Nature’s glorious craft

 Boat holiday finished now & will return to the river as soon as I possibly can! 

I purchased some gorgeous fabric while in Ely it’s called “ Enchanted “ which really describes the holiday 😀 I cut it up & temporarily hand basted into a kimono style jacket but decided to machine sew it at home so I could overlock seams. Will post progress next blog. 

The following pics are the last sunset, absolutely stunning it was. Mother Nature sure knows her craft ♥️♥️

Boating Along

Having a fabulous week on the river Great Ouse, River Cam and It’s gorgeous tributaries The Lark & Wissey out in the fens. 

Amazing sunrise walks...

Fantastic swims!

I even bought my miniature sewing machine and made some pipe cleaner scarf masks (having a bit of a problem wearing face masks & breathing comfortably) 

I can wear these for about 10 mins before I start yawning & feeling very tired. Oh well it’ll keep me out of the shops wasting money and I’ll buy less crap 😂

See ya Soon 😀

The Light Fantastic

Exciting times ahead! We’re about to put our house on the market and move to a village location with even more garden 😀 I’ve put a lot of work into the house & garden, a lot of the garden projects I can take with me & the effort I’ve put into the house will hopefully tempt a buyer. My blog is going to be packed with new projects when we find our next dream home! 

I’ve got a current obsession with homemade lamps. Here’s a few recent ones made from just vases or glass bowls I had and fairy lights. It does pain me a bit to use batteries (the materials are not ethical) so my compromise is to use rechargeable ones. Apparently Phillips come out top on ethical sourcing.

This is a water lamp, a bowl filled with glass beads, random bits of jewellery & lotsa marbles! It changes colour too.. see the video 😀

Mesmerising eh!

Here’s  some more. 

To increase our kerb appeal I’ve made a new house number sign with the pebeo paints (each project I’m learning better ways to use them) Shame I can’t take this with me but it’s good practice for the new house number, unless by some freak coincidence it happens to be 59 again 😂

Finally here’s a pic of my kitchen where I put a curtain up to hide my shoe & storage area, wish I’d done that years ago! 

Thanks for reading 😀

Fantasy Paints & dressmaking

I’ve been playing around with the pebeo paints and progressing with my techniques. First a bit of furniture upcycling....

I was given  these office furniture cabinets a few years ago ..see a timescale theme going on here 😂 And finally got round to revamping them as my bedside cabinets.

First I gave them a few coats of Matt white paint then used the same pour and tilt method with the pebeo as I did on the greenhouse panel here’s the results 

 

I think they look better close up, if I do a pour & tilt again it will be as a painting to be viewed at eye level. Overall I am happy with my Fantasy bedside cabinets they are certainly unique!

 I went back to the glass panels & this time I used the relief tube paint on a book of flowers to get my outline. Then I used droppers and lolly sticks to carefully apply the different paints & then watch the magic effects happen .  

Still waiting for it to harden off and then I can put in the green house. I’m well happy with it & it was really fun and relaxing to do.

Ok 3rd project was a quick make last night. I brought this skirt and only wore it once as I wasn’t happy with the shape of it. So I made a skirt & top for my granddaughter as her holiday outfit. All done by guesswork I hope it fits! I have a back up altering plan if not though. 😀

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curly carrots, clay & a cool coat

This morning some of my carrots were showing their heads so pulled a few out...

Hmm rather knarly!!

After a clean up and grated into a salad you'd never know ;-)

Hehe hilarious!

Curly carrot, lettuce cucumber & clementine salad for lunch today :-) I'm saving the tops to make a carrot top & mint pesto tonight. On researching the curious shapes of my harvest I discovered 2 mistakes - the first i suspected was not deep enough soil in my no dig, they probably hit the cardboard layer before it had decomposed. However I also discovered you should always seed carrots and thin where they are going to grow, which i didn't! i bought them in trays ready grown to transplant and seems i may have left them too long before it did. Lesson learned !

Yesterday I had the sheer delight of having my Grandaughter round to play. I remembered i had some self hardening clay (NewClay) in the shed. The amazing thing about it is that i bought this nearly 20 years ago and my children played with it! It was still usable and we had fun making hearts and decorating them with leather tool stamps (which i also had in a drawer somewhere) We're going to paint them next week :-)

Now for the coat story...A couple of years ago I saw a really gorgeous coat on Pinterest. I thought hey I could make one like that! So I did. I used a denim jacket from a charity shop, cut the bottom third off and then made a skirt to attach from a few dresses & skirts that i wasn't wearing anymore. I love this coat because its a 100% upcycle, as in i didn't have to buy anything to make it. I also love swanking about in it which i will do today :-)

Memory Cushions

Spent a couple of days deep into sewing cushions. 

All the materials hold very special memories as they were my Mum's favourite jumpers & 2 of her pyjama sets. I can share these with family members so we call all enjoy them. I didn’t really want to part with any of her clothes so I’ve saved a large amount for upcycling for the future. Patchwork projects galore :-)

For the jumper cushions I mostly used my overlocker (serger) it’s an absolute joy to work with once getting the knack of threading. It really is as complex as it looks!

Here's some cushion close ups

I think my Mum would have loved these very much.

A week of paint

Hi readers 😀 

The bedroom makeover is coming together, just a few finishing touches to do. Here’s the results so far. 

The stencils were double sprayed for the shadow effect, I can’t decide whether they look like roses or fancy paw prints!

I made these curtains over 10 years ago when I first shabby chic’d the room, but never got round to actually hemming them and the pins had actually rusted!  A final sew , wash and freshen up worked wonders. 

Feels very peaceful & relaxing. I’ve  just got 2 bedside cupboards to updo & a LOT of stuff to find new homes for as a major de clutter took place along with the decorating!