Crocheting flowers….

I haven’t long been crocheting but now I’ve learned I really love it. The fact that it is so portable means I can crochet on the bus or train travelling to work, actually .

I started making these little flowers after watching a tutorial on YouTube. There are so many people out there showing you how to crochet flowers and leaves, try a few before you settle on one way, people crochet in different ways, the UK and USA have different names for stitches too.

I have purchased some plain cushion covers and napkins recently and made a couple of sets of  napkins and some decorated cushion covers using my crocheted pieces.

Here’s one of my cushions:-

I had a few ‘granny’ squares in my craft cupboard and decided that I could use these as little backings for my flowers.

So as you can see in this picture, I sewed a crochet leave on the green square, and then a flower on top and finished it off with a pretty button in the middle.

I did three of these squares  

Once I had the three squares ready, I placed them on an off white cushion cover and sewed them in place.
That’s it, all done. Here it is in situ on my garden chair…

Thanks for reading, back soon
Love Rosie

My Etsy shop is now open:
https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/Rosiesartsandcraft?ref=hdr_shop

 

 

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‘A’ personalised gift…

I recently realised that a friend was going to be turning 21 and I decided to do a little crafty gift. These little chests of drawers are from The Works and are made from MDF. They are well made and sturdy and I love decorating them, I’ve drawn on them, stuck paper on them, fabric and made them in all sorts of colours.

This one I decided to personalise with an ‘A’ on the front and then I started doodling daisy-like flowers and just kept going…
Here’s what I did :-

 

Once it was all covered in pink and turquoise Sharpie I coloured the petals in using white crayon and then I started to add a little extra gold…

 

and that’s it, all done. Just need to get a little something to put in the drawers – jewellery I expect and that’s it, ready to wrap and gift.

Thanks for reading,

Back soon, Rosie

Cutlery box for the Littleton’s…

A few friends have totally embraced the whole dolls house adventure I am currently on  and they come up with ideas for the storylines, others are freaked out by it all….tee hee

One of the former came back from lunchbreak to say she had seen some little doll house bits and bobs in the shop Tiger. I went there as soon as possible and this little cutlery set was purchased, along with a gardening set and some copper saucepans. All for a very good price!

So the cutlery set has been the first to feature in a story for the Littletons (that’s the name of the family who reside in the dolls house).  The story I used to bring in the cutlery set was that Mr Littleton and his young daughter Victoria had visited Hever Castle in Kent (UK) and met Mr Astor who lived there and who renovated the castle greatly.

After they had enjoyed a lovely day, I said that they returned home with a lovely big gift! When they open the box it’s the cutlery! Generous chap Mr Astor …

So here’s what I did with the cutlery purchased from Tiger:-
It came in a plain little wooden tray with 6 compartments, so with a strong craft knife I cut it in half so I just had three trays.
I coloured the inside red to look fancy! and the rest black and gold.

Then I used the plastic cover it came with (I hope it looks like glass at 1/12th scale and in black and white)  again I cut in half and used a little clear tape as a hinge.

I added a blob of gel all around the edge and attached a little brass fastener to make a little opener and voila that’s it. Mrs Littleton loves it very much.

Thanks for looking
Back soon, Rosie

Painting a skirt…

I bought a white skirt from a charity shop recently and decided to decorate it… I found my fabric pens and started doodling and this is what I did…

I drew these circular patterns all the way from hem to waist and then added some embroidery

 

I sewed the buttons into the centre of the little circles, added dots to fill in the panel and that was it….

Thanks for looking,

Rosie

Lunch & Learn…

Today, as part of lunch and learn at work, I took a short class about using a drawing app on my phone it’s great fun and I really enjoyed it.  The app is called ‘Sketches‘ and is very easy to use (obviously much easier when you have someone showing you!)

In our little class our teacher showed us all the pens and brushes you can use, I used my phone and another colleague used an iPad.
As our teacher said maybe instead of tense games so many people play on trains and buses you could try to expand your creativity and have a little draw too…

Here’s a link to my first effort (it’s of the little garden area outside my back door where I had stopped for a cup of tea) when I got home.

Thanks to @ikekepania I'm having a little break and drawing what I can see! #drawing #lunchandlearn

A post shared by Rosie (@rosiesartsandcrafts) on May 18, 2018 at 9:29am PDT

and here’s my teacher’s work…    https://www.instagram.com/p/Bijtd8wgh50/?taken-by=ikekepania

Thanks for reading, I’ve a couple of days off next week so hopefully will be busy crafting!
Back soon,
Love Rosie

 

 

 

A miniature photograph frame….

A recent story line in my Instagram post about the folk who live in the dolls house involved a school photograph.

I used a school photograph taken of the school I am actually using (it is now closed) and printed this photograph quite large so that my little pupil could add herself in to the picture.

Once done, I shrunk the picture down and printed it out so it could appear in the dolls house.

I needed a frame and decided I could make a simple one with card, a little acetate, some gel pen and a silver marker.

Here’s what I did…

  it’s a bit blurry – it’s pretty small!
Here’s the version used in the storyline,                   if you look carefully the girls all have fresh flowers pinned on them, hence the rather clumsy attempt here…

So, once I had my mini picture I cut out some card and acetate. Coloured the card with silver marker

I ensured that I coloured the edges silver – a real silver frame wouldn’t have white edges ….

 

  

and then cut a frame from some more card and coloured that silver too. I stuck a little card stand on the back so they can place it on a shelf or the sideboard.
I stuck everything together and then added a little embellishment with a silver gel pen. Looks a bit blobby at this size but hopefully you get the idea.

And that’s it, all done.

Thanks for reading,
back soon, love Rosie

 

Tray with matching wine glasses…

Those trays I did for my Etsy shop at Christmas were a resounding failure, so I’ve been redoing them. This one started as a doodle whilst watching TV and, well….here’s what I did:-

I started my doodle and realised that it was big enough to cover the base of a tray so I cut it to size and continued to draw this pattern….

Whether you can draw or not, you should try this type of doodling, it’s a bit like the colouring- in craze, your mind can wander but I find you do rather drift off into a pleasant frame of mind rather than stressing about anything. It could be just me but give it a go… it’s all just circles and little loops nothing too tricky.

I then decided to add some pink circles…

and this is the final piece… I stuck it to the base of the tray and varnished it.

So now that’s done I decided to replicate the design on a couple of glasses. (I’ve got a new camera since I took the picture above, I can assure you that the colours are definitely the pinks and not the purple colour it’s taken on here!)

 

I used my glass paints  and a sponge dobber to splodge the two shades of pink on the glasses. I let the first colour dry before adding the second.

Once dry I added a little detail with a black glass felt tip pen. The glasses were then baked to fix the colour.

