The best bit about crafty blogging...

...is most definitely the people that you meet.

Red Brick Gallery

Where else can you find so many likeminded souls who'll spend an entire day chatting about craft and fabric and blogging and op shopping?

Thankyou so much to Brianna (my personal navigator), Vic & Punky, Bianca, Abbe & Harvey, Jodie, and Sel for coming along for a slightly forgetful and disorganised day out in Ballarat.

Ballarat Patchwork

PS - I'll be back tomorrow with some photos from the fabulous Group Exhibition at Red Brick Gallery. Can't wait to show you my favourite piece!

Featured Hottie Number 7 - A Ship in a (Hottie) Bottle

Featured Hottie No.7 belongs to my little sister..... except that she hasn't even seen it yet, because I actually made it for her!

It came from a little idea and a sketch that I drew......

I digitally coloured it, and printed it onto inkjet printable fabric. I chose purple for the ship as it's Sel's favourite colour.

I used a heavy interfacing and fusible wadding and then stitched along the outlines to add some depth.

I don't think it's very functional, but it's certainly a bit of fun!

Check out all the Hotties on the Hottie Page, or in the Flickr Group

A Ship in a (Hottie) Bottle

My little sister has joined in with the Hottie Challenge..... but she's working flat out at the moment with her day job as a Chef, and also at Big House Collective, so she asked me if I would assist (ahem... make her Hottie).

So this is the idea that I'm working on for her - A Ship in a (Hottie) Bottle.

It's time to get out the inkjet printable fabric and let the fun begin!

Marketeering in Buninyong

My stall

'Twas a lovely little day out in the country today at the Buninyong Makers Market.
The crowds were rushing in early, so I only managed to snap a couple of quick photos immediately after we'd set up for the day.

The town hall is absolutely beautiful, and had a lovely vibe all day. There was a steady stream of customers, and it was great to have a chat and a laugh with everyone.

Tinniegirls Stall

There were FREE chocolate cupcakes on the way in (which were truly delicious), and then as soon as we arrived we happened to meet a lovely girl from the coffee shop across the road who was taking coffee orders, and delivering them back to the market (can you believe it)!

Then to make it even more unbelievable, she just so happened to be Trudi and Nikki's sister. Talk about a small world!

It was lovely to catch up with Jodie (without that nasty cough thank goodness), and Annie, and I finally got to meet Kathryn too, which was lovely.

A huge thankyou to my crafty partner-in-crime (who I think I should be maybe re-naming my arty partner-in-crime), and my sister (who sarcastically calls herself the 'donkey'), for lugging all my bits and bobs, and trolleys, and boxes and whatsits, because I certainly wouldn't be out and about marketeering without all of that help.

The Mill Markets - Ballarat

Did you know that The Mill Markets have opened another outlet in Ballarat?

My little sister has opened a stall to sell her vintage and retro collectibles....

but now you can also find some lovely handmade CurlyPops goodies there too!

You can find the Mill Market at the Ballarat Woolshed - Western Highway, Ballarat (it's on the left hand side as you drive into Ballarat coming from Melbourne).

They're open from 10 AM to 6 PM - 7 days a week, and they even have a cafe which opens every day at 11AM.

Pop in and find yourself a little bit of treasure!

Alter-Ego Road Trip

The Supasel softie headed off on a road trip on the weekend...... all the way to the country.
Safety is the number one priority when travelling.

She was handed over from the giver to the receiver.

It looks like mum thought the joke was pretty darn funny!

Alter-Ego

Meet SupaSel
She's just a big softie at heart (lame craft joke sorry).

Sweet and funny and whispering sweet nothings???

or Weird and freaky and telling tall tales???


If you'd like to make your own, it was really very simple.


I took a close-up facial photo, and then printed it to the necessary size using ink-jet printable fabric. 
After printing, I colour highlighted the features such as the eyes and the lips using fabric marker textas that I picked up at Officeworks, to make the photo look more doll-like. You could also do this in photoshop if you're a whizz (I'm not).

When cutting out the face, make sure to leave yourself a seam allowance all the way around. I made my own template for the body and arms and legs (which is why they're really out of proportion).


I used ric-rac sewn into the head seam for hair, and hand stitched some handbag rings onto the side of her head for earrings. Of course, omit the buttons and earrings if you need it to be baby/toddler safe.

My Creative Space... or welcome to WIP world

Everything is just slightly chaotic in my creative space this week....

I seem to have lots of projects on the go, all in a similar state of unfinishedness.

The dress, arms, and legs above are for a softie that I'm making for mum for mothers day, on behalf of my little sister. When we visited last week, Sel was teasing that there weren't enough happy snaps of herself dotted around mums new cottage. We were trying to hatch a plan of making some sort of cardboard cutout when Liesl came up with lightbulb moment suggestion of making a softie.

I bought myself some ink-jet printable fabric, and I'm going to print a photo of Sels face to make the head of the softie. I'm hoping that mum thinks it's as hilarious as we do!

I'm also still working on a little DS pouch that I started last weekend. A friends little boy is having a birthday party on Saturday and his main present from his parents is going to be a DS Lite.

I've added some heavy wadding to the inside in case of accidents...

.....and a tab with a D-ring, to attach a little lanyard that I whipped up in the same cute cogs fabric.

I just need to make the inside of the pouch (if I can remember the original dimensions as I didn't write it down as I was working...aaaagghhhhh).

Here's hoping that I get them finished today!


