Pretty and practical

One of my favourite parts about Christmas is wrapping presents. I love getting out all my many rolls of wrapping paper, yards and yards of ribbons and pretty bows and steadily creating a pretty pile of presents. Unfortunately, most of the ribbons and bows I have are pretty Christmassy, so I’m unlikely to use them the rest of the year. I need a place to keep them where a) they’ll be out of the way and b) I’ll be able to find them again next year!

Now, I’m going to go off on a tangent, but I promise it’s related (in a round about way) and I’ll get back to the point soon.

I mentioned in my last post that life was pretty busy last year. One of the things causing busyness (and a fair amount of stress) was house buying! Yep, I’m now the proud owner of my first home, a lovely old terraced house. (One day I’ll show you round, but things are a bit of a mess right now, so I’ll tidy up a bit first.) Anyway, one of the most exciting things about my new house is that I have a craft room! And in one corner of my craft room I have a pretty bin holding all my wrapping papers. It’s squeezed in to a gap beside some shelves. The shelves are super useful, but will be pretty full (when I finally unpack everything). So I thought, why not make use of the sides of the shelves. I have some fabulous hooks (command hooks) which I used to hang a lot of my Christmas decorations. I stuck one on the side of my shelves, hung up my carrier bag full of bits and pieces, was pleased everything was tidied away but still in a memorable place – but the bag was very ugly! So I rummaged through fabric, ribbon and buttons and came up with this little beauty!

The fabric was an off-cut from a curtain which was way too long for the space. I stitched the lacy trim on first, then sewed up the back and bottom of the bag.

I added buttons (just because they’re pretty and I love buttons!) along the lace, plus one for closing.

I made three loops along the back edge – one in the middle for looping over the button at the front and one on each side for hanging it up.

My cat (she’s another fairly new addition to my life), Maisie wanted to get in the photos too!

And it was this little bag that got me excited about making things again.

I had to sew it all by hand (I haven’t got my sewing machine here yet) and the gentle stitching rhythm was just very lovely. In fact, I loved it so much I sewed something else just a couple of days ago – but I’ll show you that another time 🙂

Another tassel

I thought that my next post would probably be about the next few rows of my CAL blanket. But even though I’ve been clicking the refresh button on my email every few minutes this morning there is still no notification telling me that the next rows have been posted! So I thought that rather than sit around impatiently I would do something to occupy my mind instead.

My first step was to go out to the garden and take photos of a couple of things I’ve done/made over the last 16 hours.

The first is another tassel! Almost as soon as I’d posted about my bead tassel I felt the need to make one entirely with buttons. So I got out my colourful threads and button box and got to work.

I made this in a slightly different way to the beaded tassel. I used a different colour thread for each strand, weaving it through the buttons all the way down and back to the top again. When I had 4 strands I simply knotted them all together (I’d made sure to leave the ends fairly long) then picked the two longest threads to be the loop at the top. I threaded these through a larger button, then stitched them to the knot to secure. It’s not particularly neat, but my eye is drawn to the buttons rather than the knot, so I think it’ll be ok!

Here’s the other one as well (I felt it needed to be photographed in the sunlight!)…

On Thursday evenings I meet with a small group of people from church. We spend time praying together and looking at what the Bible says and how we can apply it to our lives. This week we were discussing the importance of the Bible itself. Reading the Bible is something that a lot of Christians (myself included!) find hard at times, so one of the things we discussed was how to get the most from the times we read it. I often find (just in life in general) that if I write something down I remember it better. So I decided that I should use my journal more often to jot down things that jump out at me as I read the Bible.

This morning I read Isaiah 40. It’s filled with amazing imagery, so I thought I’d get my colours out and write it in a jumbled up kinda way.

I’m not a great artist (as much as I’d like to be!) but I had a go at adding small pictures to the text anyway. I like the way it all looks on the page and it was a great way of getting me to focus for a much longer time than usual! It’s definitely something I’ll be doing again.

Anyway, I must just go and check my emails again…

 

Inspiration

I’ve realised that a few of the things I’ve made this week have been inspired by things others have done. The first thing is one I have seen appearing on several blogs. Have a look here for Rachell’s take on it.

