T52MMMC week 4

Well it seems that I have somewhat trailed behind in the 52 MMM Challenge but I have not been completely idle in the creative sense.

During the summer hols I decided that at the beginning of the new term I wanted to start an after school club; making stuff using affordable materials e.g. secondhand, recycled or just plain cheap (the local pound shop has proved useful for curby grips and hair bands so far!)

But before I even started the club I needed to design a poster. I used this opportunity to have a crack at Photoshop. I don't have the full creative suite, it's out of my budget at the moment, but I did get Photoshop Elements 4.0 free when I bought a Bamboo drawing pad on ebay.

Since I installed it at the beginning of the year it has remained unused, until now that is. Now, I am not one for sitting and reading through tutorials for computer programmes, I just like to fiddle about with it and then perhaps get some useful little tips after I've mastered the basics.

At first it was slow going, it took at a least a couple of hours to work out how to add a image to a layer; it wouldn't let me copy and paste or open and insert, but I eventually discovered that the option "Place..." under the "File" tab was what I was looking for, and after that it was rather easy.

Anyway this is what I came up with, and I was really pleased with the finished article.

Most of the images I have used on it were free downloads from the lovely blog, Pugly Pixel, which I stumbled over a while back, and I am so glad I have finally been able to use them for something. The lace was a download from the Martha Stewart Weddings website.

So the poster is my week 4, and since then I have hosted three weeks of my little Craft Club; in which we have made the bow hair grips from here, the pom-poms from here, and we made a start today on a cute fabric corsage from here (the first blog I ever read). So I think that brings me up to week 7 which isn't as bad I originally thought (Although I need to photograph and blog them to make them count.

On a completely different note; tomorrow, Danny, Ella and I are going away for a long weekend with friends which I'm pretty excited about (it will be my first holiday this year). We are going glamping here. It's 20 mins from York, it's in a forest and has a woodburning stove, real beds, and our own real toilet and shower. To top it all off it looks like that the sun is making and appearance in England this weekend, whoo hoo!

photos from the Jollydays facebook page

Looks lovely doesn't it! It is also Ella's 7th birthday on saturday so hopefully it will be a memorable one for her. I can't wait to get there and see if it is really as lovely as it looks in the photos.

I'll let you all know when we get back.

x

T52MMMC week 3

I did make this last week, honest, I just didn't get round to posting until today as I spent most of last week in the beautiful city of Bath, doing lots of shopping. Luckily while I was in Bath the weather was beautiful which is more than what I can say for the weather in Essex recently, we are feeling a bit soggy here at the mo, which is a bit ironic since last weeks make was a garden sunshade!

These pictures where taken in a bit of a hurry in-between rain showers, so aren't the best.

I bought this lovely heavyweight cotton fabric last year in a slightly odd, but pleasing fabric/coffee shop in Maldon (the smell of coffee wafting up your nose while you fondle fabric was quite soothing).

At the time I thought it would be lovely to use it in garden somewhere, either as a giant outdoor floor cushion like this, or some sort of sun shady thing. But it spent over a year taking up precious space on my fabric shelves until now.

The sunshade has garden canes threaded through the back and front to help keep it's shape and is held up with a combination of cup hooks, eyelet screws and some washing line, so it quite easy to take down and roll up when the weather is yucky.

I don't know about you, but all the flowers in garden are starting to look a bit worst for wear now, but these newbies look gorgeous in my french stacking crates I got for the boot sale the other week £10 for 3!

This is one of a pair of deck chairs I got two years ago, I managed to make a new sling for this one last year, but still haven't finished of the other one, so that's another job for the list.

Please pray for a non-rainy morning for me tomorrow, as it car boot day in Marks Tey and I missed it last week while I was in Bath!

T52MMMC week 2

Yesterday, whilst washing up my latest car boot haul from the Marvellous Marks Tey Car Boot (no, seriously, thats what it's called), I decided that my new-to-me mini jelly mould would make a lovely votive for a candle. Then I thought I'd go one better than that since I'm on 'the make' at the mo and make it into a candle.

Now, I don't have any candle making equipment as such, but in typical me style I just had to make it NOW.

So after locating my stash of Ikea candles, I quickly got down to snapping and chopping them into bits, removing the wick to use for later, and melted all the bits 'bain marie style' directly in the mould over a gentle heat. Once the bits had melted fully, I gingerly removed the mould from it's hot bath and balanced a skewer with the wick tied to it until it all solidified 'et voila!' one candle.

I can see candlemakers around the world covering their face in horror. I've probably used the wrong type of wax, the wrong type of wick and completely the wrong method, but it looks ok to me, and it was fun to do on a whim and I think that's what the 52MMM challenge is all about.

I'm going to visit my Mum & Dad on monday morning for a few days. Ella and I are going by train to Bath where my parents have recently bought an apartment. It's in Sydney Place, which is but a stones throw from the Cath Kidston shop, not to mention a whole host of other lovely places. How exciting!

The 52MMM Challenge week 1

That stands for 52 marvellous makes madness challenge.

The challenge is to make one thing a week for the next 52 weeks, and that doesn't include dinner!

O.K, so I was a bit slow on making a start, but this week I made my first thing. A cute little blind for the spare room/sewing room. made from a vintage embroidered tablecloth and a bit of lace from my stash.

Very simple, it's unlined, without any rods, and just pinned to the window frame, but I sewed on some rings and threaded it with cord so it goes up and down easily. I'm really pleased with it!

Looking at the photos now, I probably should have given it a bit of an iron, but hey, I'm not known for my ironing skills!

While I was fiddling about I decided that the ikea lamp above the bed need prettifying too, so I tied a ribbon in a bow and clipped on a old china rose earring I had in my box of trinkets.