That’s it, it’s going back on my Etsy store – wish me luck?
Thanks for reading

Love Rosie

Peter Rabbit…

There has been a crazy renewal of interest in Beatrix Potter lately – she’s never gone away in this house though. I’ve always been fascinated with her delightful drawings of the woodland animals and bought the little books to read to my daughter when she was young.
She, in turn, bought me the biography of Miss Potter and it’s full of fascinating facts, a ham just sitting on a table in one of her tiny pictures was drawn from life. She visited a butcher to make sure it was just right. That’s dedication!

Anyway, we’ve recently had some coins depicting various characters from her books and I (with a little help from friends and family) managed to collect 5 of them.
At Easter my daughter presented me with a chocolate egg and soft toy Peter Rabbit.  The coins have been stuck on my fridge for a few months but I decided to make a little box frame to include everything.
So, this is what I did…    

First I painted a wooden box frame green.

The frame was actually the wrong way around it wasn’t actually a deep frame but with a bit of glue and botching it I have made it work for me.

I copied the scarecrow frame from The Peter Rabbit book (without the blue jacket though as my rabbit is wearing his still!).        

Then I had some tissue paper with Peter Rabbit illustrations all over it,
I stuck that on thicker paper and cut them out.

I used sticky pads to add some definition and depth,  

Then I added the 50p’s
          

and finally squished Peter in and sealed the frame. 

Here it is in situ,

Thanks for reading

Back soon, love Rosie

 

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Patchwork…

I love making cushion covers and have done quite a few over the years, this one was inspired by my friend giving me some totally gorgeous material.

I decided to make a cover for a 50th birthday gift.  A very lovely lady who has two gorgeous children, a perfect family of four and I thought using her family’s initials would be good.

So on a Saturday I opened up the dining room table, got out my sewing machine, favourite radio station on, coffee pot full and all this lovely material laid out and then starting planning…I cut the letters out of material backed with bonding fabric. Once ironed in place, I decided to go around the letters with my favourite embroidery stitch in a nice bright yellow embroidery thread – chain stitch 
Then I used the, new to me, pre-cut trimming which is iron-on but I took my friend’s advice and stitched it on too.

The cushion was presented today and I’m think I’m safe in saying it went down well.
I love giving and receiving home made gifts.

My daughter recently gave me this little cloth bag… do you like her embroidery?

Back soon
Love, Rosie

Hot cross buns….

If you follow my Instagram posts about the dolls house family and my craft blog you’ll have seen my latest miniature make.
Although they live in 1908ish the family celebrate most of the things we do now (I do a little research, but my get out is that they are not actually real!)
Anyway I decided to make some hot cross buns and so spent a fun afternoon with DAS air drying modelling clay.
I made the shapes by rolling balls of clay and slightly squashing them,             adding the ‘cross’ with a craft knife and then allowing them to dry over night.

Once dry I painted them a pale doughy colour, then brushed darker brown paint (quite dry) over them to give that just baked colour. 

Because the cross was cut into the clay I found using quite a dry paint meant that the colour did not travel into the cuts.

 

When that was dry I added some ‘currants’ with a darker brown still – just a little dab with a fine brush.

Once the ‘currants’ were dry I gave these tiny buns a coat of clear varnish so they look good and sticky like the real ones.
The Littleton family enjoyed them, and here they are in colour.

    

Thanks for reading, back soon,
Love Rosie

 

 

Gramophone…

I bought this lovely old gramophone from a friend a couple of years ago, I just couldn’t resist. Only problem was it didn’t work, but my husband was up for the challenge of repairing it,  he took the mechanism down his shed and voila it works… it involved a very scary, long and sharp spring but he’d seen the effects of an accident with such a spring and so wore protective gauntlets.

Anyway, its done and we’ve had fun listening to the 78’s I’ve got.
The only snag is my new home is a 1970’s bungalow, my previous home was built in 1905 and had period features and the gramophone would have suited it just fine, though probably not have fitted in it!
So, after doing some research and realising that though I love it, these big items of furniture are not exactly sought after and I decided that if I was going to keep it (which I do want to do) then it must fit in with the room more.

Time to try that Chalk Paint which is so popular at the moment. My husband is great one for doing things properly and even though I showed him the instructions which said you don’t need to do any preparation with chalk paint, I still ended up sanding down the old finish on the wooden case. .. he’s probably right.

So here, is what I did..
. I picked a nice day (more luck thank judgement!) and sanded it down outside. Just a light sanding to help the chalk paint stick.
Sorry about the blinding newspaper in these pictures, note the hole in the side – that’s where the winding handle is fixed in.
I took off the door knobs and polished with some metal polish.

Once I was happy, and with the clouds re-appearing I took it inside to paint.
I chose a pale yellow/cream colour and painted the whole thing (not the inside) 

Once dry I mixed a little acrylic mustardy yellow to some of the paint.
Took a washing up sponge and cut a half-moon, orange segment or banana shape and once I was happy with the shape and colour of the paint; I started to sponge the design on.

Well it’s different! I like it, I have some yellow in my room and it is much less dominant than it was originally.

Here it is with the paint taken off the hinges and the knobs all polished….

Thanks for reading,
back soon, love Rosie

Tissue Box Cover…

I was recently spending some time with my mother and she was having a little tidy around before more guests arrived. Her flat is lovely and light.
I was sitting by the window and noticed that her furniture was looking very co-ordinated.
My mum went shopping for some cushions to go on her turquoise sofa once and came back with red ones…she currently has ones which co-ordinate with her sofa!

Anyway whilst sitting there I noticed the only glaring item was a box of tissues, bought for the quality of the tissues and not the pretty box!

So, I decided that the next time I visited Hobbycraft I’d get another box to decorate.

This is what I did… 

First of all I painted the whole thing inside and out in white acrylic paint and left to dry.

Then I painted it all a turquoise blue and left that to dry.

 

Then I chopped my sponge to a rectangular shape and ‘stamped’ white rectangles all over the top and sides of both box and lid.

Once that was dry I added some dark turquoise paint on top
I let that dry and then decided to add a little ‘bling’. I splodged my Pentel Gold marker on some scrap card to get a little puddle of gold and then stamped with the gold on top of everything.

Well, that’s it, all done.

Hope she will like it!
Back soon, love Rosie

 

Trinket Box…

This little trinket box was a  recent purchase from a Poundland store, I thought this would make a nice project.
Originally I thought I would paint the flowers separately, however I realised that as they are so close to each other it might work in one colour.
So I got my china paints out and painted the whole thing inside and out with a lovely deep pink colour.

As usual with these paints, I left it to dry overnight and then baked in the oven for 30 mins on a very low heat.

Once cold I removed it and decided to sponge some gold over it. I used just a little of the gold paint from a Pentel gold marker,

                                     
I gently sponged over the whole pot, I sponged more intensely at the edge of the lid and base of the bowl.
What do you think?

I think it looks rather nice painted.

Thanks for reading,
back soon, Love Rosie

 

 

 

Sewing class….

