Getting ready for Mother's Day

It's Mother's Day in the UK this Sunday - actually to be more precise, it is Mothering Sunday. At Wythall & Hollywood Country Market, producers like myself are getting ready for tomorrow's market where we will be showcasing all sorts of wonderful gifts for mums, nans and grannies. There will be activities for our younger visitors too. Unfortunately I am not going to be able to attend in person. There's an open day at work which means that my team and I are going to be on campus looking after our visitors. I am however, sending my craft goodies in to market ... goodies like these lovely things celebrating mums, nans and grans.

I also made a few boxes like these ...

Mothering Sunday is traditionally a Christian celebration here in the UK - falling on the fourth Sunday of Lent, exactly three Sundays before Easter. During the early 1900’s, young children who were ‘in service’ as household servants, were given a day off to accompany their mothers and family to attend the ‘mother church’ - a large church or cathedral - rather than the local chapel that they would usually attend for Sunday service near to their place of work. The children would pick wild flowers on their way to this special service for decoration within the church or to give as gifts to their mothers.

Although fundamentally Mothering Sunday was much more of a religious event than anything else in those days, the essence of giving was still apparent. Today, we give beautiful gifts of flower bouquets, cards and chocolates. I personally love giving something handmade. Mothering Sunday or Mother's Day has become so very commercialised and so much more lavish than those simple wild flowers. However at the very heart of it, I believe that the gesture of giving is the same. We celebrate our mothers, thanking them for their endless support and guidance, just as those boys and girls did back then.

I will be thinking of my lovely mum on the other side of the world, sending loving thoughts and missing her lots.

Whether you are celebrate Mothering Sunday this weekend, or Mother's Day in May, wherever you are, have a wonderful weekend, friends.

Rejuvenating my red Swedish clogs with a bit of burning

Once I had discovered how much I loved flexing my crafty muscle all over my new tan Lotta From Stockholm Swedish clogs (see previous post), I decided that my trusty old pair of red Swedish clogs (also from Lotta) needed a bit of rejuvenation. I sanded down the heels a little to clean them off and get the surface ready to burn on.

I found a little bird design in my collection of carving patterns. I believe this is a Lora Irish pattern from one of her collections. I had to modify the pattern to fit the wooden heel of my clog.

I cut a piece of tracing paper the exact size of the heel surface I wanted to burn on. This way, I could adjust the positioning and make sure the final pattern was exactly how I wanted it.

Once I got the pattern paper exactly right, I taped the corners down with a bit of tape and started to transfer the pattern onto the wood.

I wanted the birds lined up exactly in the middle.

Then the burning commenced. Burning on the heel of a shoe is a little tricky - especially when working around the curved part of the heel.

Those little birds turned out super cute, don't you think?

I've fallen in love with these lovely red clogs all over again. Can't wait for summer so I can wear them. There's something really special about red shoes.

Hope your week has been going well. The weekend is almost upon us, friends. What are you up to this weekend? I will be at our little country market on Saturday morning. I will take some pictures and share them with you in a future post. Until next time, happy crafting!

The summer I took to burning my shoes .... literally!

I love Swedish clogs. Absolutely adore them! I watched Carrie Bradshaw strut her stuff in some amazing Swedish Hasbeen high heeled clogs and desperately wanted some. Unfortunately, my wallet didn't quite stretch to proper Hasbeen prices. Fortunately though, I encountered a lovely company based down in Twickenham who offered some lovely Swedish clogs at more modest prices. I bought my first pair - in a delightful red - from Lotta of Stockholm, some three years ago. Even got them off the seconds sales which was even better. They are super comfy and a favourite summer wardrobe staple.

A few months ago, during the summer of 2015, I bought myself a second pair of clogs from Lotta. A delightful tan pair with lovely 7 cm heels carved out of a pale Swedish alder wood and vegetable tanned leather uppers. See? Aren't they lovely?

The more I looked at them, the more I felt the urge to do something to them. I mean, look at all that gorgeous pale wood. These shoes were just screaming out for some Craftyady attention. So I dragged my pyrography machine out and decided on some burning.

I played about with a floral design and drew it onto the lightly sanded heel. Once I was happy with it, the burning commenced.