This got me to thinking. It’s a fab idea, but I’m just not sure that a jar would be big enough. So what I’ve decided to do instead is write a thankfulness list. Each night, before I go to bed, I’m adding things that I’m thankful for. Some things I’m sure will be repeated several times through the year (e.g. time spent with friends, crochet, a good meal, etc.) while others are one offs. I think this may be challenging on the days where everything seems to go wrong, and I end up grumpy and bad tempered. But I also think it’ll be really good for helping me put things in perspective – even when I’ve had a bad day I still have so much to be thankful for!

(Along the same lines, I just started reading a book called ‘One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully’. It’s written by a woman who has experienced a lot of pain in her life, but found a new intimacy with God through having a thankful heart. It’s really beautifully written, and I’m finding it both an exciting and a challenging read!)

Although I decided against a ‘good things’ jar, I decided that I wanted to make use of a jar in some way. Especially after I saw what Hannah had done for her ’22 before 22′. I loved the idea of washi tape around lolly sticks being used instead of a plain old list – so pretty!

I didn’t have any washi tape, so I decided to decorate my sticks with buttons (what else?!) instead. And I put them in a jar that was given to me for Christmas. It was intended as a tea light holder, but it will get far more use this way! It is now holding some of my intentions for 2013. So far I have…

…be thankful

This one links in with my thankfulness list.

…try not to let clutter take over

This one might never happen. I hate living surrounded by clutter, but somehow it seems to sneak in without me noticing! But you never know, 2013 might be the year my life becomes clutter free!

…arrange more social crafting

I added this one because I so much enjoyed the few craft evenings I organised last year. I hope that everyone else will be just as enthusiastic about them!

Now, on to the final thing that’s inspired me. The other day, Katherine from Pillows a-la-mode posted about changing her decorations from Christmas to Winter. I thought this was a great idea – why get rid of all decorations just because the Christmas stuff has to be put away? I particualrly loved her garland, which includes trees made from music paper.

I have a book that I’ve been cutting up at various points during the last year, and thought I’d make good use of the final few pages by making a new garland for my bookcase.

It was super easy to make – I just cut the stars out of the book pages, then stitched through alternating buttons and stars with a long lenght of embroidery thread. It has joined the general colour and happy chaos of my bookcase, which is also adorned by…

…teeny tiny bunting

…more teeny tiny bunting

…and the full size bunting strung with fairy lights at the top!

Here’s the whole bookcase in all it’s glorious, chaotic colour…

Maybe I need to re-think that thing about not being cluttered in 2013…

P.S. Don’t forget to enter my giveaway if you haven’t already 🙂

Wrapped and ready

Well, I’ve been a busy little bee the last couple of days. So busy I’ve not had time to post (sorry!) but it’s been a fairly productive couple of days which is great. However, I still can’t show you what I’ve been busy with!

I can tell you that this soft yellow embroidery thread has been added as a finishing touch to the gift I started making a few days ago.

It has been used to add some lovely blanket stitch edging (I just love blanket stitch)

And I’ve also started and finished another gift today, but can’t reveal any of it just yet. But here they both are, wrapped and ready to be given tomorrow.

Tomorrow afternoon I’ll post proper pics of what I’ve been working on – see you then 🙂

Teeny Tiny Bunting

Several months ago my next door neighbour was having a clear out and very kindly gave me loads of beautiful embroidery threads. She used to do a lot of cross stitch, but doesn’t do it any more, and wanted her threads to go to a good home. I’ve used them every now and again for little bits and pieces, but a few days ago saw something that would make the best use of them yet.

The lovely Lucy over at Attic24 has been busy creating again, and has made some gorgeous teeny tiny bunting. I love bunting at the best of times, but to see it so cute and tiny is something else! So of course I had to give it a go myself. I popped into town this morning to buy a small enough hook (2.50 mm) and got started as soon as I got home!

I found it a little tricky at first working with such a small hook and thin thread, but got into it after a little while. And I’m really pleased with the results!

Here is my first little bunting flag:

 

 

 

 

 

 

And two more…

 

 

 

 

 

 

And finally the finished article:

 

 

 

 

 

 

So cute! And it fits perfectly (just!) across the narrowest part of my bookcase…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Love it!