my creative space: quiet book

A few months ago I completed an ordered which I was commissioned to do for a friends god-son. I took lots of photos with the intent of sharing them, but unfortunately, something possessed me to erase them all by hitting the format button on my DSLR.  


Fortunately I've since received the quiet book back because my friend had gotten the DOB wrong, so I offered to fix the embroidery to the correct date. So I can finally share the photos of the project I completed some months ago.

Plenty more creative spaces to check out over here

walls up close

Following this post, I received a few comments suggesting some of you would like to see more of the detail on the decoupage wall.  I'm not one to disappoint, so here are a few close-ups of some of the newspaper clippings which make up the decoupage wall.

Thanks for your interest guys.  You truly are a caring and supportive bunch of lovely folks.

making my mark

the result of my first stamp carving attempt

Last night I attended a stamp carving class with fellow Southside Brown Owls run by the lovely Holly of Two Cheese Please which was graciously hosted by Kat at Windsor Deli.  Yep, that's a mouthful and a few links for you to check out too!

As per usual when lots of creative ladies meet up, there's lots of chatting, eating and drinking.  However last night there were many pauses of silence as each of us concentrated on not slicing our fingertips off with the very sharp scalpel-like tool.

Shannon's adorable owl

Each of us had to come up with a design, sketch it, transfer it onto the rubber and then carve away until we got a raised surface which would hold up to stamping with colourful inks.

Tess' impressive geometric formation

There were owls, geometric designs, and many earthy designs amongst last nights bunch of first-timers. And the majority of us managed to get two stamps completed by the end of the night.

yarn ball complete with knitting needles

I made a little house for me and then a skull for the boy-child, which he loves!

Lisa's very organic looking design

So, have I found a new craft you ask? Hell yeah! Loved it. To me it's kinda like embroidery... you really have to concentrate on what you're doing so that you're fairly precise with the channels or lines which you make.  Plus you have to try to keep all your fingers in tact. 

Cindy's happy rain clouds

Have you tried stamp carving before?  It's highly therapeutic and rewarding! If you haven't tried it, you should totally give it a try. You can buy a kit from here complete with rubber, carving tool and instructions.  

my creative space: till death do us part

I've been working away (very slowly) on this piece of embroidery for the past few weeks.  When I get into it, I actually get a bit done, but it's the motivation to pick up the hoop, floss and needle and continue on with it each night that I seem to be lacking.


My husband imposed a technology ban on me the other night which meant that I wasn't allowed to use my phone (which he hid from me) or the laptop.  So I sat in my comfy armchair with feet in warm bath salts (care of my thoughtful man-friend) and embroidered whilst watching a movie.  I have to say, I definitely needed a night away from Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ and Flickr.  Thank you darling husband.  You really are the best.

So when this work in progress is done, it will be a cushion (which I upcycled from a thrifted tablecloth) with De Los Muertos embroidery.


Hop along over here to check out a bunch of other creative peeps and their creative spaces.

my creative space: shhh

Hello lovelies

I hope you've been keeping well. Unfortunately our household has been infiltrated with germs of different kinds.  I've been off work for 3 days this week.  Some strange head-spinning-nausea-inducing virus. But thanks to the power of antibiotics, I'm on the mend.

So this week my creative space is coming along a little slowly, but I've been working on a quiet book custom order in the last week. I really can't wait to finish it and get it off to my customer for it to be gifted to her godson. 

In need of more inspiration? Make sure you head over to Kootoyoo to check out what other talented crafty-folk are working on.  Last Thursday 195 people shared their creative spaces!  Maybe you would like to share what you're working on too.

P.S. did you get the "shhh" title reference of this post? Quiet Book... get it. Ok. I'll stop now. 

tea towel cushion tutorial

What you need:

- thrifted tea towel (dish drying linen cloth)

- zip

- cushion insert (size 14 or 16 depending on tea towel size)

- scissors

- sewing pins

- cotton thread in similar colour to your tea towel

- sewing machine

How to do it:

I'm not a big measurer myself, so for this purpose I simply folded the tea towel in half (so the top edge is lined up with the bottom edge) to work out where the half way point was.  But you can be more precise and measure the length of the tea towel and divide it by two to get the length of where to cut your tea towel in half.  Yes, I said CUT!