I recently spent a few days with a great friend and one day was, as last time, a day sewing with a  Busy Bee.  Perfect day!

I decided on making a cover for my sewing machine and went armed with my measurements and the plastic cover which came with the machine.

It can be quite daunting when starting a new project but I was soon underway, having chosen my fabrics for the ‘grass’ the flowery base of the caravan and the top.

The grass and the flowers and the creamy top colour were sewn together and then the quilting began.. so exciting. There was a pattern of course, you can easily find these online.

One the whole thing was quilty it was shaped and then we started on the doors and windows. Due there being so much chatting and laughing during the day, I made my windows and curtains and started on the window frames and then took it all home to finish…. with plenty of helpful advice!

When I was home I decided to add a vase of flowers to one window and a window box to another….

 

This was just a few leaves drawn on with a fabric pen, a felt vase and a few yellow buttons.

After sewing everything together it’s done! I’m very pleased with it. I added bunting too.
The sharp eyed of you may notice that Mrs Littleton has also made one…

Thanks for reading,
back soon,
love Rosie

Leeks ….

I’m so sorry to keep showing my doll house makes, the thing is I need lots of things to keep introducing into my story and so I have to make them, then before I know it the week has gone and my self-imposed challenge of a weekly blog comes around and the only thing I’ve done is at 1/12th scale.

Well, if you’re following my little tale you’ll be aware of the allotment and the fact that vegetables in season come all at once and in the days before freezers this made life difficult and menus potentially very boring even with the most inventive of cooks!

My daughter gave me the lovely market stall to make.
I did so and made lots of vegetables from Fimo Polymer clay which is lovely to use.
But, and this is a bit of a secret, I stuck the veg to the stall with glue (well it’s very small and they are fiddly and I am clumsy!).
I decided to make some more veggies, brown paper bags may be my next make!

A rainy Saturday afternoon proved the perfect time to use a supply of DAS air-hardening clay I had.
Fimo requires baking. So I tried with the clay and found it really nice to work with, I made loads of fruit and veg.
When it was dry (I left till Sunday afternoon) I painted it.
Some pieces I varnished – but only those which look better shiny.

So far I have only brought in the leeks to show you. The maid is going to use her new soup tureen and make some leek and potato soup. She entertains the girls of the house by telling them that if they sleep with a leek underneath their pillow they will dream of their future husband, the girls are young but recognise this as a humorous tale. Well, I think they did….

So here are my leeks:-
I just rolled long sausages, then I cut one end off and flattened the other, slightly stretching the clay to make it look leek-like. I painted the leeks white with acrylic paint, let that dry completely and then used a couple of green acrylics to dab the end and then colour the flattened out end, I just smudged the paint down the leek with my finger and let it dry, what do you think? Leek like? They will only be seen in black and white Instagram’s #willowfilter but here they are in glorious colour! Sorry I didn’t take more photos, I had very orange hands from the clay so my verbal description will have to do.

and finally, just for you, the Littleton’s kitchen in colour…

Thanks for reading,
I’ll be back soon
Love Rosie

A Wedding Anniversary Card

A couple of years ago I made an anniversary card, using pens and gels to create an image which has been inspired by cross-stitch.

I used to really enjoy cross-stitching, then moved on and haven’t ever gone back.
I really like Jo Verso’s books though,  she has created an encyclopaedia of cross-stitch patterns for just about everything!

So, I decided to cheat! I drew a pencil grid on the card and drew on the xxx’s to look like stiches…         

Then turned to the alphabet pages in the book..  and started to spell out the names and dates I wanted to ‘sew’.

Then as you can see I sewed some hearts and blobbed on some pearly gel…

and that was it, I’ve taken out the date to preserve the privacy of the recipients.

Fun to do, and a whole lot quicker than sewing! (Though I do love to sew)

Back soon,
love Rosie

That tray…

Well I said I didn’t like it, that poor tray has had another re-do.
A friend recently gave me a bag full of small plastic discs…I’ve been trying to think of what I could do with them. So when I thought I’d given the tray a re do I tried laying on the discs, they fit perfectly across and so I tried them along the length of the tray – again a perfect fit!

So, I ripped off the lovely Rob Ryan paper and stuck the discs on with PVA.

Then when dry I coloured the discs with my favourite Pental Paint marker…and then the bits in between.

   

That’s it, I quite like it now. I’ll give it a coat or two of varnish and leave it alone now!

Back soon,
Love Rosie

 

A quick drawing ….

I don’t know where time is going lately, but the other day I left work nice and early – the joys of flexi-time working.
I got home, flicked on the radio, made a cup of tea, sat down at my desk and decided to just draw and see where my pencil took me…

I just started drawing a flower with big petals and added some leaves, all very simple shapes…
Then I started to colour with very fine felt tip pens and using lines, it saves the ink in the pens but I also like the texture it gives, you can give a little definition by using the lines closer together or wider apart.

Once I’ve finished I decided it needed a little something else, so I coloured in with crayons…

and that was that, it’s gone in my frame in the bathroom for a while.

Thanks for reading,
love Rosie

Baked Potatoes….

You probably know by now, that I spend quite a lot of my time in a house of little people. Well to keep the stories going I have to keep making and buying new props. Recently I was using some air-drying clay to model some fruit and veg.

I was trying to think of what else I could do and considered baked potatoes in their jackets… but was this a food that a rather middle class family in 1908-ish London would eat?
I tried to do some research and it seems it was considered a ‘street food’.
Well I’m sure the Littleton’s maid would enjoy eating it, and once the delicious smell of baking potato began to waft it’s way through the house, the rest of the family started to enjoy this delicious way to eat the humble potato.
So not much of make really, I just rolled balls of clay, made them a bit oval/potato shaped, made the bottom flat and then cut an opening and let them dry.

Once dry I painted the inside buttery yellow cream and the outside baked potato skin brown. I gave the skins a little brush of varnish.

I also made a little pat of butter for the butter dish… and then I left them to enjoy their luncheon.

     

Baked potato has been ordered again, Mr Littleton and Baby are thoroughly enjoying their buttery meal . . #whilethecatsaway #bakedpotato #handmadefood #miniatures #dollshouse #lifestoryinminiature #miniatures #miniaturelife #entertainingchildren #miniaturelifeinthekitchen

A post shared by Rosie (@the_littleton_family_story) on Jan 28, 2018 at 9:33am PST

Thanks for reading,
back soon,
love Rosie

 

 

A tray re-do… might be re-done over again…

After a disastrous Christmas in my craft sales due to keeping everything off Etsy for a craft fair which didn’t go to plan, so there’s quite a lot of Christmas themed things left.
I realise there is a Christmas every year but some things are too bulky to store and so, I’m changing them.

This tray was all set for Christmas with Christmassy paper decoupage and ‘Let it snow’ written on in a snow white permanent marker.

So I scrapped off the paper and then gave the whole thing a jolly good sanding down.

