Monthly Archives: June 2014

Bury Show Results

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Well I can’t quite believe it, here are my entries in the show tent before judging.

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There were more entries than last year. I didn’t place with my crochet comforter. I’m a bit disappointed with that. First prize was a knitted pink blanket, Second was a little knitted jacket, and third was the Humpty. Maybe I should have made a full blanket….

But aside from that I did much better with my card. It was given first place. I can’t quite believe it, as it was so very different from all the other entries.

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Woo hoo. Time to start thinking about an entry for next year.

Happy crafting
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Bury Show Entries…..

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Well, I’ve been busy making for the 71st Bury Show tomorrow. I’m going to enter two categories this year, the handmade greeting card, and the knitted or crochet item for a baby or toddler.

I enjoyed making the handbag card so much the other day that I thought I’d make another for my entry.

Bury Show Card Entry

I thought I’d try something a bit different with the knitted or crochet item. I didn’t have time to make a full blanket, so I made four different granny squares in yellow acrylic baby yarn with blue and pink shapes in the centres. I joined them together and then crocheted a border using alternate rows of yellow, blue and pink, followed by a frilly edge. It was the perfect size to make into a blankie / comforter, so I added a crocheted rabbit to the centre.

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I hope to do better than the two third places from last year.

Happy crafting
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Handbag Cards

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I haven’t made any handbag cards for a while. I was asked to make a card for a 40th birthday, for a lady that likes pink! That was my only clue, so I thought I’d make a handbag, but do things a little differently than I have in the past. I decided to hunt out some nice bright papers and have two different patterns together.

On a good old root through all my paper stash I discovered a set of birthday papers from Papermania. It’s a lovely bright bold set of 12 x 12 papers in a variety of designs and text.

New 40th Birthday handbag

It was great fun looking through the set of papers and choosing which ones to use together for the main ‘bag’ and the flap. I love the birthday paper, and had just enough to make the bag and the lining.

Inside Handbag card

I wanted to do something different rather than just adding gems to this one, and I found my little flower punch.  using a trick I saw on Create and Craft, I shaped each flower to give it some shape.  I then added a flat flower to the base to look like older open petals or leaves.  I used topsy-turvy cardstock for the flowers and the insert message space.  It makes lovely flowers that hold their shape quite well.  I thought adding them to the inside as well would break up the stark lines.  To finish the flowers I added some multi-colour gems.  I then used an x-cut die set to make the large flower ‘button’ from all the papers I’d used in the card.  To finish I made a small spring from topsy-turvy cardstock and  added a final little flower and some adhesive numbers.

I might be making some more of these from the other papers in the set.  It’s so lovely to use. As always, your comments are gratefully received. I’d love to know what you think of this.

Happy crafting
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More crochet…..

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I’ve really got hooked (no pun intended, honest) on crochet.  It’s so much easier to transport about than knitting.  In particular I  love making granny squares.  It’s mad really as I make them and then don’t know what I’m going to make with them.  So I’ve found making the baby blankets quite a useful way of combining my love of granny squares and also then having something to make with them.

Over recent weeks I’ve been making two blankets, one for an order and another just for fun.

Close up of flower square

I’ve also trialled a frilly edge to the combined squares.

Blanket edge

I’m experimenting with treble crochet, to make the frill. I quite like the effect using 6 treble crochet in each space. I’ve also used a seven stitch ‘frill’ with 1 double crochet, 1 half-treble, 3 treble, 1 half-treble and 1 double crochet. I can’t make up my mind which I like best.

My next blanket is sat in a pile of blue and white squares at the moment, so I need to get sewing them together and then working on a edge. I might try the other frill edge this time.

Happy crafting
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Bury Show 2014

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The 71st Bury Show is to be held on Sunday 29th June. So with less than two weeks to go, I thought I’d better start thinking about what I’m going to enter into the craft classes. I am hoping to do better than last years, two third places.

This year there are a couple of changes in the classes. I was thinking about making a granny square drawstring bag for the knitting and crochet section, however, the remit is now to make something for a baby or toddler. As I’m making a number of crochet blankets at the moment, I thought I might enter one of those, so it’s time to put all my squares together and finish off my blue and white blanket. I managed to make a small white flower in the car and I plan to put that in the centre of a square for the middle of the blanket. Hopefully I will have enough time to make a bag too and I could enter that into the ‘all other crafts’ section.

I will also aim to enter a handmade card as well. Learning from last years entries, parchment craft goes down well, so I shall be thinking about how I can add a different skill to my entry this year.

