aussie dish cloth swap

I recently signed up to Mel's [onecraftymumma] Aussie dish cloth swap. This is Mel's second swap that she has organised. Every one who joined (and there's 50 of us) has made four cotton dish cloths which could be either crocheted or knitted. As my relationship with knitting is not a good one, I have crocheted all four of my dish cloths.

I crocheted four different designs. Two dish cloths I made up as I went along, and two I used patterns found on the internet. I used one of my favourite yarns, Morris and Sons Avalon 8 ply cotton yarn.

Here's the four dish cloths I made...

Dish cloth #1: I made this one up. It uses triple crochet stitches in a square shape, with a scallop edging. There are similar ones around on the internet, but I just started crocheting and kept going...

 

Dish cloth #2: This is another Fiona creation. Mostly treble crochet stitches in a circle.

Dish cloth #3: I used the Flower Power dish cloth pattern on Ravelry. Very cute design will be making more of these.

Dish cloth #4: I used the ZigZag dish cloth pattern by Mellie Blossom. I really, really like this design. I'd love to make a rug using this zig zag design. I also added a simple edge to this dishcloth which wasn't on the original pattern.

Once the dish cloths were finished, I made four tags to attach to each dish cloth. The tags have fabric fronts, with wool felt flowers. The back of each tag was cardboard with information about each dish cloth like, the yarn I used, the pattern and my name. The tags were finished with a little baker's twine from Ribbons Galore.

The dish cloths have arrived safely at Mel's house. Make sure you visit Mel's blog, she's been writing about all the dish cloths she's received for the swap there.

I'll be back to show off the four dish cloths I receive in the swap soon.

Thanks for visiting...

Cheers

Fiona x

christmas ideas [day 2] : handmade cards

I love making my own cards. I love my girls making their own cards. Christmas time is no exception. In this post I'm sharing some cards which were a free added bonus to one of my Christmas online classes in the past. They are still some of my favourite cards.

If you would like to make these I have a PDF template file with the little pieces used for making the stocking, tree and candy cane. Download Fiona's christmas card shapes templates. (This file is an A4 sized document, so make sure you check your printer settings to ensure the template pieces are the right size and in proportion.)

Here are a few photos to give you an idea of how to construct the Christmas shapes on your cards.

I like to combine paper with fabric or felt, so I cut the base shapes from paper:

Then add felt pieces:

I like to add a little stitching. You could also use the sewing machine if you'd like:
 

 

All finished:

You could use any shapes for your cards, try looking for some clip art pieces that you like and use a mix of paper and felt to create your own cards.

Mel and I will be back on Friday with some more Christmas craft ideas... this time I think a little stitching will be on display. Hope you can join us then.

Thanks for visiting.

Cheers

Fiona x 

maya road projects

Just wanted to share my last Maya Road projects which went to CHA recently.

This is a tabbed chipboard binder mini book, covered with some of my favourite fabric, Park Slope by Erin McMorris:

Some new cute stamps which I used for some card making:

This was a small coaster chipboard album coloured with some Maya Mist. This book contained some photos of Phoebe's fundraising efforts recently:

Thanks for visiting.

Cheers

Fiona x

Day 1 of the Egg-ceptional Egg-xtravaganza

Mel and I are sharing card and tag making ideas today. Mel has created gorgeous bunny cards today on her blog, take a peek HERE.

I've made an Easter bunny tag using one of my favourite little rubber stamps. Stamps are a great addition to your craft collection. You only need a few favourites and you can re-use them over and over again. I've made a larger tag so there is room to write a message to your tag recipient.

 

Here's a some steps to creating the tag.

Stamp the images onto smooth cardstock. I used StazOn ink this time as I didn't want to heat emboss my images. The StazOn dries quickly and I was able to colour the images without smudging.

 

Cut the images from the sheet. I will be framing my images, so I cut them slightly larger that the inner shape of my chosen frame.

 

Colour your stamped images:

 

Paint the chipboard frames:

 

Stick the stamped images behind the chipboard frames:

 

Cut a piece of felt slightly larger than the framed image (no need to attach at this point, I'll be stitching it to the card in a couple of steps):

 

Draw some lines across the tag. There are many journaling or ledger themed stamps available which you could also use. Drawing your own lines is very quick and easy:

 

Sew the framed bunny image to the corner of the tag. I sewed around the frame to hold this in place on the tag. I finished the felt piece off with a running stitch of embroidery thread:

 

Finish the tag with a big ribbon bow at the top.

This framed stamped image idea could be used on the front of little gift cards and on larger cards or added to the front of some packaging, like below. I have glued the frame onto the front of a pillow box which can then be filled with little chocolate Easter eggs.

   

Hope you enjoyed day 1 of our Egg-ceptional Egg-xtravaganza. If you make an Easter card or tag, leave a comment here on the blog with a link to your project. We'd love to share your creations as well.

