Quick Ironing Board Cover

It is finally Friday!!! Yay! Sadly I still have a few things to do before I can relax and enjoy my evening, but in a couple of hours that should all be finished.

Check out my new ironing board cover!! My old one was the one that came with the board and it was far from pretty, probably because my ironing skills are not the greatest so that whenever I use fusible something I normally fuse half of it to the ironing board rather than to the fabric. Woops...

I mean, look at it! It was sooo awful!

During my trip to the Poundstore the other day I came across a cover with some plants on it. Not a great cover but it was only a pound and it was much better than the one I was using, so I bought it. Of course when I came home it was way too big for my little ironing board and it looked really wrong. By that time I really had enough to my old cover so I decided to just use some fabric I've had in my stash for years and make my own.

This is the fabric, isnt it cute?? The bf hates it but it makes me happy and when ironing you really need that, hihi!

It didnt entirely go as planned. But then, what ever does when I make something impromptu? First of all I noticed that I cut the fabric the wrong way around. I just used the old cover as a pattern and just cut it out, but only later did I realise that I had cut it for right-handed people. I am left-handed so now when I am ironing I see the pattern upside-down. Great... I could of course have made another one but I just really wanted to do this quickly so doing it again was out of the question.

Then the little string thingy that each cover I know has didnt fit through the gap as I didnt have a pin small enough to work the string through the gap. Another obstacle... luckily I found some elastic and sewed that on instead, only to find that I had juuuust enough (really but like 1cm or so LOL) so that at least wasnt a disaster. I put the cover on and it actually fit! I added some safety pins on the bottom with the string to at last make a bit more shaped for the start but all in all I'm quite pleased with it. Oh yes, and I ended up using the Poundstore cover as a base as that already had the foam on it as well so I still used it :)

This is it! What do you think? It's upside-down of course but otherwise it's very cute and summery.
I actually want to iron something now!

Gorgeous Beaded Yoyo Hair Accessory

Woops, I didnt mean to post twice on one day LOL. I hope you managed to read both posts, my knit sweater makeover and my very cute brag book.

Today I made this very simple and extremely large hair clip using some yoyos. A while ago I made a ton of yoyos, maybe you remember? The whole collection kind of looked like this:

But there were actually more... I made this fantastic giant yoyo out of the same brown shiney material as I made the steampunk skirt. But I just didnt find anything to go with it... I didnt want the entire thing to be shiny so I just waited for inspiration to come. And that took a good few months... Then I went to the craft store and found a pack of fantastic heavy glass beads for only 29p! That's actually less than 10p per bead :) There was my inspiration :) I whipped up another yoyo quickly as of course I didnt have one in this fabric in the right size (the purple taffeta from the Mombi dress) and added the beads. I hot glued it to a hair clip and taadaa, my new hair clip :)

Dont you just love it? The beads are sooo pretty! And I think the colours came together really well :) It is my first hair clip where I used something else than buttons so I'm super proud!

Now I just have to find a matching outfit to wear ;) It doesnt go at all with the cardigan I made yesterday... Oh well I'm sure I will find something sooner or later. I still have some of that fabric so who knows what I will whip up for it ;)

Easy to Make Brag Book

For a while now people have asked me to show them stuff that I made. As you may know that's not always possible, especially when at work or somewhere in transit. But then I discovered this wonderful thing called a Brag Book. Did you know that it is totally acceptable to carry a picture book or photo album showing all the things you made and totally brag about it? Well, ok maybe let's call it sharing LOL ;)

I bought a small photo album in the Poundstore a while back and actually managed to get some pictures printed up. I got a really good deal at Boots where you can get 40 pics for free and only pay shipping when you join up. So I only paid £1.49 for 40 pics! That's a really good deal AND I didnt have to leave the house :). The album was way ugly with a balloon and a puppy on the front. No offence to balloons or puppies but it really wasnt my thing. Around Christmas I got some really cute wrapping paper with cupcakes and used the leftovers to cover the album. I dont have a tutorial or anything, I basically covered the album with Mod Podge, stuck the wrapping paper on and covered it with a few more layers of Mod Podge.

I made a small label out of pink paper (again with the pink, what is wrong with me?) and wrote 'Brag Book' on it, and then also mod-podged that onto the book. What do you think? It's it disgustingly cute? I just love the cupcakes!

I used the same pink paper (got this on sale as part of a decoupage pack I got for only 99p at the craft shop a while back) to cover the inside of the book by mod-podging it to th book and then again covering it again with a few layers of the same. As you can see I have already added some pics, showing my piece de resistance first of course ;)

So, really easy and it cost me a total of £2.49 including pictures :) Now that's a good deal! Plus I can now show everyone what I've done so far in case they ask. But I don't mean to brag ;)

Knit Sweater Makeover 2

Good morning everyone!
I hope you all liked my banana butterscotch muffin recipe :) It's 7.30am and I am sooo tired. I didnt sleep well at all last night, I kept dreaming about work, how very annoying... I am so hoping to go to bed early tonight. So I'm pre-posting this in the morning so it will show up tonight. Dont you just love post options hihihi.

You might remember me telling you about a girl at work who gave me a pile of clothes that she no longer needed for me to pimp and wear? Well, I finally started on one item at least :) She gave me this gorgeous brown V-neck sweater which was sadly a little too big (she is a size larger than me) and had a stain on the back. But not to fear, I made a cardigan out of it :) I'm not really a cardigany person but the office can be tricky so it is nice to have around. Plus it looks quite officey I guess.

I actually forgot to take a 'before' picture and only remembered to do so after I had already made the cut in the front but nonetheless, here is the somewhat belated 'before' picture:

It's a lovely chocolately brown colour. Very business-like I think. And so comfy too!