Happy Summer Crafting
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Father’s Day

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A Happy Father’s Day for all the Dads out there.

I visited my Dad with his handmade card and a bottle of wine today. Something to drown his sorrows over the England World Cup result last night.

Golfing Card

We then went on a family day trip to the seaside, some good Daddy – daughter time for my little family.

Happy Father’s Day
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Card Candi

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I’ve had a bag of Craftwork Cards, Card-candi for ages now and hardly used it at all. I think the only thing I’ve used it for is to add occasional details on the corners or edges of cards. It’s great for that, but I though I should maybe try something new with it.

Having seen a number of the shows on Create and Craft TV, I was inspired to try making some simple flowers from the card candi. As my daughter has a couple of school friend birthday parties coming up, it seemed like the ideal opportunity to use some pink and make some little flowers.

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This card candi is a really different product and comes in all sorts of colours and designs. I think I will be investing in more in the future. It’s great to use with the kids too as you can make all types of designs with it. My daughter likes making patterns and caterpillars with it. My next project is to do some experimenting and investigating you tube for more ideas.

What do you make with yours?

Happy crafting
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A Fabulous Prize

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The other day I was browsing facebook when I happened across a message suggesting checking the ‘other’ box in the messages section.  It was from Craftseller magazine, as they had contacted the winners of some prizes and hadn’t heard from them.  So I thought, that’s worth checking as I hadn’t checked in a while…. and low and behold, I was one of the winners they were hoping to hear from!

Well the prize has now arived, and it is fabulous.

Satchel

Isn’t it lovely? Such a great size satchel.  It will come in very useful for transporting my crafting projects when I go on my travels! 

The moral of this story, is always check your e-mails (spam) and messages on social media.

Happy crafting
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Shabby Chic?

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The shabby chic style seems set to continue as a trend in home decor and cardmaking. It hasn’t been a trend that I have taken too. Don’t get me wrong, I do like examples of it, however, it hasn’t been something I have been able to make successfully.

But since my lovely relaxed holiday I have been open to trying some new things and thought I’d have a go at making the shabby chic look fit in with my clean and simple style. I like to use fonts in my work, though I often don’t get the opportunity. This week I was asked to make a couple of wedding cards using the word ‘LOVE’ as the focus.

I found a lovely free font which I was able to resize to make it the main topper. I had seen some other cards with ripped pieces of papers used to mat and layer, so I thought I’d give it a try. This is what I came up with….

Wedding love card 2

Wedding Love card

It was great fun to go through all my papers and putting them together. A great way of using up some of the bits in my bit box. I love the kraft card, and I am going to experiment further with my paper crimper, to give some additional texture to the cards. I think the shabby look of the papers works well in contrast with the shaped card.

I’d love to hear what you do with shabby chic or what you think of my cards.

Happy crafting
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New Favourite Magazine

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I think I’ve rambled before about my love of crafting magazines. I don’t think I’m alone in this and in that I have generally chosen the magazine based on the whether I want the free gift on the cover or not! Sometime last year I rediscovered my passion for knitting and wanted to find some new patterns, and it was this that lead me to the newsagents and a really good browse of the shelves. Here I found Let’s Get Crafting: Knitting and Crochet. What a great find. Appealing totally to my need to make something immediately, it comes with a pack of yarn, knitting needles and a crochet hook. And the magazine itself is packed with patterns, both knitting and crochet, to make with the free gift. There are also a few patterns to make with your own yarn too. There a loads of quick and simple ideas and some more involved makes, like items of clothing. What I also love is the guide at the back with diagrams and instructions on how to do some of the stitches used in the makes.

I think it is well worth the £8.99 price tag. I will have to look into a subscription!

I bought the latest issue to take on my holiday, but I was not allowed to take the knitting needles or crochet hook on the plane unfortunately. So I spent my journey reading through all the article, lovely patterns and deciding what to have a go at. I was also thrilled to see that I had been published on the letters page.

Hop and Chirp

My little ‘Hop and Chirp’ that I made for my daughter and nephew for Easter were made using patterns in the magazine, and it was a lovely surprise to see them in the magazine.

As a thank you for sending in my photo, they have sent me a gift of stitch makers and pattern bookmarks! A very nice touch.

It is definitely worth having a look at this magazine, whether you are new to knitting and crochet or an old hand. And if you do make something from their patterns, then send them a photo on their facebook page, you never know, you could be in the next issue too!

Happy crafting
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