I was incredibly pleased with the finished results. After I was done, I rubbed a bit of olive oil into the wood to protect it (it's what Lotta recommended) and they were ready for an outing.

I wore them to the summer graduation ceremonies where I stood for a few hours watching my students graduate following their years of study at the university. They were so comfy and they looked really nice too. Always a bonus! Here's another photo of the clogs on my feet - not the best photo ... It's really hard to take a decent shoe selfie!

Once I had done my first pair of Craftyady customised Swedish clogs, I was hooked! Remember how I said in the beginning that the very first pair I ever bought from Lotta were red ones? I decided that they needed the Craftyady treatment too! I'll go find the photos from that project and tell you all about it in my next post.

Until then, have a great day, friends.

To market, to market

Some time around October last year, my friend invited me along to a country market that she is a member of. "You should join," she said. "Your crafts are just what we need." So armed with a box of my 'produce', I went along and met the members of the Wythall & Hollywood Country Market.

"What's a country market?" I hear you ask.

Well, the country market I am a member of is part of a larger group called Country Markets Limited. It's a cooperative limited company which coordinates and organises regular sales of home-made  goods - food related or craft - by individual producers. There are lots of country markets all over the UK and each is run co-operatively with no stall or table dedicated to any particular individual. Each member of the market is expected to take their turn staffing the stalls and helping to run the market. The sales income from the produce goes to the country market which then returns 90% of the sales income back to the producers.

The little country market I have joined is called the Wythall & Hollywood Country Market. Wythall and Hollywood are two suburb areas on the outskirts of Birmingham. Our market is made up of a number of individual producers, offering fresh vegetables and eggs, wonderful baked goods like cakes, scones and cookies, homemade jams and chutneys, delicious home cooked stir fries and pizzas, handmade greeting cards, knitted items and wooden items decorated with pyrography.

Being a part of the market has been great fun. I attend every Saturday morning with my produce and we have a lovely time hanging out together. The market used to be in a local library but since November last year, has been moved to a new location. We are trying to build up greater awareness of our presence in the area to encourage more visitors and customers. It's pretty quiet at the moment but I think word is spreading and as the weather improves, we will likely get a higher footfall at market. 

The variety of produce I offer at market ranges from my hand bound journals to leather and felt brooches, wood burnt boxes, personalised bookmarks and gift tags, fabric zipped pouches and foldaway shopping bags. Here's an example of some of my produce on display.

I have really enjoyed getting back into my pyrography and being a part of this market, although trying to juggle work, family life and the crafting for market can be tricky sometimes. But hey, you know me - I like challenges like that. :-)

Until next time, happy crafting, friends. xxx

(Oh by the way, if you're on Instagram, you can find me there as @craftyady.)

I'm baaackkk!!!

Hello Friends. I’ve been away from blogosphere for some time. Sorry!

We had a lovely time in Malaysia with the family and then we got home and things went crazy with work for many weeks. The kids went back to school and my work was still crazy busy. It’s now starting to calm down and I can breathe again. Although I’ve not been blogging, I have not been idle. I have soooo much to share with you! I think I will start with this –



Missy Moo’s hair is starting to get long. Keeping it off her face at mealtimes and just generally making sure it’s tidy for school are important issues for us (well, for me and Missy Moo. The men in our family do not crowd their brain space with such clutter). So since Missy Moo likes pretty things, I found some nice inspiration off the web and now we go to school like this –



(please excuse slight mess above bow .... this was done quickly sans a comb!) She is pleased.



Since then, I have made 2 more bow barrette clips for her for school (in school sanctioned colours) and 2 pink ones for home. Every time we go to the craft store, she asks for more ribbon to make more bow barrettes! I’ve taken photos so there’ll be a tutorial up shortly on how to make one of these bow barrettes.

Wishing you all a very Happy Friday. It’s good to be back.

Charm-ing stitch markers

Last weekend I popped into our local Hobbycraft warehouse and picked up a pack of large lobster claw clasps and a pack of little flat charms from the beading section. Yesterday I spent a few minutes linking the charms to the lobster claw clasps with a small jump ring. Now I have these cute little stitch markers to use when I am crocheting.



I only made 4 up. I actually have enough claws and charms to make 10 but I reckon I only need 4. These are bigger claw clasps than the earlier one I made. I prefer the bigger clasps.



