Cuckcoo Clock Poster Download

The Ironcraft challenge this week was to make something that reflects your family history. My maternal grandmother's side of the family is from Switzerland, and I wanted to make a tribute to an awesome old cuckoo clock she gave me. 

I made an A4 poster and also some notecards - and I'm sharing the poster with you!  Click on the picture above to download it from my Google Drive ^___^

- Lisa x

Zombie Groom and Zombie Bride

I finished my entry for the "Wedding" themed Iron Craft challenge!

This cute, un-dead little couple were inspired by the zombie groom from Shaun of the Dead and are made of felt. They are finger puppets! 

Needless to say, I have been acting out zombie weddings a few times today ... and maybe a couple of zombie vs. Star Wars battles ~_^

- Lisa x

Star Wars Finger Puppets

Today the Crafternoon project was Star Wars Finger Puppets. It was really fun!

We made our puppets with felt, which I love working with - no hemming ^_^ 

I made some line drawings first and, now, I have vectorised them in Illustrator and uploaded them for you to use - yay! ^_^

 

 
So, if you would like to make some finger puppets, you can use my drawings as a kind of pattern. They were pretty easy and quick to make - I cut out two torso and two head shapes, sewed the little decorative bits to the right places, and then blanket stitched everything together. 

I haven't made all the characters yet, so if you make them, I would love to see! 

- Lisa x

Making a 70s macrame owl look pretty again

 I really like owls and vintage stuff and cool things for my house. So when my mum happened across two smelly, old, woolen owls in a bin outside an op-shop, she grabbed them for me. She took them off the sticks they were threaded onto, popped them into a plastic bag, and then flew interstate with them. (She was coming back from interstate, she didn't make a special owl-bringing trip, btw)

Here they are! Fabulous, aren't they? When I opened that plastic bag, they STUNK! But, I felt that they had potential. First, I washed them. An important first step! I actually soaked them in a potent mixture of nappy-san and washing powder for a day. That made them a bit more palatable. But, they were still ugly colours. I don't know if the photo really captures that. The brown/orange one looks pretty similar, but the white one was actually more of a was white, now is stained yellow one. So, it was time for some dying! I brought some washing machine dye from Spotlight. Brown/orange was to be black, and "white" was to be red.

I did the orange/brown one first. I filled up the machine, put in the dye and vinegar, and dropped the owl in. The cycle was set for half and hour. When it finished, I opened the top of the washing machine, and there was brown/orange owl. Not dyed and also *dry*, looking up at me like, "You think you can defeat brown/orange owl!? NEVER! NEVER I SAY!". I seriously don't know what that owl is made of. Some creepy '70s fabric is my official guess.

So, then I tried "white" owl. I used red dye. Same thing, machine, dye, owl. When I came back, "white" owl was gone and in its place was ...

PINK OWL?! 

I can't win at dying. Still, it is fluffy and clean, and quite a nice shade of pink. So, I threaded it onto two blue vintage knitting needles, trimmed its tail and fluffy eye parts, and hung it up. Against our original '70s wooden door (I don't actually know that, but our house does *look* very seventies ... brown bricks, feature wall of brick, dark brown wooden staircase ... so I just assuming that the door is. Maybe someone in the '90s was like, "you know what? The '70s was awesome. I'm going to make an ugly house that looks like the worst decorating ideas of the '70s!" You never know.) it looks quite good.

So, I kinda failed. But, now we have a pink owl. And can that ever *really* be a fail? I don't think so ~_^

- Lisa

Mini leather book necklace

On Saturday I had the pleasure of the company of Ms. Pip - we had a Crafternoon and we made some *cute* mini book necklaces.

I wore mine today and was very pleased by the amount of positive comments - seems the people approve of little red books.  Ooo, don't tell the government! ~_^

See you later!

Lisa x