Mexico Kitty Ceramic Pot

I am so excited to show this little fella to you, he is the first thing I made in my ceramic workshop and I'm so pleased he is finally home. He is named 'Mexico Kitty' as he was inspired by some Mexican art I saw, with the painted design. Isn't he the cutest!

He was made using the snake pot technique; i.e hand built using long snakes to form a pot. I really like the shape of him, he sort of curves in like a nice plump kitty but I think its a really aesthetic shape. I then added four legs onto the bottom. Sadly I don't think I secured them well enough, so as you can see here they exploded off on the first firing but they have been very cleverly attached back on by David when dip glazed. David also put a hole in the bottom of my pot for the water to drain out so I also made this little stand for it to catch any water that drips through. This I just made out of a flat rolled piece of clay which I made dint's in for the legs to sit in so its all nice and sturdy.

The pattern was hand painted on using some oxide and water after I added the blue slip to colour the main pot. I really like the way this looks actually, its definitely something I will try again. I like how delicate the brush strokes are on something which is otherwise quiet chunky. With the face I cut away from the clay and then painted in the gaps but as you can see the oxide has burnt away during the firing process, which is a shame but I really see all this as a bit of a learning curve, there are no errors only happy accidents!

The final shiney glaze was added by dipping him in glaze, this helped to stick his legs back on, but we would normally paint the glaze on to the pot. After firing the shrinkage of the clay caused the glaze to crack which is the effect you can see above. David suggested that we paint over the pot with a watery acrylic paint to show off the cracks it has caused. We gave it a test on the bottom of the plate and it looked really nice so I applied it to the whole pot. I think its a really interesting effect.

I hope you like Mexico Kitty :) It just goes to show just how easy it is to make something amazing. I love this pot and as I said at the beginning this is the first one I made so it just goes to show what you can achieve when you give things a try. I have put David's flyer below for anyone who is local and fancies giving ceramics a go. 

Now I need to go and get on with trying to finish some of my sewing projects! Honestly, I have a pile so high of half done makes that I really need to tackle, they are in the way if nothing else!

Sam's Monkey

Recently I got back into some plushie making and it felt really good to get back in the saddle, I really enjoyed this little project monkey. Sam's Monkey was made for a little boys first birthday present, and I really hope he gets lots of love and cuddles in his new home and I hope you all like him too.

Being a new parent, completely clueless and with only a small few supportive friends with babies, I took to a forum of babies with a birthday close to Master Fox's for advice, support and generally someone else to talk to. All new parents will understand the desire to share every new thing their baby does, but also the worries about 'is this normal', 'am I doing it right' and 'help, I don't know what to do'. This group of mummies have been absolutely amazing (and slightly mad) but I am so proud we have come through a whole year together and it has been amazing to watch all the babies grow and share in their milestones (as well as the MANY sleepless nights!).

We decided to do a secret santa type thing for their first birthdays (I can't believe they are all 1 already, where has the time gone?). As well as buying a gift I couldn't resist the temptation to make something for my chosen baby. Rather than making clothes which are grown out of/risk not fitting, I decided to make a little cuddly toy. This is where Sam's Monkey was born.

I do like him a lot, he is very cute, and I love the long flimsy limbs which are perfect for dragging around and giving a good chew when little one is teething. I also love his big monkey ears, they are very characteristic. In hindsight the fleece fabric is a little dark for the black eyes and they are lost a little bit, especially in the pictures. I think they would have been better on the lighter fabric but I don't think is too much of an issue.

I'm sure this won't be the last plushie I make, they are one of my favourite things still. I think I am just a big kid at heart! Have you make your little ones soft toys before, or made one as a gift? I would love to see them all. I love a good plushie. Also, is it just me or does everyone else get a small glow of delight when they finally come to life!

 

Baby Makes: The first of many (Starry Romper)

I have been doing so much baby sewing lately and am LOVING it! Honestly I'm completely obsessed by it. If any of you out there are parents yourselves you will know that once you have a little one in your life all your attentions and money go straight into them and you care so much less about your own needs and appearance. Your little ones will be dressed in the cutest little outfits whilst you are still trying to rock a pair of leggings and oversized tshirt which you have owned for 4 years!! It's therefore no surprise that my sewing has taken the same turn and I'm now happily turning out gorgeous little outfits for Master Fox. Not to mention the fact I need to make the most of the fact I'm currently allowed to choose what he wears which won't last forever.

After seeng one of my friends babies in an adorable little handmade cotton romper I did some internetting and discovered Puperita patterns on Etsy and I love them. I bought the starry romper pattern as I wanted to make a pair of jersey dungarees and this looked like the perfect fit for this type of fabric. I specifically wanted to make them from jersey as it's such a comfortable and giving fabric for a baby. These little things are still developing, and at the time of making these in particular he was just trying to find his hands and feet and start crawling and so I didn't want to make something too restrictive for him. Not to mention jersey is soft on the skin, warm and most importantly washes well, perfect for little babies. I bought this particular jersey on eBay from a seller in Germany (how come wider Europe has much better fabric than we do here in the uk!). 

