Modesty

The other day my son came home from school, noncholantly pulled this acrylic picture frame from his bag and made for his bedroom. "What's that?" I enquired? "Oh I made it", he said casually, continuing on his way. Now I don't know about you, but when I was his age, my school made items were proudly given to parents as trophies and displayed as such in the most prominent places! Some of my things are still on display 30 years later. But not my Jimmy. Perhaps he sees 'making things' or being creative as a normal pursuit in this house, but I was very impressed indeed, and now instead of the mantlepeice/windowsill/dressing table, I have a blog to display his work!

Unbelievable..

Contrary to Darwin's theory of Evolution, where things progress - albeit over millions of years , and I don't have that much time - my crochet work, after several days and nights, has regressed, and I now have worms instead of caterpillars.

This is after I took myself off to the local yarn store, picked the brains of they lady there, bought a new hook and a more suitable ball of yarn. I will keep trying, but in the meantime, I think i'm going to try knitting instead. Just hedging my bets.

On a much happier note though, I am absolutely beside myself with excitement!!! Because I have WON one of Tracey's amazing quilts!! Imagine That! Me a winner!! I never win anything but this is the jackpot! I can't quite believe it! I have long admired Tracey's quilts and now i'm going to have one!! If you haven't visited Tracey at Imagine That yet .. go now!

Playing with Paper (part II)

Thank you all for your lovely comments on my last post. Though my reasons for writing it were to clarify my thoughts surrounding the 'problem', your lovely words have really cheered me up and it's been heartening to know that i'm not alone!!

So today I have been playing having a few Blue Peter moments with paper, glue and sticky back plastic.

A while before Christmas, my mother-in-law had a clearout - she lives in a converted chapel - and found a couple of very large Victorian bibles which had all but fallen apart. Not wishing to throw them away, she passed them on to me incase I could find a use for them. At first I wondered what on earth to do with them, and then in a moment of urgency one day, after making a batch of fresh mince pies, and requiring some nice wrapping for them, I came up with the Old Bags idea detailed in my last tutorial.

But as you can see, I have a lorrra lorra paper to get through! It's 'vintage', it's handmade, it's ready aged - so no need for wet teabags - and it's a nice size to use for crafting projects. The only trouble was, I wondered if it may be a little disrespectful of even blasphemous to use bible pages for wrapping! But then I resolved that better they be used for something pretty and useful, than put in the recycling bin destined for an unknown fate.

So with a little creative stitching, I've made more little gift bags, some envelopes, and with some iron on vinyl, a bus pass holder! My ideas are quite limitless - next i'm going to try making a bag with the paper and the vinyl which, if you coat both sides, makes a remarkably strong and durable material!

Now even with all those ideas, I'm not going to get through this lot in the next 100 years without some help! Anybody want some? I'll send the first 5 commenters a wadge of this paper to play with.

A Resolution or A Challenge!?

If I make ALL the presents and commissions I need to make for 2009, the list looks something like this:

23 Birthday Presents
16 Christmas Presents
1 Adult party dress commission
1 Child dress commission
3 or 4 purses
2 or 3 bags
Associated cards and gift tags

Then if I add the things I want to make for myself, thats alorralorra sewing!! So to put it into perspective, I made a couple of mosaics of some of the stuff I made (or finished) this year.

And now I feel a bit better!

Revolution or Resolution?

One of the things I want to make sure I do next year, is be more organised when it comes to making presents for people on my lists which include at least 7 small children, 3 sisters in law, 2 parent's in law, 1 grandparent, and a quite a few friends ... Here are some of the things I managed this year, which I didn't blog beforehand:

A child organiser - not to put the actual children in, but when you have four, party invites etc., must get mixed up!


These are cards I made from photographs I took at the shop I worked in during the summer.

And these are gift tags from the same pictures, glued onto red corrugated card and embellished with a metal eyelet.

Do you recognise the fabric here? It is from one of Gertie's dresses which Miss T gave me a few months back.
And the picture here is part of the Yule Garland at the top. This I put into a swap along with some of the cards and parcel tags.

Festive Frenzy

It's been a festive frenzy here in the MarmaladeKiss household. I've been baking, cooking and doing more baking! Yesterday I baked cakes, mince pies, cheese straws, bread and stollen. I've shopped till i've dropped, and yet there's more to do before I collapse in the pub next door later with friends!

But during my frenzy, discovering I had no glue or sellotape, and needing some wrapping for my mince pies, I made some bags. Now my Mother in Law gave me some old antique bible pages after a recent clear out .. I thought they might be apt. And then on wrapping my cakes in cellophane, thought these old pages may add a certain jenesaisquoi (s'cuse the spelling) to them too!

I took pictures and over the next few days will post a tutorial. Too late for tomorrow I guess, but these things can be made for any gift and with any paper at all, no glue or tape required!

In the meantime, I've set up a little treat post for later (when i'm safely in the pub), and I hope you all have a fabulous, fun, festive and restful time over the next few days!

A Surprise and A Swap

I recieved two parcels the other day. The first to arrive confused me somewhat as I thought it might be one of my swaps but on opening the outer packaging, Things weren't quite as they seemed. It was a mystery! A card, an envelope and two packages. Naughtily, without looking at either card, I immediately opened the temptingly red package and the moment my eyes clapped sight on the contents, I knew exactly who it was from, which made it all the more exciting! Can you guess?

The contents of the beautiful red tin might help ..

