Hey there! It’s been ages since I posted! I’m just organising the TTT Hippy Swap and I thought I’d share! TTT stands for Three Tiny Things by the way and it’s over on Craftster!
So this is what I made for my partner; a set of ribbon wrapped bangles with beads and a tiny tree charm
Three tiny flower pot candles – all made by me, even the flower pots!
And a hair flower!
Hope you like! I’ll post some more stuff soon, I promise! New puppy has been keeping me busy!
Well, I for one am very glad that 2011 is over; it was a truly rubbish year for lots of reasons. Sadly the Uberhound passed away and left a very big gap in our lives….we adopted another puppy to help to fill the void, but sadly the puppy died of parvo virus four days after we brought him home.
Our holiday to the Forest of Dean was a very subdued affair, particularly as we’d chosen it because there were lots of places for doggy adventures.
But life goes on and we went to lots of places (although we didn’t see any wild hogs like we wanted to).
We even went on an old steam train
We also visited Puzzlewood where they film Merlin – what a great place!!
The Barefoot festival that I volunteer at with a friend was as good as usual…in a new bigger location and the usual fab cabaret and fire show.
Halloween was a fun night – we dressed up and scared all the local children
The Autumn term was really manic as usual, we had an OFSTED visit, plus observations, so that pretty much took up the whole term.
The Hafla was great although very exhausting as I’d managed to put myself in a position where I was doing 5 dances, including my very first Tribal performance! This involved four costume changes!! *lol*
Alot of my pre-Christmas time was taken up with crafting a pair of fairy wings for my friend – I was quite pleased with the results!
Christmas was great, as was New Year. I fully intend to spend alot more time crafting this year and have kicked the New Year off to the right start by organising the first Winter Hippy Swap on Craftster, so hopefully there’ll be some more creations to show you soon!
Each year I organise the Hippy Swap over on Craftster. It’s become like a tradition; I finish school, I have more time for crafting and sitting for hours staring at a computer screen trawling through crafty sites…you know how it is! The weather has been quite nice here, so I’ve spent alot of time in my garden, digging and planting, and moving stuff around. Look here, this is the first ever water lily to grow in my tiny water garden (big water filled bowl) and it’s soo pretty! It’s a dwarf water lily.
I’ve also done a little bit of crafting for me. This was an old t-shirt that’d been sitting around waiting for me to finish. I’d done a little bit of re-fashioning on it, cutting on the crew neck (which I’m really not find of) and creating a v-neck, trimmed with pink and gold gauzy ribbon. And then I ran out of inspiration….it sat there for quite a while waiting for the right idea. Anyway, after doing a couple of refashioning workshops, I decided that what this t-shirt needed was a bit of appliqué. And so the butterfly t-shirt was born. Or rather, sewn.
I freehand drew a butterfly outline on some paper, transferred it onto Bondaweb, ironed it to some pretty pink fabric and cut out the butterfly shape. Then I ironed it onto some purple fabric and cut round it so that you could see the purple round the pink. I made a body and some spots out of the purple fabric too and ironed them on.
Then I embroidered round them using a blanket stitch and some pink and gold threads. I also added some gold sequins for a bit of sparkle. Much better!
So then I concentrated on my hippy swap package. I can now post photos because my partner’s received the package and I’ve received hers! Because my partner was in the UK, I knitted a nice warm hat for the cold weather which is very practical for this country. This is the Meret by Woolly Wormhead, it’s one of my favourite patterns. I made it a slouchy hat…
with a combination rolled/ribbed edge.
I used a lovely warm brown…
I also needle felted and embellished this felt brooch, made from an old fulled jumper. It has green sequins and beads along the edge. I love needle felting, it’s so therapeutic stabbing away!!
Since my partner is a beginner belly dancer and wanted a coin belt, I decided to make her one. Her favourite colours were very autumnal, greens and browns and golds. It’s wonderfully jingly!
I also used some decorative ribbon and sequin strands for some sparkle.
I made sure that even the ends looked good!
And because you just have to wear flowers in your hair when you’re dancing, I made this lily hair clip. I used a flower from a cheap ‘pound shop’ artificial ‘bouquet’ and coated the edges in glitter glue…
Then I glued a spring clip underneath, making sure to hide alot of the clip in the leaves. I like to tuck flowers in my hair by my ear and I find the flowers on clips stay better than on bands.
My partner likes to write notes and lists in a notebook, so I also made her a felt notebook cover which she can take off when the notebook is full and change to another notebook. I covered it using the ‘paper fabric’ technique I learnt at a workshop a couple of months ago, and then embellished it using embroidery threads, flowers and sequins.
Hopefully using felt will make it quite durable…
I also used Angelina Fibres on it which are such fun to work with!
The notebook is just a cheap and cheerful A5 hardback notebook.
I sent along one of the rainbow light bulbs from my shop, because they are just so damned hippy-ish!
And in the spirit of eco-friendly hippy crafts, I upcycled an old Ferrero Rocher plastic box, and decorated it using glass paints.
It looks lovely in the sunshine.
I’m kind of an overachiever and I do tend to spoil my swap partners, and well, hippy crafting is such good fun, that I had to make some extras for the package, but I’d agreed with my partner that we’d do extras, so that was fine and dandy. I made a green and brown beaded necklace with a Celtic pendant, since my partner loves all things Celtic, and greens and browns….
I had planned to do a bit of hippy-like appliqué, but I just couldn’t find the right image, then I noticed that I had some green fabric left from my belly dance costume that would go really well with this top, and some green organza that complimented it really well, and the top sort of morphed and became a sort of woodland fairy type of top instead.
