Friday 21 October 2011

Organising heaven



                             




                 

Wednesday 19 October 2011

A little table

I think I could class this as an up-cycle project of sorts.  I do love trawling through second hand sites like Gumtree, and now even more so as I have a real reason to be looking for quirky pieces of furniture that can add to the character of our home and the new extension.

 I need a bed side table that will fit in the small space left on my side of the bed as well as a small coffee table that will take my morning cup of coffee when I lie back and relax on our new sofa (when that arrives...and when I get time to relax!).  The little table I picked up the other week could actually work in either space, but it needed a little work first.

A few coats of laquer to the legs and the flaking chipboard base helped straight away.


It came with some plain white tiles in the top, a little boring for me.  These patterned orange ones are far more exciting, even a bit 'Moorish'(!), and I do like tiling and grouting.  So a little bit of tile cutting, liquid nails and grout and the job was done. Now just to decide where it will live...

Friday 14 October 2011

A long time between posts...

Time for hand craft has been limited lately.  Having an extension built, doing some renovating ourselves and working almost full time in the last few months doesn't leave much time for anything else.  But we are almost there.  Weeks of reheated dinners eaten on our laps in our bedroom, the only real safe haven from the dust are behind us and it is has definitely all been worth it.  Not only do we have a larger, light filled living area, but I now have a room just for all my craftiness!  I'll share that another time, but going back a few months now before the renovating began in earnest and we still had a couch to sit on I made my brother's little one a felt gift.

The inspiration for this came from two sources. One - my brother who is an amazing artist and drew a tree titled 'Grow' while waiting for his baby to arrive, and two - a book of Softies a hootchie gave me that had a tree softie (as well as a poo softie!).  This is my version for my little niece.





The Basic Gist

2 bits of orange felt for the tree top, with cut out felt circles/swirls, bird and heart hand sewn on with embroidery floss (given felt doesn't have a 'wrong' and 'right' side, beware the rookie mistake of sewing these embellishments onto both 'front' sides of the tree - doesn't work when you go to sew the pieces together!! A few 'bugger, bugger bugger's may have been muttered). Once you have added the swirls etc, machine sew the tree tops wrong sides together with blanket stitch, leaving a gap for squishing in some stuffing.

Cut out the felt tree trunk with the base of the trunk on the fold. Hand embroider a face on one side. Fold right sides together and stitch each side seam. Turn right side out and stuff.Insert the trunk into the tree top, adding a bit more stuffing if you need to and then complete the blanket stitches by hand to attach the tree top to trunk.