WOYWW George?

Oo er ah um yes there I am!

George here.

Tricky taking your own photo isn't it.

Max has been too busy at work to do much crafty thingy stuff - so she said I could do her post today.

Well I must tell you  - it's blimin hard trying to take these photos when you are only a 30cm high!

In the end I posed in the mirror and snapped this one...

I think I am pretty gorgeous don't you - ha ha ha Gorgeous George would have been a better name!!!

Except of course I am flippin nosey too - hence Curious George I guess - ooer or do they mean flippin weird, curious - heck I never thought of that!!

Anyway, I was nosing around M's craft box and found the buttons Twiglet got for us at the boot sale. (She is always rootling about up there for fancy stuff!)

I don't understand it myself - buttons are a pain to me - but M seems to love them almost as much as she loves me!
So with my trusty little Japanese Toyoca, I snapped a pic for you. She said they were glass and mother of pearl - what ever that means.
OK folks - now you know I spent most of my life in Yorkshire - well today is Yorkshire Day so have a good day all!
Now how the heck do I get this lot on the blog and then find my way to somewhere called the Stamping Ground.............
x G

WOYWW

No time for crafting this week and a broken laptop - how to spoil a girl's WOYWW fun hey!
No doubt the rest of the WOYWW bunch will make up for my feeble effort so I shall try and find time to sneak over to The Stamping Ground and find out what's going on out there.

Just a quick picture post then...

This is my freebie Tilly Tea Dance banner from Vistaprint. I thought it would look good on our craft fair stall in the Autumn. My cousin has a fantastic banner printing business - so if I want anything else, I know where to go, but Mum got this for free, so I am not complaining! It looks pretty good - can you tell I love buttons and lace!!

Bunting seems very popular at the moment  - this is part of a length I made for my craft stall in pink and grey cotton fabric. I have a spare length with about 10 flags on which I might pop in my Tilly Tea Dance Etsy shop.

And lastly my latest little button cushion - gorgeous red velour with a heart made from vintage buttons. Curious George thinks its fab cos it matches his hat! He has been all over the world with me, when I was little, and even has his own passport. I think his chair is ripe for renovation - maybe a bit of chalk paint?
Have a great Wednesday all - see you on your workdesks - I just hope I get my laptop back in time.
x Max

WOYWW

I've cleared the kitchen table to make room for a dumfing session. I've had several ideas on the go so I've dedicated the day just to dumfing bits and bobs that can be free-machine embroidered or hand-stitched at a later date.

My first dumfing task is to work on a piece of countryside-ish felt.

Eventually this piece will be cut up to make one large picture and three or four smaller dumflings. They will be free-machine embroidered and beaded by hand to create the poppies and foliage.

Next I've produced a piece of cream/ivory dumfing. This is wedding season so I'm producing enough bits to make cards for all my friends and family who are getting married in the next few months. Any surplus will get made into wedding congratulations/thank you/invitation cards to go into my etsy shop or saved for christmas when I'll pimp them up with twinkly bits, star sequins etc for the festive season.

I use snippets of silk, chiffon and vintage lace

 Each snippet is needle-felted to a piece of felt.

I try to create an all-over textured surface with a few more detailed areas using the lace. These can be further embellished with free-machine embroidery at a later stage.

Finally I've made a start on a new batch of pink dumfling babies. I was really cheered on by everyone who liked these miniature whisps of felt, chiffon and silk so I thought I'd get a few more pieces ready to hand-stitch on an evening when the TV is not so good.

Hope you've enjoyed visiting my work desk today. Looks like it's mealtime so best pack away the work desk for now! I really need to get a permanent crafting space sorted don't I?!

Bunting on Royal Service

 Just thought I'd share some of the photos from the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Pageant at RAF Cosford on Thursday 12th July.

As the charity I work for was selected to take part in the pageant procession, I was one of the lucky 5000 to participate. Yes, waving away to crowds five people deep, I almost felt like Lizzie herself!



Her majesty brought with her some lovely sunny weather for the day, which was a great relief to us all after days of torrential rain (though took me a little by surprise, and I still have the sun burnt beak to show for it).

Anyway, the other VIP taking part in official duties that day was Twiglet's amazing hand-crafted bunting. In preparation for the day Twiglet (aka Mum) had churned out yard after yard of perfect hand-made bunting for us to use to decorate our float and display stand.

Needless to say, with dozens of local charities taking part, we weren't the only ones with bunting...in fact it was sort of a giant 'bunting-off'. I have to say though, Mum's was certainly 'best in show'. I also spent several hours knee-deep in florist's ribbon making a set of rosettes for the float!

Here's a few pictures of the day!

Didn't manage to 'pap' her majesty so, sorry if you were hoping to see photos of her!

Three cheers for her highness...Twiglet, Queen of Bunting! :)

WOYWW - dumfling relaxation!

