Easter

I love to decorate my house according to the season or occasion, and Easter was no exception. Normally my mom holds an egg hunt at her home, but as she's currently homeless whilst waiting for her new house to be finished I offered to have it at my house. I couldn't wait to get started but as usual, work, family and life got in the way and I ended up doing most of it at the last minute. So apologies that this post is coming after Easter.
I normally make the mantelpiece the focal point, and I'm lucky to have two in my home. however I decided to hand the one in the living room over to Jack who made bunting and egg people to decorate it with. For the one in the dining room I began by making a pic of my lil lady wearing her bunny ears and surrounded by Easter eggs.
I still haven't named her and have been toying with Bobby as in bobby dazzler, Dolly as in daydream not parton, or kitty which is my nans name, which I think is really cool but she hates!


I wanted everything to be in pastels so I stuck to the colours lemon blue and pink. I painted polystyrene eggs which I scattered over the mantelpiece and wooden eggs which I hung as a garland along the edge.

Out in the garden I wanted to make it really fun for Jack so I made giant Easter eggs and flowers from recycled cardboard, and we hid eggs with each persons name on, when you found your egg you got a prize. A pot of mini chocolate eggs and bunnies.

In the kitchen I wanted to make some cupcakes in the same colours so I decorated them with lemon and pink fondant, mini eggs and white fondant flowers. We had hot cross buns too but I can't take the credit for those, that has to go to the real baker in the house, Gary who made them at work.Next year the hunt will probably be in my moms new house, but I've decided to still decorate our house and have plenty of things I would like to make, maybe I'll have to start in January!! Xxx

Sunday Stitch Up : Introducing Trampoline!!

Would everyone please give a warm welcome to Trampoline or to give him his full name Trampoline Willy Poo !

I made this little cutie over the weekend and left him for Jack to find, I thought he might name him something more appropriate like squeak, but I should have known better. So Trampoline Willy Poo it is.

He's a bit on the messy side for my liking, but its the first time I've really done anything like this, so I think more practice is needed for this sewing malarkey. It doesn't matter though really because Jack loves him, despite pulling his tail off in the first 5 minutes and needing emergency repair! Boys!!!!

Midweek Make

Another week and another midweek make, this week I went for Allsorts again with the theme of 'A Special Lady', and what a special lady she is. Nice and simple with this one as I think this stamp from Rubber Romance is so beautiful it speaks for itself. I painted it with watercolours and mounted it on to pink vellum, added a pretty ribbon and some pink stones for a finishing touch and voila, we have what I think is a very classy card. I did think about giving this to my mom THE most special lady on the planet, FACT, but I had a feeling she might look at the blog and see, so if you are having a peep mom, rest assured this is not your card. Sorry you'll just have to wait until Sunday. Xxx

Midweek Make

Hey all, I'm back from somerset, and what a great time we had. It didn't rain, woo, and Gary really enjoyed his birthday. Ive been all busy busy since we got back, what with Jack turning 4 on the 25th, and I'm not sure how I managed to fit in this midweek make, but manage I did and here it is.

The challengers on the Allsorts blog must have been reading my mind as the challenge this week is to make a gift box. I've been giving a lot of thought to my handmade Christmas challenge, yes I know its way too early to think of Christmas, where all my gifts will me homemade. Ive got tons of ideas of things to give and I wanted to put them all together in some sort of box. Sort of like a little box of treats. So this is what I came up with.

I wanted the box to be fun and contemporary, and not look like a traditional Christmas gift. I handmade the flowers with an assortment of papers, vellum and card and stitched on some beads, then to give the box a finishing touch I added some heart shaped stones and some ribbon. It was really tempting to over do this box, and after much experimenting I'm glad I didn't as I've got just what I was looking for. I need to make about 6 more of these for my Christmas gifts and then I just need to make the gifts to fill them....so back to the busy busy. lol

Vicky Xxx

Midweek Make

Hey and welcome to the second of my midweek makes, Thanks to those who left comments on the last post it's much appreciated.

This week I decided to go with Cute Card Thursdays theme of 'Signs of Spring' ...and, although it still freezing, I can see little signs of spring. The daffodils are out which means the onions need planting on the allotment but this pesky rain keeps getting in the way.

So anyway this week I made this little picture with my little lady, who still remains nameless, so if you have any ideas let me know, I used water colours as these are my fave and stamped the flowers and butterflies on to more of that very pretty paper mania paper. I think she looks very dreamy and I can bet she's not thinking of onions..lol. where ever she is it looks a lot warmer than here!

