Christening Papercut

Oh dear!  I've done it again - almost a whole month with no blog post.  I just can't get it together at the moment!

Today, I wanted to do a little show-and-tell about a special christening present I made.

A few weekends ago, we flew back to England for a couple of days.  We had a VERY important (and VERY lovely) job to do..... Our best friends had asked us to be Godparents to their beautiful baby daughter. 

So we had to come up with an idea for a christening gift idea and - of course - it was going to have to be something 'Crafted by Carly'.

I'd already made little Amelia a quilt (which you can see here), a couple of dresses (here and here), a hat (here), and a soft toy (which I forgot to post about).  So what to make for this occasion???

In the end, I decided to make a papercut.  And here it is.....

It took a long time to draw and cut, but I was really pleased with how it turned out.  

Well, that's it for today.  

I've finished off (and photographed) a few baby bits and bobs for our own little one lately.  So, hopefully, it won't be too long before I post again.  Well, that's my intention anyway!  We'll see.....

Carly

x

Christmas Cards

A couple of weeks ago, I introduced you to my new best friends - my cute little letter stamps! You lot obviously know me well, as most of you guessed that I was making Christmas cards with them.

I've been having so much fun!  Dragging out my collection of pretty papers, finding my tiniest buttons, and seeking christmassy inspiration from staring lovingly at our beautiful Christmas tree and listening to my favourite carols.....  Can anyone think of a better way to spend a few wintery evenings?!?

Here are a few of my favourites cards, all packeted up and ready for their first showing (at the school Christmas Fair):

And here's a little peek at my stall at the fair:

What a brilliant success the Christmas Fair was!  The lovely (and VERY hard-working) ladies who organised the event did a truly amazing job.  It was such a fun and festive day - and I sold a fair few bits and pieces too (including an order for some cards)!

As I look out of the window right now, the snow's looking pretty deep, and it's not showing any signs of stopping yet.  So I'm feeling very christmassy at the moment!

I hope you're all getting on well with your Christmas preparations and are starting to get into the spirit of the season!

See you soon.....

Carly

x 

    

Yippeee! Crafty Birthday Pressies!

It was my birthday last week.  I had a lovely day, and lots of fantastic gifts.  

Simon bought us tickets to the the Cirque du Soleil 'Corteo' show, which was AMAZING.  If you get the chance, you should definitely go to see it.  I can't recommend it highly enough!  The acrobats were brilliant, and the costumes.....  Oh my goodness!!!  It got me wondering how complicated it would be to make a career change - from teacher to trapeze artist.  How long would the training take???  

Unfortunately, I couldn't take any photos of the show.  So, instead I thought I'd show you some pics of my the crafty pressies I received.....

Firstly, look at this cute box for my knitting needles:

I LOVE it so!!!  I love the little old nanny's outfit. I think I need a knitting outfit just like it!

And look what was inside it:

Aren't they the cutest needles EVER?  Who cares what they knit like - they have red and green toadstool tops!!!  Crafty friends always know JUST what will make us jump up and down with excitement when we tear off the gift-wrap, don't they?!?

Simon got me this:

It was on my 'wish list'.  It's a kit for making mini mobiles, which I thought would look good in my little crafting room.  If you haven't heard of the make before, check out djeco stuff.  It's for kids, but I think lots of you may well fall in love with it too!

This was also on my crafty wish-list:

I remember this from when I was little and, when I accidentally stumbled upon it while I was searching on Amazon, I thought it would be a fun book to have in my crafting library. 

So, look out for future knitting projects, teeny-tiny mobiles and pictures made from cut-up circles of paper in future posts.....

Happy weekend to you all, my lovely bloggy friends!

Carly

x

Valentine’s Day Presents Part 1

I hope you all had a lovely Valentine’s day, and were able to spend it with the one you love the best!  I just wanted to show you the picture I made for my Valentine (from some pretty papers I found in my pretty-papers-drawer and an old picture frame I sound in the cellar).

Please excuse the reflections in the photo.  Me and my camera were not best buddies this morning!