I made some ruffles by tearing two strips of fabric which were much much longer than the bit that I wanted to embellish. I sewed a running stitch along the middle of each strip and pulled so that it gathered it up. Then I sewed it into place. I did the organza one first, then the satin ruffle, the I sewed a faceted bead every cm or so. The fabrics should fray and look pretty….
I also painted an ash catcher green, then decoupaged it with a sunflower and sparkly Modge Podge. I varnished it to make sure it was durable. This didn’t photograph so well, so you’ll have to take my word for it that there’s a sunflower on it!
To see what I received in return, click here. We were both very happy hippies!
Last week I found this great vintage warehouse, Trashy Flowers, with tons of stuff at very cheap prices and one of the things I bought was this bright green corduroy jacket which apart from a tiny stain on the back, was in lovely condition. I decided to cover the stain using a patch I got in the Hippy Swap last year from the lovely Holistic Knitter. I finally found the perfect project for it. The jacket perfectly matched the colour of the Ohm, the other little stains were covered with the use of some sequins and beads which I built up to create little flowers.
The jacket twinkles in the light now; I can’t wait to try it out!
I also raided my bead stash to create this sweet loveheart necklace. I got the beads in the bead fair at Towcester earlier in the year and I just haven’t had the time to play with them. I love the result though.
Should have made this back in February, it’s the perfect piece for Valentines Day isn’t it?
The main reason that I’d busted the bead stash out was to create a gift for my Mum for her birthday. Mum loves butterflies and I had this handmade fimo pendent from the same bead fair as the heart from above.
I also found some beautiful little cloisonné butterflies which matched the colour scheme perfectly.
and I made her a necklace and matching bracelet from memory wire.
We took her to Bourton-on-the-Water for the day. It’s a picturesque little village in the Cotswolds which has rivers running through the streets and a fantastic crystal shop.
We had a drink in one of the pubs along the river, followed by a stroll along the streets, stocking up on crystals in the crystal shop. Then we had a cream tea (freshly baked warm scones, butter, jam, clotted cream and a pot of tea) in one of the tea shops (mine didn’t have cream because I don’t eat dairy; the home-made strawberry jam was lovely though!)
Having finished my Sealife Swap gifts and my birthday gifts, I made a start on Lana’s poncho hoodie. Lana is the young daughter of Atsuko, a Craftster friend, I agreed to make Lana a miniature version of the one I made for TintedShadow and in return Atsuko is making me some steampunk jewellery – how lucky am I?
Speaking of lucky, I finally managed to book my Birthday treat from last year…I have a flying lesson booked on Sunday…hurray! In the immortal words of Ace Rimmer (Red Dwarf fans know who I’m talking about here), “Smoke me a kipper; I’ll be back for breakfast.” I’m so excited!
Anyway, tiredness is overcoming me. My Mondays and Tuesdays are very long days this year, which see me start teaching my first lesson at 8.30am, and finish at 6pm. On a Tuesday night I also have yoga class in the evening and it wouldn’t be the first time that I’d nearly fallen asleep during the meditation section!
Things have been so busy here that I haven’t really got around to showing you what I’ve been doing recently. You may be labouring under the impression that there isn’t much crafting going on with all of the summer school shenanigans, and the start of term and all the inductions I’ve been doing this week. Not true! Look, I’ve been playing with Sergei, overlocker/serger and with the help of some florists paper and an old t-shirt I created this tie-shrug out of some dotty purple fabric that I’ve had in my stash for ages! I’m quite pleased with how it turned out and now I have a paper pattern I can make a few more of these - It was so easy to make!
I whipped up a few giant marbled lentil beads from scrap polymer clay (left over from one of the art club workshops from summer school), I drilled them after baking so they have a nice small hole and I’d like to try a wire wrapped decorative bail on a couple of them so that they can be used for a pendent.
Inspired by all the meteor showers I’ve been seeing over the summer, I created this long starry necklace using beads I bought ages ago at a local bead show.
I love this petrol sheen colour that they have, just like a midnight sky in summer, with slight tinges of colour
I’m doing a Sealife Swap over on Craftster and created this domino shell pendent for my partner. I glued a pearl bead on it too for a bit of interest. Some of the shells I used were so tiny it’s hard to believe that something lived in them once! I think I might have to do one of these for myself!
Remember my hippy jeans I was customising? Well I finally finished them! They’re embroidered up to the knees on both legs, I could have kept going, and I may yet add to them, but I’m happy with them at the moment.
I found a scrap of this awesome holographic fabric and embroidered a rainbow edging to my heart!
I also have some lovely little silver Indian sequins which really twinkle
No hippy jeans are complete without flower power!
And something else which I’m making my partner for the Sealife Swap is an ocean wave wrap or scarf – it started off as a scarf, but is wide enough to be a wrap, so I’ll probably make a shawl pin to go with it, I have an idea for a wire fish pin which I think will work, and I think that’d be nice with it. Then my partner can wear it both ways.
This is my first ripple pattern and I had to frog it once because it was developing a slant as it grew, but I think I’ve figured it out now. I like how it’s looking, this is going to be another one that I’ll have a go at for myself. I fancy one in rainbow colours!
So the new school term starts tomorrow. Everything is still a bit crazy here as I think the swine flu was putting alot of families off sending their children to the UK, but we’ve had a lot of last minute admissions, so things are on the move. The course I teach on at the FE college has been swamped and has enough students to run seven courses where last year there was only enough for one! That does mean more hours for me though, so alls good!
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