 

The pattern was so simple to follow and really quick to sew up using both the sewing machine and overlocker and it turned out simply amazing I am really proud of it. I did try and do some pattern matching but didn't realise there were 2 monkey repeats and lined the fabric up to the wrong ones!! Oh well we need to make these mistakes to learn don't we! I should also say you don't need to use an overlocker to make these and the pattern works just as well with cottons as it does jersey but you will need some stretch fabric for the cuffs. 

 

I hope you love this little romper as much as I do, I think the pocket is one of my favourite bits of the pattern, I keep putting things in there for him ;). I also decided to make a matching dribble bib using one of his existing bibs as a template. I think it's an excellent use of some of the left over fabric and now he can be coordinated!!

Right well that's it for this post but don't worry I have so many more to show so watch this space for more rompers, some joggers and most importantly his amazing handmade Halloween outfit which I am particularly proud of!! X

Felt Finger Puppet Gang

Come and meet the gang.... Percy the Polar Bear, Henry the Hedgehog, Leo the Lion, Mr Fox, Kitty Mew Mew and Mr Dinosaur. I don't know why but all my soft toys have always been male, I'm not sure what this says about me? Do your soft toys (I would say did, but come on you know you still own some) have a gender? I would love to know I'm not the only odd one out there.

So anyway, it's been a while since I have played with finger puppets, but how cute are these little felt guys? You might be wondering then why I made them? Well now that Master Fox is 6 weeks with every day he is getting more awake and more inquisitive. To help him learn about his new world I have been looking for activities to do with him to stimulate and help his mental development. There are lots of great ideas from simply showing him things around the house to smells but of course my favourite activity was the one which featured finger puppets! I probably could have gone with a theme, say woodland or zoo animals or something but he doesn't know the difference. I just made up my favourite animals ;)

Little Felt finger puppets are so easy to make. All you need is some felt, scissors, needle and thread. Draw roughly around your finger onto a piece of paper but add about 1cm all the way around. Once you have done this cut it out and this is your finger template. From that you just need to cut shapes from felt to make little faces and features and sew them on with co-ordinating thread. Once you have finished with the features you then sew around the edge and top of the puppet leaving the bottom open. You can of course use glue if you don't want to sew them.

They took about 15 minutes per puppet which makes this another awesome project for making during baby naps. It took me about 3 naps to make these 6 little guys, not bad at all.

Have you ever made any toys for your little newborns? I am continuously hunting for ideas for playtime so would love to hear about them.

DIY Panda Balloon Tutorial

Happy Monday to you all, I have a lovely post weekend treat for you today:

We went out for a good friends birthday this weekend and I was tasked by her other half to think about decorations for venue. Its a big birthday, but I didn't want to rub it in, because although she is a wonderfully social person, she doesn't like to be made a fuss of. So I got to thinking about what she loves, and she LOVES Panda's (who doesn't love a cute fluffy panda?).

So I got ebaying and googling to find some panda balloons to buy for the occasion. Much to my surprise there is a distinct lack of (cute) panda balloons out there. So I then thought to myself, ok, you must be able to DIY a panda balloon right? off to pinterest I went, but nothing. What is wrong with the internets? it couldn't give me the panda love I needed. So I bought some white balloons and here my lovely friends is what happened!

You will need:
White balloons
Sharpie
Craft glue
Black crepe paper (normal paper will probably work fine)
Scissors

Step 1: Blow up your balloon

Step 2: Cut out two semi circles of your crepe paper, and have little tags at the bottom on each side. It also helps to have a little curve in between the two.

Step 3: Using your sharpie draw some nice big panda eyes on your balloon and colour them in. You might want to draw up a quick template if you are worried about getting the eyes the same. My panda is looking a bit evil here, but he will look cute in a minute I promise.

Step 4: Draw a little nose and smiley mouth on your balloon, I find the closer to the eyes, the cuter the panda.

Step 5: Fold up the tabs on your ear pieces and pop a little bit of glue on the bottom.

Step 6: Stick the tabs on to the top of the balloon, place the tabs pointing towards the face, and it helps to angle them in a little bit so you get a nice curve on the ears, and this helps them to stick up rather than fall over. A bit like pointing your big toes in towards each other.

And you are done! Hazzah! Panda balloon to the ready How cute and easy was that!

Photo credit: Ian Plumpton Photography

Now all that is left to do is prance around pretending you have a panda for a head!

I would love to see your versions if you decide to give this a go. Maybe think about other animals, I would love to see a kitty cat.