29 September 2014

A Flock of Feathery Hens!


Remember me telling you I was going to a hen do? Well do you like my sparkly feather hairpiece? Our Bride to be picked the theme 'Feathers a Corsets' for her evening out, feathers of course being a very appropriate theme for a hen do. Sadly I don't think I even noticed the pun until just now! So being as a can't wear a corset (apparently its frowned upon to squash your growing baby) I thought I should mark the occasion by making every effort to don a feathery hairpiece.

Now these are one of my current favourite things on Etsy at the moment: Feather Ear Cuffs. They are just incredible, the only problem is my favourite are the pink and orange and well they were just going to get lost in my hair.

(Excuse the terrible selfie!) 

To add to that, sadly it turns out I was quiet poor last month, or I spent too much, so I couldn't justify the pennies to buy one for myself and instead I set to trying to make something out of the things I had y'know, just lying about. Armed with a glue gun, two types of black feather, some black felt, and old hair clip and some of my favourite sparkly fabric I managed to knock this little gem up in less than half an hour. 

I started out by cutting a piece of felt and a piece of glitter fabric into a heart shape. Then using the glue gun I glue glue glued the feathers onto the felt piece and then glued the glitter piece to the top making sure the edges were all sealed. The final job was to just spot glue a clip onto the back and voila. 

I am really pleased with how it came out, its a great little fascinator and it made me feel ever so glamorous, which is hard when your pregnant and in a constant feeling of frump. I also love it when a little whimsy project comes together so well. Of course we all know it doesn't always go that way 9/10 those little spur of the moment craft projects normally end up looking like something a 5 year old made, but occasionally you can surprise yourself. 

But that is not the end of it, no. Our lovely Bride to be decided to make everyone a little feathery gift of their own to wear on the night so we could all match. Check out how gorgeous this little feather brooch is. I love the colour and its just so delicate. Simple yet perfect and a great little momento from the evening. She made some with wire and beads, some as hair pins and some as brooches. A very talented young lady she is. 

Have you ever made any feathered accessories, or would you like to tell me all about your spur of the moment successes (or failures)? Please feel free to share the love. 


Have you ever made any feathered accessories, or would you like to tell me all about your spur of the moment successes (or failures)? Please feel free to share the love.
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26 September 2014

A girl can NEVER get enough glitter!


More Glitter! Is that enough for you? Of course its not, but its a good start!

After making my glitter shoe clips (my tutorial is here) I just had to purchase some more of the fabric and make myself a version in many different colours. My favourite is definitely the light multicoloured ones in the centre of the picture above. They just go with anything and are so bright and sparkly!

My reason for making this is again for our Christmas Craft charity event. Instead of shoe clips I will make them into hair grips and sell them as individuals which means we can hopefully make lots and lots of money with them. This is a great little thing to make as stocking fillers or as small gifts as they are relatively inexpensive and they don't take a long time to do at all. You could also clip them on your Christmas tree, but adorning yourself is much more fun.


I am also off to a hen do tonight so its perfect timing for a very sparkly and girly post hee hee! I am actually really looking forward to this weekend. This afternoon brings a relaxing antenatal pilates class, which will likely be followed by a soak before I get ready to go out and get all glammed up. The theme is 'Corsets and Feathers' and well whilst I can't exactly wear a corset I can of course wear feathers! Then on Sunday it is my little nephews 3rd birthday party! I can't believe he will be 3 already but any excuse for a bit of jelly and ice cream!!!!

I hope you have a wonderful weekend whatever you are up to and try to add a little sparkle if you can x


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21 September 2014

Happy Christmas Puds for a Crafty Christmas Fair

The world is definitely split in two when it comes to this time of year and the Christmas stuff starts to appear in the shops. There are those that grumble and groan about it being far to early and then there are the others, like me, who start jumping up and down with excitement at the prospect. To say I LOVE Christmas is a bit of an understatement, I just find the whole countdown really exiting and I still have sleepless nights the night before because I just can't wait. I guess I'm just a big kid at heart. Having my birthday so close to Christmas though probably doesn't help, its just a whole season of celebration and now I have the birth of the little man to look forward to, who is due just just 7 days before! Bets on whether it will end up being a Christmas day baby? Who knows, we will just have to watch this space. 


For a lot of us creative types Christmas really does usually start in August when you start thinking about Christmas craft fairs, Christmas related inspiration prepared in advance etc and so I am obviously no exception to this. In addition this year we are also going to be re-running the charity craft fair we did at Easter to see if we can raise even more money for a good cause. The idea is to make handmade items out of the goodness of your heart and donate them to the fair so that others can purchase them, all funds raised going to charity. With that going on I am obviously thinking about what I can make to contribute and these little guys are perfect no? You will remember my Christmas Pudding Tutorial from last year? Well if not check it out. This is just a slight modification on that where I stitched a tiny little happy face on to the icing because we all know food should have a face!