What do you think?  HE says he likes it!  :-)

We’re going to put it up in our ‘playroom’ – where I do my crafting and he does his ‘thing’ (I’m trying to be mysterious here, to get you all intrigued.....).  Have a look at his website to see what he does in HIS spare time.....

Part 2 coming soon.....

Carly

x  

Halloween Handicrafts

As promised in my last post, this time I’m going to share some of our Halloween crafting projects with you. 

First of all, here’s our pumpkin.  I'm rather fond of him!

He was carved (as is tradition in our house) by the Mister.  Can you guess which character was the inspiration behind the pumpkin’s face?  After finishing the carving, my multi-talented other-half used the goo from the inside to make a yummy pumpkin soup!

Here are some photos of our house, all dressed up and ready for our annual Halloween party.  It’s lucky I remembered to take these photos BEFORE the party, as it didn’t look quite the same afterwards!

We hung bats from ALL the lights – they were super-easy to make (just cardboard cut-outs folded down the middle and hung up with thread).  We put spider webs and big plastic spiders EVERYWHERE, including on our bonsai tree and all our pictures – another easy-peasy but effective decoration!  I made the cauldron from papier-mâché a few years ago (when I was dressing up as a witch for a Halloween dress-up day at school).  Now we use it to store sweeties for trick-or-treaters.

Notice that there’s nothing particularly scary about our decorations???  I prefer my Halloween decorations to be more ‘cute’ than ‘bloodcurdling’!  "Sorry!" to those of you who were expecting a bit of gore!  

And..... here are our costumes.....

I made my dress and my halo.  And my mom helped me to re-cover a wing frame with some pretty, starry tulle.  That task was WAY trickier and more fiddly than I’d anticipated!  It was a good job my mom was here to defuse my frustrations, otherwise the wings may well have ended up bin-bound!!!  Thank you, mom!!!!!  The devil’s horns and fork were homemade too (good old papier-mâché).  And we crafted a devil’s tail from some red fabric, stuffing and some garden wire.  Apologies for the less-than-great quality of the costume photos!

So, they were our Halloween handicrafts.  Now they’re all packed away in the Halloween box, ready for another year and another party.

I hope you all had a fun Halloween, dear readers!

 

Until next time.....

Carly

x

A New Crafty Hobby

I’ve just discovered a BRILLIANT new crafty magazine, called ‘Making’!  My parents brought me issue 8 (‘The Paper Issue’) when they visited us in Düsseldorf a few weeks ago.  And I LOVE it!!!  Thanks Mom and Dad!!!  It’s packed full of exciting projects, interesting articles, and..... well, just GORGEOUS things in general!  It has a really clean, modern look, and covers loads of different crafts.  The magazine is divided into 6 sections:  making for living; making for the outdoors; making for the kitchen; making for the bathroom; making for the wardrobe; and making techniques.  Each section is colour-coded, and I think this enhances the clarity of the magazine’s layout, makes it more user-friendly, and – most importantly - looks pretty!

The MOST exciting thing about it, though, is that it introduced me to a new craft – paper cutting.  It’s great!  I already had a cutting mat and HEAPS of paper at home.  So, all I needed to buy was a cheap scalpel.  Then I could get started straight away!  I used the templates from the magazine to make these super-cute pictures:

The instructions were simple to follow, and it was surprisingly easy to get pleasing results from my first attempt. 

So, a new hobby that’s inexpensive, fairly simple for a beginner to get in to, and heaps of fun!  You should try it!!! 

I feel a trip to IKEA coming on – I need some frames so I can put the pictures up on the wall in my little crafty corner!  I love their colourfulness, sweetness and fairytale-ness!!!  They will DEFINATELY make me smile as I work! 

Next, I’d like to have a go at the design on the front cover of the magazine:

But..... something tells me that it’s going to be a tad more of a challenge than the others!  I’ll let you know how I get on.....

So, if you enjoy crafts – of any kind – I’d really recommend you check out ‘Making’.  Issue 9 is on sale now.  I think you should be able to get it from most big newsagents and supermarkets in the UK.  You can also order copies online (www.makingmagazine.com).

I’m totally hooked, and have just ordered 5 back issues!!!