Well it's Monday again. A new week with new possibilities.

Have a wonderful week ahead, friends.

Easy stitch marker

I wanted to make a stitch marker for my crochet projects. A quick rummage in my chain-maille box yielded a reasonable sized lobster claw clasp. Add an aluminium ring and a small bead and I got this ...



It’s easy to use and took me less than a minute to put together. And it does exactly what it was meant to do.



Next time I pop into the craft shop, I’ll look for slightly bigger lobster claw clasps and maybe some little beads or charms.

We had snow last night. This morning the temperatures have risen and it's all now very slushy, brown and generally icky. Hope you're having a good weekend, friends.

The last Crimbo cards of the year

I finally managed to finish my 2 dozen or so handmade Christmas cards for family and close friends. Whew!! Most have now been posted off to their destinations.

These were the last four cards I made.



Sorry I haven't been around much. My lovely mum visited us for 5 weeks from Malaysia and we've had a wonderful time together - although it's meant that the amount of crafting I was hoping to do didn't really get done!! Mum flew home to the warmth over the weekend and I think she was glad to escape the cold.

I managed to make a few gifts for Christmas. My little team of five colleagues at work all got handmade gifts from me this year which I was very pleased about. I'll share some of them with you after Christmas as I don't want their surprises spoilt. I also made mum some quick and simple house slippers. I'll share that with you very shortly.

Have a great week ahead, friends.

More cards to share with you

Some time ago I went to a craft fair and picked up a pack of paper, card and bits for card-making. I used the pack to make up some birthday cards. There's a red, pink, black & grey theme to these cards.



It's amazing how a few glittery stick-on gems, the odd punched flower or butterfly can make a card look so pretty. Short lengths of ribbon are nice additions too.



I also found a cheap pack of doillies in a local kitchenware shop and cut bits off to paste onto my cards. Pretty, aren't they?



A lot of it is just layering paper and card on top of each other. I use double-sided sticky tape a lot and double-sided sticky foam tape under the little messages. I also discovered these wonderful little things (described as brads without legs) called Card Candi. They're the little round red and white dome-shaped things on my cards.



I've made more cards than I need this year. So I took a bunch of cards into work and put them into a box on my desk. My colleagues can come help themselves to handmade cards if they want to and leave a contribution in the box in return. My colleagues are quite happy with this arrangement and some have already helped themselves to some cards from the box. All good!

It's a cold blustery day here in Birmingham and it looks like it's going to start raining any minute. Hope you're having a fine day where you are, friends.

A handful of Christmas cards

Here are the Christmas cards I made a couple of days ago using some freebie stamps that came with a craft magazine and a couple of other stamps I bought at a craft fair last month. The stamps are inked in black and I then coloured them in with watercolour pens and marker pens. The red patterned paper was another freebie in the magazine. Don't you just love freebies?!



I have many more to make and must do them soon if I want to be able to send family and friends abroad their CraftyAdy Christmas cards this year. I have no idea when the last posting dates for Royal Mail are. Note to self - need to find out asap!

Cute button paperclip bookmarks

I recently bought some metal cover button kits and some giant paperclips. The cover buttons are metal buttons which can be covered with fabric. Dritz do a kit which comes with the plastic tool you need to make the buttons up. I used scraps from my stash and a small round circle of wadding to cover my buttons.



I then hot-glued them onto some giant paperclips which I found on etsy.



These make great little gifts. I have a few around the house - either as bookmarks or paperclips to hold my sheaf of bills together. They're a quick make and make good use of fabric scraps which might not be useful for anything else.

A few cards

In my last My Creative Space post I was showing you a birthday card I was working on for a young boy. It turned out quite nicely I thought.



I used the same range of papers and cutouts to create another one for my card stash.



Here are a couple of other birthday cards I made.



I love these next two cards. The bunting in the card on the left is stuck down with small bits of double-sided foam pads so they stand out from the card. I nicked a few small star-shaped stickers from Missy Moo's sticker stash to use on the bunting.



I've not made very many cards which would be suitable for male friends. I realised recently that my cards are all very 'girlie'. This card is a lot less 'girlie' than many of my cards.



I have a few more cards planned and laid out on my desk - all ready for an evening of sticking and colouring in. There are a few Christmas ones in there too. I hope to be able to show them to you soon.

