Made Marian: Oozing Crafty Goodness

Way, way back in November 2008 I bought this gorgeous calendar from Joom’s etsy shop.

Along with the rest of you, I spent 2009 living in a country in the throws of a recession which darkened everyone’s mood so you had to take pleasure in the small things.  This calendar was one of them for me, everytime I looked at it it brightened my mood, even if I was already in a good mood!  I was (almost) disappointed when 2009 ended as I had no reason to use my calendar anymore.

This is where an empty frame languishing on a shelf behind my photo albums came into play.  I choose three images that could be cut easily into a rectangle and mounted them onto some cream card stock and then placed those behind the built in mounts in the frame……viola!

PS Joom has many of the images from the calendar for sale in the shop, some are even framed for you.

PPS: Apologies for the crappy photo!

Buying ribbon is one of my favourite things about being a craft enthusiast.  I love how it is stored on giant spools and I swear, I get butterflies when I see it being measured out. Oddly I prefer to buy ribbon in yards rather than meters.  The imperial system seems austere and grand compared to the mathematical metric system.

Here is a shot of some of my ribbon stash.

My ladybird trim was a birthday gift from my friend Mary B, the ladybirds on the pink ribbon were a gift from my friend Margaret.  Most of the rest of what you can see in the photo came from a gorgeous shop in Dublin called Rubenesque.  You’ll find the shop on South William Street and you’ll know it by the ribbons hanging from the door and railing.   It was like a wonderful, colourful sweetshop….only with ribbons instead.  Easier on the hips!

Here’s a closer look at that canvass ribbon with the crafty theme.

I’m so annoyed that we don’t have any TV channels other than the Irish ones.  This show Kirstie’s Homemade Home is my dream TV and I can’t watch it.  I was just having a look at the website there and it looks like she’s already covered some great topics, expecially the sewing ones which I’d love to finally take up this year.    There’s a video for making lamp shades that has me drooling and itching to look up where to buy the raw materials online

Update:  My beloved SO has downloaded the show from the Channel 4 website - Woohoo!! Watching Episode 1 now.

Photo by babybee

I’m sure it’s the same everywhere but it seems like every shop window in the city has been shouting about the fact that Valentines Day is around the corner.  I tend to sit on the fence about Valentines Day because I like to celebrate it in some way but I don’t like to buy too much into the clichéd commercial side.  I suppose what I mean is that I like to get a card but I love the fact that I’ve never received a shop-bought card from my significant other (he has always made them up on the computer with photos of us and little in-jokes).  I know that for some people Valentines would be a write-off without a big bunch of roses but given the emphasis on saving the pennies these days maybe we should be thinking outside the box. My significant other is no stranger to this, about three years ago he bought me a gift basket that had a little conifer plant in it, it was about 99% cheaper than a bouquet of flowers and it’s still living on our balcony.

Of course you could always take a crafty approach and buy a few bunches of cheaper flowers and wrap them up yourself.  Your local florist will probably be able to sell you some cellophane and your nearest fabric shop will have a selection of ribbon for you to chose from.

You can even make your own chocolates. I’m a big fan of chocolate truffles and they are ridiculously easy to make. You can present them nicely by reusing an old sweet box wrapped in some pretty paper and ribbon or use a tin storage box like this one.

Last but not least, the card.  Here’s a great card-making project from The Purl Bee. I tried this last year and found it really easy especially since it was my first attempt at card making. I got hooked after trying that project.  Maybe you will too. These were my end results.

I hope my crafty suggestions for Valentines day will inspire some of you to celebrate the day but not go overboard on the commercial stuff.  I’ll post up some more recent love-themed cards soon.

Disclaimer:  I reserve the right to accept cute commercial gifts if they are offered, like this. A gift, not from my significant other though but from his Mom.  He’s dressed as a ladybird which as some of you will know has particular significance to me

I’ve been a long time fan of the Irish music scene, I was brought up on a strict trad diet so I’ve always loved that but when I was in college I developed a love for all things Irish Indie.  My favourite band has been The Frames since 2000 when I saw them live in the courtyard in UL.  Since then I have seen the Frames (or various members of the band in their solo gigs) more than twenty times.  If you were a fan of the Irish Music scene in the early 2000’s you couldn’t have escaped the wonderful O by Damien Rice.   Neither could you escape the amazing voice of Lisa Hannigan on that album.  So I was delighted to hear that Lisa was bringing out a solo album and you can imagine how delighted I was when i saw the album cover and website wallpaper which her mother knitted it for her.  I need to find out if there are awards for the most beautiful album cover ever because I think this is it.  This isn’t a music blog so I’m not going to review the album but Darragh has a great interview and review here. Oh, and I won tickets to see Lisa in UL next week through The Limerick Blogger so I can’t wait to see her.

