Patchy

I received some really lovely stamps in the recent stamp swap, and I've been looking for interesting ways to use them. Last night I had an idea - so of course I had to whip out my fabrics and try it out straight away. I made these fabric patches:


The tree and monogram stamps are from the swap, but the little birdies are my own design. The fabric is a heavy-weight cotton from IKEA, and I used a black VersaCraft inkpad to stamp the images. I think the images might have turned out clearer on a fabric with a higher thread-count, but the "faded" look is sort of nice too. I really like these patches, and I have a project in mind for them already... More on that later this week! I also made a couple of notecards just to try out my new black ink pad:


And just for fun, here are the stamps I carved for the swap. They have all been received now so I can finally show them. Not nearly as advanced as some in the swap, but I'm still learning... I'm especially proud of the cow:

I'm still alive

We're having another heat wave over here, and I've been stuck inside studying... Phew! But now I'm finally done with my exam, so I've had a little bit of time to craft. I really wanted to do some sewing, but inspiration still hasn't hit. So instead, I decided to make another batch of homemade paper. Last week when I visited my mom, I mentioned that I remembered making paper with her when I was little. Luckily she still had a screen left, so we whipped up a first batch. We used recycled newspaper, and we didn't use a blender (mom wasn't to keen on wrecking her expensive blender with paper goo...) so the pulp had a lot of chunks in it. Here is what the finished sheets looked like:


This second time I made more of a serious attempt, and I followed this tutorial over at flickr - I can totally recommend it, it's super detailed! I put more white paper in the pulp this time, and I used my old cheapo blender. Worked like a charm! Here's a picture of the second attempt:


I'm not sure whether you can see it in the photos, but this batch came out a lot smoother and lighter than the first - which is great, since I'm hoping to stamp on it with some of the awesome stamps I received in the stamp swap at Craftster.

And this evening, since it's too hot to do anything else, I went through some of the paper that was going to the recycling, and shredded it in preparation for another batch of paper sometime later this week! :)


Have fun in the heat!

All about me

I have a major exam coming up on Monday, so no big crafty posts this week... Sorry! I found this fun little meme on several of my favorite blogs, including Sweet Jessie and Meet Me At Mikes, I thought it might be fun.

One Word Meme

1. Where is your cell phone? Lost
2. Your significant other? Working
3. Your hair? Boring
4. Your daughter? Nope
5. Your son? None
6. Your favorite thing? Candy
7. Your dream last night? Stressful
8. Your favorite drink? Limeade
9. Your goal? Peace
10. The room you’re in? Living
11. Your church? Humanism
12. Your fear? Failure
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? America
14. Where were you last night? Studying
15. What you’re not? Trendy
16. Muffins? Buttercream
17. One of your wish list items? Wellingtons
18. Where you grew up? Sad
19. The last thing you did? Wists
20. What are you wearing? Hot
21. Your TV? Books
22. Your pets? Dustbunnies
23. Your computer? Dying
24. Your life? Full
25. Your mood? Sleepy
26. Missing someone? Niece
27. Your car? Bike
28. Something you’re not wearing? Socks
29. Favorite store? Etsy
30. Your summer? School
31. Like(love) someone? Eternity
32. Your favorite color? All
33. Last time you laughed? Morning
34. Last time you cried? Recently
35. Who will repost this? You?

So if you're reading this, consider yourself tagged! It's really simple, just copy and paste the 35 questions into your blog, and answer each question with only a one-word answer. If you do this meme, let me know so I can read your answers!

Back from my vacation

I had a great week visiting my parents and my sister, and of course my little niece. Stella is completely adorable! My father, Keith and I were the first to visit her, just four days after she was born. I thought I'd share a photo of her wearing the little booties I made!

Most of my vacation week was spent at my mom's house, relaxing, enjoying the countryside and of course, crafting! I spent an entire day helping my mom organize her fabric stash. It was a lot of fun sorting through all that fabric. We found lining fabric from a jacket my mom made for me when I was a child, left over corduroy from an awful pair of trousers I made in high school, and scraps from all sorts of other projects. We are both very proud of the result - what do you think?

