Buddleja or Lilac Collage

This piece of Jessica artwork was inspired by a beautiful card I received for my birthday (thank you, Katie!). I'm afraid to say that she liked it so much that she started writing her name on it (sorry, Katie!) before I could get a photo of it for here...

Katie's card is embossed and then she has filled each circle in the design with various jewels and studs. It's stunning and gave me the idea to do a collage with Jess. I can't decide whether we've created a lilac or buddleja flower but either way I love it! I drew the general shape and punched out a whole load of circles then Jess got to work with her glue and stickers. She decided she liked them overlapping so we have a really full head of flowers. It was a great preschool craft. Thank you for the inspiration, Katie.

Spanish Mosaics

I have never seen anything quite like the enormous 3D mosaic map at Huerta Grande where we stayed for our springtime holiday this year. Jessica thought it was amazing and loved running around it. It is a miracle that she stayed on two feet the way she hurtled about from one place to another. She is now under the illusion that Morocco and Spain are within paces of each other but I shall try not to worry too much about that!

On a less spectacular but more realistic scale I also really liked their mosaic feature pieces on the walls of their cafeteria area created from beach-combed items. Jess and I love collecting shells and pieces of sea-weathered glass on our visits to the Essex coast so these served as inspiration for potential future projects...

Merry Mario

I absolutely love our Christmas card from the Haighs this year. A brilliant use of Hama beads!

Batik Card from Sri Lanka

I received this beautiful thank you card from one of my GCSE students from last year today. I’m sat enjoying the chocolates that accompanied the card whilst marvelling at the craftsmanship and patience required to create a piece like this.

The centrepiece is a batik printed fabric mounted in an aperture open both front and back. It’s beautiful. Here’s what is printed on the back of it…

“You hold in your hand an original handcrafted Batik from Sri Lanka, a true work of art. Each Batik is individual and unique to it’s craftsman even though the same motif may be repeated. The cloth is neither printed nor screened but is the result of a lengthy process of wax application and dyeing. The craftsman draws a picture on the cloth and then applies by tool or brush hot wax to all but the area to be coloured. The cloth is then dyed and allowed to dry before the wax is removed by boiling in hot water. This process is then repeated for each additional colour and the number of colours in a Batik represents the minimum number of days taken to craft it. We invite you to enjoy and share the beauty of this traditional Sri Lankan art.”

… and so I am.

Scilly Crafts

We’ve just returned home from our first family holiday on the Isles of Scilly. It was a wonderful week in a beautiful place. There are examples of craftsmanship and entrepreneurship dotted across the islands with galleries and little stalls with honesty boxes cropping up regularly along roads and footpaths. Unfortunately I only decided to do this blog post late on in the holiday so I can’t share everything we came across but here is a selection from St Marys and Tresco…

The wall of the primary school on Tresco is a very effective mosaic including plenty of shells. The second photograph is of a stall set up just outside the entrance displaying crafts by the children for sale.

Back at the quay there was a shell trail set up. It’s a lovely way to raise money for charity and local organisations. There is a lot of work that has gone into this.

On St Marys, my favourite find was the Carn Friars Farm Shop that featured pyrography gifts, homemade jams and chutneys and the best apple juice I have ever tasted. Delicious!

  

This stall was offering rather older craftmanship…

  

Finally, we stopped off at Kaffeehaus, a German cafe, on our last day for a couple of slices of their legendary apple strudel and we came across these beautiful beaded flowers in vases alongside real flowers. I’ll definitely try to make some of these in the future.

  

Quilted Playmat

We had dinner with Alex last night when she gave Jessica a stunning handmade quilted playmat. It really is beautiful. I love the choice of fabrics and the ribbon pulls are a great idea too. This has come at a perfect time as Jess spends most of her awake time gurgling and stretching away flat on her back on the floor at the moment with the occasional period of tummy-time thrown in for good measure. She loves being down there and as you can see, she already adores her new mat – thank you Auntie Al, you’re very clever! xx

    

Mum tackles cable knitting

Mum actually knitted this cardigan quite a while ago. She’s knitted at least one jumper for Archie since but this particular piece was waiting for me to buy buttons and sew them on. You might question my choice and I would have to agree that other options might have been better suited (duffel buttons perhaps) but I saw these sparkly beauties and my inner-magpie just had to have them. It’s a really good stretchy cardigan that Jess will fit in for a very long time (look how much I’ve had to turn the sleeves up!).