My pal Lette has just set up an Etsy store, you can visit and buy her prints, photos and ceramic ornaments here.  The shop is called Crafty Paws (a tribute to Scribbles).

I’ve already snapped up these prints as part of a arty/crafty swap

My part of the swap is a Work in Progress at the moment.  Updates to follow.

You know those people that are impossible to buy for?  The people who just go ahead and buy whatever they want or need, well I’m sure you know that they are impossible to buy for.  My better half is one of those people so when his birthday rolled around again this year I was tearing my hair out trying to think of something to get him.  I eventually decided on novelty over substance….Lego.  So we spent a very enjoyable Saturday night taking on the challenge of using every brick (700 of them) within an hour.

I’ve been doing a lot of making stuff for other people and I tend to take that seriously so it was actually refreshing to make something for fun.  So if you have a box of lego up in the attic or hidden away in the garage I would recommend taking it out and having some fun with it….you’re never too old.

I am really on an earring kick lately.  Before I went on holidays I ordered a pair of handmade earrings from Sulu Designs on Etsy.   Susan’s husband has some Irish blood in him so she was delighted to be sending some earrings to Ireland.  She doesn’t charge any postage and her stuff is really pretty, so as Joe Duffy would say…highly recommended!! I came across Sulu Designs through one of my favourite craft blogs House on Hill Road, I am so jealous of Erin’s sewing and photography skills.  Anyway, these beauties were waiting for me when I got home.

Note: this is Susan’s own photo from the Etsy listing.

Huge thanks to Margaret from Cookzors for keeping an eye on my post by the way.

In other news.  I’ve been working on more of the “Very Special Project Scarves“, they work up quickly  but I’m on my third one this week and I’m getting a bit tired of them so thankfully this is my last one.  I’ve decided to put my crochet hook down for a while and try something new.  I’m going shopping at the weekend for some embroidery supplies, I did a few embroidery projects back in primary school so hopefully it will come back to me.    Any hints or tips are most welcome.

I’m a jewelery addict, I love it. I can’t resist a jewelery sale, you never know when those lime green earrings will come in handy. The result of course is too many things and not enough places to put them. I saw this picture recently on flickr and was so impressed that I decided to try to reproduce it.

Photo by ninainvorm

I picked up a cork board in Atlantic Homecare for about €5 and ordered some pretty paper from Craft Factory for €4. I got a box of pins from Easons for €1.

I measured the cork board and cut the paper to size, it was too big to use a guillotine so I had to use a scissors, it would have been better with a craft knife and a cutting board, these are now on my “to buy” list. It was a little bit see-through so I put some plain white copier paper behind it. I attached it to the board with plain flat pins, in red to coordinate with the red design. I picked out the jewelery I wanted to display and roughly laid them out on the board. I added the “sticky-outy” pins in the appropriate places and then finally added my jewelery.

I find it brilliant, when I’m getting dressed I can see everything at a glance, no wasting time rummaging and de-tangling stuff, not a bad storage solution, craft project and lifehack all in one, and all for €10, plus I have loads of the pretty paper left for other crafty projects. What do you think?

Note: I did this post, before my latest earring splurge, so I’ve added a few extra pins in the last few days.

I’m just about half way through my holliers at this stage so it’s time for a quick post. 

There’s no point going to all that effort making a beautiful card for someone if you’re just going to put their gift in one of those gift bags from the local €2 shop.  I love wrapping presents, so it’s no surprise that I love Christmas then.   I’ve often considered taking a part time job in a department store in the gift wrap section, but time has always been an issue, maybe this year .

I had already made the card featured in the photo so I wanted to tie in the gift wrap with the red ribbon.  This paper was left over from another project but fitted the bill perfectly.  It was a little bit see-through so I put some white copier paper on top of the box to cover the brand name etc.  I had hoped to get a gift box that would fit the bottle and the contents of the box (champagne flutes) but I couldn’t find one big enough so I had to keep the bottle separate.  I decided to keep it simple but keep the theme going with the red ribbon.  I made the gift tag for the bottle in case they got separated at least the recipients would know where they came from.

The gift tag was made from some pearl white cardboard and I punched a butterfly shaped hole and put the ribbon through that.  I drew in the To: and From: lines and then stuck on the red shiney hearts, I have no idea where I got these from, they appeared out of my stash, as these things do.

I hope this will give you some good gift wrapping ideas for any special occasions you have coming up.