Aprons, Pinnies and Cover-Ups

I'm not sure why, but another of my favourite things is an apron. I have quite a few, mostly handmade. I have the traditional pinafore type, wrap-overs, tabards and 1940's inspired cover-ups. There is something quite personal about giving an apron (either handmade or shop bought) as a gift. It shows that you care about the person, that you know the sorts of things they like to do and that they like to stay clean while doing it!

Here are just a couple of aprons I have made recently. The red one was for a friend of mine who also loves to craft. I made a wrap over style with pockets for storing odds and ends whilst she is working. It is embellished with ribbons, yo-yos and buttons because she loves them as much as I do.

I made the ice-cream patterned pinnie for my daughter's 6 year old friend. It is made from beautiful quilting cottons, retro ice-cream print for a bit of humour, plus lots of pieces of Moda's Wonderland jellyroll just because it is so pretty and picks up on the ice-cream colours. I had fun with this one, using ruching, patchwork, fabric flowers, buttons and ribbon trim. I used satin ribbon for the ties to make it easy for little fingers to undo.

I have also made aprons for my son and his friends, so that they can wear it whilst playing the Nintendo DS consoles. They have a pocket to keep game cards in and a larger pocket to store the console in when taking a break. I made these from black and white checked print combined with New York Yellow Cab prints and another version featuring aliens and starscapes. I also made aprons for gardeners which I sold at a Christmas craft fayre. Maybe I am not alone in my liking for this most practical of garments?

One of My Favourite Things

I love bags, but in recent years, I have moved away from leather and leather-styles to softer fabric bags. Maybe it is because they tend to be larger and I am generally carrying a ton of baby stuff with me whenever I leave the house, but I think it is most probably because I just love fabrics.

I love making bags and have tried all sorts of patterns and designs of my own, but for a quick and easy handmade gift, I keep coming back to the simple, chuck it all in, bucket-style bag.

As I have been thinking about making myself a new bag, I thought I would share a few snaps of some of the large bucket bags I have made recently. I have used some gorgeous cotton prints (Michael Miller, Cath Kidston, Amy Butler, Moda included), usually using a contrasting lining, also of 100% cotton. If I am using the lighter weight cottons, such as gorgeous quilting fabrics or lovely Liberty lawn prints, I always make sure I have strengthened the bag with a heavy duty interlining. If using cotton duck or similar, such as the Cath Kidston range, I generally just use an equal quality lining, but always double stitch the seams.

Another bag I like to make is the messenger-style, also from 100% cotton. Now that I am using a wheelchair, having an open topped bag is not really great as far as security is concerned. My bag has to go on the back of my chair, so I need to have a flap or fastening to make sure no-one can easily dip their hand in the bag. A wide velcro fastening is a good idea, as it is noisy to open and would get my attention. Perhaps I could just put some of my collection of jingle bells inside the flap, in the same way cat owners attach bells to the little kitties' collars to warn off neighbourhood birdies! An adjustable strap is useful so that it is long enough to go diagonally over my body, but can be shortened when hanging on the handles of the chair. I think I will make a co-ordinating set of one large bag for the back of my chair to hold todller and family essentials (juice, nappies, kitchen sink etc) and a smaller one to wear across my shoulder whilst sitting in the chair. This keeps my hands free to push the wheels, but still means that my phone, purse and medication are within easy reach and are kept safe. My wheelchair is black and grey, so I think muted tones will work best (if I have to use a wheelchair for now, I may atleast be co-ordinated!). I have some black denim and some black and white polka dots fabric. I think a couple of fabric roses made from grey zips and a little felt, a few buttons and some ribbon ties will finish the look. I have just bought myself a new black winter coat. I think I might have to make some matching zipper roses as a brooch for the coat too. A girl can never have too many accessories!

Fancy Folds

I love to make fancy shaped and folded cards but worry that if I send it to someone who is not a card-maker, that they won't understand the design or know how to display it. I have thought that if I batch made the cards, I could use a photo of the finished card to put on the cello packaging as an explanation, but I never really make more than one of the same design. Not even when I am making a hundred cards for our school PTA fundraisers. The joy of crafting for me is that each card is different. I hate repetitive crafting, unless it is for a special event such as a wedding invitation commission. When I do make fancy folded cards, I generally make them for people that we can give the card to in person. For example, my daughter went to her friend's birthday party recently and I made her a side stepper card with additional waterfall mechanism on the main panel. Because my daughter was giving her friend the card at the party, I made an acetate gift box adorned with ribbons to transport the card. Not exactly post-box friendly!

