January Crafting & Creativity

Greetings lovely friends & readers

 On my table this week, a sweet enamel kettle filled with flowers from my Garden ... hydrangeas, alstroemerias. lavender, zinnias & pompom dahlias.  

Using some Christmas money I treated myself to a new length of Oilcloth for my table ... this one is so pretty.  

If you look at the right hand photo, you can see by my arrow that I still have "my display piece" from last weeks 

post  🐈‍⬛😮 !!

On this dull rainy day it is hard to photograph & do it justice - it is the softest dusky pink - called Elise Pink Blush. 

I have made a determined effort these school holidays to restrict Sid's screen time.  Some days I succeed & others not so - we have crafted lots!!  He was gifted some Gem Art kitsets & these have been a LOT of fun to create with.

One of the kitsets made up 3 bookmarks, we finished the 2 on the left & the right hand one is still to complete.  Granny especially enjoyed these crafts 😉

Although it feels like I have done very little crafting myself, looking back through my photos shows otherwise. 

 I found this tray in my sleepout & decided to chalk paint it for my bedside table.  I wanted to be able to pick up the tray with everything on it, not individually.  

Lightly sanding it showed up the detail in the handles 

Using pale duck egg chalk-paint, I am thrilled with how it turned out & lightly sanded it once dry.  A couple of coats of wax & it was complete.  

Since the New Year I have been on a sorting/decluttering mission, slowly going through cupboards & drawers.  This cross stitch was attached to a card & I kept it because it really appealed to me.  I made it up into a simple pillow backing it with some Tilda scraps & then stitched a fluffy yarn around the edges.

 

I filled it with crushed walnut shells so it sits plumply, also added an old broken earing of Mums to the bow.  

I am waiting on my 2026 charms to attach to the back - they are currently in-the-post.

In another cupboard I found this broken Angel, which I still loved. Her dress, wings & body parts were badly fly marked so I removed the dress & very gently washed her body before glueing her back together again.  

I sewed her a new skirt & gave her new feather wings ... I thought she looked so much better.  I have yet to find just the right spot to hang her. 

 I found * this blog post * from 2013 which was when I first purchased her (!!)  

My Hoop measures 33 cms across in diameter

I have long admired the hoop art that you see on Pinterest & often purchase hoops when I see them in the Op-shops.  I decided it was finally time to try & use them up!  I found a piece of old linen to fit my hoop & then sewed lengths of vintage lace across it, leaving little openings to act as "pockets".  I had lots of fun adding bits & bobs, some broken jewellery of Mums & buttons from Theodora Cleave tucking in tags & postcards here & there.  I gave mine a Sewing Theme as I plan to hang it in my sewing room.

This has sat on my sewing desk for the past two weeks while I added bits as I had the time or sat & studied it, changed my mind, removed things.   Once I was happy I sewed all my bits on & then backed it with a piece of wool felt.  Once again, hard to photograph on this rainy day, hence I've taken it to the deck table.  

I love projects like this that just sort of evolve.

So it seemed timely when I saw this Verse on Instagram yesterday & saved it ... I thought it was very true indeed, although I imagine you could say this about any year.

This little collage is titled A Day in the Life Of Pippi ... she moves from my potted Rhodohypoxis, to the suns rays in the lounge, to a drawer in my sewing room ... all in the course of a day (!!)  What a stressful life she leads  😉

Thank you dear friends, for your ever-welcome visits here today,

Wishing you a wonderful rest-of-the-week,

Sending much love & friendship out to you all,