This is the stain. Not very easy to see in the photo but it is red and since the sweater is brown that was a problem.

Luckily I still had a lot of ribbon and trimming lying around from all my planned medieval costumes which have yet to be started and so I used one of those. It was wide enough to cover the stain and add a little flair to the cardigan. I also added buttons this time but as I didnt have brown buttons (at least none that were all the same), I used cream ones to match the trim. I also took it in a little for a more fitted look. It doesnt look bad I think although it is very not my style and I have to get used to it. What do you think? This is the finished result all buttoned up:

Maybe it's too granny like? I cant decide... At least it's done though which is good and I'm thinking with the right clothing it can look quite nice still. Thoughts?

Oops it's getting late I must get to work... ttyl everyone! I'm back and have many more things I will be doing this week so watch this space ;)

Recipe - Banana Butterscotch Muffins

Hi all! I'm back :) Today was my first day back at work and let me tell you, I'm exhausted... Just had a lovely nap on the sofa (meaning the poor bf had to cook and clean tonight) and now am ready to share this wonderful recipe with you - Banana Butterscotch Muffins! I got the recipe from Nigella Lawson's website. They looked soooo sweet while baking but in the end were absolutely yummy :)

You need for 12 muffins:

• 3 very ripe bananas
• 125ml vegetable oil
• 2 eggs
• 250g flour
• 100g caster sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 150g butterscotch (or chocolate) morsels (I used 110 grams as that was all my bag of butt
  

You do this:

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C/gas mark 6 and line a 12-bun muffin tin with muffin papers.
2. Mash the bananas and set aside for a moment.
3. Pour the oil into a jug and beat in the eggs.
4. Put the flour, sugar, bicarbonate of soda and baking powder into a large bowl and mix in the beaten-egg-and-oil mixture, followed by the mashed bananas.
5. Fold in the butterscotch morsels, then place equal quantities in the prepared muffin tin - I use an ice cream scoop and a spatula - and bake in the oven for 20 minutes.
   

The exact link for the recipe can be found here.

Check these babies out, dont they look yummy? Mmm, I think I must eat one now ;)

Let me know what you think if you make these too!

Hopefully Back Soon

Hi all,
I guess after all this you must be wondering why I havent posted anything in over two weeks... Well, I have not been well. Not to worry, nothing MS related (I was so relieved!). I have been really dizzy for weeks now and am actually at home, not being able to do anything let alone craft something. I finally have time and the world is spinning so not helping really... I have one more week to go so fingers crossed it will be ok soon.

So no new projects (though plenty planned for once I can actually operate a sewing machine again) but I did want to share this with you that I found in a pile of photos my sister had. Check it out, this is me age 5 I think...

Yes I loved the eighties and these big bows LOL

So dont worry, I'll hopefully be back soon! Big hugz to all :)

Easy Car Pillow from Noodlehead

Wow the whole 'let's get crafting' thing took a little longer than expected... I started making this car pillow on the 2nd of January that I saw a while ago on this website from Noodlehead. It is so cute!! I didnt take any how-to pictures as Anna's website is great in showing all the details.

Unfortunately, while making this pillow I developed this massive headache and with having to go back to work after the holidays, crafting was put on the low burner. I guess I have to take it easy for a while... But I was so close! Nearly finished... so I decided to try and see if I could sew a straight line, and finished putting on the other side of the pillow today.Yay me! The stuffing I could then do from the sofa so all was well :) The friend I made this for asked me not to use fiberfill, so I used some fabric scraps to stuff the pillow. Originally I used the scraps to make this anti-draft door thingy which then turned out to be way too small... This is my failed anti-draft door thingy:

I used some old tights and ribbon I still had left. It would have been perfect! If only a little bigger...

But no waste, this way I was able to use the scraps to fill up this car pillow. You curious yet about how mine turned out? This is it:

It's not as great as Anna's one is, but it is nice and colourful (and a bit more fraying woops). I think it looks really cute and I just hope that my friend likes it for her new son also... it is after all nearly a year late... but it is the first item I've made this year and keeping promises is the best way to start off the new year. Lets hope it will continue this way, hihi!

Now it's back to the sofa for me :) let's hope I'll be ok again soon because I have cupcake plans this weekend with Lauren!

Happy New Year!

Hello everyone and Happy New Year!!!

We celebrated quietly with just the two of us. We had some lovely appetiser such as the Martha Stewart Halloween crackers that are so good! Also some blini again and some lovely white wine (Gewuerztraminer, my favourite!). All pics below are taken by the bf, he's so much better with his pics than me!

The bf cooked dinner and I took care of dessert, and then we watched Alice in Wonderland. Not a bad movie, though the best part only lasted about 20 seconds. Can you guess what was the best part for me? It's the bit where the Mad Hatter makes the tiny dress for Alice. So cute! That alone is worth the whole film ;)

And then it was midnight!

Our first picture of the year :) Dont you just love self timer when it works? Check out Big Ben in the background, how is that for timing :) (all thanx to the bf of course)

Then we went outside to watch the fireworks which were nearly invisible due to the fog, but we had our little sparklers. Yes, they're the only thing I dare light as am terrified of fireworks. Guess all those commercials paid off... LOL

This was supposed to be our wonderfully romantic 2011 picture. Then the sparkler died just as the self timer finally went off... woops!

Luckily I had another one so here it is, our lovely romantic picture for 2011 :)
Happy New Year everyone!!! I just spent the afternoon at Hobbycraft and got lots of items on sale, so let the crafting begin! :)