As always, make sure to visit the mighty linky list over at Kirsty's place

Flabbergastingly Amazing

Do you know one of the things that I love about blogging? It's the fact that you can make up ridiculous words like flabbergastingly and use them in a sentence..... and it doesn't matter if it doesn't make any sense, or isn't spelled correctly, or isn't grammatically correct, or is completely unnecessary fluff.

The other thing that I love is the flabbergastingly amazing response to my birthday favour yesterday.

I was nearly bursting at the seams.... waiting, waiting, waiting, until Sel checked her email (at around 4.30PM) and worked out what was going on!

Thanks so much to all of you lovely bloggy peeps who played along with my little surprise. It was such a lovely thing to do and I really appreciate it.

Pssssst...... Can you do me a favour?

It's Sel's (my little sister) birthday today, and I want to surprise her.

She's a Chef, so what do you think I made her?

A Chefs Hat of course!

I had to give her the pressie early, while I was visiting on the weekend. Note the fire blanket located very close to where she was cooking Saturday night... hee hee

Anyhow - I would love it anyone could help me to surprise her by heading over to her blog and leaving her a Happy Birthday message. I would be ever so grateful!


A big thanks to Nikki for providing me with the hilarious Chefs print fabric from her stash.

My Creative Space

There's absolutely nothing to see in My Creative Space today.

I finished off all of my last minute work in progress projects yesterday, and started packing my suitcase for the market on Saturday.

I whipped up a birthday pressie for my little sister lastnight, but I can't show you that either because it's a surprise!

So, instead I'm showing you my new hairclips.... the above photo was the best of a very bad lot. I managed to get the bathroom ceiling in focus at least.

I'm off to an appointment in the city with my book and my Ipod. I'll be relaxing in a recliner with my feet up for a few hours. Hope you all have a wonderful crafty day, and make sure to visit Kirsty to play along.

The Op Hopping Adventures of SupaSel and CurlyPops - Day 2

After our adventures on Day 1, SupaSel and I decided to take a road trip for Day 2.


We began the day in Clunes (a little late after I slept in...whoops), and decided to head towards the Grampians.

We drove via Burumbeet, and the first town that we reached with an op shop was Beaufort. It's a lovely little shop in the main street, right next to a little cafe that had great organic coffee and blueberry muffins.

On the other side of the oppy was the hardware store, but it still had the original vintage shop windows.... it's hard to see from the photo, but the stained glass says DRAPERY.


From Beaufort, we headed for Ararat. We knew that there was at least one op shop in Ararat.... but we didn't know that there were actually five!

We spotted the first one right as we drove into town. It's actually an old petrol station. All of the clothes and bric-a-brac were in the old shop / cafe section, and the furniture was in the old workshop.

We drove further into town and found the oppies in the main street. Unfortunately for us, Vinnies were still on holidays.

A little further along the main street was the Save The Children oppy. There were some lovely old nana's working here that were too busy chatting to serve. I think it took us about half an hour of chatting before we could pay and leave! Those ladies could have chatted all day long.

Just around the corner, we also found the Salvos (and promptly forgot to take a photo).

It was time to pop back in the car and head for home, so we decided to take a different route, and headed through Elmhurst to Avoca. We arrived right on 4PM but luckily the oppy was still open. There were no prices on anything so we grabbed our finds and took them to the counter, where the nice lady charged us a grand total of $3.

Then it was off home to Clunes via a little scenic drive around Talbot.

I was mainly looking for sewing supplies and linens, and I managed to find oodles upon oodles of ric rac and lace trim...

some tea towels....

some doilies and placemats...

and the 'piece de resistance' - a uncut original in packet pattern for MAN UNDIES!

Super Coco Pops

My little sister has decided to finally re-join blogland and to get into the spirit of blogtoberfest, she's created her very own SuperPops...... jeez Sel, I know you really miss me so now you can just hang me on your wall!

She's earned brownie points for using my favourite breakfast cereal, but I think I'm going to have to disqualify family members.

Apparently I'm a Love Goddess.....who knew?

A belated birthday pressie

It was my younger sisters birthday on Sunday, and she'd requested a Ray's Tent City voucher as a pressie.

I'd been meaning to make her a purse since I did Nikki's purse frame class last year, but I just never got around to it..... until last night.

I was just hammering the frame to finish it off at around 8 PM when there was a knock at the door.... and she walked in. Talk about perfect timing!

To market, to market, to buy a.....

Wowee, my first ever craft market was sooooo much fun!

It was much better than I could have ever expected. The weather was beautiful, the location was fantastic, the stallholders were happy and friendly, there was a steady stream of customers all day long, and the five hours were over in a flash.

The kids craft table and the face painting was a huge hit with the little ones.

It was just like a huge crafty blogmeet - it was lovely to see Cindy, Bec, Liesl, Bev, Nikki, Leah, Ann-Marie, Liz, and Lara. I hope I didn't miss anyone (I have a terrible memory these days)!
We ate lovely cupcakes and drank coffee and chatted about crafty things all day long....

I made some lovely purchases and swaps with Buttons by Lou Lou, Finki and Troischats. I haven't taken any photos yet, but I'll post them later in the week.

An extra special thanks goes to Sel, Cathy and Ms L for helping me out with the packing, unpacking, and set up etc, and to Rach for helping me unload everything today..... and to everyone who came along to visit or bought a little crafty something from me!

I'm definitely going to book in for the next one.