Once done, I rummaged through my collection of papers and found some Rob Ryan paper cut wallpaper samples, (if you don’t know Rob’s work click on the link attached to his name above, lovely paper cuts).
I had these samples after seriously considering the paper for my bedroom, however once I had my new curtains up I realised that it would be too much (when all my other stuff was in the room!).
So the samples were added to my collection of papers.
I chose the yellow one for the tray.
I have painted over the white paint that was on the tray, with the colour shown here. Then started drawing some leaves and stems similar to those in the Rob Ryan design all around the inside lip of the tray.

I stuck the paper down, but, and this is why I think I may have to re-do I didn’t like the join (not enough paper to do in one piece), let me know what you think maybe? I’m tempted to take it up again and maybe use the two shades of blue paper I have and do it in stripes.

I have drawn a leaf pattern on top of the cut-out design in a fine gold pen.

The whole thing is varnished and ready for use.Although I think I may change it now I see the photos…not sure about that middle bit.

Anyway, back soon
love Rosie

Quick drawing for loo!

Some time ago I bought a clip frame for my bathroom door. As I have so many books my husband asked that I refrain from filling the rest of the walls of our home with pictures.
As I’d rather books than pictures I was happy to do as requested. But a single A4 frame in the bathroom couldn’t hurt! I chose the clip frame which are used in offices because I wanted to be able to change the picture very often!

After putting a Christmas handprint wreath made when my daughter was only 2in the frame for the season, I had a blank frame ready for something new.  I do keep all the pictures for that frame to re-use but fancied something different… and so here is what I did, it’s not an original idea. But I do like the style.

I have a lovely book about butterflies,  I’ve had it many years and I regret to confess it has been pulled to pieces. I’m not proud but pages have been removed, butterflies from it stuck on things, my sister had a few pages once I think and so, it sits on my beloved shelves a shadow of it’s former self, so I had no (well not many) qualms about ripping out another page.

I decided to draw a cartoon of a little girl walking in the countryside, trying to entice a butterfly to sit on her outstretched finger… everyone does that; right?

I originally coloured in my drawing with pencil crayon but then I decided to add a bit of brightness so used some felt pens.

Well, it’s done.  A quick and fun thing to do, I like to do something that is actually reflected in the text but that’s just me, I’ve seen some amazing pictures done like this…

If you can bring yourself to tear the page, it’s fun!
Back soon,

Love Rosie

“Get your loverley cauli ‘ere!”

As my daughter has pointed out, we seem to have reached the point when she receives grown-up gifts and I get toys….

As many of you will know, for the last year I have been mostly living in a 1/12th scale world with my Instagram continuing story about a family.

One of my pressies was a kit to make a market stall for the miniature family.

The last time I tried modelling with Fimo (Polymer clay) I didn’t do so well. I tried to make some simple plates but they seemed to be soft – even after baking.

But I’ve seen some amazing modelling with Fimo so I have had another go and here are my results…
So first of all I made loads of little ball shapes, these will be painted to be potatoes and apples.
Some of them I cut to make mushroom caps and rolled the bottom bit to make the mushroom stem. Carrots and cauliflowers and cabbages. It was really fun to do.
I followed the instructions properly and baked the clay for the required time.

Afterwards the pieces really do feel like china!
I then started to paint them, I realise now that I should make some parsnips and turnips. I used just over half of a packet of Fimo to make all these veggies!

And so to the painting, I have used acrylic paint. Cauliflowers first…

Then the carrots, apples, cabbages, sprouts and mushrooms.

Now to get the market stall ready.

The Littleton’s handyman helped, naturally. Here he is in colour

He was taking a long time so I took over.

I painted the stall in white acrylic then drew on green stripes with a marker pen.
The stall and shelves were also coloured with green paint.
Here’s the finished stall…

It will soon be appearing in my Instagram story.

I really enjoyed the modelling and will definately do some more.
Thanks for reading,
back soon, Love Rosie

After a long gap I have refilled my shop so if you are interested in seeing some of the makes I’ve talked about in this blog please pop over to my shop on  Etsy 

New Year….

A new year and I am definately going to continue with my self-imposed ‘blog a week’ regime, hope you’ll join me.
Life has it’s ups and downs and I have found that a steady stream of arts and crafts really helps me cope with everyday matters.
I’ve been really lucky and enjoyed ten days holiday over Christmas and I’m sure I am not alone in wishing I didn’t have to return to work. But, bills have to be paid and I definately do not make enough in my ETSY sales to change my life yet!
So, this year….. more embroidery, I forgot how much I love this craft. Hope you liked my vest top completed over the Christmas break.
I am not going to buy any more boxes – or trays.. I have too many to store.                        But I will be re-doing the designs on them.
I have quite a lot of fabric so I think a nice patchwork project will be on the cards.
Oh and talking of cards, I will be creating all my greetings cards for the year again…      I’ll keep searching for new ideas and will definately share!
I really like how the internet has made artists and crafters so generous with their ideas through Pinterest   and Instagram plus others.
Thank you to all the people who follow my crafty blogs and especially those who comment, I love hearing what you do and what you think of my makes too.
So Happy New Year everyone – lets hope the world’s a great place to be in 2018

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Rosie
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Block Printing….

This year I got a last minute chance to go to the Sewing Bee show in Excel London. It was a great day and I saw some wonderful materials and gained so much inspiration. I was going to try a class at block printing but there were no places left so I decided to buy a kit and decided it would make a perfect Christmas gift for my crafty daughter, must admit it was really difficult resisting using it for those few months.

Luckily said daughter spent a few days home over Christmas and we had a crafty day! She stamped the design on a few items, napkins, cosmetic bag and a white vest top of mine.

We then decided that this lovely design would look great with a little embroidery.
That morning we had a lovely mother and daughter time, sewing, chatting and watching our favourite show ‘Gilmore Girls‘.

Here’s my attempt at embroidering over the stamping on my vest top.

I kept to just using green mostly, but I did give the daisy some ‘lazy daisy’ stitching…

I haven’t embroidered over all the stamping, I quite like the effect of just doing a bit.
I used simple embroidery stitching, 2 threads at a time, and just running stitch, back stitch, lazy daisy and satin stitch.

My daughter has used more colours in hers, I’m sure she won’t mind me showing you … lovely isn’t it.

Well I’ll be wearing my newly decorated top soon.
This is a great craft to do, I can thoroughly recommend the products in the kit.
The stamp was very good quality. The paint really nice (just a warm press to seal on fabric) and the foam pad keeps the stamping even.
Check out their website if you’re interested

Thanks for reading, here’s to another year of crafting.
Happy 2018 everyone
Love Rosie

 

Inherited sewing table…

I was wondering what to blog about, I’ve been busy sorting out my ‘makes’ for my Etsy shop and making more baby bunting for newborns. So I hadn’t anything new to write about, but whilst sitting at my laptop I cast my eyes around the sitting room and noticed my sewing table, I actually use it as a sewing table now, it’s on casters so can be moved if necessarily and is great to have by my side when using my sewing machine.