Thanks for looking...Vicky Xxx

P.S. Unfortunately there will be no midweek make next week as we are going away to Somerset to celebrate Gary's 40Th birthday!!! So lets hope there will be lots of signs of spring there

Midweek Make

Hey, and welcome to my new regular feature 'Midweek Make'. I've been planning this for a while, but it nearly wasn't to be, our computer picked up a nasty little virus which nearly put a stop on the first post! But thanks to Gary it's all sorted now, so let me tell you all about it.

Each Wednesday I will post a new piece that has been crafted by Lil ole me. This could be cards cake, cookies, anything. However I shall endeavour (big word) to join in with one of the many card making challenges out there. This is going to be a BIG challenge in itself as I normally like to be left to my own devices but I look at them all the time for ideas, inspiration and new techniques, so it would be rude not to have a go.

For the first post this week I thought I would ease myself in gently and after looking through the challenge blogs I picked my favourite theme 'Sweet Treat' on the Secret Crafter blog. I thought I would keep it nice and simple, but steer away from the stamped image method I would normally use. And I don't think you can get much sweeter than this! I made it with some paper mania papers that I've not used for ages and they're so pretty, as I type its sitting on my fireplace and making me wonder if I could part with it, this is exactly the kind of card I would love to receive...maybe I'll send it to myself :)

Thanks for stopping by,

Vicky Xxx

Hearts all a flutter

I was mooching about trying to find some inspiration and failing miserably. I started to think and look back at all my old posts and realised that none of them show any of my own art work! So I set off to rectify that and sharpish...and here is the finished result. This little lady is all my own, its a pencil drawing on water colour paper. I did think of using water colours but I like the texture the paper gives the pencils so I stuck with it. She will be spending some time on my mantelpiece over the lovey dovey valentine period. I've done a few more of these since, and have kinda fallen in love with her. However at the moment she's nameless, which is a little bit sad!.... So any ideas ???

Happy New Year

Happy New year to all, was Santa kind to you??? I must have been a very good girl last year as got lots of crafty lovelies under my tree, but more of that later. I thought I'd show you the pics of my Christmas cake and some cookies I made. the idea of the cake was to have the snowflakes o wires to give the effect of the snow falling. Unfortunately my crappy photography doesn't show this at its best as you can't see that the snowflakes actually sparkle like frost, the cookies were just a quickie to have a go with the new cutter I've been waiting an absolute age for, It came all the way from Hong Kong you know!!, so I'll probably be a bit more adventurous with this next Christmas. I did make cards too which I'll show you in the next post.

So what did Santa bring...well I had some new cookie cutters, a gorjuss girls cross stitch kit (which I'm not allowed to start until I finish my other one) some air drying clay and some delicious felt in some really funky patterns. I think he also gave me a new waft of inspiration as I have so many ideas I don't know where to start.

And Inspired by the red pepper relish I made as gifts for people, which went down a storm, I've decided to set myself a challenge. For Christmas this year I will not buy any one anything, I'll make everyone something, apart from Jack of course, I don't think he would appreciate Jam, chutney, or pickled onions in his stocking!! Xxx

People are strange

I made this card for the Allsorts challenge blog, whose theme this week is inspired by a song. Brilliant I thought right up my street.....then it took me ages to settle for just one song, and then to convey that song in a card. For me it's about what a song, its lyrics or piece of music says to you, rather than just the title. See why it was so hard? Anyway I had almost given up when I found myself randomly singing People are strange by The Doors, and there it was. This song was also covered by Echo and the Bunnymen for the film Lost Boys, one of my Faves. The lyrics to this song really ring true to me, when your strange, no one remembers your name, People considered to be strange by society always seem a little lonely even though they're actually far from lonely or strange. They might just look a little different, although I have to say its getting better and more accepted. So this card was inspired by the lyrics, when your strange faces come out of the rain. I wanted the girl to look a little lonely and as if she was in the mist or rain. I used this stamp of a gorjuss girl and the trees I did free hand. The rain or mist is made from tracing paper which I scrunched up. I'm really pleased with it considering I made it twice as I wasn't happy with the first! Mmmm I may just have to watch Lost Boys this weekend... any excuse. lol Xxx

Pink Squeaky frog

Hey guys, Just a quick one today to show you this card I made for the Cute Card Thursday challenge which was 'make your own' embellishment. So I made this quick little card with some let overs from my stash. The image is Pink petticoat and the flowers I made with some left over card and vellum and little pink diamonds which unfortunately don't show up too well on the pic. I wanted the flowers to be very contemporary, hence no petals, but i love them and think they look quite funky! See Ya later Xxx