Shades of blue

Has it really been that long since my last post? I keep meaning to post, but real life keeps getting in the way!

Top row: "God Save the Queen", "60's", "Castle".
Bottom row: "T is for Time", "Bluebell, "Man in the Moon"

I finally made some ATC:s not related to the Craftster alphabet swap! It was great to be able to work a little more freely, and I had lots of fun making them. And it also made me realize just how much papercraft stuff I have lying around - wallpaper, images, stamps, ephemera packs... I'm forbidding myself to buy more until 2009!

I'm keeping two of these cards as inspiration, and the "Time" card is for the Alphabet swap, but "Castle", "60's" and "Man in the Moon" are all up for trade! Let me know if you're interested!

And I also wanted to show you one of the cards I made for the latest Alphabet swap:

I painted the nest using watercolors. When I was little I used to paint all the time, I don't know why I haven't for so long. It's great!

Fabric collage

I was at home alone on Sunday evening, and suddenly felt an urge to sew something... I didn't plan ahead at all, I just sort of went with the flow. Here's what happened:

A little fabric collage entitled Nature. It's just a basic log cabin design, embellished with all sorts of notions, vintage lace, and a bit of embroidery. I had lots of fun making it!

A close-up of the center. The tree is printed with a hand-carved stamp I received in a Craftster swap. I made a bunch of fabric patches this summer (read more here) and this is one of them. The stamp itself was carved by the talented Craftster knitting_nyxxie. The birdie is an inkjet transfer.

The finished piece is about 16" square. It's a bit wonky since I didn't measure anything, but I like it that way. Here it is hanging on our living room wall:

Fall flowers

We've been having the most amazing weather lately! It's been incredibly sunny for this time of year, and the leaves are starting to change colors. I'm loving all the reds and yellows... I tried to decorate our apartment accordingly, and I even bought myself a bright red shirt to match! :-D

One of my decorating projects comes from a Swedish craft book written by Josefin Ekman, who also writes the blog Dear Martha - go check it out! Anyway, this is another project that has that "reduce, reuse, recycle" feel to it:

Yes, those are tin cans! When I first read about this idea it seemed a bit odd to me, too. But I really like the result! You don't need a lot of flowers, either. The smallest one wasn't planned, I just has so many flowers left when I finished the other two that I decided to rummage through the cabinets for another can. I think the one in the middle is my favorite. Here it is displayed with some more fall goodies:

The candles in the picture come from the Yankee Candle Co. Their scented candles are amazing! I wish you could sniff them through the computer screen... I got Orchard Pear and Cafe au Lait because I thought they were fitting for fall.

Oh, and in case you're curious, here is Josefin's version of the flower tins - much prettier than mine but not very fall-like:

What do you think- cute craft of just crazy?

Lots of baking

Since I've been so busy with school for the past month, I haven't had much time over for one of my favorite pastimes - baking! Really, there's something deeply satisfying about baking. Kneading the dough, watching it rise... and of course sampling the final result! :-)

Today was a perfect day for baking, as it is the Swedish National Cinnamon Roll Day. I'm not sure whether you have similar silly food holidays in America, but this one is actually quite a big deal over here. Cinnamon Rolls are probably as close to a Swedish National Dish as it gets - we all love the things! Swedish cinnamon rolls are smaller and less sickly sweet than their American cousins (no icing) which only means you can eat even more of them! Here's a picture of some of the rolls I made this morning:

And while we're on the subject of baking, I thought I'd show you the cake I made for my friend Sara's birthday last week. She received it along with the moleskine notebook in my last post. I made it bright pink (with girly pink candles) as a bit of a joke, since both Sara and I are devoted feminists. We've had lots of discussions about kids and gender roles, so I thought she might get a kick out of this over-the-top girly cake:

Unfortunately I didn't get to snap a pic before the candles were blown out.

The cake is completely vegan. It's two layers of chocholate cake, the filling is fresh raspberries and jam, and it's covered with strawberry-flavored buttercream and sprinkles. It's probably the largest cake I've ever made, and it was a lot of work... I'm completely new to cakes, I mostly bake cookies and bread. But I will definitely have to try again soon - too bad there are no birthdays coming up in the near future!

Quick gift

I'm back! Still getting used to the new computer (the screen is twice as big as the one we had before! Everything is huge!) and I had another Economics exam yesterday... Hence the recent lack of posts. But I thought I'd share a little gift I made for a friend's birthday last week. This post over at Sweeet Jessie's blog is what inspired me.

I found a Moleskine cashier notebook, some scraps, and went to work. It's so simple it's almost silly! All you have to do is arrange your pieces on the cover, use a tiny bit of glue (I used my trusty UHU stick) to secure them, and then sew all over the cover in any pattern you like. Here's my first one, I'm sure there will be more of them in the future!

What do you think? All the fabric came from my stash. I'm in love with the red paisley fabric, it comes from an old skirt my mom wore way back in the 70's. I'm trying to think of more stuff to make with it... Any ideas?