Recent SwapBot Swap

My latest swap on SwapBot was called "I'm a Blogger, Follow Me" and as part of that, I've read 10 really interesting blogs.

For great illustrations and thrifty finds, go here.

For a great owl ball puzzle tutorial go here and check out her other great posts too.

Carly has the right approach to blogging - outlined in her post here - I think I can learn a lot from her.

I'll mention this blog here too - but it fits much better on my food blog so I'll add it on over there too!

For great card designs, go here.

If you can read dutch, or appreciate pretty pictures, go here - not all posts in dutch.

For art, poetry, and some great tutorials, go here.

If you're in need of a vacation and want to be made jealous, go here.

For postcards of places around the world, go here.

For craft, and some life lessons, go here.

Gaining readers

It's nice to have a record of all the things I've created, but it's even nicer having people to chat to about works in progress, or future ideas, or just getting feedback on what I've created.  I've been worrying recently about how to get more people reading my blog, and I spotted the perfect opportunity on SwapBot - a swap of blog URLs and a promise to read the other persons blog.  Not only does this get some people looking at my blog, but I get to take a look at all the interesting things on their blogs. 

So, if you've wandered along here as a result of this swap, I welcome you, and thank you for taking the time to visit me.  And if you're not here because of that, I still welcome you - every visitor means a lot to me, please leave a message and say hi!

Birds!

Recently stuffie making hasn't been top of my to do list but I do have some pictures to share from a swap I did a little while back. For Christmas I received a sewing calendar, which outlines a crafty task to do every 3 days or so. In this, I spotted a cute owl egg cozy and decided to adapt the pattern to make a stuffie. The swap requirements were to make two stuffies, one big and one little, similar to my panda swap previously. Here are my finished owls, I really struggled giving them away so I definitely need to make my own ones at some point. Notice the sparkly felt round the eyes, which I found in hobbycraft - I think it adds a little twinkle to the eyes!

In return, I received my best package to date, it was wrapped using cute Sellotape and contained several small bits along with a set of purple penguins which I absolutely love. The stitching is so neat,.  The sender was worried about them looking more like parrots, but she really captured the penguin look.

 

Blogging More

I'd really like to get into blogging more often, but sometimes I fall behind and then just don't come back because I know I have a back log. So, I'm here, promising to put together one big post of all the things I've done that are crafty since the last time I posted to get it all out of the way and feel better. That way, I can post little and often from then on and I hope to finish some of my many works in progress. And now that I've promised that, I'll be more likely to do it!

Panda!

It's swap time again, this time I've decided to try out Molly Chicken's panda.  I read in the profile of my swap partner that she liked pandas, so hopefully she'll be happy with my attempt at making one.  The tutorial was nice and easy to follow, and I finished the panda in one afternoon.  I really need to work on my stitching so that it's more uniform and neater. 

Apologetic Kitten

I didn't forget that it was my Aunts birthday, I knew it was coming... but then I totally lost track of what day it was, and completely missed it.  Bum.  So, to make up for it, I made up a birthday parcel for her.  I included a card, some marzipan bars, an apologetic letter, a gift card, and then something homemade.  My Aunt is a fan of cats (although she doesn't have any these days), so I decided to try my hand at a stuffed cat. I began making something far too big, and considering I was hoping to post this parcel off pretty quickly so as not to get into too much more trouble, I decided to scale it back a bit and started again.  The result is about three inches high, and the lessons learned were to think more about how it will stand up from the start (as the poor thing just topples over).  I think the package made up for the lateness, so all is good for another year. 

Fascinating

A couple of weekends ago, I attended a hen party.  I really like quirky and unusual hen parties (and I'm struggling to decide what to do for my own even though it's about a year away still!) and this was definitely different.  The bride to be is quite crafty, she's making her own wedding dress and all the invites were handmade, so this was right up her street.  We spent the afternoon making fascinators at a studio in Clapham.  The very friendly and incredibly talented Janie Lawson talked us through the process and was on hand to offer inspiration and help throughout the day.  For something as small as a fascinator, there is a lot of hard work involved, and the most tiring part is really thinking about what to add to it, without going overboard and ending up with an overloaded head.