Happy Halloween!

Click on image to enlarge

Iris Folding

Today was my niece's birthday. I had only made one card before, for my sister's birthday last year, and I am not really a scrapbooking fan. That was before having tried Iris Folding that is :-)

 

Is it really considered as scrapbooking though? I don't know lol

Click on image to enlarge

In any case, I find this cupcake cute and I am happy with my work. I am glad I followed the advice from the "teacher" at the craft show two weeks ago: she said never to make a project straight away with iris folding and to train first. I made three different attempts before this final version.

Click on image to enlarge

Iris folding is fun...for now hehe!

 

Weekend fun

One week ago, I told you I had met Alison at the ID-Creatives craft show while taking an Iris Folding workshop. We exchanged details and after a couple of emails she told me she could teach me how to make that 3D frame of hers I had seen.

 

So there I was on Saturday morning at Alison's house for a new workshop. We were joined by Melanie (from Essex) who has been making cards with Alison for a while now.

 

I have to say that I've had such a great time: time just flew! We talked, laughed, had a cup of tea and all of this in English which was even better...and yes, did some craft as well.

 

Click on image to enlarge

Anywho! Here is the finished work. I am in love with this 3D frame (even though one of the shapes opened up at the top of the frame because I haven't put enough glue at the back of the disc on top of it, but I will survive).

Click on image to enlarge

I am very glad I did this over the weekend: both Alison and Melanie were lovely and I had such a great time. I will definitely sign up for another one of her workshop!!

Pink October...

Manicure nº2:



Click on image to enlarge

Click on image to enlarge

ID-Creatives 2013

Update: Alison made me realise today that I did say she was Irish when she is actually Scottish. I do apologise Alison, don't know where that came from! :-)


 

Click on image to enlarge

Click on image to enlarge

This weekend was held the ID-Creatives craft show 2013. I had heard of it last year and went with my older sister. It was fun, we saw a few interesting things. Saw some fimo girls (some of which I follow their blogs, which was pretty cool!)

 

So when I saw that it was on again this year, I was all excited to go. It opened on Thursday and on Friday, they have a late night (free entry and parking). On my way back from work, I stopped there to try to sign up for workshops (and have a look at what I could buy the next day lol). I didn't have a look at the whole place not to ruin it for me the following day though. As my sewing teacher had a stand there, I had a good chat with her instead :-)

 

So! Not possible to sign in advance for classes, I woke dup early on Saturday morning to get there at opening time and sing up! I arrived right on time and managed to catch the last spot on the mosaic class and there you go! One table mat! 



 

Click on image to enlarge

Click on image to enlarge

OK, it's not finished because the glue took too long to dry: the woman running the workshop asked us to finish it at home. That's where I am glad I did buy this packet of grout a year ago when I saw it half price at the bottom of a box in a shop in Lyon thinking "mmm...this might get useful someday..."

Click on image to enlarge

Go check out Laurence Alvado's website: she is the one who taught the mosaic workshop and she does some pretty cool things.

Laurence

Then I went straight to the sewing stand and voila! One bookmark!

Click on image to enlarge

Although I find it cute and I am happy of my work, I have to admit that except for the fun, there was not much point to that workshop. It was a stand demonstrating (and trying to sell) sewing machines. Those machines are insane! The one I worked on costs 799€. It does everything: sewing and embroidery. Now, when the woman showed me how to use it, the only "manual" thing she did was to place the thread. Then, she was typing numbers and the stitch would show on the digital screen. then press the start button, and the needle starts the job. Where is the fun in embroidery there? I don't get it. it was marked as an embroidery workshop so was excited about trying this as I had never done it (besides the bead embroidery which I don't master well). So it was disappointing to "watch" a sewing machine doing the job.

 

Then my sisters and my niece joined me and we I took my niece to the cakepop workshop. Same there: basically the cakes were already made and all we had to do was to put a bit of cream on a cupcake and add sugar flakes on it. My niece did it in 5 minutes. Same for the cakepop: dip the thing in chocolate and put sugar flakes on it. Done!

Click on image to enlarge

Could have done that at home lol Now I know that the purpose of those shows is to make some publicity for your business so it worked: the queue of hungry girls was definitely long and I did ask for the girl's card to check out her website because some of her cakes are actually really cute and it might be useful one day (if my twin stops making hers one day that it lol)

 

Then went back to the sewing workshop as my niece wanted to try to make a bookmark too. In the end, all my sisters gave it a go so...I had to do another one :-) (you can see it above with the first one: it is the dark one)

 

My last workshop of the day: Iris Folding. This thing is so cool! This had to be the surprise of the day. I signed up for it because I wanted to try another one of their workshop but it was full. I had never heard of Iris Folding before and got quite intrigued when she showed it to me earlier that day, so I took the last spot. This was fun: it took a little while for me to get it but once I understood it, it was pretty straight forward. So here is my first attempt at this art:

 

Click on image to enlarge

The girls were fun and did some cool things.

Click on image to enlarge

I also met this very nice Irish Scottish girl called Alison. She is actually the one who made a frame I saw and wanted to make. We had a nice chat. If you get the time, please go visit her blog as she does some cute stuff :-)

Alison :-)

Well, that was a long post, but I saw and did a lot of stuff: I had a really good day between the workshops and the fun with my sisters and niece too. I enjoyed sitting with them and sew. 

 

The low point to that craft show is that there was just one fimo stand compared to last year where there were more. Also, it seems like Scrapbooking is taking over the show now: it was like half of it was dedicated to them! They had already put the poster for next year and it is already announced that there will be ID-Creatives 2014 and Scrapbooking too. There are already not enough craft shows in my opinion in this area (or country) so if now they are only dedicated to one thing...it's not going to be fun. But I will wait and see what happens next October!

