lockdown | handmadebykatherine

The weather this last couple of weeks has been nothing short of glorious up here in our little corner of East Lancashire. I can’t quite believe it’s only April. This has meant I’ve been finishing off my lions in the evening rather than during the afternoon, as it’s been too nice to not get out and do some gardening.

I am now pleased to say that I have finished the first toys from my work-in-progress bag. Let me introduce to you Lenny the Lion. He’s the second yellow lion I have made to the Steffi Hochfellner pattern and he’s a real cutey.

Unlike his best mate Rockstar!

This one has always wanted to be a rockstar and is loving the fact he can’t have a haircut during lockdown. I think he really rocks the long mane look though and he’s not at all mean or moody.

With the weather being so lovely and not having done much exercise, we headed out to the garden for a mini adventure. The lions quite enjoyed roving through the long grass (chives).

And then the scaled the magnolia tree for a better look at their kingdom. They were joined by little blue lion, who isn’t quite finished yet.

After the magnolia tree, Lenny scaled the cherry, carefully avoiding knocking the blossom off. He was desperate to get to the top and enjoy the sunny views with his friend.

Little blue was left at the bottom for a while as he struggles to climb without any back legs! But the others helped him up for a tree top chat.

Lenny ended his adventure photoshoot with a relax by the waterhole (my wildlife pond). I don’t think he spotted the frog or he might have gotten a bit wet!

It’s been lovely seeing the bright colours out in the garden and the lions just added a bit of fun to the day. I shall get on with giving poor little blue some much needed back legs and an extra bit of mane as he’s still a little bald at the back (don’t tell him though).

Stay safe and Happy crafting

This week, I should have been in Edinburgh for our family holiday. However, like everything, it was cancelled, so it was staycation time. I wish I could say I was a brilliant parent and made the week into something very holiday-like at home, but I didn’t! Instead I spent the week with the most card orders I’ve had in quite a while, making with what I have in the stash upstairs.

One of my friends mentioned that she needed some special cards for her colleagues at work. The company she works for sends out cards for special birthdays, new babies and long service anniversaries. She was struggling to get any in time, so as she lives near to me, she asked if I would be interested in making some for them. Of course, I jumped at the chance and so I spent this week with most of my crafting stash on the kitchen table, making my way through the list of cards required.

These are some of the one’s I came up with. Using up some Ribbonbox numbers I’ve had for ages and some large typography stamps from Papermania. They are all A5 sized and I have tried to vary the orientation.

They asked me for some celebratory cards for long service anniversaries. So while I was having a shower, one evening, I decided I should make some champagne bottle cards. My initial idea was for the cards themselves to be bottle shaped, but I liked this idea with the stars and streamers. I used some green foil card for the bottles and I coloured the stars and streamers using promarkers.

I think they look a little like champagne bottles and kraft card makes quite a good cork.

After finishing that first set of four cards, I was asked for another four to cover events in May. So there’s a new baby card and I was able to use up some ribbon I bought years ago which I love. And I still love making these cards with the ‘invisible’ acetate strip holding a dangly pram on.

Then it was a set of three special birthday cards, 40th, 50th and 60th. I was asked for fairly generic cards, which I actually enjoyed making for a change. It’s lovely to sort through papers I’ve had in boxes for a long time and then find other’s to go with them. I hope the recipients like them as much as I enjoyed making them.

These have certainly kept me busy for the week and stopped me thinking about all the adventures we should have been having in Edinburgh. It’s true about crafting being therapeutic and a stress reliever – or I think so anyway.

I finished the week with a rush order for a couple of cards for soon-to-be four-year-old twins in Australia. My brief was animals, the sea or books! Both had to be similar but slightly different. I started with a couple of cards I already had made, which have a balloon and a basket full of animals. I thought having different coloured wording and an extra bow and tag would be different enough, alas different animals was preferred. So I headed back to a set of decoupage farm animals I bought at the first craft show I attended many years ago. I think the images in these are so bright and cheerful, therefore I decided to use the frog and rooster.

The photos of these were rushed too and I didn’t have time to get them into my resident photographer (my husband) for his professional attention. So apologies for the poor quality of these pictures. However, I think it shows how vibrant the images are. I added a blue number four on each one before hand delivering on my daily walk.

My final make of the week was a birthday card for a friend’s daughter. My daughter and I had already made our cards for her, but her Mum wanted something special as it’s to be a birthday in unreal circumstances.

I ordered a crafting set from Create and Craft a couple of weeks ago which included lots of images for mums and daughters (it’s part of a set from Kanban), and I picked one sheet in particular as I know she’s a real dancer. We settled on this image of the baby ballet shoes and the grown up shoes.