Now that you have two pieces, you essentially have a front and back panel for your cushion.  The size of these two panels is how you will determine the size of your cushion insert.  I suggest you take your tea towel to the shop with you to figure out which insert size will best suit your particular tea towel (remembering to fold your tea towel in half if it hasn't been cut yet or using one of your panels to measure the size).  TIP: You want it to be snug, not loose.

I didn't have a zip in my zipper stash which was long enough, but I did have one that was red and matched the main colour of the tea towel, so I decided to use it.  I suggest using a zip which is at least the width of your tea towel and no shorter than two thirds of the width.  It needs to be wide enough so that you can insert the cushion insert when you're done.  So just keep that in mind when selecting the length of your zip.

Take your "front" tea towel panel and lay it with the print/pattern facing up.  Now take your zip and lay it facing down (with the zipper pull facing towards the print) then align the bottom edge with that of the tea towel making sure that it's centered across the width of the tea towel's bottom edge.  Now take some sewing pins and pin the zip and tea towel together making sure that your pins are all facing with the pin head away from the direction which you'll be sewing so that it's easy to pull them out as you go (you don't want to be trying to pull the pins out against the foot of the sewing machine).

Then making sure you have the zipper foot attachment on your sewing machine, sew about 1/2cm from the edge of the zip and tea towel using the edge as a guide to sew in a straight line and pulling out each pin as you reach it.

You should end up with something that looks like this (it's difficult to tell, but there is a line of red stitches along the bottom of the zip)...

Now it's time to sew the other side of the zip onto the "back" panel of the tea towel.  Gulp.  Don't sweat it if you've never sewed a zip onto anything.  I promise to make this as painless as possible.

Lay your back tea towel panel with the print facing up, as you did with the front panel earlier.  Now, take the front panel with the zip sewed onto the bottom edge, line it up (print side down) with the width of the back panel of tea towel.  The idea is that you use the edges of both panels to line up the placement of where you need to pin your zip onto the back panel.  Confusing?  Take a peek at the images below if you're like me and need a visual aid.  

Now just stitch along the bottom edge of the back panel and zip as you did with the front panel.

When you're done and you flip your panels back out, you should see a nice, neat centered zip like this...

Now that you've inspected your zipper, sandwich your panels back together (print facing in), but before you do, unzip your zip almost all the way to the end - this will make it possible for you to turn your finished cushion cover the right way.  If you accidentally forget this step, you'll have no way of turning your cushion cover! 

Now comes the fun part.  Starting with one end of the sewn zipper, you're going to start pinning your front and back panels together along all of those loose edges.  

Start at one end of the zip (HERE'S THE TRICKY PART) and with the metal teeth of the zip facing out and visible against the raw edge, pin the zip right at the part where you're going to sew (near the small metal stopper where the zip can't zip-up or unzip any further).  You don't want there to be a finger-sized gap between where the zip ends and the fabric of the cushion starts, so get in nice and close when pinning either end of your zip.

Once you've pinned both zip ends, you can pin all of the loose edges together making sure that you're keeping the front and back panels aligned as much as possible AND making sure you're pinning in one direction with the pins pointing sharp end towards the direction where the foot of your machine will be sewing.

Before you get all excited and start stitching, make sure you've removed your zipper foot and attached your regular foot back onto your sewing machine.  If you haven't, you're certainly going to notice how difficult it is to sew the fabric with a zipper foot attachment.  I've made this mistake before!

Ok, now go.  Position the needle of your sewing machine at the left edge of the end of the zipper and on both panels and zipper edge.  You're going to stitch a line straight across the zip until you reach the stitch line of where the zip is attached to the tea towel panels.  Once you reach this line, lift your sewing foot and spin your fabric around so that the foot is facing along the edge which you're going to stitch along.  Essentially you're going to stitch an upside down 'L' to ensure there is no gap between the teeth of your zip and the part where the fabric sides of your zip end.