We also arrived at the house at the perfect time for berry picking, so we spent a lot of time picking raspberries, redcurrants, blackcurrants and gooseberries. My mother and her husband-to-be have the most amazing wild raspberry plants in their garden, they pick like a kilo every day and there are still berries left! So of course Keith and I couldn't pass up the chance to take home some amazing home made jam and juice!

The picture shows all the berry goodness we brought home with us: raspberry jam, raspberry and blackcurrant jam, raspberry juice, rhubarb syrup and fresh redcurrants. Are you jealous yet?

I'll leave you with a shot of some of the lovely flowers in mom's garden. Pretty, aren't they?

Say hello to Stella!

Yes, I am now officially an aunt! Little Stella was born yesterday at 11.57. My sister sent the adorable cellphone picture, and I can't wait to meet the little cutie. I will be leaving for my mom's house today, and we're going up to visit Stella and her parents together. I will be away for about a week, but hopefully I'll be able to blog from my mom's computer once or twice. Have a good week while I'm off in baby land! :-)

Book review: the Crafter's Companion

The Crafter's Companion - Tips, tales and patterns from a community of creative minds arrived on my doorstep a couple of days ago, so I thought I'd give you my two cents on the book. I read through the amazon.com reviews for it and quickly found that there were two kinds of reviews - people either loved the book or hated it. I think it has to do with the kind of expectations you have. If you are buying the book simply to get projects and patterns, you may be disappointed. Many of the patterns are pretty similar, and they are in no way revolutionary new ideas. I still found several projects that I like and will probably make in the near future (like the pretty and practical fabric basket that I know will come in handy in my tiny craft space) but I don't think the patterns alone would have made me purchase the book.

The reason I bought it, and the reason I love it, is simple: inspiration! The main part of the book is not devoted to patterns or instructions, but to looking inside other crafters' studios and reading about what creativity means to them. Several contributors share stories about their childhood and their early crafting experiences. It's a great source of inspiration and encouragement! Many of the contributors are famous in blogland, and it's great to get a sneak peek into your favorite bloggers' everyday lives and hear the reasons they have for crafting. The beautiful photography is another big plus. The photos of various craft rooms and inspiration boards are my favorites - the first thing I did after putting the book down was reorganize my pitiful fabric stash and put some inspirational pictures up.

So to conclude, if you're looking for advanced sewing patterns and original projects you might want to look somewhere else, but if you want to feel inspired and motivated to craft, this is definitely the book for you!

Craft fair fun

I'm back! We had a great weekend at Keith's parents, with lots of crafty inspiration. On Sunday, we visited a craft fair where Keith's grandmother and little sister were selling some of their creations. Tons to see! I didn't buy much since I need to save my money this month, but it was great to walk around and just look at all the beautiful things. The things I did get are this lovely apron made by Keith's grandma, made of a pretty and practical waxed fabric - perfect for my messy baking! - and a cute handmade card.

Oh, and check this out: We drove to the fair IN STYLE!

This awesome 1960 Dodge Phoenix belongs to Keith's dad, who is a mechanic and nuts about classic cars. We had so much fun riding with the windows down and singing rock'n'roll tunes!

Since I got back I've been busy carving stamps for the rubber stamp swap I'm in, and I also found the time to do some more baby crafting. I love Heather Bailey's Bootie pattern, so I thought I'd try it out. Here's my slightly lopsided first attempt:

I hope my sister won't mind that they're blue! I was looking for a nice color combo, and didn't stop to think about the fact that blue is supposed to be a "boy color" (I think that's rubbish anyway) before they were half finished. Oh well, I'll just have to make a matching dress then! :-)

Oh, and since they have all been received now, here are my latest Artist Trading Cards, made for the Alphabet ATC swap at Craftster. I'm really proud of them. What do you think?

Craft green this weekend!

We're going to visit Keith's parents this weekend, so I won't be blogging for a couple of days... I thought I'd leave you with a couple of ideas for awesome, environmentally friendly craft projects.