I have also made this rather unusual 4 panel stepper fancy folded card for my identical twin nieces' 2nd birthday. It uses Pollycraft Twiddly Wings images, which I cut and placed, after colouring with Promarkers and Sakura pens, onto a mixture of papers over my super-wide stepper base. I added acetate sheets above the steps for the fairy girls to sit on and to give the illusion of elements floating above the main card. Lots of doodling, gems and glitter were added to make the card appeal to twin toddlers. This definitely requires hand-delivery as it is 50cm wide and most certainly is not up to withstanding the postal system.

This week's Monday challenge at Incy Wincy Designs is for any project which includes folds. Believe me, there were a number of folds used to create this card. Not just for the steps, but on secret little opening panels behind some of the characters and also inside the structure. I hope the twins like it. If you haven't visited Incy Wincy Designs before, do pay them a visit for some great ideas. The challenge is sponsored by Karen's Doodles. This is the first time I have visited Karen's site and I love it! Really well-drawn whimsical digis at great download prices. Another site I am starting a wish list on...

A Cause for Celebration

As I have mentioned here previously, I have been working on an album for some friends who married last year. Unfortunately, I have only managed hasty snaps of the pages as they are too large to scan in and I have yet to ask my resident expert to photograph them for me.

This page is quite masculine deliberately because it features the groom's sons. I wanted to lighten it slightly with an injection of my theme colours, so I chose to add texture and colour at the same time with lots of different ribbons. I tied the colours in again with flocking on all of the stamped areas (stamps from Stampin' Up!). The scalloped edge paper is from Papermania. The celebrate wording is printed onto Safmat from Letraset and the paper behind the photograph is from Papermania's capsule collection. It isn't clear on my poor photo, but I have embossed around the image and around the medallion stamp which adds detail without clutter.

I would like to submit this layout as an entry into Crafty Ribbons' challenge this week. They have a great prize of an autumnal tones ribbon bundle, which I would love to win and use of my humble crafting projects.

So Many Cuppas

Although I enjoy a cup of tea and have been a stay-at-home mum for 7 years, I don't think I have ever crept above an average of 2 cups of tea or coffee a day, even though I am never more than a few steps from the teapot. Until now that is. Even through the sleep deprived early months with each of my babies, I didn't resort to much caffeine. Most probably because every time I boiled the kettle, I started doing something else and didn't get around to making the drink. If I did make it, I didn't get chance to drink it. Since my accident earlier this year, I have been spoilt by the carers who come in to look after me at home. I have a cup of tea made for me by each carer at each visit, as well as having a flask of coffee, so my average is most definitely above 2 now.

With so much tea, it seems only fitting that I show you my tea cosy. I love this project. I made it with left overs of some fuschia Rowan chunky yarn, which I used to make cardigans, hats and scarves for my daughter, twin nieces and their teddies. I also made fingerless gloves and a snood for myself, so have made thoroughly good use of the large batch that I bought in a John Lewis sale.

I would like to enter my project into the current Crafty Ribbons blog challenge, anything goes. I have been browsing their store, compiling a huge wish list as I am a real ribbon horder. Just like buttons, I am addicted to ribbons as they feature in so many crafts. You can never have too much!

I think one of the reasons I love ribbon and trimmings so much is that my Grandad was a manager at a company which manufactured trimmings, and long after he died, my Nana still had a large suitcase of ends-of-line and new product samples from his company. As she taught me to sew, I was sometimes allowed to use some of her trimmings supply and still now I think of those times when I am rummaging through my own collection, much of which is vintage in origin.

I bought quite a lot of the polka dot gross grain ribbon that I used in this project. I have it in lots of colours and widths and will be sad when it is all gone. I have used in lots of projects, from cards, scrap layouts and hair slides to embellishments on clothing, vintage-inspired aprons and steam punk style brooches. I also have it holding up a heart-shaped hanging that I made for my craft space and have garnished one of my scrap tote bags with it. Spots and ribbon, what's not to like?