Hello - Tilly Tea Dance here!
I am joining in WOYWW for the first time.
(Well I have been following a few of you for ages! My Mum is Twiglet and my aunt is Wipso - I am one of the two 'M's that they regularly refer to......the one that hasn't had those lovely cheeky twins!)

I don't have a desk to reveal - I craft on my kitchen table so it has to be cleared away when I am dumfed out.
Over the last few weeks, I had a bit of relaxation time and borrowed Mum's dumfing machine (needle felting embellisher to most of you).


Click on the pictures to enlarge them

As you know Wipso and Twiglet are masters of the art but I just like to play - so here's what I made. You can see where my influences came from!

Update - I have popped these in my Etsy shop.




The seascapes are now beaded up and mounted on toning card. One is missing, as it was spotted on my earlier post and snapped up by an eagle eyed WOYWWer! Thanks lots.

These little pink dumflings are some of my favourites.
They are just tiny puffs of wool curls and silk, dumfed together  and embellished with beads and little mother of pearl stars.

 I might sell them but, if not, I have a couple of weddings coming up and they will make great gift cards.

Well - that wasn't too hard was it - I might squeeze in enough time to join in next week - work permitting.
Maybe I will even snap my table when I next get a bit of crafty time so that you can snoop - tho I guess you will have seen it all on Twiglet's table as that's where I "borrowed" it all from!!
OK now I think I have to find out how to add my name to Mr Linky on Julia's blog.
Thanks for calling.
Tilly.

Photo collage fun

 It's a nail-biting day of sport with the F1 at Silverstone and the Wimbledon final with Murray v Federer. Hence I'm sat on the laptop to give me a distraction that will save my nails (having discovered I can watch TV and type at the same time).

I've got so many lovely photos of my button creations that I thought I'd create a collage using my latest discovery - Picasa.

I've seen lots of these collages on Pinterest and think they are a really effective way of collecting together pieces of inspiration for a new project or showcasing the outcome of your labour.

I'll have to make some more things so I can keep producing more collages with the photos :)

Finishing what I started....



...a little dumfling on a rainy day!

Hmmm... so won't be mowing the lawn in this weather!

What to do on a rubbish rainy day in my week off?
I know, I'll spend the day finishing off all the bits of needle-felting and free-machine embroidery that I've started during sewing sessions with mum but never completed (this is a bit of a bad habit of mine!).

I'll start with some needle-felted poppy pictures (aka dumflings) I created a few weeks ago. These were sort of a case of "anything you can do, I can...also do!" when I saw my mum's treasury of fabulous dumflings she sent to her WOYWW friends around the world.

Then I'll sort out the free-machine embroidered needle-felted seascapes that I half-finished and left in mum's craft room. Think they got some positive comments from mum's WOYWW friends so it's daft not to finish these off! I just mounted them on some blue card so I can leave the larger ones as individual dumflings and mount the slimmer ones as cards.

And not forgetting the collection of 'secret garden' dumflings to mount on cards. These miniatures have been quite a labour of love given that hand stitching is not my favourite activity (which possibly explains why they have sat half-finished for a while!).

 I like to think some of the little knotty stitches look like foxgloves or lupins.

Yep, still raining. Don't fancy being Jessie J doing her open-air concert in Shrewsbury quarry tonight! Bet she wishes she had some needle-felting to get on with right now! Right, now I've got to grips with my unfinished dumflings, I might start on some new projects!

A stitcher emerges from hibernation

After a fairly long winter lay off from sewing I'm back in action. A busy few months doing things around the house and garden, plus a hectic few months at work have left me with little time or enthusiasm to sew. I managed a nice set of quilted greetings cards as a Mother's Day gift for my mum, Twiglet, and a quantity of vintage button cushions (joint venture with Twiglet) but not much else. Therefore I'm giving it some effort this bank holiday so we'll see what I can rustle up.

As I've been a little focused on buttons recently I've fired up the 'dumfer' ready for a bit of machine felting for a change of scene. I'm thinking I'll produce some greetings cards to replenish my supplies ahead of birthday and weddings season!

Hearts & Buttons

I would love to advertise my handmade items with UK Handmade Valentine showcase . . .

http://www.ukcraftblog.com/2012/01/i-love-you-uk-handmade-showcase.html#disqus_thread
Check out the link if you think you have any Valentine's gifts that you could showcase online.



Well I failed to come up with any ideas to make use of my hessian, stamps and buttons. However...

Remember these?

Well, I finished these off, and am quite pleased with the results :-) ...

I also rustled this up :-) ...

On the down side, I've now found my button supply somewhat depleted.

How fortuitous therefore that I joined mum and dad on their regular weekly pilgrimage to Harry Tuffin's sunday market. Despite the low turnout due to bad weather I spotted this interesting little tin in a basket of oddments...

Gave it a rattle...

Had a peek...

What should I find...

 Wayhey!!! More buttons... and fab vintage mother of pearl and glass ones at that! Well worth £1!!