Here’s the little lady rocking the cardigan and tights look!

    

Knitted Gifts

Yet more gifts for Jess that I need to report on. I’m very conscious that “Craft by Others” is incredibly prominent in my tag cloud to the right and I promise that I will get crafting again soon but for now I really do have to show off how many talented friends and family members we have. 

We had a lovely visit from the Haigh family a couple of weeks ago. They brought these knitted items with them for my little lady. She has a beautiful elf hat and an impressively mathematical blanket that will teach her all about the powers of two in time! As you can see below, they are beautifully crafted by Lib and we’re really very grateful. 

Princess Holly

The pattern for this character from Ben & Holly’s Little Kingdom came from a copy of Woman’s Weekly earlier this year and was spotted by my Mum. Now, I have to admit to being a big fan of this programme so I sneaked the pattern away from Wales, laminated it and kept it just in case I had a baby girl (I probably would have requested it for a son too mind you!). So, when Gran and Grandad came down to visit four weeks ago I shamelessly asked if Barbara would make this fabulous knitted princess for Jessica’s collection of soft toys. She arrived this week when Auntie Ruth came to visit us and what a beauty she is. We (honestly it’s not just for me) absolutely love it and will be keeping our eyes open for patterns for Ben and Gaston too. Thank you, Gran!

Lucky Lady

I have already mentioned that our five week old daughter (where has that time gone?!) is lucky enough to have a very talented Gran and here is another example of her handiwork and incredible attention to detail. This beautiful name bunting will adorn her bedroom for years to come along with the one from the previous post.

Here’s a closer look at the individual flags of the bunting…



Oh, and this is Jessica at five weeks old carefully considering what her first crafting project will be! All in good time, Jess, all in good time!

Name Bunting

Jessica was given this lovely gift from Amanda yesterday. The bunting is beautifully made and I love the choice of spots and stripes for the fabric. The name is created from sparkly wooden letters attached to the bunting. Such a thoughtful present – we love it! Thank you, Amanda!

Craft from Cardiff

Jess is two weeks old today, which means that David has gone back to work and we have a bit more time on our hands to think about crafting and blogging as well as finding a routine that works for us both during the day. There is no chance of managing that at night time yet!

In these first two weeks we have been inundated with cards and presents so we’ll have to get a move on with our thank you cards this week. In the meantime, here are a couple of handmade items that arrived from Cardiff. Anny made a handstitched pair of kimono pyjamas while Helen and Megan made us a new baby card. Lovely job ladies, thank you, we love them!

    

Remember that you can order your own pair of pyjamas along with many other beautifully made pieces from Anny’s website – madebyanny.

A Growing Menagerie

Jessica is blessed with lots of talented friends and relatives who have already been busy making things for her. In particular, over the last few days her collection of handmade soft toys has been growing. Her Auntie Ruth delivered the fabulous crocheted giraffe on Sunday and then Gran gave Jessica the amazing knitted dog along with the customary knitted mouse (David has lots of these himself). We were also very cheeky and had Katryn’s knitted mouse repaired on Sunday, which is why it made it into the moses basket for the photograph below. We’re very grateful for the gifts and I’m sure that Jess is going to absolutely adore them for years to come.

     

New Baby Card

This beautiful card was made for me, David and Baby B (who’s now due in just 8 days) by one of my ex-students, the writer of artlitandcakes. She’s even written a tutorial blog post about how she made it, which you can read if you click on the image above.

Thanks again, Shivani.

Pyrography Artwork

This accomplished piece of pyrography was given to me by a very talented pupil in Year 9. She has begun selling her pieces for charity and each one is a labour of love. I have thoroughly enjoyed our conversations about the craft whilst doing gate duty this term – I don’t actually teach her this year so it was our best chance to chat! She only started pyrography a few months ago and I can only imagine how her skill is going to develop over the next twelve months but I look forward to going back after maternity leave and finding out!

Bunny for the nursery

I somehow neglected to share this magnificent creation in yesterday’s blog post. I had everything else together in the cot but this toy has already found its permanent home in the nursery and it deserves a whole post of its own anyway.

Created by the incredibly talented Lib Haigh, both David and I commented on it when we were up there a few weeks ago so she happily (I hope) let us adopt it for the nursery. We love it and I’m sure that Baby B will too. Thank you Lib!