My Busy Craft Life

Hi everyone! January is nearly finished and I am working on some more items for a few more giveaways, but for the time being, let's start with one. I have been wanting to do these so often and somehow time is running away from me, so let's make 2012 a year of giveaways :) I've been lucky enough to win a few over the past months, so it's only fair that I return the favour. Although maybe not via CSN Stores as I havent heard from them since it took me forever to post about their giveaway, but nonetheless I intend to have one once a month, so here is hoping I will actually manage it! The weekend was quite good, though I have not done anything creative yesterday I managed quite some stuff today. Due to the late hour I havent been able to take any decent pics so I am hoping to rectify that tomorrow morning before work and I will be able to share all with you :) Am so curious as to what you think! Anyway, let's get to business shall we? For January's giveaway I wanted...

Hi all! About once a year, I fly home for a family visit. This was one of those times... I still had some holidays left from 2011 which I had to taken in January so off I went last week for a few days in the mother country. Geez, if you thought it rained much in London! I think I brought it with me because for 4 days we ONLY had rain, and not just a little bit! But anyway, as I was planning this, I mentioned this to a friend I met at EFF 2 years ago and we have been Facebooking ever since. She runs a craft shop and always invites me to come over. Sadly her shop is far far away and unreachable without a car so that was thus far impossible. UNTIL she mentioned that the shop had moved and she would gladly pick me up from the airport for a visit and drop me off at the train station in the evening. Score!! So we spontaneously organised this and off I went. Her store is amazing!! It has two floors and plenty of crafting space :) Sadly I didnt take a pic of the outside (it was pouring rain af...

Hi all! It is time for yet another project! Yes another quick one but hopefully come Feb I will have time for a bigger project. Here is hoping! A little while ago I found a makeup mirror in my mess. It was silver (well plastic butt the colour was silver) and it was bashed up quite a lot with smudges all over the poor thing! OMG, we're watching 'Unforgiven' while I write this and I can tell that I write like they speak in that movie! LOL not very handy ;) Anyway, I've also been cutting out images from various magazines to make cards with one day, so I thought why not MP the mirror? On the left the mirror, on the right the image I chose to MP with. NO this is NOT Barbie! Much to the amusement of my colleagues, this is a picture of a porcelain poppy doll from a magazine. I cut out the shape and MPd the image on (this took a few tries) but in the end I think I got it right. What do you think? Now I wont have to be embarrassed to take out the mirror! Though this pic is reall...

Heyhey again! Finally another craft to blog about. The crafting is not the problem, the getting someone to take pictures is! LOL... These are done with the self time so not the best but the idea is there. Anyway, a few months ago, I bought a brown knit sweater in the charity shop sale for £2. It had a turtle neck and extremely long sleeves which had the same turtle neck idea but for sleeves. Confused yet? Yeah, so was I! So the first thing that had to go were the sleeves. I cut about half of them off and hemmed the sleeves. The sweater was now wearable but still not great... What do you think? The knit design wasnt bad, but the stripes started about halfway down my middle and it did nothing to flatter my figure. One of the side has just sewn on buttons, on the other side the buttons actually open. That gave me an idea: a skirt! Getting to the point already took some weeks, but once I had it in my mind I had to do this immediately. So I cut off the collar and the sleeves. I didnt have t...

Hi all! Ok, am pre-blogging this as I'm not sure how long this boiler thing is going to take, but I didnt want to leave you hanging on the next venue from yesterday's post. Remember I told you that I dont go to the very east much? Well, since I was here anyway... ;) This is still Canary Wharf. The weather was amazing even though it was freezing but the sun was really nice. I like London like this. It's pretty, and all the annoying people stay inside because of the cold, muahahaha! Artsy picture near Canary Wharf. I decided to walk to my next destination rather than taking the DLR... On the way I got extremely lost, but I did see the Millennium Dome for the first time ever. Yes look, it's really there! I also saw these apartments near the Dome, though it might be a hotel... My attempt at another artsy pic. I like it :) By the time I got here, I realised I had to backtrack all the way to the DLR station anyway as there was no way I would make it on foot to East India. No ...

Hello again everyone! Is ice sculpting a craft? I'm sure that many of you will say but in a way something is created (i.e. a statue or very interesting ice cubes) so maybe it's more like upcycling ;) Yesterday was the annual London Ice Sculpting Festival. Not something I would normally go fr but I am trying to let London convince me that it really is as cool as I am constantly told it is (yes, after 6 years I need it to show me something great!), so I decided to spend the whole of Saturday on the go. The festival was in Canary Wharf which isnt really an area I get to very often, so I tried to do more than just the one thing. But more about that later. Let's sculpt! There were 6 or 7 entries. They started on Friday but as I had to work, I could only go on Saturday. The progress was really amazing already! Not sure if this is a dancer or a skater lifting his partner, but it sure looks cool! This is the French entry. The only one I happened to take the flag in the picture I th...

Hi everyone! TGIF :) Safe and sound at home and planning my weekend :) This has been my first Bento week! You see, a few months ago (I forget the occasion) the bf gave me the The Just Bento Cookbook: Everyday Lunches to Go book as a present, and after reading so many nice reviews in blogland, I really wanted to start bringing bento lunches to work. With some of the kiddy things of course too, one doesnt need to be grown up all the time, hihi! Of course I havent read the book entirely yet and it took me months to find the perfect bento box. But around Christmas I was online and via a forum on moneyexpert.com I found the link to this plastic container, now lovingly called 'yoghurt pot'. I love it so much I even posted it on facebook! LOL. Yes, I have to admit that I bought a pink one as eating yoghurt from a blue container just wasnt appealing to me. As there was a sale on at the time, I also saw a box set in these colours with dividers! Granted, you can remove the dividers but ...

Hello again :) I have just finished my first item of clothing for 2012! Granted, it was a project long in the making and really only took about 15 mins, but nonetheless it is now done :) My friend from work who is moving to the US soon kindly donated some of her clothes to me when clearing out her closet prior to the big move, and one of the things she gave to me was a tight longsleeve back top. Very simple but so comfy! Perfect size also :) But I didnt want to have yet another plain black top. It needed some spice. Enter spider top! At the last B&B sale where I bought the corsets for the zombie dress, I found a tshirt with a gigantic red spider on it for only £1! I love spiders yes :) Once I got home the tshirt was ok but the location of the spider gave my figure a really strange look, so I cut out the spider and the sign of the back which related to the (what I think is a) band. Sadly I didnt take a pic of the items but only of the finished product, but you'll get the idea. I...

Heyhey! After my lovely trip to the Museum of London, I went by Selfridges for some sushi-grade fish. I heard this from someone at work and it is correct, so for all Londoners: if you are looking for sushi-grade fish, they're selling it at Selfridges' Food Court at the Yo Sushi stand. I'm sure there are other places but I havent found them yet, and since I was in the area anyway... And it is so much better here than in Tesco! Luckily (I checked this beforehand), I could buy the fish on Saturday and make the sushi on Sunday. While the bf was working on his Warhammer, I was making sushi. I had done it once before, back in July , but this one worked out even better! Maybe it was the fish? ;) Taadaa, the result :) I had a selection of salmon nigiri, tamago, cucumber maki, yellow pepper maki, and salmon maki. I also added some slices of salmon on the sides. Still not so many new fillings, but these are my favourites. For the bf served in style with some Asahi :) Not the best an...