Hope you're having a great weekend.

Fang-tasmagoria

Here are my second and third attempts at 3D pumpkin carving.

Meet Franklin Fangs ...



And his brother, Fred Fangs.



I am really enjoying carving up pumpkins. Before the kids were born, I spent a year and a half studying the art of woodcarving under the tutelage of a master woodcarver. I mostly carved small decoy ducks, leaves in relief, one or two Welsh lovespoons and an owl. Then Dinoboy was born and I packed my chisels away (small children, no dedicated workspace and sharp chisels do not mix well together). Pumpkin carving is a little like woodcarving - yes it is a lot softer material than wood but it also has some similarities in that it is subtractive in nature (once you've cut it off, there's no going back!) and like wood, pumpkin has grain too which makes 3D carving a little challenging.

The kids very much enjoyed watching the pumpkins come to life and are quite accepting of the temporary nature of these carvings - they start decaying shortly after they're done being carved. Franklin's got mold growing on him as I type this (he is now 10 days old) and will shortly be sent to rot away in peace in the compost bin.



Fred's probably gone the same way too - we sent him into holiday club with the kids last week.

A few more cards

I made 4 more cards over the past 2 nights. These two lovelies were made using Penny Black stamps with card, paper and cut-outs from my card-making stash. I borrowed the kids' felt tip pens to colour the pictures in.



I really like this cute stamp called Birthday Gretel by CC Designs. It makes a really nice card for little girls. Missy Moo likes Gretel a lot.



Here's another Birthday Gretel in progress.



It's a nice, bright and sunny Sunday here in Birmingham. I've just cut out my third Pendrell top which I hope to get started on today. What are your plans for today?

Whatever your plans, I hope you're having a fab weekend, friends.

Resolution still going strong.

Back in March, I shared about my New Year's resolution to make more with the stuff I have accummulated over the past couple of years. The idea was to use up my accumulated stash of card blanks, coloured cards and paper, scraps of wrapping paper, my small collection of stamps and punches, bits and bobs which come free with crafting magazines and make my own greeting cards for friends and family.

Halfway through the year, I am happy to report that I am still making my own cards. I spent a couple of happy evenings during the past week making up these new cards as my stash of handmade cards had dwindled significantly.



This little Kokeshi chipboard cutout and the matching sheet of paper came from a magazine I bought in January. Seriously cute.



This stash of cards should cover my needs right up to October or even November I reckon. Then I think I might make a start on some Christmas cards.

Hope you're having a great week so far, friends.

New Year's resolutions ... so far so good!

I try not to make too many New Year's resolutions ... I am not very good at seeing them through. This year I made 3 resolutions - just 3. Resolution 1 was to learn a new craft. I have done this with much gusto as you've probably realised from my recent posts. I am of course referring to my chain maille pursuits.

Resolution 2 was to use up my accumulated stash of card blanks, coloured cards and paper, scraps of wrapping paper, my small collection of stamps and punches, bits and bobs which come free with crafting magazines and make my own greeting cards for friends and family. I shared some of the simple cards I made earlier in the year on one of the My Creative Space posts. I made about 6 or 7 for myself and almost a dozen for my mum. At the weekend, I realised that I was down to my last birthday card and broke out the stash to make a few more.



A little coloured card goes a long way when it comes to punching out a few shapes and sticking them together. The odd metal brad adds a bit of interest.



I found a couple of packs of die cut flower shapes and thought it might be real cute to add some 3D-ness to one or two cards.



There are those metal brads again. I love these metal brads. I'm always worrying about the shapes I stick on the cards falling off and the brads provide that bit of security. These shapes are going nowhere!



There's a bit of a floral theme going on with this bunch of cards. Mr CraftAdy peered over my shoulder when I was sticking some bits down and said "They're very girlie." I guess they are but I like them.



I think I need to start looking for a few 'un-girlie' bits and bobs to make cards for the guys. Otherwise, I'll only have girlie cards like this one.



For now the stash is getting used and I don't need to purchase any store-bought cards for my girl friends.

Resolution number 3 was to do more sewing .... hmmmm, I have several months left in 2011 to try to achieve this resolution. For now, two out of three ain't bad, huh?

Have a great day, friends.