Thanks for visiting. Until next Monday for our next Easter craft idea installment. Have a great weekend.

Cheers

Fiona x

Maya Road dt blog post & Aussie Cardmaking Stamping & Papercraft magazine

It was my turn to post over on the Maya Road Design Team blog last week. I wrote about a little book I made for Emily's birthday. Lots more photos of the book are on the MR blog.

 

I was also excited to receive this publication in the mail a few weeks back. I had a set of cards published in Australian Cardmaking Stamping and Papercraft and one of my cards was featured on the cover (Celebrate You - top right). I didn't know this card would be on the cover, so that was an extra little surprise.

 

Hope you have a great week.

Thanks for visiting.

Cheers

Fiona xx

 

long time...no blog...

...but it is summer and school holidays.

It's been about a month since my last post. We've been enjoying the laziness of school holidays. I love having my girls home.

Christmas was nice and relaxing.

New Year was... nice and relaxing. We were at Hawks Nest for about a week... nice and relaxing. We packed a picnic and headed for Jimmy's Beach for New Years eve to watch the fireworks over at Nelson Bay. There were hundreds of people on Jimmy's Beach (busiest I've ever seen it!), many bonfires were blazing. It was a great night.

January has been nice and relaxing. Many trips to the beach, catching up with friends, movies, shopping, staying cool during our hot weather.

Here's a photo taken at Balmoral Beach. There have been several days spent sitting under the trees chatting with friends while we watch the kids enjoy themselves.

 

I have created a few projects during January. CHA-W 09 is just around the corner, and I have sent a few projects off to the US for the Maya Road stand. Here's one of the my mini albums... using a new chipboard suitcase book. You can view the new Maya Road catalog HERE.

 

I still have lots of photos on my camera which I haven't checked yet, once I have I'll post more project photos very soon.

These little cupcake cards {below} were made for the Maya Road Design Team blog. We, the design team members, are now writing posts on the blog. Every few days a new post is published over there. So far there have been lots of great ideas, so make sure you bookmark it and visit regularly.

I've used the Maya Road Cupcakes stamp set. Instructions are on the MR DT blog.

 

 

 

I LOVE this set of stamps, and I actually have ONE SPARE. So I'm going to start the new year off with a RAK. If you leave me a comment here on this post by January 31, your name will be included in the draw for this set of MAYA ROAD CUPCAKES STAMPS. I'll post anywhere in the world! edited: thanks for all your lovely comments, I now have a winner.

Good luck, have fun and thanks for visiting my blog.

Cheers

Fiona x

Christmas sewing

December has just flown by... and I couldn't let it pass without sharing some Christmas crafty-ness we've been working on in our house.

I mentioned in my last post about a project Phoebe and I were working on. We made an Advent calendar together, sewing 24 little quilted, fully lined stockings. Phoebe did a much of the quilting.

 

 

The little stockings ready to be sewed.

 

These little stockings are quite tricky to photograph. We pegged them onto string across the wall. Each day has it's own little stocking for a surprise.

 

 

Some close ups of the little stockings, trimmed with ribbon and rick rack.

 

 

And a happy Phoebe!

 

The fabrics I purchased last June from the Sydney craft show. The fabrics are:

• Fabrics from the Secret Santa collection by Lori Siebert for Benartex fabrics.

• Fabrics from the Spring Carnival collection by Max New fabrics. Click on Cotton Candy and Sherbet to see the green/red colourway.

And of course I couldn't let Emily go without an Advent calendar. So once the 24 stockings were made, I started on a project for Emily. Here is my gorgeous Emily with her Advent calendar.

 

This project was made up as I went along. I had an idea of what I wanted to make, but after that it was created as I sewed.

 

 

 

I made these little crotched felted flowers a while back, and was thrilled to see the colours of the flowers matched the advent calender. Little fabric covered buttons finished it off.

 

 

The fabrics used for this Advent calendar were from the Spring Carnival collection by Max New, this time in the red/pink colourway.

I have also made some market bags from Park Slope fabrics. These are for sale in the Handmade store at Ribbons Galore. They are quilted on the outside, fully lined and reversible.

  

  

And a couple of things made from Maya Road...

This little tag was a design team challenge for the Maya Road newsletter. We had to create a tag using four MR products.

   

 

And my little reindeer ornaments which I created last year, were published in a Paper Crafts Christmas special magazine, Holiday Cards and More Vol 3, along with two other of my projects.

 

Well that's about all for now. I've been busy painting a room in our house this weekend which will become my crafty room very soon.

Hope you have a good few days leading up to Christmas.

Thanks for visiting.

Cheers

Fiona x

Robot love and other things

I recently bought a set of Darkroom Door's Robot stamps. When I first saw them I thought they were some of the cutest robots I'd seen. And they didn't disappoint when they arrived.

The girls and I had a quick stamping session last weekend and made some cards. The quality of these red rubber stamps is fantastic, the detail in the design is so clear when stamped. We loved the images and colouring them with the bruch pens. Here's one of Phoebe's cards...