Stitch along the outside of your panels and when you get to the other end of the zip, lift the foot and turn your fabric around so that you can finish in the same method as you started - by sewing a line along the end of the zip near the metal stopper.

When you're done stitching, you need to snip any loose thread ends and then...

CLIP - clip each corner on an angle so that when it's turned, the edges which you've stitched sit flat on the inside

TURN - turn your cushion cover inside out... or right way out! 

PRESS - give your cushion cover a nice steamy iron to get it looking nice and crisp

STUFF - insert your cushion insert into your newly created tea towel cushion

FLUFF - give your new cushion a nice fluffing to plump it up and get it into shape

and lastly... the most important step of all...

ADMIRE!

Stuck?  I'm happy to help.  Just drop me an email and I'll do my best to explain any steps in greater detail.

Happy vintage tea towel hunting lovelies!

canvas shoe makeover tutorial

Hello lovelies

Have you been enjoying your weekend?  Have you made anything?  I've been making lots of things.  Lots of things which are not for sale.  It makes me happy to have time to make things for myself and my loved ones.  I still haven't booked any markets for this year and you know what... I'm not fussed at all.  There's no hurry for me to compelled to do so either.  It feels great.

I've been engaging in some back to school shopping this past week as my 5 year old starts school this year.  While out shopping last week I picked up some plain white canvas shoes at Kmart for $3.  I couldn't go past them.  Then I had an idea... let's snaz them up a little.  They are for my son after all and he does like lots of character in the things he wears.

They turned out so well, that I thought I'd share this tutorial with you in case you feel the urge to transform some plain canvas shoes in works of art for your (or your kids) feet.

What you need:

• plain white canvas shoes
• Faber-Castell Big Brush artist pens (they're colour markers with pigment ink which means they are water proof once they dry)
• pencil with eraser end
• Sketches or rough design for your shoes

Let's get started:

My son is into the grungy kind of design... lots of skulls, splats, stars and that kind of thing.  So I started out by taking a pencil and roughly sketching some designs lightly on each shoe.  Using a pencil means that you can fiddle around until you are happy with the design, rubbing out any parts which you're not happy with. 

Once you've finished this part, take a black Pitt Artist pen and go over all of your pencilled-in sketches.  Make sure you use nice even lines so that the design looks neat.  I went over each outline a few times to ensure I had nice thick black coverage.

Be careful when you are using the Pitt Artist Pens as they can smudge or transfer onto your hand while they are dry. They are a unique ink formula which means they can be blended when they are wet and a permanent once dry.  Once you have all of your outlines in place, let the ink thoroughly dry.  If you start using colours before the black ink dries, it will bleed into the coloured areas (like you can see in some parts of my finished shoes).

Using as many colours as you like (I had the 24-pack of Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pens so I had fun using many different colours), start adding colour to your designs.  But also make sure to let your colours dry especially if adding a few different colours into one design - remember they bleed into each other (see the blue green and yellow rings in the below photo for example of what I mean)!

I chose to leave the area in between the pictures white, but you could colour in between in grey, black or your child's favourite colour.  It's up to you!

If you're stuck, here are some design ideas to get you started:

• trees, sun, grass, house, sky
• graffiti
• birds
• monster face including razor sharp teeth and crazy eyes
• polka dots
• cupcakes
• bows
• skulls and cross-bones
• stars
• cars

And voila... you have some funky one of a kind shoes which look like they cost a lot more than $3!  My son LOVES his new shoes and wants to wear them to child care.  Had to let him down gently and tell him that they're only for "going out".  I know that if they go anywhere near child care they will get trashed within a day.

So what do you think?  Will you try some yourself?  They're fun, cheap and easy to do.  If you do, I'd love to see them (send me a link)!

P.S. the canvas shoes are in the current (Australian) Kmart catalogue which is on sale until 12 January... so hurry into your local Kmart store and pick up a pair quick-sticks!