Hello Leonora the only person likely to see this
I feel like old Rose in Titanic
anyway what to say really, its been about 5 years since I last posted anything and I have no real reasons other than I just never really felt like it. We are now on week 900 of lock down and the blogging bug found me, though I have no idea what i'm going to write. I'll just wing it and see what happens. I think its actually only week 8 and if i'm telling the truth, I think its actually gone really fast, considering i'm just hanging out in my living room.
Lets see....... I'm sure I've made some things in the last 5 years worth mentioning there have been babies born all over the shop, so they must have been gifted things riiight?
Ha Ha Ha
Oh yeah I've had a nephew actually 2 and oh yeah I got married, definitely made some things for that hahaha
Back in 2015, we decided we'd host a Halloween party for our small group of friends. This small group turned out to be 5 people including us 😐
Anyway we wanted to make it cool and our place is only small, so decorating it wasn't going to be too hard (and this time its true). We put fabric on the walls and I (with help from the grounds keeper at work) brought a bunch of living and dead plants home, to add to the atmosphere. It also added to the insect life in the flat 🤢
We had Ivy and crab apples and some other things that I don't know the names of. We had severed limbs and a blood smeared shower curtain and heads in jars and Ruben our skeleton, who was being electrocuted in a dentist chair.
I have to say we were pretty proud of ourselves, though I did try to add a little too much realism when I stepped on a drawing pin and walked blood around the room (and yeah it went all the way in and it had those little winged bits that stick out the sides it was gross). So here are some videos and pictures of the decorations.
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| My Car full of forest |
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| The crab apples |
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| Brain Jelly and a Jack o Pineapple |
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| and the "Jack" o lantern |
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| The Ivy (my neighbours liked this one) |
My nephew was born, but lets start with the baby shower. I made this nappy cake, wasn't smart enough to take any further pictures of it when it was all wrapped up or anything, so that is just that a nappy cake.
Awful photo
When the little man was born, I also made him a little hat with ears and a blanket, but I don't seem to have any pictures of the blanket. It was dark blue and cream I think. 🤷♀️
Well we got married in 2017 but the making started back in 2016. So one of the first things I made was my proposals to my Bridesmaids. These as usual did not go to plan, I then did another later on, for my Maid of honour (I learnt some things).
Soooo let see.... I wanted pretty boxes with a balloon inside, that when opened the balloon would float out with the message on it asking if they would be my bridesmaid. With sparkly things inside the balloon. Sounds simple enough (haha)
So looking at pretty boxes, they were a bit on the expensive side for my purpose. So I bought cheaper boxes and decorated them myself which I hope actually added a more personal touch.
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| Here we have husband to be, punching out the flowers I needed for the lids. |
The tops of the boxes turned out like this
This balloon was filled with helium in the hopes it would float out but, I filled it with sequins which were obviously too heavy. I like to do things at the last minutes so I can't then fix it. Therefore didn't have time to get new balloons to start again. Well they were still pretty and looked nice, even if they didn't do what I wanted.
For the maid of honour however, I had some time as she lives in another country and wouldn't be here in person for a couple of months.
Once again the absolute worst photo ever but I learnt my lesson and got paper confetti to fill the balloon and it worked Yay!!🎉🎉she got 2 balloons because shes special! Also it was her birthday.
Right what else did I get up to in 2016 hmmm...
I was starting to try out different things, to try and determine what I would like to have at the wedding and it started big. I'm going to make this and that and this and that. Then in the end it was, i'll just make this because that is all too much work.
I had seen beautiful paper flowers online, and really started to have my heart set on having a crepe paper bouquet. Pinterest was full of beautiful and quite real looking bouquets and I'll let you go down that rabbit hole yourself, but here is the link to the board I made Pinterest Bouquet Board
Here are some of the early flowers that I tried out. This was just at my desk at work, so only with what I could find around me. No idea where the oasis came from though.
This is not a wedding make but ages earlier, not even sure how much earlier the previously mentioned Leonora had bought me some brushed cotton bedding for me to tie dye. I just never got round to it to getting the dye. Finally I did it it 2016 and this was the result. I was a little disappointed as there was quite a lot of white spaces left where the dye didn't penetrate but still looked pretty cool.
Back to wedding things....
I should mention we were getting married in Spain and so with all that beautiful colour and sunshine, I wanted to add my own. The wedding venue was going to supply plain white parasols for the guest to use. I wanted to add some colour so found some beautiful and inexpensive parasols from China.