I hope you like these little guys, and are not offended by their appearance on the blog in September! You should so have a go at making some of these yourselves with your little ones for Christmas using my tutorial I linked above.

I don't really have much to tell you about my weekend this week, we had a lovely quiet one at home for a change and I really haven't done a lot at all. I don't know why quiet weekends go so quickly, they should be slow and dull but somehow they just aren't. I also didn't do any of the jobs I intended to but I did enjoy spending time with Mr Fox so I'm not going to beat myself up about it at all. I hope you had a lovely one whatever you have been up to and I wish you a productive crafty week ahead.


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19 September 2014

Kitty Cat Donut Cushion

The pillow to end all pillows. I think this thing might be the answer to everything... plus it has kitty's, nuff said!




Before I go into a little more detail about the project though I just wanted to address the fact that there has been very little (no) garment sewing going on at all, and the fact you will notice it is mostly baby sewing/DIY at the moment. Honestly, the time it takes to make a garment, which will only fit me for the next few months, is not overly inspiring me at the moment. I don't think I can cope with drafting, making a toile, sewing up a final version etc at the moment i'm just too tired and there aren't enough hours in the day. Plus getting down onto the floor to cut out lots of pattern pieces just isn't the easiest of things right now! So apologies, but this won't be the end of the garment sewing, I just need to get this little man outta here first. There are a few sewing patterns I really have my eye on at the moment, and I mean, By Hand London made a bloody playsuit pattern! I have only been after one of these forever! 


Anywho, on to the pattern. It is from the Simple Sewing for Baby book I wrote about a few weeks back. I knew this would be one of the first things I made due to the fact that its so damn useful looking. The idea is that it will help keep me comfortable whilst pregnant, it will provide support for us both when we are trying to feed and it will support him once he is able to sit on his own. What more could you want from a cushion really?


The pattern was a doddle, it doesn't get much easier than this so I won't bore you with all the details, but it was super fast and I made it up in just a couple of hours (there was more time spent stuffing that actually sewing). I made it in cottons so it is easy to sponge clean as it would be a mare to clean this any other way. It should also make it comfy enough for us both and not irritate any of our delicate skin. I love this kitty fabric too, its from t
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11 September 2014

Completed Norman


I actually knitted a whole jumper!

That might not sound too amazing to a lot of you, but I have actually never started and finished a jumper knitting project yet (and there are a lot on the half done pile!) so I am feeling very proud of myself right now.

Not too proud though, I started this jumper 9 months before my nephews 2nd birthday as part of his birthday gift. He is now 2 years and 11 months and I completed it this week! Oops! Safe to say its not going to fit him now, but at least I know I will have a little boy who will grow into it. I will just need to find a new knitting project for my nephew.



The pattern is from 'Just Baby' by Rowan and is called Norton, I'm not 100% sure I didn't pick this pattern because the child is so cute! I loved the colours though so knitted it in the exact same wool as the pattern. Its very boyish but still not dull and too babyish.

The pattern was really easy to follow and not actually too arduous to knit, I just put it down and didn't pick it back up again. I have got half a mind to knit it in a smaller size and some different colours now, but I think I should give some other baby patterns a go. I do like a baby knit though, they come together really quickly and I really think I have picked up a bit of the knitting bug now.

I really like the button panel on the front of this jumper. It was probably the most awkward part to knit up but it gives a nice little detail to the front and will make taking it on and off the little man really easy. 

Keep your eyes peeled for what will come next....

Do you have any really good baby knitting patterns you like to know? I would love to hear your recommendations.


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8 September 2014

Snuggly Baby Circus Blanket


So I am trying to ignore the little blip in posting that happened in August, but the truth is we were just so incredibly busy I don't think we had one weekend where we weren't off somewhere or had plans to do something. But one of the incredible things we did was to go and visit some friends over in Denmark.

Having played warcraft for such a long time its not really surprising we have got to know some of the people we play with really well after all these years (don't worry i'm not off on a tangent here, it will eventually link in to the post I promise!). We have been saying we should get ourselves to Denmark for years now, and what with the baby now on the way, and a couple of our friends having a newborn of their very own we decided it was now or never really. So off we went over bank holiday weekend for a few days in Copenhagen.


It was great to see our friends and even better to see their new little man Jamie. The one thing I really loved was, that in Denmark, you can buy quilts for baby's and they wrap up their little baby's like a sausage to get them to sleep, its so cute! But in Denmark they do leave their baby's outdoors to nap, even in their cold winters so they do need to be kept nice and snuggly.

