A Monty Python retirement card

I made this special and unique card for the in-laws as they are quite big Monty Python fans. The elements are composed and put together from different images I found on internet. Will be interesting to find out in a months time to find out what they think about their gift!

Crochet Pram Mobile

In Denmark it seems to be the in thing to have crochet pram mobiles. Well I'm not going to be any worse than the rest but decided to make my own version as that's more fun!

I thought my little baby would appreciate a sky themed one so I set off trying to find lots of free crochet patterns to go with that.

The aeroplane is from a Danish pattern I found on a blog by Lene Søholm on filikhunkat. The direct link to her PDF pattern is here. Obviously if you can't read Danish you will have an issue but overall it was a really nice and easy pattern.

The cloud pattern is by a Turkish lady (I think) from the blog here. Now my Turkish isn't the best but luckily the pattern is more like a graph, which if you are used to crochet is quite easy to figure out as it just features the letters X, V and A.

The hot air balloon I winged a bit as I couldn't quite find an exciting pattern, the basket is from here and the balloon is from here. The balloon part is actually made from a pattern for a Christmas tree decoration, I made the one half and then I kept going until I got the kind of shape I wanted.

The cute little sunshine is from a mobile pattern but I chose not to do the eyes or other decorations, the direct link to the PDF is here.

I'd like to say thank you to all the lovely ladies sharing those patterns in the first place so that I could make this mobile. To join them all up I used round elastic thread and it is fastened to the pram with two little metal clips.

Wedding season

With wedding season coming up shortly I thought I would show you some of my previous makes on that theme, maybe it will give you some ideas for future events.

The clutch

I made this crochet bridal clutch bag from a free lions brand pattern, to get access to it you need to be a member. I added the bow to match her wedding theme colour and inside I hand embroidered her new initials.

The cake decorations

These lovebird cake toppers I made from a Japanese pattern thanks to some help from a web translator. To differentiate the bride and groom slightly the bride lovebird had just a slightly lighter shade of pink on her body. I added some rice to the bottom of the filling to weigh them own a bit, in hindsight I probably should have used a bit more. The MR&MRS bunting was hand embroidered on Hessian fabric.

The embroidered wedding gift

Embroidering on Hessian was rather difficult I found, started with trying to get the writing over to the fabric. The best way to transfer the writing was to use some carbon paper, I made my design on the computer first and then with the printout I wrote on top of it with the carbon-paper in-between to get my guide lines on the Hessian. Then once finished I added the lace band to get a romantic look. As my friend lives in UK I posted it like this but had made the size so that it could fit into a Ikea box frame. This was also the first time in many years that  I used the embroidery stitch called stem stitch, I found a good tutorial on how to do it at the time too and on one of her pages there is even a video.

The good luck charm

This dream catcher was made to decorate the wedding venue by perhaps hanging from a tree. There are many of them available for sale in different variations but I wanted to make a very special one for my friend's wedding.

The middle of this dream catcher was completely made up by my mind and I didn't make a note of how I made it, it just happened as I made it. My father very kindly made me the hoops out of brass which I then wound satin ribbon around and then did the standard way of attaching the doily to the hoop with thread, after I added decorative beads. 

My friend wanted a dream catcher with pastel coloured ribbons so I bought a variety of different coloured ribbons and lace and added some strands of feathers as well.

Wooden chopping board gift

 My boss got married so I made them a personalised chopping board, this was another project where carbon paper was needed. This was one of the first paper cutting projects I made and definitely the first pyrography project. I found that I needed a high powered soldering iron rather than the low one I first tried and I found a free template for the honeycomb pattern here.

The 4th anniversary gift

The 4th anniversary theme is linen and I found some gorgeous world map fabric for sale that was part made of linen! This I made my well travelled husband a drawstring shoe bag from to keep his clothes clean when travelling. I hand embroidered hearts on all the locations that we have been to together in the world and then I lined the inside of the bag with some plain green fabric. 

Hope you have been inspired for some gorgeous wedding makes :)

Maternity pattern tester

A couple of weekends ago I was fortunate enough to be chosen to do pattern testing for an amazing maternity top. It is designd by patterns for pirates and was a very easy top to create and didn't take long time to construct either. A bonus with the pattern is that the only measurement you will need to do is the current chest measurement, I am very happy with the fit as the elastic in the waist does an amazing job and I will definitely make more! :)

If you are interested in getting this pattern you will find it here you will need the maternity add on as well as the regular top version for the layer me up shirt.

bonus photo that my 2,5 year old son took of me and my husband during the obligatory photo shoot.

Travel play mat tutorial

I have come across these amazing things called quiet books, from this I got quite a few ideas on the design of the play mat. We are going on holiday soon and I want something to entertain my son with so thought why not a play mat to fit on the aeroplane fold down tray.

I should start off by saying that I work in an industry where I have access to these seats and went and measured a few to check what the industry standard is. My conclusion - there is no standard! I measured three different types and they varied in sizes a lot.

Tray one width 42,5 cm, depth 18-20 cm

Tray two width 33,5 cm, depth 17 cm

Tray three width 34-30 cm, depth 23cm

This project could have ended there! As I couldn't figure out how on earth I would get something to fit all of those sizes, I however do know what aeroplane type we will be flying with so was trying to figure out the size of that... well nowhere online did I find an exact measurement so made a guestimate! The finished size of this play mat is about 20cm x 40cm plus the overhang car storage.