 

One thing I will have to consider for next year if I go back: business cards! Every person I exchanged contact details with had one, and although I don't have a business, it was quite awkward to have to find a piece of paper to write down my blog's address each time lol Need to add this to my to-do list...

Hope you've all had a nice and productive weekend ladies!

 

Silver and pearls

First attempt at Tubular Netting. I used a tutorial from the blog Knottyknits.
I chose simple, neutral colours which I think works pretty well

Click on image to enlarge

A little bag

Over the weekend, I tried a sewing class....actually, the trial was the previous weekend...I did join the sewing class and started it over the weekend. I know I'm 33 and a few people think it is an "old women thing" BUT, I do enjoy that sort of things so yeah! I joined a sewing club!

 

My sister lent me her sewing machine for the length of the classes so I don't have to share and can focus on my work which is pretty cool.

 

I am super proud of myself as I have done my first ever sewing project with a sewing machine.

 

BEHOLD! My bag :-) "But there are two of them!", I can hear you think. Nooooo! It is reversible too!!!!

Click on image to enlarge

Click on image to enlarge

 

Pink October 2013

October is here again (time flies, don't you think?!) and with it Pink October or how it is best known "Breast Cancer Awareness Month".

 

Although pink is not really my colour, I will try to stick to it for the month. I am fortunate enough not to have been affected by this directly within my family but do know people affected by other forms of cancer and know how hard of a struggle it is.

Click on image to enlarge

Mini mini mini...

I love Minis!
I tried my best with a "logo" but not good at tiny details :-)

Click on image to enlarge

RAW (Right Angle Weave) stitch

I've been quite a bit into RAW stitch lately. It is quite a cool stitch to work and it is fast too.

I enjoyed making this piece:

Click on image to enlarge

Click on image to enlarge



Blossom trees manicure

After a failed attempt at drawing roses on my nails last night, I didn't even bother putting a top coat and decided I would make a new mani tonight. and in the afternoon it hit me: I wanted to try blossom trees.

 

Here is the result: I wasn't quick enough in applying the top coat so the gradient is not as "smooth" as it should be.

Click on image to enlarge

Recycling...

I was tired of having to look through my handbag for my satnav's cable and mount so last night before going to bed, I made this:

Click on image to enlarge

I used one of the cuffs from his old shirt I had already used for my knitting needles bag. The stitches could have been better but I don't have a sewing machine so I used my little fingers. It only took about 30 minutes.

Now I can find things very quickly in my bag so I'm happy!

Sunday interlude

Today's manicure is a Pebble manicure, inspired from Meliney's tutorial.
Doesn't quite look like hers but satisfied with the result. I think my black polish wasn't thin or runny enough. I've had it for a while and hadn't done some proper manicures for some time so it got a bit old and despite having used some nail polish thinner...it is still quite thick.

Click on image to enlarge

 

 Here are the polishes I have used. From left to right: nº275 (Kiko), nº323 (Kiko), nº310 (Barry M), nº369 (Kiko), nº105 (Kiko), nº103 (Kiko) and a white polish from Natural Collection (sorry, can't remember the number and it's gone from the bottle lol)

Click on image to enlarge

And as no mani ever goes smoothly with me....I had to get those bubbles I always get when I use the Gel Look top coat from Kiko....

Hope you all had a great weekend!

A little bit of beading

It was Mother's Day a few weeks ago here and as my plan of a joint present with my niece for her mum fell a bit apart, I thought about a little something I could do for that Sunday.

Went to the shop on Saturday (yes, I like to live dangerously and it was last minute due to the explanation above lol). I bought a tank top and thought about trying bead embroidery on it.

I already had a huge respect for those doing it but now that I have tried...it's even bigger!

I started around 9pm on the Saturday and didn't stop until 6am on that Sunday morning (at that point I was way too exhausted to keep on going). I started again on Sunday around lunch time as I wanted to give it out for dinner. But I got delayed due to other events and couldn't finish it that afternoon. Was a bit gutted after all those hours :-)

In all, with my working hours and long commute time, I only managed to finish it on the Thursday night. When you think that it was only 5 rows of beads that I added on that tank top, it feels like it took forever. So I don't even want to think about the amount of time it takes for collars or whole tops to be done. But I will try this again though as you know me, I am curious :-)

Click on image to enlarge

Sunday interlude

Hadn't done this manicure for a very long time.
Leopard print nails using Kiko's 346 Olive Drab.

Click on image to enlarge

A bit of knitting...

After the Bunting Bag I made for him...and also because once my nephew was big enough to fit in it, my sister realised that the hood is too tight to be worn on him....

Click on image to enlarge

I tried to make something else. Yes! I was determined in knitting a piece of clothing that someone, somewhere could wear. Obviously, small garments are easier to make when you've never knitted them before and my nephew being the only baby in the family at the moment....

So I went online and found this model on Ravelry (I love this website). It took me exactly 6 days to make (including frogging it and starting all over again once as the 6 months size was way too small for  him, and he is a tiny baby)

I followed the instructions for size 12 months in the end and still find it tight. As the warm weather seems to finally be starting, I guess he will not be able to wear it much lol
But I am very proud of my very first cardigan!

Oh yes! I won't show you his face because...let's face it, he is too cute to be shown and people would get jealous when they look at their own kids...you know the deal :-)

Click on image to enlarge



That's all for today