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The story: A couple of days ago, my dad and I spent over an hour on the phone discussing creativity, awareness and the politics behind the whole DIY-movement. My dad is a librarian in the small town where I grew up, and he's very involved in the community. He told me that they are having trouble finding fun activities and projects to get young people involved - so naturally I suggested crafting! I love crafts with a political edge like subversive cross stitch or knit graffiti, as well as environmentally aware "reduce, reuse, recycle" projects. Dad asked me to e-mail him some links to "green" craft ideas that I thought would work well at youth centers and workshops. I had lots of fun looking them up for him! I'm sure you've heard of most of them before, but here are a couple of my favorites:

Great tutorial for making handmade paper: I'm trying this as soon as I get back home, I love the look of handmade paper!
Making a cake stand out of thrifted plates and china: An awesome gift idea is using old plates, serving dishes and candle sticks to make cute cake stands. This example uses clear glass plates, but I love how it looks with different colored plates as well.
Make your own envelopes: I'm always looking for ways to use all the old magazines and junk mail I get... This is a template for turning them into pretty envelopes.
Another cute sweater project: I've been brain storming about what to do with the wool sweaters I got last week, and this is one of the projects on my to do-list.
The record bowl: This is a classic, it's so simple and fun!

Have a great crafty weekend!

Fresh fruit

Whew, it's hot! I've been enjoying our great weather by visiting two awesome organic and natural food stores (FRAM and ekostore, pay a visit next time you're in the area!) and buying lots of tasty and healthy food. My favorite cookbook of all time is Dr Gillian McKeith's You Are What You Eat Cookbook - I read it whenever I need inspiration. And since Dr Gillian goes on and on about how important it is to buy organic, I thought I'd follow her advice. Shopping at organic food stores is so much nicer than rushing around the supermarket anyway! These pictures show some of my purchases; lots of fruit and veg and some really nice extra dark cocoa powder.

Keith has been feeling a bit under the weather the past couple of days, so to cheer him up I thought I'd use some of the lovely fruit to make pie! I made six sorts of crumble, mixing rhubarb, strawberries, raspberries and apples. I used mini baking pans - the perfect size for two! Here they are before I added the crumble...

...and here they are all done!

We had the rhubarb and strawberry one for dessert today, and it was really tasty. Yum!

Welcome to the doll house

I promised myself last night that today would be the day I actually sat down and read the thickest one of my schoolbooks without falling asleep after five pages. I swear to you, this book is the perfect cure for insomnia - it's impossible to stay awake once you open the thing! But of course, I couldn't bring myself to do it... So to drown my guilt, I thought I'd lose myself in my crafting for a while, and made this:

Isn't she the cutest? The pattern for her comes from an awesome blog called inside a black apple and it has even been featured on Martha a while back. This is my first attempt at a black apple doll, and I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to make. The only tricky part was positioning the arms and legs before sewing up the body - notice that her right arm is lower than her left? But hey, it was only my first try. The pattern is supposed to be enlarged 150%, but as that would have meant me having to actually leave the house (I haven't even opened the front door today) and ride the tram all the way to the library, I decided to make a mini version instead. Once I get the pattern enlarged, I plan on making a larger and more elaborate version for my soon-to-be-born niece. As my sister's due date approaches, I've been thinking a lot about stuff I want to make for the baby. There are so many possibilities! If you've had experience crafting for babies, please leave a message and tell me what you made! I would love to get some more inspiration.

My recent obsession with kiddy-crafts is also one of the reasons I decided to buy 20 sheets of wool mix felt from Laura of bugs and fishes. She creates the most amazing things out of felt, and up until just recently has also been selling pick-and-mix felt squares in her etsy shop. When she announced that she wasn't going to be selling her larger squares much longer, I rushed to buy one of the last listings. These squares are the sort of colors that are near impossible to find in Swedish craft stores - willow green, ginger, pistachio and a really lovely salmon pink. Look how great they look all laid out together:

I've got some really neat projects in mind for all this felt. I'll keep you posted! ;-)