Colourful Inspiration

Oh no. Another source of inspiration. My brain may just explode! I paid one of my regular visits to the Jellypark challenge blog yesterday and discovered a link to a really great website full of colour palettes for designers, crafters and anyone who loves colour. Design Seeds has page upon page of colour co-ordination ideas, just perfect for overcoming designer's block.

Claire at Jellypark has set this week's challenge based on Design Seeds' colour palettes. I have chosen an oldie-but-a-goodie called 'Color Picked' ~ those of us in the UK, please excuse the American spelling! I think I chose this set because it is based on colours that I like to wear and use in home decorating. I think that the start of autumn also influenced me in the selection of heather hues and sage green. Had the birds left any on my trees, these would be the colours of the plums being harvested this month, but I have watched them munching the fruit all summer long.

Anyway, getting back to the challenge... I have made a card using one of Claire Keay's gorgeous images of a little cutie being transported into the sky by her balloon. The colours were perfect for this challenge, although my experiment of using clear stickles over the top of the decoupaged balloon didn't come out as I had expected. I thought the plum colour of the balloon would show through the clear glue base of the stickles, but the colour has split and become bronzy, but still very pretty. That's inkjet ink for you!

I tore the image edges freehand and layered it up at an angle. The backing paper was originally a burgundy colour with white dots, but I coloured over the top with a shale Promarker to give a two-tone look. I then laboriously pushed out a whole 8x8 sheet of die cut flowers (from a Cosmo Cricket kit) to give an interesting layer in sage green with pinks and plums. It took me almost a whole episode of Casualty to push out those flowers with my trusty pokey tool, but then I do have trouble with my hands and wrists!

I coloured some of the tiny paper flowers with promarkers and kept some plain. I layered them up with bronze brads to add more dimension. The muted sage cotton lace is from American Crafts, finished with two overlaying flower shaped brads in complimetary tones (not sure where they were from - they've been in my stash for about 7 years or so!). The sentiment is actually a white icing rub-on from Quickutz, applied to a small piece of patterned cardstock overlaid on another piece of cardstock printed with script over-coloured with Promarkers - phew! I also added more of the flowers and brads to the side of the sentiment for balance. The sentiment just edges over the side of the rectangular card so that it makes it need an 8x8 envelope.

The tomato pip just above the ribbon is the work of my two year old son Joel who helped my husband with the photography. He was at the side of the card when it was being snapped and he thought that the photos were of him. Aah, bless him! I have removed the pip now, but was mid-way through editing the picture before I spotted it, so it is staying. It also made me laugh, not a frequent occurence when one of my projects gets damaged, but Joel is so cheeky, he gets away with it. He is rarely to be found with clean face or hands, so the card got off lightly with just a tomato pip.

Swirls and Pearls

Swirls and Pearls is the theme of the challenge set by Anita on the Pollycraft challenge blog this week. I have chosen to join in using this great Luna Bitterfrost digi stamp designed by Pollycraft's very talented Paula Lee. I coloured it with Promarkers and Flex Markers, grounding the image with the palest of pinks.

For my swirls, I have chosen paisley with funky skull and crossbones in the middles to represent the posion symbol of whatever Luna is working on. The paisley shapes were cut by hand from a matt-stack (Rock Star by DCWV). I love this image of the scientist as I studied Chemistry and worked as a research chemist before my children were born. Perhaps Luna is a prettier version of me in my lab-coat wearing days, even down to the plaits! Not sure my glasses were quite so funky though, just standard eye-protection! I have given her my colouring too, but her lab coat is most definitely cleaner than mine ever was.

For the pearls element of the challenge, I have used a little artistic licence and used Liquid Pearls instead of actual pearl embellishments. Cheeky, I know, but I think that chemist Luna would approve of the use of a synthetic liquid compound instead of solid pearl embellies, don't you?

The very tactile pin dot paper in muted teal and black is from Papermania's Chatsworth Signature A5 range. This paper has a suede-like feel to it and is really nice to handle. I have used other papers from K & Co's designer 6x6 series to add layers and to make the paper-ribbon stripe behind Luna. The overall card was covered in paisley paper from Papermania. The ribbon tied across the card is from Maya Road. It is so thick, it is actually a little like shoe-lace.

My finishing flourish is the 'fumes' from the top of the test tube. I made this using a piece of pink net fabric which I gathered and threaded onto a safety pin before fastening it to the page. I can't say that I ever worked on anything which gave off nice pink coloured fumes, but it adds to the image!