My (not so) new Craft Room

I’ve been meaning to show you my new craft room all year!  We decorated and bought the furniture back in the Spring, and I even took photos back then.  Anyway, without further ado, here it is.

It’s nearly 2 years since our son moved out to live in his own flat, so of course I purloined his room as my craft room!  It is so nice not to have the dining room cluttered.  It is easy to clear up now if someone is coming for dinner.  Here’s what the dining room used to look like, with craft stuff piled up in all 4 corners of the room:

I still sew on the dining room table, but most of my craft stuff is now upstairs, either in my craft room or on the big Ikea unit on the landing.
We decorated the spare room , after having some plastering done on the chimney breast wall. We painted the walls white, and bought white furniture from Ikea.
Here’s my work desk, joined on to 2 4x2 Kallax units.  I am not sure that I really have them organised the best for scrapbooking, but it is nice having everything within reach!  The first column of cubbies house my Etsy shop patterns and other goods for sale.  The curtains are from Next.

 Going around the room, this is the chimney breast wall with a small wardrobe from Ikea which houses my out of season dresses and my dressmaking fabric stash.  The table is our old kitchen table, with cardboard drawers which hold cardstock and paper scraps.  Underneath the table are the vintage patterns I have yet to upload to my Etsy shop.

The gorgeous picture on the wall is from an Etsy shop.  My daughter bought it for me for Christmas.  (Sorry I can’t find the link to the actual shop now)

In the corner recess I have shelves for books and sewing patterns, and my chrome trolley.  You will laugh, when I tell you that when I bought this trolley, this was all the scrapbook stash I had, and intended to have for the future!



























Further round (so behind me when I sit at my desk, are the plastic drawers from the dining room, and shelves above.  I sorted my large collection of old (I hesitate to call them vintage!) buttons into colours for display on the top shelf.  I intended this worktop to be where I used my cricut machine and bind-it-all etc, but I really haven’t used them since I moved up here.

I hope you’ve enjoyed a tour around my room!  I love sitting up there doing my scrapbooking.  I will be back soon to show what I have been scrapbooking lately.


Sorry about the formatting, live writer and blogger are really not playing ball this morning!

Review of 2014

I’ve been wanting to do a review of 2014, especially my dressmaking for a week or two.  But I’ve been struck down with a nasty virus, and my head has been so full of ‘fog’ that I couldn’t think straight!  So now I’m beginning to feel better, here’s my review of dressmaking and other crafts.

My favourite dress was this purple one, worn for Christmas events.  It’s Style Arc Trixie dress, made with purple ponte from Fabricland.  I had plenty of help at my dressmaking drop-in with Laura at More Sewing.

Other favourites and most worn:

1. Lottie blouse.  Free pattern with Love Sewing magazine
2. Kimono.  Free pattern from Sew Caroline
3. Dress made last year and altered to fit since I lost loads of weight
4. Staple Dress by April Rhodes.  I really didn’t think I’d like this, but it turns out to be really comfortable on hot days!
5. Tartan skirt from a Kwik Sew patter.  The tartan fabric was very slippery and tricky to sew, and I challenged myself to line it.  I made it quite short which I like.  It’s too big now and I’m not sure whether I will alter it.
6. Deer and Doe Plantain top.  I wore this loads last winter, but it is too big now.  It’s in my pile of things to alter as it should be quite simple to do.

My least worn items are these:

1. Wiksten Tova top.  I just don’t like the neck line or how it looks on me.  Think I am better with more fitted tops.  The second one in green is on my pile to refashion. 
2. The broderie anglais blouse is lovely and fits really well, but I haven’t worn it as much as I thought I would.  It’s because it’s a bit see through!

I made a few other tops that I didn’t blog, and some trousers that I have only worn once and not photographed!

My biggest challenge this year was getting the fit right.  And then I lost loads of weight! I am lucky to have 2 fabric/sewing shops close by, and am attending dressmaking drop-in every Tuesday morning at More Sewing.  I am loving it!  I have loads more confidence to tackle more difficult items now I can get help from Laura.

Other craft successes include:

2 quilts.  First one is my scrappy quilt from Sunday Morning Quilts. It still needs backing and quilting. Second one is my own design and was made for a great nephew.  The fabric is fabulous!  I am not sure you can see it properly in this photo, but it’s retro little boys with rockets and space themed toys.

 

Cushions

1. I challenged myself to do piping round the edge and put a zip in it.
2. Letters cut out using my cricut machine and appliqued on to cushion.

Christmas ornament.  A reindeer garland.  I really wanted to make more of these but ran out of time!

Bags

These were all made for Christmas presents:

1. Sew together bag by Sew Demented.  It has 3 zippered compartments inside!
2. Scrap Happy Purse by Crazy Mom Quilts
3. I did follow a pattern for this one but can’t find it now!

Crochet

1. Happy Blanket for MIL
2. Owls form Crochet Gifts magazine
3. Flower Garden Blanket crocheted throughout the year along side my craft cabin pals

 

Scrapbooking has taken a bit of a back seat this year.  I have completed a Project Life style album for 2014 and

1. Completed an album of our holiday to Canada in 2004.
2. My mini adventures ‘art journal’
3. one swap: Home made project life style cards.  These are the cards I made.