My husband’s grandmother was a great seamstress and when she sadly died I inherited her treadle sewing machine and this sewing table.
The sewing table had a nasty scratch across the top and so my husband permitted me to ‘enhance’ it!

At the time my sitting room was rather boldly decorated in a deep turquoise blue with green carpet and sofa.  My curtains at the time were not lined and when the sun shone through in the morning it did rather appear as if we were under water….

I was just looking through my photo’s to find one of the walls and found this, with the said sewing table (this was taken a long time ago but my daughter still plays the violin.

I distinctly remember thinking about how I was going to decorate the table. I didn’t want to go my usual flowery route. Even though it was mine to use I respected the fact that it was my husband’s family furniture.

So I decided to go geometric. I used a ball point pen and rule to draw the grid, pressing quite hard to make a little indentation.

I had intended to stain the pattern with inks (which was why I wanted the indentation) but started colouring in the shapes with crayons, I rather liked the effect and decided to keep it.

I kept to a very restricted palette – just green and navy blue.

I then varnished it and that was it done.
My husband still says he thinks it’s one of his favourite of my ‘decorations’. I noticed recently that it’s getting scratched again… this time I’ll just stain the scratches and leave it alone.
Thanks for reading

Back soon with more
Rosie

A simple coaster re-do…

I was sorting out a drawer recently and found an old coaster, it’s one of the those clear plastic variety that you can pop a photo in…
It was looking a bit tired so I pulled it apart and went around the edge with my favourite Pental Gold Marker.
Then I spotted this card, my daughter had given it to me and I just love it.

So, I cut out the size and was about to fit it when I decided to add a little decoration to the card…

Once done, I snapped the frame shut and placed on my new bedside cabinet, just got to wait for a morning cuppa now…

Back soon,
Love Rosie

Just a few more napkins…

The thing is, one always needs napkins….

They used to be such an expensive thing to buy – which is strange when you think how easy they are to make. But, lately it seems shops are just giving them away and it would seem almost churlish to walk by without buying.

So, on a day off, with the radio on and listening to my one of my favourite programme I sat and drew on some more napkins.

Whilst thinking of what to do my eyes were drawn to my wall of books…

Can’t argue with that!

     

that’s true”

 

my absolute favourite!
There was another, not sure why I didn’t photograph – but you get the theme!

Thanks for reading,

back soon, love Rosie

A decoupaged tray…

Thanks to my lovely neighbour I am going to be giving a little class on decorating trays later this month, I have bought some wooden trays ready for the class, but then had the opportunity to purchase some of these nice bamboo trays.
I’ve decided to do a simple decoration, I will be using is as an example in the class…

So, if you too fancy personalising a tray, here’s what I did…
As you can see this tray is a nice size, just right for serving canapés, a solo supper or bringing some snacks to a table…I’ve gone for the latter idea.

The first thing I did was to use some gold acrylic paint and a washing up sponge and ‘sponged’ the gold around the edge of the tray and very lightly over the inside. It’s a subtle look.

 

Then I got my chosen papers and started to cut out letters, I did an ‘S’ first. To keep the letters the same size I marked the size of the ‘S’. If you don’t like the freehand approach you could write your word on your computer, print out and make stencils from that.
I’m happy to take the risk of imperfections.

I kept going until I had all the letters I wanted and then stuck them to my tray with PVA. I coated the whole thing with a coat of PVA and left to dry..
            

Then I gave it a little rub down with some sandpaper and went over again with PVA. Finally, with a permanent gold pen I drew some gold stars on the base of the tray and it’s done.

Time for a little snack?
Back soon,
love Rosie

Button Necklace….

Just a quick make this week, I was sorting out some buttons and came across these lovelies which I have had for ages but have never thought of what to do with them.

I decided to thread them onto an old spare neck chain!

First of all I sorted the order of the buttons… then with my jewellery pliers I took the large ring off the chain and kept it safely to one side.

The chain has simply been thread through the button holes….
When all the buttons were on; I replaced the end of the chain.

Then I laid all the buttons evenly and centrally and stuck them in place with the UHU glue

I smoothed the glue and left to dry..

Here’s my new necklace

Back soon
Love Rosie

Drawing on a table cloth…

A while ago I was browsing in a Laura Ashley Home Store, I have bought quite a few bits and pieces from there over the years:- my bedroom light shade, a leather footstool, mugs, coasters, material, curtains…ok it seems I do really like their products.
Anyway they had a great sale on and I picked up these really nice felt coasters in a leaf shape. Perfect on the coffee table at this time of year, I was looking at them the other day and thought it would be fun to draw around them and have a scattering of leaves over a tablecloth.
So, whilst grocery shopping, I accidentally drifted into the Home section in my local Tesco and picked up a plain white, very reasonable tablecloth.
I recently had a rotten bug and couldn’t really be bothered to be terribly creative even after the bug had passed, but I started to draw around the leaf and realised that it was pretty effective so… I kept going!
I suppose  I could have used the coaster as a stencil but I really like them as coasters so wanted to keep it nice.
Here’s what I did…

I did a scatter of leaves in a diagonal line across the cloth and kept to a restricted palette of red, orange, yellow and green.

Once I’d got the outlines in place I used a light brush type line all around the edges and up the veins of the leaves …

 

Once I’d done that I went over each leave with a yellow, it made the colours look more rich…

 

I’m very pleased with it, what do you think?

Back soon,
love Rosie

 

Gardening at 1:12th scale…

Ever since the Littleton Family’s life has been documented via an Instagram post their small garden has featured.
The handyman is pretty good at working in the Littleton’s garden and is always having to help his employer to realise his expectations!
The family have only a small garden….but Mr Littleton has big ideas.

This weekend saw the handyman working in the garden and he has made a great effort.

The ramshakle shed was given a coat of wood-preserver and a lovely new roof – oh yes this handyman is one in a million! (The Instagram account only uses their #willow filter but you can see it in colour!)               

He then sorted out the many terracotta pots scattered around and filled them with plants and everlasting flowers.

(Ok he did have some help – this is my craft blog after all!) The leaves were maid from a sheet of foam bought from Hobbycraft.

He trimmed the hedge and suddenly some gorgeous sun-flowers appeared!
Mr & Mrs Littleton visited their garden and were very impressed, the handyman received a cash bonus for all his hard work….

Thanks for reading! I’ve given the link many times before so, sorry to keep repeating myself, but if you’d like to follow the Littleton Family Story just click ‘here‘.

Love Rosie

 

Another box re-do

This little treasure chest style box was previously painted black with rosebuds – it was up for sale in my Etsy shop and although a few ‘liked’ it …no-one bought it so I’ve decided to revamp it.
The size is:- 13.5 cm x 9.5cm and 8cm high,

So, I was painting some of these lovely little wooden house shapes which I purchased from The Works.co.uk.