Can you guess now? If I didn't know better, I would think these fluffy pink meringues were made by fairies, so light and meltingly delicious they are (well.. they WERE because I have eaten them all now). But I will settle with the idea that the person who made them, has magic whisks. Have you guessed yet?

It was Florence and ZebraGirl! Thankyou both of you! A wonderful and lovely surprise following an admiring comment on Florence's blog. Have you noticed that Ms Zebra is quite an artist!

And so continuing on the theme of artistic talent, the next parcel which arrived, WAS one of my swaps! It was from Anne. I had a secret hope of what she would make for me..

Because I've seen her delicious quilts on her blog, and you may have guessed that I have a penchant for Celtic design and mythology and the tattoos to prove it! I think Anne guessed because look!!!

A Celtic Wall Hanging, which i can't stop staring at in awe and wonder! Isn't it exquisite? This type of precision sewing is way beyond anything I am capable of! Amazing!

Now, though I have made my cakes to give away, it's back to the kitchen for me now to decorate them and to carry on with preparations. I have 12 to cater for on Boxing day!

Preparing for the Main Event

It's been busy busy busy round here at Marmalade Towers. I think I might have inadvertantly been employed as one of Santa's elves, so busy have I been whipping up Xmas presents.

I have three sister-in-laws, 3 neices, and one nephew, and that's just the immediate family.

For the SiL who doesn't read this blog, some matching shopping bags

For Saintly SiL with four children, the beginnings of ..... a surprise

For next year (!!)

Because I haven't time to make any more this year, some soap, which i made 4 weeks ago and which is truly amazing stuff!

And tomorrow, I have my 10 minute moment!! I will carry all the lucks you have wished me, and keep you posted. Quake Quake ...

Marmalade Moo

My Moo cards arrived! I'm quite pleased with them. But does anyone have any tips for preserving the quality of the original image? These were taken with an SLR camera but still appear slightly pixelated. Once, I put writing on some moo cards and when they came back, the writing was illegible? Is it a photoshop thing? (i don't have photoshop - it's on my big birthday list) Help?!

BootyFull

It's been a busy few days in the MarmaladeKiss household, I wont bore you with the details but suffice to say that last week Jimmy was suspended from school for a day and so a severe "emergency rehabilitation" programme has been imposed and he's been grounded for the whole of half term (this has changed my plans for the next few days somewhat!).

Previous to the newly established "boot camp" however, whilst blogging around, I had discovered the very talented Pink Feather Paradise and her post on "scrapstore". Have a look, she provides a full explanation. I couldn't quite believe the wonder of the concept of it, but immediately googled to see if there was one by me, and hurrah!! THERE IS!!

Friend R does a panto every year for the kids of the staff where he works. He writes the script, makes the scenery, co-ordinates the rehearsals and directs the whole thing, so a scrap warehouse is his idea of paradise! And he needed some garden tools too. So off we went. And this is some of what we got (for me):

A HUGE 'ball' of Italian yarn ..


These cones of 100% cotton yarn - still wrapped ..


Three large bits of leather to play with - the very pungent leathery smell reminds me of the old Kensington Market. There was a whole bucket of this!


Lots of little scraps of silk! Big enough for bags, purses, linings.


Lots of little zips!


Perfect for finishing my now 100% salvaged purses..


Not photographed:

Fabric paint - 2 bottles, a buckle, some other odd bits of yarn. All of this, fitted into 1 carrier bag which according to the Orinoco staff is "the standard unit of junk". How much? ... Ladies, don't bother to lock up your purses .. this entire haul cost a death defying, £2.00!! And there were other things - rolls of fabrics, rolls of bookbinding materials (we are in oxford after all), more yarn in all colours, more paint than you could shake a brush at, publishers blank books, rolls of vertical blind making stuff .. the list goes on .. and on ... and on ... .... and on ....

We also managed to salvage a garden fork and spade for Friend R, for the grand sum of £1.50!

I love saving the planet .. just think, all of this would have gone to landfill! Unbelievable!

Friday Fun

Today I have been mostly making hair slides




I wrote a tutorial for you here:

Hair Slides - Upload a Document to Scribd

A Rockin' Good Time

Mr MK was away this weekend. Getting cold, dirty, muddy, drunk, tired and hungry at Reading. He thoroughly enjoyed himself but I am now suffering the consequences as he seems to have picked up a cold and is now languishing pathetically on the sofa. Jimmy spent most of his time at the skate park, and so I spent my entire weekend alone in the workroom recycling. BLISS!

I made some bags from old pairs of jeans:

This one is lined with an old sheet!

I tried some applique - I don't think i'm very good at it, but this umpteenth attempt is passable.

This bag is lined with vintage Liberty Print. It is an entire fluke that all the lines match up. I didn't notice until I took the picture! The Liberty prints came from a friends mother who used to make her own clothes and had a wardrobe clearout. There's nothing quite like the feel of a Liberty print and I would never use a new length to line a bag with, so this has been a treat!

I made covered buttons with the scraps:


I cut out loads of purses. There are a few Liberty designs, and I used vintage buttons too.

Then onto the button stash. I thought this would make a nice choker with some black velvet ribbon.

A ring - unfinished ...


A pendant


The obligatory hair clips with some more in the making


A key ring


A brooch


Hmm.. not sure ..


And then onto beads... I love hat pins. I made 2. I think I might order some more parts.


I haven't had this much fun on my own for ages!