 

All in all it’s been a great year for crafting!  I’ll do another post soon about my intentions for 2015.

Counterfeit Challenge Kit–August

I love the CKC blog!  I love that it inspires me to make up kits from my own stash, and gives ideas and tutorials on how to make some of the bang-up-to-date embellishments, and of course the challenges inspire me to actually get scrapping!

The August kit to be forged is this one, The Confidence Kit from Scrapping from the Inside Out:

http://www.scrapbookingfromtheinsideout.com/buy/kits/the-confidence-kit/ 

Here’s my ‘forged’ kit:

I decided to go with the colours, dark red, aqua, and kraft, but chose brown instead of black, as I don’t have much black.  I blew the dust of my cricut and cut the ‘TODAY’ negative, and the ‘imagine’ speech bubble.  I threw in the Heidi Swapp memory file, as this includes polaroid shaped frames that are so popular at the moment, and I’d like to have a go at this tutorial.

It was my local crop on Saturday, so I did this page with photos of a great nephew’s 1st birthday.  Look at him eating his chocolate cake!  I did this page as the leftover challenge, the blue piece at the bottom is from my scrap drawers.

This page was for the page of the day ‘10 facts about me’.  I didn’t use the kit for this, these papers come from a stack I bought at Hobbycraft last week.  I cut out 10 little jars – one for each fact.  I decided to buy the ‘Dear Lizzy, Lucky Charm’ stack to add to my older papers and try to bring them up to date!  The 10 facts all relate to what I am spending my time doing at the moment. 

 

I am linking up with the Counterfeit Kit Blog August kits.

We Challenge You!

 

Over on www.ukscrappers.co.uk, they are running a Summer challenge.  The idea is to get more scrappers joining in with the various challenges set weekly and monthly.  So for this challenge we had to do 7 pages plus 1 card.  Here’s mine:

Challenge no 1: Shimelle’s Break It Down class, this one is week 2.

A cute page about my niece’s baby Tillie.  The challenge was to record a conversation, and the sketch was multi layering.  I’ve recorded in the journaling how it looks as though Tillie is talking to her dolly, and how her Mum talks to her all the time!

Challenge 2: Simple Recipes, this one is from April

Flowered paper as background.  This one is an ancient American Crafts paper!  Using old metal – I found this great metal flower, which I sewed to the page.  Journaling tells how I challenged myself to walk across the glass floor at the top of the Spinnaker Tower and looked down!  (I surprised myself that I did this!)

Challenge 3: Weekly Challenge – June week 2

Outdoors as a theme, stripes and plenty of blue!

This page records our last walk down the beach with Merlin.

Challenge 4: Old Stash, New Stash, June

Using old stash and following the sketch.  I turned the sketch on it’s side.  Making no apologies for scrapping the best photo I ever took of Merlin!

Challenge 5: Have I Got Scrap For You June

What to do with old stash – well I’ve got plenty of that!  This page records the gorgeous tulips at Arundel Castle

Challenge 6: House Challenge – May

Using the sketch.  DS Nicholas and niece Michelle in nanny’s garden, about 23 years ago!  Michelle is Tillie’s Mum (in first LO above) – can you see the resemblence?

Challenge 7 Snap 2013 week 27 Flower

The challenge was to scrap the photo taken for the photography challenge.  Of course I had to scrap this photo.  Scraplifted from an old Scrapbook Magazine – last Summer I think.  Original page by Liberty Chance.  I think this is my favourite of all these pages.

And finally a card challenge!

52 Card Challenge – Week 27, Summer

A card for nephew’s baby who turns 1 next week:

I have really enjoyed doing these challenges, and quite proud of myself that I completed them all, and managed to upload them properly to the gallery of UKScrappers!

Happy Mail

I thought I would show you lots of lovely things dropping through my letterbox lately!

Firstly, Sian’s swap.  I had a lovely small package full of ‘Very Small Things’.  I was luck enough to be sent this lovely package from Karen!  Thank you so much.  Can’t wait to use it on a scrapbook page or two!  I am particularly thrilled with the wood veneer cameras and birds!

I am loving Julie’s Notes on Paper blog at the moment (did you see her ‘Push Up Bra Blogging series?) and just couldn’t help myself when she offered 25% off her Etsy shop.  I’ve always admired her ‘Plundered Pages’ so ordered myself the ‘Numbers and Diagrams’ set:

Love how she has added a few Very Small Things as well!

And then…. Julie made this card with these wonderful stamps! Having 2 men who work in computers in my house, I just had to have them!  This little package arrived from 3DJean.

Finally, I decided to update the plates on my plate rack in the hall, so have been scouring eBay for some ‘Midwinter’ plates.  Here’s the 2 I have recently purchased:

We have a bank holiday weekend here in the UK.  The sun is shining today, YAY! and it’s supposed to be a little warmer than of late.  We’re still decorating, lots of small finishing off jobs to do!