This made me really want to make a cute little quilt cover for our little man when he arrives. Whilst on our free day out in Copenhagen being tourists Chris actually spotted one of their fabric shops and let me go in for a wander. It was amazing, they had so many good quility fabrics, I could have easily filled a suitcase and spent a fortune. However, as I could only really buy a little bit, I decided some fabric to make this quilt would be perfect and I should buy something I have never seen in the UK or on the internet... roll up, roll up this adorable circus print cotton (rabbits with mustaches, I mean why wouldn't you!).

I have managed to find the fabric shop online since, but sadly I don't understand a word of it so its very difficult to navigate. But I also haven't managed to find this fabric on the internet anywhere, which is sad as there were some seals with mustaches too and I want to try and get my hands on some of this as an afterthought (so if anyone has any clues PLEASE let me know).


Anyway on to the making of the blanket:

So coming back to the UK it turns out you can't buy quilts for babies younger than one year! We obviously have different regulations over here. This meant I had to rethink the whole idea so instead I decided to just make a nice soft snuggly blanket. Its made to pram blanket size (there is a great link on mothercare which tells you the standard measurements). I purchased some lovely soft spotted white minky fabric from ebay and cut out a piece of minky, a piece of the thinnest tog quilting batting and a piece of the cotton fabric to just bigger than 70x90cm.

The placing of the three layers to make sure they turned right side out boggled my brain a bit, it goes like this:
Batting
Cotton (pattern facing up)
Minky (outside facing down)

Then pin, and I mean pin! all the way around and sew a 3/4 seam around all 4 edges making sure you leave a gap big enough to turn the whole thing the right way out. Using a walking foot will make sewing the three layers significantly easier, but if you don't have one you can managed without just make sure you pin really well, sew slowly and make sure the foot is not down too tightly.

Turn the blanket right side out, poke out your corners, iron, pin down your opening seam and then sew a nice neat line all the way around the outer edge to keep the layers together and make the whole thing look pretty and neat.

There is a much better tutorial here: iCraft Minky Blanket Tutorial

It turned out really great. It's neat, I love the colours and best of all its so soft and comfy. I can't wait to wrap our little winter bundle up in it for a cuddle!

Lastly, to finish off this mammoth post you can have a token picture of that famous street in Copenhagen! There




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5 September 2014

Leather Bow Wristy Cuffs

Do you like what I did there? Like fisty cuffs but a lot less violent!


Continuing on the love of leather and bows which seems to be a bit of a theme going on around here I made this lovely pink leather wrist cuff out of some of the leftover leather from the bow belt, a glue gun and a couple of poppers. Its so pretty and very pink, it matches my hair perfectly. A bit of a girly take on the normal goth style leather studded bracelets of my youth!


I used this tutorial by 'Oh the lovely things' and honestly this couldn't have been an easier make, it took about 30 minutes max, and that included waiting for the glue gun to heat up. The tutorial uses regular sew on poppers but as I have a whole bunch of proper leather ones from the bow belt tutorial I figured I might as well use one of these. So if you have a spare bit of leather hanging about, or an old bag/jacket destined for the rubbish bin I urge you to give this a whirl, the tutorial is really great. 


I don't really have a lot planned for my weekend, Mr Fox is off to a stag do, so honestly I think I will just take the opportunity to sit on my ass for a little while and enjoy the quiet time. I am going to see my grandad this evening, which will be lovely as I don't see him all that often. The baby bump is growing quiet significantly but is all happy and well, then Sunday we are off to a Fox family get together which should be lovely. I hope whatever you are up to you enjoy it and have a lovely weekend.

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1 September 2014

Pinata!

Hello! Welcome back... with a bang (or a pop, or in this case just a collapse!)


I needed to play a bit of toddler pinata the other day, for those that don't know toddler pinata is where you have a trap door in the bottom, and use ribbon to release the door. Only one ribbon has a knot in, so the others simply just pull out rather than bashing the crap out of the cardboard figure.

I tried to figure out how to adapt a store bought pinata, but couldn't for the life of me work it out, though it turns out I could have just used a craft knife on the bottom and it would have been an simple as that. But anyway, that's no fun, and not the DIY Fox way right, so I set about making my own. It also turned out to actually be a lot cheaper to make my own, I got to pick the colours and even have tissue paper to spare.


I started out with some cardboard from the recycling bin and was just going to make a box shape. I figured whilst taping it though that it would be a lot simpler to just make a cone with an old cereal box and tape a circular base onto the bottom with a trap door cut in it. I then set about covering it is roughly chopped tissue paper strips in 3 different colours and just attached with pva glue.

The final stage was to cut out a ton of little tiny slits and place the strips of ribbon through each one, tying a knot in the end of one of the strings. Then loosely tape the hole up and cover the tape with another piece of tissue paper and voila!

It didn't go 100% to plan as the knot came through the hole, so I had to tie up another one mid game, and the string I had to hold it didn't hole out with the weight so we had just stand their holding the top of it. But it served its purpose and there was a sweetie fallout!


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