I decided to paint my box with a country scene of rolling hills and big sky… and to stick these little houses on it. The paint I used is acrylic, the houses I drew the detail on with a permanent drawing pen and then just coloured in with fine felt pens.
Four houses fitted perfectly across the front and I’ve added one other on the side.

The inside is still glittery purple.

I hope the photos show you that this is rather ‘shabby chic’, the pink of the roses  shows through the clouds a bit but that’s not unusual in real life so I haven’t fought it.

 

A coat of clear varnish and it’s done.

Thanks for reading,
love Rosie

 

 

Jewellery Box…

Last weekend I decided to have a go at decorating a little jewellery box which has a clear acrylic lid.

I had previously painted it silvery grey and the inner base was painted purple. I got out a nice big new black marker … (is there anything better?)
I just started to doodle to see where it would go, starting with 4 straightish lines then adding 15 swirls, a thin silver pen was used to draw another swirl on top of the others and was dotted over with the black pen.

I carried on the black around the wooden edge on the lid ….to me the design looked like it was stitched so I then added a ‘running stitch’ around the top of the lid and around the sides and across the partitions inside.
It’s a bit different for me but I quite like it!
What do you think?

 

Back soon,
love, Rosie

 

My Etsy shop is now open:

Heart box

It might be a new year but I still enjoy decorating these wooden boxes from The Works, they are well made and ready to take drawing pens, paint, paper or even fabric.

As you can see I started to draw with a permanent fine marker, I covered the top with these little four petaled flowers with the little dots around which I like to think look like stitches. I kept going until the top was covered like this…

Then I started to colour…
I coloured in the petals and leaves and then coloured the background with a pink colouring pencil… as you will see in the final picture I later decided to colour over this with a darker felt pen…
I then drew some larger flowers around the base of the box and coloured it all in. The main colour is a dark pink.
I lined the lid and base with white felt, and coloured in the sides of the inside.
Around the transparent heart I used a 3D paint (This paint can go on fabric too – it’s great to use)

and that’s it – all finished and will be put up for sale on my Etsy site.

Thanks for reading,

Love Rosie

Bee mine….

So, this week my blog is all about another wooden heart with a friendly looking bee.

Here’s what I did…
Firstly I sketched the design in pencil,
then I inked it in with a fine permanant marker.

 

I’ve always loved bees, but hated honey. Mostly due to my childhood asthma and my mother trying to cure me with vast quantities of the stuff.

But lately I have been suffering from a grotty cold and drinking gallons of lemon with honey, more lemon than honey but still … maybe I can start to enjoy it one day.

Seems a shame not to love it when the bees go to such efforts…

Back soon

Rosie

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Hydrangea sketch…

After all my Christmas makes I decided to do some drawing and started with a hydrangea.  I was inspired after a lovely walk on Boxing day, I was in Derby at my mother-in-laws home. My husband and she had paperwork to do so I left them in peace and set off.

Plenty of countryside albeit with the power station in the distance, but for all the trees and fields around me, the one thing that remained in my mind was a wonderful hydrangea.
It was all brown but still beautiful.
I decided to sketch one – but coloured mine blue.

Once I had finished sketching the petals and working on keeping the shape of the whole plant head I added a few leaves and then coloured in the flower head…

 

Back soon,
love Rosie

 

Patchwork Bedspread…

As I’ve said/confessed I’m not the neatest of seamstresses but I really enjoy it. When renovating our bedroom I was given carte blanche and decided on these amazing curtains from Sanderson.

It is a little mad but I love it, I managed to buy a short piece of the fabric from Ebay and the idea of a bedspread to compliment the curtains came to mind.

I had a lot of old duvet covers from when my daughter was young and these were luckily in colours which I felt toned in well. I kept to a big rectangle and just sewed them all together in a random colour pattern.

The length of curtain fabric was stitched across near the base of the cover.

I also had a favourite old duvet cover with embroidered birds so this was used too.

I picked up the humming-bird theme and got the lovely mirror from Laura Ashley.

The designs from the curtain fabric were copied for the bedside table, previously blogged about.

A lace topped sheet in pale pink for the backing  and some fun bobble braid for around the edge.

I’m really pleased with how it turned out and it’s pretty warm too!

The headboard was made with a wooden frame constructed by my husband and covered with wadding and topped with fabric from Laura Ashley.

Thanks for reading,

Back soon, love Rosie

Red Red Robin….

Well, it has to be a gi-normous robin for this Christmas post doesn’t it?

If you follow my blog you’ll remember I recently started felting, if you haven’t tried it yet, you should. It is great fun.

I wanted to get another felting needle and found this kit in Hobbycraft which included 2 needles – seemed too big a bargain to miss.

This giant robin was easy to do, sadly my wings and tail were missing from the kit so I just stuck on a bit of felt  – presume the kit ones were a bit thicker. 

He’s going to my mother-in-law to finish off her Christmas hamper gift.

Nothing much to show you about how he is done but he posed around the garden for a few pics…

May I take this opportunity to wish you a very Merry Christmas and a very happy new year.

Back in 2017,
Love Rosie

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let it snow…

I only recently started to crochet and I L O V E it!
I’m not terribly clever at understanding patterns yet but oh the joy of YouTube.
A teacher right there with you, patiently waiting for you to catch up and never complaining when you get her to go over it a  few times to allow you to get to grips with it.

This is the clip I used, and I am now making snowflakes every evening and whilst travelling to and from work on the bus.
I got chatting to a lady on Thursday who said she used to crochet and knit in the past but had got out of the habit, by the time we parted company she said she was going to start again…

I am using a lovely red velvet ribbon to tie the snowflakes on to my gifts, and will be hanging some from longer pieces of ribbon at the windows and on my tree really soon.
The wool I am using is called Chunky Gem, it has little glittery bits in it which help to make the Snowflakes sparkle.

Here’s a few pictures of my finished snowflakes… I’m not going to show you what to do, you should watch the YouTube clip – definately a better teacher than I!

I am selling my Snowflakes in my Etsy shop.

My family like to give each other little gifts at the table on Christmas Day.
This year I have a little crafty addition to their presents, well actually more than one but can’t spoil all their surprise!

Thanks for looking,
Love Rosie

 

Felting on Christmas Gift Tags…

As you may know I recently became aware of the craft of felting, after buying a little kit at Kirstie’s Handmade Fair.

I was considering making some Christmas bunting but I have already made some of that      so I decided that these little flags would be used as gift tags.

To make them I cut out the long triangular shapes from felt with pinking shears.

These were then decorated
with various Christmassy designs,some by hand,
some using cookie cutters to get the shape.

Then I got some card and wrote Merry Christmas along the flag,

cut up some red velvet ribbon  and assembled by machine sewing through the felt, ribbon and card.
Here they all are….