You can't really see in the picture and in reality it wasn't noticeable, but I didn't think that the flowers looked very nice and thought they needed improving. I got my lovely friend and bridesmaid Kukua involved.
In the end it was way too big a task and we only fixed a few and left the rest and hey guess what no one cared or noticed.
So back off the wedding makes again...
The next craft thing we did was "Ikea hack" to our bed. We live in a pretty small place and we really don't have much storage space for silly things like our suitcases or the Christmas decorations.
We needed to get creative. We already had an Ottoman bed from Ikea and it had been a great help already, but we really needed more space, so the only way is up apparently.
For this we needed our trusty friend Kallax we bought 3 sets to make a frame and the bed went on top. This gave us double the depth when you lifted the top and also spaces around he outside.
I have to say this hack went way better than the last one, that was a nightmare and probably quite the waste of time and money. This one was amazing and still going strong. It did however prompt us to buy more things, but it looks great. We did have to get used to sleeping in the sky though (we each have a footstool to get on).
Right so looks like that was it for 2016, we did some wallpapering but that's not worth writing about really.
Next was the invitations. Of course I couldn't possibly just buy ready made ones, I had to probably spend the same or more not to mention the work to do it ourselves (with our trusty helpers of course).
So first we had to settle on the design well that took ages and I think I've deleted all the maybes that we had oops. Then we needed to get the paper, which I could have got online but wanted to be able to feel it first. Guess what the stationery shop is almost extinct so this was a drama in itself.
Once the design was agreed on and the paper was sourced our lovely friend and groomsman kindly saved us some money by printing them for us at work on the sneak, he even cut them for us what a gem!
Task 2 was to assemble the buggers. Now we had quite the guest list, though we knew it would be a smallish wedding, it wouldn't be possible for everyone to make it to Spain. Our guests were international at least 3 continents. We had the political invitations to send 245 to be exact 245 handmade and assembled invitations to be sent out 😵. This was a four person job and actually was done in about a day (a very long day). There were stamps, folds, pockets, punches and who knows what. So the maid of honour and a one of the 3 best men stepped up and we got it done.
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| Excuse the mess |
So next was my bouquet, I decided after some practice and difficulty sourcing the correct equipment, that I would make my flowers mainly from Origami. I did use this wedding as a great excuse to finally purchase a
I really wanted one and couldn't justify it before, they are quite expensive so this was awesome. I used it to make a few of the items we used at the wedding (so probably still didn't actually need it). Anyway back to the bouquet, I went with Origami combined with some roses and I used my trusty Cricut to help with some of the cutting. I found all the patterns online and just printed them so that was a great cost saver! Origami paper is so expensive this was FREE!!!
This is the bouquet that I made for myself, this is mostly finished but not complete, will show you later. Looking back I wish I had done something bigger and more elaborate perhaps trailing and some crochet but too late now or the next one hahaha (we got married twice).
We decided to have our guest names on circular pieces of wood cut from branches. A lovely man by the name of Howard took the time to find some dried branches and cut them into discs for me and then even cut a branch off a tree when I needed more. Howard sadly passed away the following year but we'll never forget him.
Well this was a task and a half, the discs all needed to be sanded first. Then how would we put the names on??? Well now I know there are probably much easier ways, than the way we did it (as usual, live and learn) but we stamped each letter on each disc individually by hand (this was now about 70-80 people can't remember) We hand carved a stamp with our initials and a little design for one side and then the name and if they had a title (maid of honour) went on the other. They were then all varnished to finish them off. It took a while!! They all had a hole in so they could be tied with the pack for each guest.
The Next thing we decided to hand make was our "cake topper" this was more of a "Cake nearer" as it just sat beside the cake. Again after lots of research and looking at many creatures and toppers we decided, we were most like foxes. Mark was tasked with creating these foxes and he did an amazing job they turned out so well. They were made from air dry clay and they mounted on a couple of the wooden discs.
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| Not the finished piece but will show you later Mark did also put the lights in those letters, we had intended on them being on like a signing table but then didn't end up using them.  |
Meanwhile unbeknown to me, my hubby to be, was carving me a secret love spoon to gift me on our wedding day. Again i'll show you the finished item later. For those not aware of the Welsh love spoon you can learn about it here.
