Another thing turned into envelopes!

Lots of things are upcycled into envelopes in my house - book pages, thick magazines, the pretty insides of larger envelopes (just reverse them and trim to size!) being just some examples. The latest thing is vintage sewing pattern envelopes. Some have already been turned into gift tags but some were too tatty or didn't have the right size picture on the front.

Hence the envelopes :) Pretty eh and it means one less thing for the recycling bag! I've got my eye on some old record sleeves now......

Drool, drool!

Some things I have been drooling over lately!

 The Bella and Betty bikes from Beg.

This wooden bike light from Mr Lentz.

Neighbourhood Print from Letterpress.

This lovely soft lemon bag from Luckycann.

These fabulous sewing machine brooches from Betty Jo.

This very cool Paris clock from iluxo.

Custom order - Bride and Groom chicken

These guys are so cute! I had free reign on what they looked like as long as they were pincushion sized and looked like a bride and groom.

You may kiss the bride!

I had fun sorting through my lace to make the bride's dress.  I also have some gorgeous cream lace with seed beads and embroidery on which would work well as a dress.

The groom was tricky to make and involves quite a few steps but I now have pattern pieces so I can make more if anyone else wants a unique wedding gift :)

The photos were taken in front of my sewing machine just so that I could show my customer the chickens quickly before the end of the day - any future photo shoots would be better :)

My Creative space

With the girls being off school at the moment I'm not getting as much work done as I would like. However I seem to be going through a mending phase at the minute. In the past 24 hours I have fixed a tee shirt for Matt, shortened the straps on a dress for Anya, sewn buttons on a dress and a tunic for Tara and fixed a hole in a pair of leggings, also for Tara.

Said leggings! She put them on this morning, discovered the hole and I whipped them off and mended them - and it's still only 10am! I'm obviously feeling organised today :)

The home of Our Creative Spaces.

Vintage maps

I love vintage maps but what I love more are damaged vintage maps - that's because I have an excuse to chop them up and turn them into pretty things! I have recently been making sets of vintage map stickers and have listed two lots in my shops.

Canadian map stickers

UK and Ireland Map stickers

If you are looking for particular countries or areas of countries then give me a shout as I may have a damaged map waiting to be prettified :)

P.S. The tidying saga is taking much longer than I thought but windows are being washed and carpets cleaned so that's why. I think we are tackling Anya's room today.......

Tidying time :)

I have declared this week (or at least the start of this week) and tidy and sort week in this house. We are going through both girls bedrooms, our bedroom and the front room and tidying, cleaning sorting, putting to one side for the charity shop and generally making our home feel nice, clean and stuffed with less clutter. Hopefully we will be combining this with visits to pick blackberries and visits with friends but we will see.

This photo is from two years ago but you get the general idea!

Wish me luck and see you on the other side.......

Fab find!

We went to Southport yesterday for a day out as we had never been there before and we were very pleased we did. It's a lovely town and has lots of nice shops alongside the all important charity shops. We found the  one that the posh ladies of town obviously deem the better charity to give to as there were some gorgeous things in there. Alas, none in my size but.... Also on the way there we spotted signs to a Saturday car boot sale so we took a little detour and ended up there. We bought a few things but the thing that stands out the most is this little house shelf.

It was on one of those stalls (if you go regularly to boot sales then you will know what I mean) where everything looks old and quite pricey. Luckily I got my mitts on this for just £2! Bargain or what?

Is it just me or do these ladies standing on the shelf remind you of those kind of ladies that appear on the balcony in bars in Western movies? Maybe it's just me and my teenage years spent watching Westerns with my dad!

I'm not sure where it's going to fit on my wall of wonders but I will find a space somewhere!

Make up or not make up

No not the kind of stuff you put on your face (I only ever wear lip balm btw) but a question for you.

My mini envelopes are currently sold in packs of 20 like this.

Not made up into the envelope shape and to be honest at craft fairs people often wonder what they are even with a mini one made up next to where they are displayed! I'm thinking of making them up into the actual shape.

However it's quite fiddly to do and due to the extra time I would need to up my prices of these to £3 for a pack of 20. Does that sound reasonable to you? I would love your thoughts whether they are positive or negative!

Enviable envelopes and an adorable Tweed chick

Those two phrases were said about my work in national magazines recently :D :D Chuffed is not the word!

My pincushion Tweed chicken was featured in the August edition of Cross Stitcher magazine and was described as adorable!

And Knit magazine (also the August edition) featured some of my mini envelopes upcycled from a knitting book. And called them enviable to boot :)

Chuffed :)

My creative space - upcycling is fun!

I spent a bit of last night and most of the morning so far turning security envelopes (you know, the patterned ones) into fabulous stickers!

Bet you didn't know that there were this many variations did you? And trust me when I say there there are plenty of designs not pictured!

I then took some photographs ready for listing them.

I even took some slightly fancy pictures!

I've even managed to package up one set. The rest of my morning and probably most of my afternoon will involve listing these in my shops and packaging up the other 8 sets that are waiting!

For more Creative Spaces pop over here.

Speaking of magazines....

I also bought some to keep and not chop up for the pictures :) Some thrifted and some bought at Barnes and Noble.

These are stacked next to my bed waiting to be read :)

Magazine fiend

That's me - a magazine fiend. And I love the thrift stores in the USA as they often have lots of old homes/craft magazines for 25c each. Imagine my delight when I went into one and found a HUGE rack chock full of Martha Stewart Living and Homes and Gardens etc all at 25c each :) As these would have been ridiculously heavy to bring home I flicked through them in the hotel and tore out the pages I wanted to keep for my inspiration book/s. In a different thrift store I spotted a pile of new paper folders and treated myself to a couple so I could keep the aforementioned pages nice and neat.

See? Nice and neat! So I think my plan for today is to add these pages to my ideas/inspiration books. I'll need lots of sellotape!

No need for Photoshop!

All you need to do is go into a deep underground cave (Cathedral Caverns) that is a lot cooler than outside and then come back out into ridiculous heat and humidity and try to take photographs. Cue spooky steamed up effects. No need for Photoshop at all!

In that last photograph I am trying to look through my steamed up glasses hence the funny angle of my head (on close up it looks funny anyway!)

P.S. We are back from a fabulous time in America (Alabama and Colorado) and there should be more craft related posts soon. Although I still have lots of holiday photo's to show you so you may have to put up with those for a while :)

Mmmmmmm Moleskines :)

Lovely, lovely moleskines :) The two big black ones were $1.59 each (the green one isn't moleskine but nice anyway) and the small one was 99c. Bargains :) :)

Even hotter!

You know how I said it was hot the other day? Well this is what it was the day we went to see the rockets.

Add in the humidity too and the heat index (real feel) for that day was 115 degrees. It was bloody hot!

Water park fun part two

Just a dump of photos - enjoy :)