 

 

I made some quick gift cards...

   

I'm loving the idea of using embroidery hoops as frames. There are many, manygreat examples on flikr, here are just a few - here, here, here and here. I bought these little hoops a while back, and the little robot stamped image was a perfect size for these. I've stamped the image onto Japanese linen with a permanent fabric/card ink (I think it was VersaCraft ?) and then embroidered and beaded around the image.

 

 

Love these little robots. My girls then pointed out that the other robot set from Darkroom Door has a little drummer robot. With a drummer in our family, I guess we'll be off for some more shopping!

In other news...

This project has been keeping me busy for the last few weeks (one day it will be our new bathroom)...

 

And this has cost us more money than expected (gotta love old houses)...

 

And this is the first glimpse of Phoebe's summer tomato crop...

 

Phoebe and I are working on a Christmas sewing project. We're not quite finished, and will post our finished project very soon. Here's Phoebe sewing away at the machine yesterday.

 

There are a couple of new pencil cases for sale over at Ribbons Galore... these pencil cases feature the gorgeous Goldilocks ribbon.

   

Make sure you visit Mel's blog for a wonderful series of Christmas craft ideas. She's written a fantastic blog post about the Christmas baubles I was selling at Ribbons Galore (which are now sold out).

Also, for everyone who was interested in the cupcake pincushion Kylie made for me. She's now popped a tutorial on how to create these little pincushions. 

Finally, two lovely ladies have mentioned me on their blogs, and I'm very late is responding to these. Ruth Clarke and Lee Mills have both sent me blog awards. Thank you ladies, very, very kind of you both.

Well that's about all for now. My blog has been slightly neglected lately, with Ribbons Galore being so busy and end of school activities starting for my gorgeous girls, my time at the computer has been limited. I will be back with some Christmas projects very soon.

Thanks for visiting. Have a great week.

Cheers

Fiona x

Gratitude Wrap swap

School holidays have finished, the girls are back at school this morning and the house is quiet. I'm sure the next term of school will go too quickly and we'll be celebrating Christmas before we know it.

We had a relaxing holiday, and managed to escape the city for this beautiful place for a few days...

Now it's time to catch up, share some projects. And my first one in this post is well overdue.

Recently I was part of Mel's Gratitude/Stationery Wrap swap. My partner was the lovely Jo Kneller from New Zealand. The swap involved us making a gratitude wrap for each other and filling it with goodies. You can read about the Gratitude Wrap on Soul Mama's blog, she also has pdf instructions on her blog.

I received my wrap from Jo a couple of weeks back. It was gorgeous. Jo used beautiful bright fabrics for the wrap and made matching cards, a fabric covered address book and note book for me. She sent some delicious chocolate which unfortunately didn't last long enough in this house to be photographed!

When Jo's parcel arrived a friend was visiting for a cuppa and she was so envious of me receiving such a beautiful gift.

Here's some photos, first the wrap...

and inside the wrap....

there was a set a beautiful stamps cards...

with lovely detailed embellishments....

and a note book and an address book.

Thank you to Jo for being my swap partner and sending me such a beautiful gift, I love it!

I sent my wrap off to Jo and she received it last week, so I can post some photos now. I did give a little sneak peek of this in a previous post, but here is the full wrap.

Inside the wrap:

The set of cards. The papers used on these cards are vintage KI Memories, from one of their first collections (yes, I'm a hoarder and many of my favourite papers are the older ones). I thought the colours in the papers went well with the funky fabric design.

One of my crotched felted flowers with a vintage chenille covered button. This is on a brooch pin so Jo can move it around the wrap or add it to something else.

My girls helped me choose matching coloured pens...

The whole wrap and goodies... The cards where placed in the middle pocket.

I loved making this for Jo, gift making and giving certainly makes you feel good!

If you'd like to see other wraps that have been made in this swap, head over the Mel's flickr group.

That's all for today. Thanks for visiting.

Cheers

Fiona x

Maya Road "Home for the Holidays" contest

Maya Road is running a new contest. It's called "Home for the Holidays". Decorate one or more of Maya Road's chipboard houses to enter the contest.

You can read all the details on the Home for the Holidays Contest page. The great news is international entries are welcome!

Edited to add: I'm trying to compile a list of stores/online stores here in Australia that sell the Maya Road chipboard houses. So far I have found two stores. They are:

Scrapbook Central : email Ruth if you would like to place an order, [email protected]

and

Scrapmoore

Earlier this week I wrote a quick step by step guide to making a simple cupcake card on the Pursuit of Craftyness blog. I coloured Maya Road chipboards with the new Maya Road Maya Mists. Here's a close up of the chipboard cupcake I created for the card.

Hope you have a great weekend. It's a long weekend for us here. Looking forward to some relaxation.

Thanks for visiting my blog.

Cheers

Fiona