 

Back soon,
love Rosie

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Patchwork skirt….

Yes this is all about a patchwork skirt or three…

I really don’t know why I started to make these, it started when I was given a bag of fabric and had a bad back which prevented me from moving,which meant I could not get to work but did not stop me sewing or drawing!

I’ve always loved the idea of patchwork and have tried to do it properly but I am really too messy to obtain the precision and neatness which it often requires… so if you’re a skilled patchworker read no further!

So if you’re still reading and want to see what I did…

I measured a straight skirt I had and made a rectangle of patches which measured the same, i.e the depth from waist to knee and the length to go around the body and not be so tight you can’t move. I sewed the bits together with straight sewing stick but topped stitched with the various stiches my machine has.

The edges are hemmed, the ends joined so you have a tube, elastic popped in the top and hey presto…

My first one is mostly blues, with bits of ribbon and velvet ribbon added here and there, the top is a wide band of blue with top stitching to add patchy detail style.
Then I had a top with these lovely butterflies on it, which I loved but it didn’t love me… I looked awful in it.
So I decided to do another patchy skirt and this time add some appliqué and lastly, my sister recently visited an Aldi store and they had craft items for sale, she kindly asked me if I wanted anything… well what a question!
One of the items was a fat-quarter pack of Christmas fabric. I added some Christmassy ribbon which I bought in Tiger
yes…. I have a Christmas outfit prepared…

Have you stopped laughing at me? I know it’s mad …

Well that’s it for now.

Back soon
Love Rosie

 

 

Art Competition…

Every year my work place holds a National Arts & Photographic competition and I usually enter a few drawings and a few photographs.
I’ve won a couple of times over the years, the competition is pretty fierce!
Well, this year it crept up on me and I realised that with all this crafting, I haven’t done so much drawing.

So Saturday afternoon was spent rummaging through my portfolio to see what I’d got that I could send off.

These are what I found, I entered them all. The category is water colour and drawing & sketching. I’ll let you know how I did at the end…

 

The results were:- no prizes for me.. will try again next year!

Back soon,
Love Rosie

 

Twelve Drawers….

These drawers from Ikea  sit upon my desk and hold all sorts of bits n’bobs, they are  perfect for paper clips and staples etc.,

When I first got them I painted them with a paint marker which I loved using!
I then cut some wrapping paper bunting and then using a gold thin pen
drew on some string and then fixed the bunting flags. To finish off I stuck on the little metal plates so I could write what was in each drawer.    

Since starting this blog I have been using very pretty coloured papers to decorate and recently decided that these drawers were looking a tad drab.

So I have covered them in the beautiful papers my daughter gave me for my birthday, they are sold for scrapbooking, but they are so pretty it seems a shame to shut them away in a book,  I finished off the drawers with a Gold Pentel Marker 

I did the usual thing cut out the shapes and used PVA to both stick on and topaint over to give a nice finish.
I coloured in the frame with the gold pen and then used a black ‘write on anything’ pen to write my labels and here it is finished. Do let me know what you think.

Back soon,
Love Rosie

Christmas with the Fairies…

I know, I know it’s only just October and we’ve still got Halloween and Fireworks etc., but if you’re in the business of making things you need to get organised….

As I said last week, I’ve had a few days off work and it’s been glorious. I’ve seen family and friends, met the most gorgeous young man (5 months old) and seen some amazing exhibitions at the V&A and Tate Modern.
But an artycrafty soul can’t have free days and not create… so here’s what I have been up to…
I’ve been back to my favourite shop The Works and they have their great fairy doors back in stock..

I’ve had a go at a pink door , then one for my garden and finally one where I used the popular Stick Man character and now I have gone slightly crazy with paint, glitter, felt, glitter, card, glitter, pins, glitter, sticky pads, glitter oh and some glitter paint…..

I spent all of two days doing these doors, you should have seen the mess! They are for sale at my ETSY shop, although one has been donated to a cameral club’s raffle…(there’s a little camera hanging under the candle).

The doors have a variety of Christmassy decorations….one had mistletoe over the door and a little felt hat hanging beneath.
Some have a candle on a little shelf , a little Fairy coat hanging on a hook, or a felt hat, some cards stuck on the walls and a little holly garland with  berry red gemstones, or a holly wreathe ..

Here’s a little gallery of the doors, hope you like them. By the way they are for sale but please note they are strictly for ornamental use – the doors do open but they are not suitable for children.

I’m going to do some more Christmas themed ones with just paint, these will also arrive at my ETSY shop soon and will be ok to play with.

Thanks for looking..
Back soon.
Love Rosie

 

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Baby Bunting

Hi!

Lucky me, I’m off to visit a new baby next week, perfect excuse to make some bunting as a gift!

I’ve already made some similar for a little girl Lucy and I’m revisiting the idea of using buttons to spell out the name of this little baby.

Luckily his name ‘Blake’ has 5 letters… perfect amount of little flags for a nursery.

This is how I plan the letters, the card is the size of my bunting flags and I just draw the letters on top of each other to ensure the correct amount of buttons are used.

I bought a fat quarter pack from Hobbycraft, I’ve been advised that the nursery decor is blue and white … so I am using blue and white polka dots as my main material.

Once the letters were organised and the buttons (craft stores sell these in large packs) chosen I drew each letter on the material (this could be traced) and then I ran a line of UHU glue around, stuck the buttons on and allowed to dry overnight. Once dry I stitched the buttons on.
These are going in a nursery so no chances can be taken with little buttons. I’m sure the stitching would suffice but the glue gives peace of mind.

Once the buttons are glued and sewn on, I chose a contrasting fabric back and sewed right sides together.
Turn, and get the point as good as possible then press, carefully around the buttons!

Finally take a little time to pin the flags in place on the tape or ribbon, I decided to use the same colour on the back of each one and so turned in the corners so it could be seen and therefore add some continunity to the design, I used a bright yellow ribbon. Then stitch along the ribbon or tape catching each flag between. Once done…either leave loose to tie or add a ring to enable the bunting to be hung.

If you’d like more detailed photos of what I did please click on ‘Lucy’ above, that blog had a very detailed picture explanation of what to do and it was very similiar to this one. Except this is smaller. 

Nice fun little project and hopefully a good gift.

Back soon,
Love Rosie

 

Felting…

Hi there!
Have you ever tried the craft of ‘Felting‘?

I can thoroughly recommend you do….it’s great fun and pretty addictive….

My daughter and I each had treated ourselves to a little kit from Hobbycraft’s Kirstie Allsop range.
Here’s what we did …I wish I’d recorded our giggles for you, it is the greatest fun – tinged with great danger, as the needles are extremely sharp!

Our little kits were to make a Blue-Tit bird (but I think they were selling an end of line at The Handmade Show as I cannot find the exact kits online – loads of others though and you don’t really need a kit as there are loads of suppliers of all you need to ‘felt’).