What you will need

different coloured pieces of felt 

green cotton for background 24x42 cm

backing material for play mat 24x42 cm

two small pieces of velcro
bias binding

embroidery floss

sewing machine 

Let's get started

The first thing I did was draw out the size of this play mat on baking paper and tried to come up with the most interesting road design for such a little space. This is where it was helpful to look up at how other car mats and quiet books were made, I found somewhere that they had made their roads 2 inches wide or 5 cm wide so I did that for my roads too.

Once I was happy with my design I cut it out in black felt and started to hand stitch the road markings. It would have been good to have some embroidery floss but I had run out so used some of my white crochet thread that I use for doilies instead ;) 

Next step that I did was fasten the road onto the green backing material using a small and tight zigzag stitch with white thread (this doubles as the road markings too).

Then I was browsing internet trying to figure out what to put on my play mat! On Fiskars craft I found this amazing idea for a car wash which was instantly added to my car mat, they also have a nice version of a petrol pump but slightly too big for my mat so made a simpler version (for the hose I didn't have any extra shoe laces laying around so took a strand of black thread and wound it double and covered the end in cellotape). I have actually made two of these play mats, one for my son and one for his friend. My son's friend got a hospital and a few houses. 

The one I made for my son has got a fire station and a farm yard with a pond and tractor. The items on the car mat was either hand embroidered,glued on or machine stitched for extra safety.

The eagle eyed will notice the fastener sticking out from the one I made for my son, well I forgot how I made the previous one and did it differently! Both ways work but I think I prefer the first version for that. Another difference is that I added straps on second one for attaching to the aeroplane tray ( I wrongly assumed that Ryanair doesn't have fold down trays). For the four attaching straps I used bias biding each piece 22 cm long, perhaps long but gives extra leeway on attaching to the aeroplane tray.

This is the first version I made, the tab is 12 cm long and 4,5 cm wide. I sewed two of those pieces together and added some roundness to the end of the tab and cut off the excesses fabric on the inside, when I turned it the right way round I added the velcro the rounded end. and fastened to the back piece of the play mat 2,5 cm up from one of the edges and 13 cm in, I sewed this twice to hid the raw edge of the tab. The other piece of velcro was attached 3 cm from the edge and  2,5 cm in. 

The fabric piece I used for the storage pockets was 32 cm long and 40 wide. I started off by folding the piece in half and press with the iron, then sew a seam close to the edge (this is at the top of the car pockets) then turn up 7 cm and sew each long end to close it in to a big pocket, next step was to sew the small containers for each car 6,5 cm from each other. Final step was attaching it all to each other, making sure not to get the tabs and pockets caught up in the seams! Remember to leave a little opening for hand stitching with ladder stitch at the end. Once it was sewn up I added the numbers to the car pockets and glued them on

The numbers on the pockets add on an extra element of learning with the different colours as well as numbers. My son loves matching the cars into the pockets with numbers in same colour as the car!

And best of all, it folds up small to not take much space when travelling! Hopefully it will help keep your kids busy during long and boring times. x

Floral easter egg

My son got given a yarn ball in a shop today when we went fabric shopping. He is very much into eggs and the shop owner was more than happy to give him this "egg". My first thought was "what are we going to do with this thing then" but when we got home it hit me!

 I had bought some roses earlier in the week so took them out of their vase and got a pint glass out, put it under the "egg" and let my son stick the roses through the holes (just make sure that the stems end up in the water) and voilà a master piece! As usual the photos don't really make the arrangement justice.

There are plenty of tutorials around on how to make yarn lanterns / ornaments. Have fun crafting!

Birthday card for Andy

This week it is my son's friend Andy's birthday so I have made him a special card and gift. I'll show you the gift at a later time, now we will concentrate on how to do the card.

What you will need

Printer
Black paper
printer paper
cutting mat
scalpel
coloured paper
spray glue
glue stick
toothpicks
patience

How to make it

My free drawing skills aren't the best so I had a look through google images for the perfect image. I came to the conclusion that colouring pages for kids are in general pretty good for using for the base. Once I had found this image of George with balloons I went to photoshop to add the text, when doing text with papercutting it is important to make sure that the letters join up. Once having figured out my design I mirror imaged it before printing out (this is an important step!)

Now we are ready to transfer the image. I used a pen and carbon paper to transfer the mirrored image onto the black piece of paper. As it was quite a few lines to copy I stuck my pieces of paper down with a couple of pieces of cello tapes, after all the last thing I wanted was for my papers to move and lines not join up! The second image (excuse the flash, it was late at night) shows what it looked like once I had copied it all onto the black paper. I had to do some adjustments to the text as I was copying it all to make sure that they were joining up with each other.

So then when all lines were copied the slow process of cutting out all the little lines started. The first image shows mid cut when I was trying to figure out which colours to use for George. Second image shows when it was all cut out. Then after that is when all the fun stuff started and I didn't have a chance to take photos. The system that worked best for me was using a glue stick for attaching all the minor pieces but spreading out with a tooth pick! This is because if you use the whole glue stick you risk breaking your pretty cut out shapes, this I learned the hard way! I cut out squares in the colours i wanted to approximately fit the hole they were going to fill and then cut off the excess past the black lines using my scalpel. Once all the colours were done I used my spray glue and pastened the image to the card! The only thing on the image that isn't cut out in paper is George's facial features as I deemed it too tricky so I hand drew them onto his face instead.

Happy crafting!