All wrapped up.

My Dad turned sixty recently and we have made him a gift (can't say what yet but I will do a post about it once he has received it!) and I decided to make him some hand stamped wrapping paper, I have a giant roll of brown parcel type paper which was begging to be jazzed up a bit.

I based my design on some vintage oven ware I found in a charity shop, I cut it from my new best friend lino and set about making an offset repeated pattern. Once finished I hung it up at my curtainless window and let it dry before the cat jumped on it. I cant wait to pick up my Dads gift and get it all wrapped up.

Pinteresting........

I have not had much time for crafts the last few days, my daughter is about to start school and its been a long, long holiday, she has needed a lot of entertaining! I have discovered pinterest though, 
http://pinterest.com/faye_berrie/  its some thing I heard of a while ago but didnt get round to looking into. Its a great place to share ideas and find inspiration too. I have been using mine to collect crafty ideas, creative ideas for the home and share my etsy treasury's. here is one of my favourites.

To take a look at what the Etsians say about their items just click on this link, and check out all the other beautiful things that can be found on Etsy.

http://www.etsy.com/treasury/NzA1MTI5Mnw2OTU0Mzk2ODQ/good-bye-summer?ref=pr_treasury

I have also made a special one for today, September the eleventh.

http://www.etsy.com/treasury/NzA1MTI5Mnw3MDIzMTM5MDI/we-are-strong?ref=pr_treasury

Yep, I'm hooked.

After my first attempts at lino printing I'm totally hooked. I really want to be making one off pieces of fabric that I will eventually (when I'm brave enough) be listed in my Etsy shop.
I designed a flower that I thought could be used on greeting cards but also worked as a repeat pattern on fabric. I really enjoyed making this pattern using different shades of Yellow/Red/Orange. I'm quite proud of the results and Im already scouring the net for some nice linen (geez its pricey!)
and some paint suitable for lino printing on fabric. Here's how it turned out on paper, very cute.

Note book covers.

I ventured into my loft a few days ago to look for a book and came back down with three unfinished crochet blankets. shocking. I decided that I really should finish them so have been crocheting like mad to get them done, the one I'm focusing on will be lovely but it's big and not "airy" so will take a while, cant wait to post it!

 I went to my friend Sara's house the other day as she wanted to buy some fabric from my Etsy shop......... http://www.etsy.com/shop/ChilliPeppa?ref=si_shop , (please come and visit its been real quiet because of the hurricane) She bought a couple of fat quarters to have a go at making note book covers with them.

She has written about it in her blog so i'm going to be totally lazy and post some pics here, Well, its my fabric so why not.

Here's a link to her blog, She is crazy about crafts like me, I'm so glad I have finally found someone who understands me, My boyfriend is really bad at looking interested. Love you sara! x

http://kraftykowsjewels.blogspot.com/

Lino printing

I have been thinking about making my own blocks to print on fabric for a while, but recently I have been swaying towards producing limited runs of prints on paper, and who knows, if I get the hang of it I might try fabric at a later date.
Lino printing is pretty inexpensive to start up, I bought the blocks from our local hobby superstore, they are regular photo size and were just £1.75 each, the cutting tool was a bit over priced so i have bought that on the net for around a fiver and the roller for applying the ink was under three pound, ten pound cheaper than at the hobby superstore! ink is around four pound and to start with one colour will be fine, you wont be doing any thing too complicated at this stage.
There are two types of cutting you can do, you can carve out the outline of your design and leave most of the lino intact creating a NEGATIVE when printed or you can leave the outline and carve out everything else making a POSITIVE print. negative prints are quicker to carve and better for your first project, I found this pretty easy and quick enough for me not to loose interest. I did a test in my ideas note book with ordinary acrylic, just to get an idea how it turned out, the acrylic dried much quicker than printing ink so the finish isn't great but I couldnt wait for my ink to arrive.


MY NEGATIVE LINO

THE PRINT















For my second project I tried making a positve, This is a lot more difficult as there is much more work to do.
To get a neat line I used the thin scalpel type blade to go round the outline, I dont know if this is the done thing but it worked really well as it meant I just carved out near the outline and it kind of fell away up to the line.
I really really really recommend heating your lino in the oven for a couple of minutes. it makes the world of difference, you will have to do this every 10 mins maybe, dont struggle on after its hardened again, if you stab yourself in the end of your finger because you cant be bothered to get up it hurts quite a bit and the resulting blood can be pretty messy.

Here is the design and the first part of my positve design, I am making a seperate small stamp for the bird and heart, if I struggle to get it all lined up right I might make it a mixed media print.



Keep your first aid kit handy.

Cozy cushions

I managed to get hold of some pieces of fabric from the Da Viva collection, this is actually made in Ghana, most african wax print comes from Holland. I really like this print, and decided to make some large cushion covers, I didn't want to make the whole cover from the patterned fabric as it would be too much, a little of this goes a long way.

I put a panel between two pieces of bright Red fabric, the panel is placed to one side to make them a little more interesting. I really like these and they might still end up on my Grey sofa where they stand out beautifully. But for now, they are in my Etsy shop.......

Beautiful bangles

This week I made some wrapped bangles, I found some pretty woven ribbon at our local Post Office (our post office is a very odd place!) The ribbon reminded me of the kind of thing you would find on a cute little Dutch dress. I'm pleased with the results and will list them in my Etsy shop.