Next to be recruited to team wedding craft, was my soon to be mother in law. I had not yet found the right jewellery to go with my dress, but then found a beautiful needle tatted necklace/choker. Gwen did teach me to needle tat, but I'm not that good and shes much better. So I asked her to make it for me and what a wonderful job she did!! it finished my dress off perfectly and was so beautiful.
I had intended on wearing a small fascinator, once again hand crafted by me but in the end decided to buy a veil the day before we flew out. this was meant to have some netting at the front also.
As it was going to be very warm, I thought fans would be better for the bridesmaids than flowers. My cricut was called on and I made each of my bridesmaids a circular folding fan.
For our groomsmen we decided instead of the traditional flower buttonhole we would have lego. Mark and I went to the Lego shop to painstaking select the best parts to represent or groomsmen. The lego shop's aircon was broken, it was 80000ºc and the bit where you select the pieces from, is essentially like a sweet shop pic 'n' mix stand with the million snotty children included. It was impossible to pick out anything (yeah yeah I know its a kids shop) so this took a while. Now in todays crazy virus world this would never do, and i was grossed out back then.They are going to have to dunk that whole thing in disinfectant.
For my bridesmaids and the two mothers I made individual vests with sparkly lettering with I cut out with you guessed it.....the cricut. Then ironed on, turns out I didn't do a great job as they didn't last so long after a wash. Think they needed longer under the iron.
my finished flowers
The place settings
The foxes
The love Spoon
and once it was all over, I tried my hand at transferring a photo on to wood. It was ok but didn't make it to display. I'll try again some day.
I think that wraps up our wedding but not 2017. On to our friends and bridesmaid and groomsman's wedding. I made the bouquets for this wedding but this time they were fresh flowers.
and that wraps 2017
I didn't do much crafting in 2018, well not till much later in the year. A friend at work was expecting a baby so I made a little pair of booties for her.
I fancied making this set I came across on Youtube, and my friend has a little girl so I thought I would give that a go. It was a cape/shawl, gloves and a hat. I also made a cape for my niece but I don't think I remembered to take a picture of it.
This is the video I followed
I've been doing a lot of digital craft over the last 2 years. I thought I would be a good idea to start digitising all the family photo's and home movies before they are destroyed, lost, or no longer playable. That is really very time consuming but also really enjoyable.
In 2019 a very close friend gave birth to a very special baby boy, we were all so excited for his birth and for this young man I made a chevron blanket from Daisy Farm Crafts
Decided it was time for our bathroom to look a little nicer we've been here for 13 years it was new then and was starting to look a little tired. We don't own the place so didn't want to go nuts with what we did. So first fresh paint and that in itself made so much of a difference. Next was a new side for the tub again little thing but really made a big difference. Then we we got new floor tiles this was a real change and looks great! Its a small space just like the rest of the flat so thought we'd do what we could to give the illusion of space. I added a white shower curtain (no curtain would be better but not possible) then a mirrored cabinet and a tall self (my dad made the shelf so it was free). So please with how it came out.
This picture is missing the tall shelf though 🙄
to 
Next up was trying to be more environmentally conscious, as well as using better products on my own body. So with assistance from my friend Kukua. I tried my hand at making reusable cloth menstrual pads. I am the worst sewer known to man and so there was no way I was doing this without assistance. It was quite time consuming and so only managed 4 but they are great and came out super well!
Next we have November... My sister in law asked me to make a nappy cake for a friends baby shower. I'm not too sure how I feel about it. It looks a little untidy to me
A good friend from work was also expecting a baby and had requested a rainbow blanket. I went with the same chevron pattern as the last blanket.
Then a colleague left us, so I made her a scarf as a leaving gift
This is the braided cowl which is from this pattern here
I've been wanting to make my own door wreath for years but just never had the right inspiration, I finally made one. I like it but don't love it so we'll see how long it lasts.
I used frill yarn or fish net yarn or ruffle yarn or whatever you'd like to call it.
Sticking with Christmas, I also made some cake pops as gifts
Which now finally brings us to the twilight zone that is Covid-19 lock down. I came across a lovely earring pattern that i thought my friend would like so I gave it a go and they turned out pretty awesome. For these I used a pattern from Divine Debris
I also crocheted a sign to thank our key workers. As my rainbows were awful I made hearts in rainbow colours.
So we are right up to date now. I've been learning Mosaic Crochet
from Tinna Thorudottir-Thorvaldsdottirs and when I get somewhere with that, perhaps i'll make another post but I wouldn't hold your breath.
Bye for now
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