We opened out the dining room table, got ourselves a cuppa and settled down to make our birds.

When you first start it seems a completely mad thing to do… and you really think nothing is going to happen…

After much ‘stabbing’ through the yellow wool fibres the magic slowly started to happen the little birds tummy started to appear – all lovely and soft.

We followed the instructions and kept adding the different colours and finally, we had our Blue-tits…

Finished!

it really looks like it can’t work

perservere though…

it’s like magic!

watch those fingers though!

So, now we’ve found this new hobby we’re hooked!
Orders have gone in for more wool, more shapes and we’ve both started other felting projects,  I’ve started on some Christmas bunting… 

Back soon with more…
Love Rosie

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Bedroom Chair

Yesterday I had the best day, my daughter and I visited The Handmade Fair if you are interested in crafting it’s the place for you!
After many years of attending craft fairs both as stall holder in the 1980/90’s and as visitor I was incredibly impressed with the variety of craft stalls and the fact they mostly really were ‘handmade’ stalls. A real treat of a day out.

So, as to this weeks blog post, I was lying in bed pondering which of my ‘makes’ to write about and noticed I was looking at my slightly wacky bedroom chair…..

This chair has been in the family a long time, it was a study chair for some years then moved into the nursery, then became my daughters chair in her everso pink bedroom. It’s had stickers over it, ribbon wrapped all over (that was a surprise upcycle when my daughter was at uni) and now… she’s got her own home…. the chair is still here….I’ve got a little old school desk for a dressing table and the chair is back with me.

I decided to do some decopage on it and it stayed like that while the house was in a complete muddle. The decoupage was not a great success… some of the paper/card I’d used was too stiff and was quite scratchy.
So I decided to rub it down,  as I did so it became quite ‘shabby chic’ and I decided I liked it. I added some gold acrylic paint on the bits where I cleared the paper… and the final touch was finding a lovely embroidered humming bird cushion cover in Matalan which I’m afraid I cut up and used to cover the seat pad.
I really enjoy ‘upcycling’ ‘changing’ just making items of furniture your own, do you?
I look around my sitting room whilst doing this and  notice all the little ‘changes’ we’ve made to so much of our home!

Thanks for reading… here’s a few more pictures of my chair, (it also appeared on my instagram).

As you can see I also hung a vintage style metal pear and stuck on some bird transfers which were left over from my chest of drawers. ..

Back soon,
Love Rosie
x

 

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Tree Box

A recent week off work gave me plenty of time to be creative. But we did have a couple of days out and one was to a most amazing place, if you ever visit Surrey, England it should definately be on your list of places to visit.
The place is Watts Artist Village. One of exhibits was of lino cutting. I’ve always liked the idea of this craft and though I bought the cutters years ago I’ve never actually done it.
However I was inspired by a few of the artists, Gail Brodholt and Lisa Takahashi especially stood out to me, as well as the wonderful tree images of Richard Shimell.

No prizes for guessing which of the artists designs came to mind when looking at a little blank box… (the rectangular one I used is out of stock at The Works currently but they do have a nice square one and lots of other styles)The basic tree shape with a purple felt pen, then I added smaller branches with a pink felt pen…

Then I added some purple hills and a pink sky.
I then added some leaf motifs around the edge of the box. Then  I decided they were too fussy and went over the whole thing with gold acrylic paint!

The inside has been coloured with a purple felt pen and then I am drawing leaves on top, the effect will be quite subtle.

and that was that, it’s quite interesting to keep to a restricted palette, but of course you could do this kind of thing in anything you like, would even be good in just black.

Back soon,
love Rosie

Découpage

Découpage is the art of decorating with paper. It originated in France in the 17th century as a means of decorating bookcases, cabinets, and other pieces of furniture.
It spread throughout Europe and in the 18th century became a fashionable pastime, especially at the Italian, French, and English courts.
Graceful, charming, and colourful designs, cut from pictures printed expressly for this purpose, were applied to fans, screens, and toilet articles.
Put simply, découpage involves cutting out pictures, gluing them to an object and then coating the pictures and the object with layers of varnish.

It’s become a very popular craft at the moment with tissue papers in all manner of designs being sold. Hobbycraft do a great range, but I decided to use what I had.

My daughter had a simple chest of drawers for many years (they are still available in IKEA.
Over time this piece of furniture had been stenciled, had various stickers placed on them, had the handles replaced and generally showed the signs of wear!

We had recently moved house and were in total disarray – whilst I was redundant in the kitchen renovation I decided to decorate these drawers.

I usually like to paint but after looking through some magazines and finding a bumper pack of decorative papers I decided to have a go at sticking paper squares over the entire chest of drawers.
I began by cutting 5cm squares. Although the patterns I used are all very different, I used the technique of squinting at the selection to see if they were of similar tones.
(Try squinting through your eyelashes.  This will effectively reduce the mid-tones, leaving only the darks and lights).

A cut out word from Hobbycraft

Crazy drawer pulls!

As you can buy it.

I covered the fronts of the drawers and the top. As you can see there is no pattern, I just  used them without overthinking the pattern.
I used PVA glue and once dry gave the whole thing a few coats of varnish – sanding between coats to lose the impression of separate squares.

Another change of handles – there was no point trying to find anything to match, so I chose 6 different patterns (bought from Tiger and the addition of a ‘Create’ word stuck to the top drawer, this wooden ‘word’ was decorated with just a Sharpie pen
and they are complete.

In découpage  you can cut images from paper napkins, magazines, wrapping paper, allpaper – anything really and make up pictures or be completely random.
I’ve been boring with my squares but as the patterns in the papers were so crazy I felt a modicom of order would suit the project!

Have you become addicted to Ikea Mini drawers? I’ve loved them since I first saw them. When my daughter was young they were a great storage idea – handy to sit on too.
We had rather a lot and gradually as she grew up they changed their useage.

Finally she decided that she didn’t want quite so many so I painted them and lined their drawers to give as presents – each one was painted in a theme to suit the new owner.

I wasn’t taking photos of my arts and crafts ‘upcycling’ efforts then.

I still use them, my husband has the old ‘felt pen & crayon’ one now covered in ‘camera’ print wrapping paper for his lens’ and filters for photography.

I still use one for my pens and pencils, just wrapping paper, with gold acrylic paint around the edges and then little stick on bird motifs (which have been coloured using felt pens) :-

then I have my linen shelves – the back has been decorated with patterned paper squares:-

 

Back soon, Rosie

 

Light-up box

I recently bought this little box – I was looking for a box frame to put my commemorative 50ps in but this was reduced in price and I couldn’t res

It was just white though with the tree in black and of course, I couldn’t leave it like that! So I got a few blue felt pens and just started drawing wriggly lines and continued until I had covered the whole thing.

         

It now looks fine in the daytime and I really like it when it lights up. It has a setting so it will be on for 8 hours and then turn itself off   

Thanks for reading
Rosie