Don't be late for my very important date!!

So these are my first little bit of DIY wedding planning, I scoured hundreds of ideas for intersting Save the Date cards and there were lots out there, but eventually I developed my own. (Although looking for the photo below on Google quickly showed me that I'm not as creative as I first thought, never mind), I was inspired by the old photo booths that should quite frankly still exist in my opinion.
(I really wanted one at the wedding but £750 was just too much to justify so hoping to get a similar effect with an instant camera!)

(Photo taken from
http://www.photobooth.net/archive/2005/09/05/buster_and_the_sheep.php) 

Unfortunately I lost the photos of me painting out the cards, but all it took was some careful measuring and a steady hand! Doing it on a budget we used vista print who are in the process of printing 100 of these cards for us, so we stuck with that shape.

So these are our final photos:

... and after a little careful editing on my beautiful new macbook, this was the finished effect...

... Fortunately the colour difference in cards was not noticeable and my only teeny tiny mistake was getting the date wrong... Luckily I realised I was getting married in 2012 not 2011 on the first 1... Hopefully squeezing the two in isn't too obvious!!

I can't wait for them to arrive from the printers!

Folklore Magic...

Saturday afternoon calls for much procrastination, and one of my favourite things to do is visit the online version of my favourite 'stuff' shop in York. Give The Dog a Bone has the most awesome stuff and I could not help but fall for this lovely and slightly magical print by Nina Jarema called 'Folklore'

Clearly I had to find out more, inspired by the villages and forests of the Ukraine Wild and Wolf have clearly picked a winner. I love the simplicity if the shapes, accented by the use of dots, contrasting against the blank canvas background. Lets be honest who can resist a print featuring birds and bunnies.... certainly not me. This and the range of enamelware available, I'm not sure I can help myself.... Now where did I leave my purse?

Meet Garlic...

Ok so, this is not a 'crafty' blog, and yes I do have lots of those to write, hopefully will get a wriggle on in the next couple of weeks... but I wanted to update having got myself a shiny new computer that now allows me to do so!

I wanted to do a cute blog about my beautiful little house bunny Garlic (not forgetting my other beautiful buns, Rabbit and Stewart who live outside) Unfortunate circumstances when he was very young, meant Garlic had to be separated from the boys outside... but maybe thats lucky for him! Spoiled rotten with attention! Anyway whilst I'm on school holidays we have had lots of time to bond even more and have lots of fun playing with raisins... the latest game is to hide them in the top of the carrots in his carrot patch...

So cute!

... and of course the boys, just they never stay still long enough for a photo! 

A 'spot' of window dressing...

So having moved into a new build house from an old victorian property, it was a bit of a shock and it never really felt like 'home' for the first few months. So over time I am aiming to use my powers of research to help me personalise my house so it becomes a home... as we don't have kids yet, there are 2 whole rooms going spare in our house, 1 of which is J's hideout where records are enjoyed and stories (and magazines) are read, the other is my room, dedicated to crafting and allegedly marking... although this tends to occur on the sofa in front of the telly.

Anyway, my craft room needed some personalisation and I felt inspired to get back onto the making things myself wagon after stumbling upon this websites DIY section http://www.designspongeonline.com/ , however I am sure you guys are already aware of this gem!

This blind design by Chela Edmunds http://2x2innyc.blogspot.com/ inspired me to make my own! As this was a project I completed last summer, unfortunately I have only photos of it complete.

The first thing was deciding on a colour and after much consideration I felt pink was the right colour for me, despite not being a girly girl (debatable) I loved the vibrant shade of this pink the second I saw, although I did consider an array of multi coloured dots a la Damien hirsts drugs paintings and also the idea of assembling in lines to echo the op art of Bridget Riley. However as you can see I settled on bright pink with white thread to assemble as a nice contrast.

Step 2 was to measure up, math is certainly not my strong point so I randomly decided these would be 7cm in diameter and I would go from there as to how many I needed.

Step 3... the tricky part. I bought myself 2m of felt to allow plenty of room for mistakes and bad math. Then came the circles, so I tried drawing around a glass of about the right size and cutting, but after 4 circles realised I do not have the patience... so I turned to the laser cutter at school, programmed it to do 64 circles on a sheet each time and voila... well after various tests and speed changes anyway to ensure a smooth unburned cut!

Then step 4, thread up my machine and sew all 322 circles together, I used a small straight stitch as I though this would hold better and folded each circle in half before feeding it through the machine to find the centre of each circle...

5 1/2 hours later (no break either - I was in the zone) I had stictched every circle together and my machines motor breathed its last breath ( it was a £40 from aldi which had served me well so I felt I had gotten my moneys worth, oh and I could still fix it....

Anyway 5 1/2 hours later I had this....

...After all that sewing, I simply used a glue gun to affix the blind to a short piece of dowel and screwed some hooks into the wall to hold it up. The finishing touch was a short length of bobble trim to add a little detail and help let some light in.

If you want to make one yourself the best instructions are from the designer, http://www.designspongeonline.com/2009/10/diy-project-chelas-fabric-screen.html

Hello blogging community...

So... I'm pretty new to this, but hopefully I will manage to engage you in a world of things that interest me.

So I like the 60's, the design and the overall aesthetic interests me, however I seem to enjoy the tasks of a 1950's housewife (except cleaning, that is a definite area for improvement) I'm into all that make do and mend and baking and also trying to incorporate my love of design into my house but trying to keep the style so that my fiance is a fan.

Christmas is always a time where creative juices flow freely so I thought some photos of my christmas feast would be a good place to start...

... Nigella's very posh rocky road, although I am slightly regretting the use of toxic marshmallows, the worlds most kitsch trifle, with green cream and tiny candy canes, a pecan and maple bundt cake and chocolate brownie chocolate puds make up the majority of my desserts as well as the obligatory mini mince pies! Oh and of course a vintage christmas fairy for good measure... its christmas after all.

More cakes for the mans birthday last year...



... Ok I could do with some work on my food colouring skills, but I am getting better.

Some of my other creations to follow, and they aren't all cakes, plus the very exciting wedding plans I have in store.

See you soon...