without having to take anything apart. My friend loved them, I hope her sister will too!

Dentists... *shiver* Although this may be a nice Christmas gift idea to make for the people at the dental practice who were so kind to me when I had my treatment. Mmm... *lightbulb*

Visit to Highgate Cemetary London

2011-11-15T22:52:00.000Z

Heyhey!
During the visit of my friend from Berlin, he had a schedule as usual of things to see and do (I do the same when we visit him hihi) and another item on his list was to visit Highgate Cemetary. Highgate Cemetary is one of the Magnificent Seven cemetaries in London and so far I have seen 4 out of 7. I cant remember if I already had this blog when I last visited one of them though.

This was all in the Halloween spirit so it totally worked. My colleagues thought it was a little weird (but they think I can be weird anyway haha), but there is so much history there! We were just in time for the tour of the western cemetary which could only enter at specific times. Lots of interesting graves there, including the one of that Russian guy who was poisoned a few years back.

We didnt find the entrance right away so we took some pics through the gates here and there as we tried to locate the way in.

Gorgeous scroll stone

Just after the entrance of the western part of the cemetary with the tour.

This tree was on top of the Egyptian Avenue. They said that they had to keep trimming the branches so it wont topple off the roof, so in a way this is a giant Bonsai tree :)

Gorgeous grave stone near the end of the tour.

After the tour we went to the western part of the cemetary. Lots of famous people were buried here but we didnt have a lot of time and my feet were killing me, so we walked around until we found the grave of Karl Marx (hard to miss) and then we slowly made our way back.

This headstone reminded me of the goth walk the day before as that was also about a girl named Fanny ;)

The next day I had to go back to work and my friend left back to Berlin. It was a lovely (although very unproductive and foot-killing) weekend with lots of Halloween themed activities :)

Goth Walk 25 - The Cock Lane Ghost

2011-11-13T18:57:00.002Z

Hi everyone!
As you may remember me mentioning before (dont worry if you dont, I'm told I talk to much all the time), my friend Thorleif came over from Berlin the other day, just a week before Halloween. It just so happens to be the same weekend as another goth walk was scheduled. Such a coincidence! LOL. So naturally we joined in.

The bf stayed home due to his shoulder and the area we would go to would be super crowded, but he did join us for a lovely hearty breakfast.

It was a lovely sunny day and the theme of this walk was most excellent: The Cock Lane Ghost. With our regular priest as our tour guide, we set off. (I wont copy/paste the whole story here, but if you click the link above you can find out all about it)

The walk took us through Smithfield, which is always a lovely area and great for pics. One day I must do this in a costume...

Past various churches...

...and to the front door of Dr. Samuel Johnson who seems to turn up in a lot of 18th century London history. In this story he makes an appearance as well. And not only for writing the first dictionary!

We slowly headed towards St Paul's Cathedral...

.,,,which was rather busy with Occupy London who are there to this day. Did you know that St Paul's Cathedral has stayed open during 2 world wars and numerous other big events and now had to close its doors because of this? Forget the money they're missing from tourists, just the fact that this happened is a little sad I think.

But let's not spoil this beautiful day with such negative talk ;) See, nice weather, blue sky! In October!!! (yes, this was three weeks ago after all)

Some detail of St Paul's

We're nearing the end... as you can see everyone wore their comfy shoes. They just happened to all be the same! Hahaha... The bf insists I have some too. But I want them in purple and not quite as shiny. He might be able to convince me someday...

Since had been circling St Paul's Cathedral for nearly 3 hours and we never got close enough to Bea's of Bloomsbury for cupcakes, I dragged Thorleif there after the walk while the rest of the group went to the pub. Blasphemy in London? Too bad, I need cupcakes!! Two red velvets for me please!! Yumm :)

My friend made lots of pics also but I havent seen them yet... When I do I'll post some more!

Christmassing - Harrods Christmas Display

2011-11-11T23:23:00.000Z

Hi all!
Ooooh my very first 2011 Christmas post, how exciting! You are not going to believe this but I am totally in the Christmas spirit right now :) Starbucks has their Christmas coffees (toffee nut latte, yumm!) which are amazing and immediately make my day :) Though maybe not so much when drunk after lunch, I tried that and went to bed at 4am LOL. Good thing it was a weekend! But having learnt this, I now get one before work and my day cannot be ruined :)

It was my friend's Jose's birthday a while ago and of course as per tradition I totally forgot about it. Oops... but I invited him for coffee and cake (his favourite) in Knightsbridge and we checked out the Harrod's Christmas display afterwards. It was lovely and very Christmassy which was perfect after the Christmass coffee :) Want to join me on a little tour?

This year the theme is 'Crystal Christmas' and really, they mean crystals!

Lots of mannequins in sparkly dresses in a sparkly forest. I posted this one on FB and lots of people thought this was me at first glance. LOL. Nope, I have much better taste in shoes ;)

I wasnt really sure what I thought about this dress, I think it's a little too Narnia, but the picture came out really well so I had to share :)

Some of the poses of the mannequins were a bit eh... compromising so I didnt photograph everything. This one made me laugh however, especially when both my friend and I titled this one 'Death by Jewellery'. I mean really, the guy looks like he just strangled the woman with her necklance...

The piece de resistance I think.. according to the newspapers this dress costs... wait for it... £230,000.00!! Yes, 230 THOUSAND pounds! (Thats nearly $370,000.00 for all US folks). OMG... It is stunning yes, but really not poofy enough for that amount of money I think... But then I guess it is the lack of fabric and the amount of Svarovski crystals on it ;) Here is a link to Vogue website showing the dress on an actual person and yes, it does looks amazing... The website actually says 'Inspired by the decadence of the Twenties, the Ralph & Russo-designed dress will be the centrepiece of the department store's Swarovski-sponsored window displays over the festive season'.

This was the ONLY purple dress in the display and that meant that I needed a picture. Somehow I posed and with some guidance from my friend, we managed to get this photo. I think it is hilarious!

Some tiny windows also had some sort of display, like this one. I just love this pic :) So cute!

As we went around the other side, we hit the food and drink section. Also sparkly, but a different kind of sparkly, more bubbly so to speak :) This dress reminded me of (of course) my leaf dress but this one was fraying already (I checked!). The pic is a killer though.

The Godiva chocolates display. Love the teacups everywhere, so cute!

Jose just wanted the chocolates ;)

We also saw this handbag/shoe display. Mmm, great idea if you have a large wall you're not using and lots of handbags and shoes :) They had this in pink as well but it was still being set up.

So I took my friend Jose out for coffee and cake and I took him around Harrods. LITERALLY around Harrods, we just walked around the outside of the building looking at the window display, hihi. But it was good fun and really nice weather for it.

Oh yes, remember these? I made these a few days ago and this was their first outing :) Everyone thought they were cats as the wings arent very visible. But I set them straight hihi...

Well, I hope you liked our Christmas trip around Harrods. Maybe next time I will go in, if I arrive when the shop is still open hihi!