so busy doing nothing much

Morning kindy has changed my crafting life. Not for the better, I'm afraid. I seem to spend most of my days pleading with Daniel to get dressed QUICKLY, and driving to and from kindy. For those of you out of the kindy loop, the sessions are short: 8.30 to 11.30. Which leaves me with much less time for making than I used to have.


This week I've made some more pouches, including a little commissioned ipod pouch, prepared some more peg dolls, bought lots of zips and embroidered fabric at the op shop, and dreamt of making a new doll and some clothes for myself. I've also been looking at this very inspiring if oddly translated crafting book from the library (Sew Pretty Homestyle) . Perhaps a bit too much time was spent dreaming...


Here's a photo of my pouches in progress; two completed ones (coin purse and ipod cover) and the other three to show the fabric combinations. All of these were made with my stash of gorgeous upholstery fabric samples that could so easily have ended up at the tip!


I'll be at the Devonport Craft Market on Sunday; come round if you're in the area. Have a great weekend!

Feels like spring

Today was such a nice day, it almost felt like spring. Looked like it too:

The first cherry blossoms are out; soon we'll have the wax-eye family in our two trees.

The magnolia and jonquils were looking good too. Look at the clear sky!

Tomorrow is Kraftbomb, where I'll have a few new things. I posted about the little pouches the other day, and I made a few more packs of embroidered buttons tonight. Something else we'll be unveiling is the Lucky Penny Crafty Club. Anna and I have been talking about how nice it would be to have a place to get together with like-minded crafty people, so decided to do something about it. Check out the blog for more information. The logo, by the way, is the result of my experimentation with the craft knife and then Illustrator. That tool on the coin is anything you want it to be; a knitting needle, a pin, a walking stick... No, maybe not a walking stick.

Paper cutting

I've just updated my etsy shop for the first time in months, with a lovely pouch I made the other day and a peg doll couple. I've reduced my prices, and really hope to sell something soon. I have a love-hate relationship with etsy; it feels like my shop is buried at the bottom of the pile and in order to be seen, I have to update it regularly. Then products sit there for months, and I don't update because I'd rather have stock on my market tables, and so it goes on. But enough of that...

I'm seriously in love with the work of yet another talented South African designer. Heather Moore is Skinny Laminx and she designs the most beautiful prints, some of which originate as paper cuts. Check out her work here, the previous link was to her also great blog. Inspired by her very detailed work, and on a mission to create some packaging for a future product, I tried my hand at cutting some paper. Some advice: get the sharpest knife you can lay your hands on; if possible this little orange tool. It's so easy to use, very ergonomical. Not too sure about that design though; it's a work in progress.

Monday's work

I had a very productive Monday; made 6 little zip pouches, four of which you can see below. The fronts are embroidered and the backs feature beautiful contrasting upholstery fabric. They're for Kraftbomb at the end of the month.

Last night Sarah from the Devonport Craft Market organised a crafty get-together and my partner in craft Anna and I went along to do some research for a similar group we're planning. Will let you know more about that later... Sarah had a great idea about having a themed swap at every get-together and next month's is 'green'. It's on Sunday night, 9 Aug. at 7.30 in the Devonport Community Centre.

It was great to meet some other crafty ladies, especially the knitting guerilla Knitty Grafitti. She's a lovely person who does a lot of clandestine crafting around Devonport, like dressing a sculpture, leaving little knitted messages around the place and keeping the rails around town warm with cuffs. Check out her blog; you'll be amazed at what she does just for the fun of it.

Bedtime stories

Today Joshua, Daniel and I spent some time at the very busy Rotary 2nd-hand book sale, and came home with a couple of kilos worth of kids' books. Classic stuff, half of which will end up as journals. I couldn't believe my luck when I found a pile of little books called 'Bedtime stories', a collection of stories written in the 60's by one Uncle Arthur. He was a man on a mission (literally), and every story seems to have a Christian moral. What really amuses me are the photos and especially captions which could so easily be taken out of context. They are just asking to be printed on a range of silly greeting cards...

"Kathleen's pride and joy was her swing. She felt she was an expert 'swinger'."

"Dicky's pocket was bulging with lollipops."

"Micheal's hair just wouldn't go right. Though he combed and combed it, he wasn't satisfied."

Back to reality

My sisters returned home yesterday, after three busy weeks of sightseeing, shopping and very special family time. The house feels so empty now, so I needed to find myself a little job today to take my mind off it.

Enter the peg doll boys. I've been meaning to make them for ages, but only found the right sized hats the other day. I decided to make some soldiers and ring masters to go with the dolls I made a while ago. They look quite cute together, don't you think?