Category Archives: Home Decor

Halloween makes

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Tomorrow is Halloween, if you hadn’t noticed! I’ve been busy making lots of pumpkins again, both for us here at home and to sell.

I’ve used the same basic pattern for all of them, just sizing up /down my needles depending on the yarn I was using. This year, I’ve experimented a bit more, using a variety of yarn thicknesses. I’ve also doubled up some of the yarns and tried a few variegated yarns too. The chenille yarns are particularly lovely to work with and the finished results are very soft and cuddly to the touch.

I have also made some more tassel ghosts. I made a few last year and they were very popular for hanging decorations and with the kids. I’ve used white DK yarns and made the eyes by die-cutting tiny circles from black felt.

My local sandwich shop – Food Foundry – asked if I would like to make a basket of pumpkins and some ghosts for them to sell in the shop. So they currently have a selection adorning their till area. Fingers crossed they sell them all too!

Well I must get everything ready for the Trick or Treater’s tomorrow and I still have my pumpkin to carve!

Hope you all have a fun and safe Halloween.

Happy crafting

K x

Lockdown Life

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These last few weeks I have been struggling with the whole lockdown.  Tempers have been running short across the household and don’t get me started on homeschooling an eleven-year-old!

I have been trying to separate home and crafting where possible, but this is equally challenging due to having completely lost my dedicated crafting space.  My husband is working from home and needed a quiet office space, so my craft room is now the office.

We have done a complete redecorate of the space and it has made a real difference.  The whole room feels so much larger and calmer (I have to admit it was rather chaotic).

It was quite a fun project to do, involving removing old nursery furniture (it’s amazing how quickly it was removed from the drive), as well as stripping textured wallpaper and all the associated sanding, filling and painting.  Whilst new plug sockets and painting were being completed by my husband, I’ve had the joy of sorting through all of my crafting materials and associated accumulations!

It’s all been plonked in the front room for what feels like weeks, while I work my way through it all.  I didn’t quite realise how much stuff I have.  It’s been quite interesting to see what’s been hidden in  old cupboards and I might find the opportunity to use some things again in the coming weeks / months.  I’m sure some things will come back into fashion – paper crimper anyone?

After the main papering and painting had been finished, we had a new carpet fitted – what a luxury – it’s over twelve years since we’ve had new flooring anywhere and this feels lovely underfoot.  I was then set free with a geometric paint pattern above the picture rail. I did some practice with tester pots first, just to check it would work!

It took longer than I thought it would and it was very nerve-wracking hoping the paint hadn’t run under any of the masking tape.  Plus the colour choice was different!  It all looked pretty rubbish with the orange masking tape.

The unveiling when quite well, I think.  There are a few little smudges but overall is looks OK to me (It certainly helps that it’s high up).

Since all the painting has been done, we had to wait for Ikea to open for the storage to finish everything off.  We took inspiration for the room from an Ikea Kallax image on their site, so plumped for the Kallax storage solution.  My daughter had fun deciding on the box / door / shelf / drawer arrangement.  It looks great and there is a lot more space to move around in there now.  I still haven’t managed to store everything in there and I’m not sure there is actually quite enough storage for all my bits and pieces – I certainly have more books and magazines than I thought!

Unfortunately, as lovely as the finished room is, there is little chance of me being able to make use of it as my husband is working from home for the foreseeable future.  So I will have to continue to content myself with card-making at the kitchen table and knitting / crochet in front of the television in the evenings (for now).

Happy crafting

x

Finished Cushion

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This is a project I’ve been sitting on (literally) for ages. I was using up some pure wool I have had for ages and covering a cushion that my dearly loved cats pulled to pieces.

So here’s the cushion I’ve been sitting on for months

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It didn’t need much to finish it off, sewing something into the flower centres and then sewing up the edge. I plumped for adding coloured buttons to the flowers and raided my button stash for different styles and colours to co-ordinate with the living room.

So here it is finally finished. I think it looks lovely on the settee.

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The only problem now is that I need to make some more to cover the other cushions!!!!

Happy crafting
x

Half Term Crafting Fun

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I can’t believe that half term is almost over already. It’s gone so fast I’ve hardly had chance to sit down.

We haven’t done a huge amount of crafting yet as we’ve been on all of our visits with friends and family, and we are well and truly exhausted with all the walking around. But we had a great trip to Manchester yesterday visiting one of our favourite places, John Rylands Library. There’s usually something on there over the school holidays, and this time we found a decoupage class. It was in the traditional form of decoupage, using copies of some of the incredible collection from the library. We were provided with everything we could possibly need to decoupage a small trinket box however we liked.

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What a fabulous way to spend a few hours. We had great fun, considering my daughter is only 6 she concentrated for over 2 hours to make her box. It was ell past our normal lunch time when she finished. This is definitely a craft we will do more of at home. So I need to keep a look out for items to cover and stock up on pva glue!

Here’s my finished box. Very different from my daughter’s.

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Happy crafting
x

Therapeutic crochet

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As I’ve been trying to get back into some crafting on a more regular basis, I thought I’d have a root round my craft stash and make something for the house. When my cats were ill, they completely wrecked a cotton crochet cushion cover I’d had for a number of years, so over the last few weeks I decided it was time to throw the old one away and make a new one. I found a lovely stash of pure wool yarn and went for it with a crochet hook. I started with a basic treble crochet granny square, as it kept my fingers busy and I could do it without having to think to much! It certainly stopped me biting my nails. It’s a bit of a trial and error job this as it’s my first crochet cushion cover.

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I made two matching granny squares and sewed up three sides. Having put the cushion pad inside, it looked a bit plain, so I thought I’d add some flowers to one side.

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I’ve put them in two clusters of three flowers. It certainly changes the look of our settee.  Now I’m just deciding whether I should add some buttons to the centres of the flowers or not.

What do you think? Buttons or plain?

Happy crafting
x