Crocheted Blythe hat and a tiny refurbished drawer set

Hi folks! My weekend isn't quite here yet as I'm working both today and tomorrow but as the Harry Potter Craft-a-long finishes today I thought I would bend my posting schedule and share the photos of my final two projects ^_^

For the Reducio challenge I had to make something small, so I made this little hat for my Blythe doll Tarquin.

I made it without a pattern, and I think it turned out pretty well!

I kinda want to make a full sized version for myself now ~_^

I used some vintage yarn from my Nana Tess so I'm not sure what it actually is, but I'd put my money on acrylic. I really love the colour though!

The other project is for Detention with Snape; the challenge being to finish off a WIP. I started altering this wooden drawer set ages ago but had only got as far as the first coat of wood stain. But now it's finished – yay!

I used black acrylic paint to age the wood; I did some coats just as a light wash, others as undiluted paint, and several more in between of varying strengths.

The labels are vintage book pages from one of the book safes I made; I just cut them to size and slipped them into the label holders.

I think I'm going to use this for craft room storage – it's the perfect size for haberdashery.

And that's it! The Craft-a-long is finished! I'm going to do the next semester (which starts in a couple of days) as well; I had a lot of fun and I'm really impressed with how many crafts I ended up creating ^_^

Do you think you'll join me for the autumn semester? (Even though it's spring over here?)

- Lisa x

Crocheted Slytherin uniform coffee cup cosy

Hi all! Just a quick one from me today, I finished another project for the Craft-a-long and I just thought I would show you ^_^

This is for the Sorting Hat Challenge, to indicate which House I'll be in for the next Craft-a-long. As you can see, I'm going to stick with Slytherin!

This is a cuff for my take-away coffee cup (although I only use it for tea) to keep my hands from burning. I crocheted in the round to make it, and then added the collar, tie, and "S" mark. In case you can't tell (and I wouldn't blame you), it's meant to be a Hogwarts uniform as worn by Slytherin House. I'm not totally happy with it though as I think it looks a bit odd; but I'm not sure how to fix it up. What do you think?

I've got two more challenges to complete for the Craft-a-long, and it finishes on Friday! Do you think I will make it?

- Lisa x

Art canvas and a silk scarf

Hey folks! Today I have a day off work (yay!) because I have to work on Sunday (not so yay) and I have a couple of completed projects - hopefully I'll have enough time after cleaning the entire house (>_<) to finish off some more things to show you!

This is my first attempt at a kinda scrap-booky, art canvas-y kinda thing. Mmmm, descriptive!

I made it for the Harry Potter Craft-a-long, it's for Defence Against the Dark Arts and so it's meant to represent one's greatest fear. It's quite pretty for something based on that though!

 

My greatest fear is wasting my life, or putting things off too long, and then realising one day that I'm an old lady and I haven't accomplished all that I set out to do. Ha ha, I guess it makes sense that I'm in Slytherin now, doesn't it? ~_^

To make this I covered a five inch square canvas with scrapbooking paper (it's quite subtle, but it's lined up like old school paper), covered it with mod-podge and then just started layering elements on it. The clock is a wooden cut-out that I got at Spotlight, and the gears are cardboard cut-outs from Riot. I dug through my old scrapbooking supplies (I was really in to it in high school) for the metal brads that I used to spell out "time". The scrabble letters that spell out "flies" are paper from the same pack as the base paper; the wings are also from that same paper pack and they are covered in iridescent medium that I got from Riot. I thought it would dry clearer than it did, but I still think it looks good. The stamps I brought from Pigeonhole and the twine is from my kitchen drawer ~_^ I really don't remember where I got all the washi tape and the tag with the lock was made using more scrapbooking paper. I inked around the edges of some of the elements and also the canvas using regular black ink. All in all, I quite like how it turned out and I'm thinking of doing a series of these canvases. I definitely want to do a sewing/ crafting themed one (either "make do and mend" or "a stitch in time") and I'd like to do a writing one as well, but I can't really think of a saying to go with it, except for "write on". If you can think of a good phrase, I'd love to hear it! ^_^

The other thing that I've been working on is more fabric designs via Spoonflower. The picture above shows some gorgeous cotton silk that I ordered to make a birthday present for my grandma with. I used Trove to find the digatised copy of the West Australian from the day my Nana Alma was born, back in 1927, and then I used Illustrator to make a design using selected clippings. The quality of the raw images wasn't great (this is probably largely because I just downloaded them as jpegs, rather than ordering pdf copies) so I mainly used advertisements rather than articles. Plus, most of the articles were pretty depressing! I especially included an advertisement from Boans, which was a department store that no longer exists, as Nana worked for them when she lived in the city as a young lady. I also found the actual birth annoucement for Nana (which was pretty awesome!) so I included that in the design as well.

I'm going to spend some time hemming this by hand as I didn't make the border really big and I'm a bit terrified of putting this through the overlocker >_< The completed item will be a silk scarf ^_^

I've made some other designs as well, which you can check out at my Spoonflower store ^_^

I hope you're having a great day!

- Lisa x

My measurements skeleton printable

Hello! Today I made a handy little cheat sheet that you can use for making clothes for yourself and others ^_^

It's a pretty basic idea, but keeping measurements in one place is really useful, and having it on a sheet with a cute skeleton makes it even better ~_^ You can download the file from my Google Drive by clicking on the image below.

I hope you like it! ^_^

- Lisa x 

Ampersand string art, tiny macrame owl, Firebolt poster, and Golden Snitch ornaments

Hi everyone! I'm still not 100% over being sick, but I'm finally back ^_^ And I have some things to show you!

I finally tried doing string art! I really enjoyed it; it was a nice relaxing project perfect for doing in front of the TV. I used an old chopping board that I had been using for wood-burning practise - I just turned it over and spray painted it using metallic charcoal. Then I used upholstery tacks to create the outline of the ampersand.

 

I originally tried filling it using embroidery thread, but I didn't have enough so I swapped over to using 8 ply red yarn. This project was 100% stash as well - yay for not buying new things! ^_^

 

I also gave Macrame a go - it was a lot harder than I expected! I used 2 ply cotton thread in purple and an old silver bracelet to make this owl. 

I'm not totally happy with how it turned out, but it's still pretty cute and I'm glad I tried out this technique ^_^

 

I used Adobe Illustrator to tidy up a sketch I did and make this poster for the Firebolt broomstick. It was a lot of fun doing this, I really enjoyed vectorising my hand lettering.

 

I printed it out and gave it a bit of a crumple to make it look a bit more "found" rather than "just printed". 

 

And, finally, here are the photos I promised of my snitch ornaments!

 

I spray painted ping-pong balls gold for the bodies, spray painted white feathers silver for the wings, and then joined them together with hot glue.

 

I can't wait to hang them up on my Christmas tree! ^_^

All of these projects were for the Harry Potter craft-a-long Quidditch challenge. Slytherin House was loosing miserably, but these projects constitute an 80 point increase, which means we're now level with Gryffindor. Go Snakes!

Anyway, how have you been? Did you miss me? ~_^

- Lisa x