A softie at heart!

I finished my first softie the other day and I am pretty happy with it. I used it as a bit of a project to get myself sewing with my machine and by hand. It was great and very therapeutic. The cute great pattern was courtesy of the wonderful Revoluzza. There is such a great community of bloggers and crafters out there who are willing to share wonderful ideas and tutorials to help the less experienced i.e. me! So thanks to all of them - although not likely that any will be reading this!
Check out the little monster below...

Newly Framed Prints

First is a gift from my friend Ross...a wonderful print from his artist friend Gregory Ferrand . The second was a gift from my brother and its a print of the University of Glasgow in amoungst the skyline, by the well known printmaker Harry Magee. Its particularly special, I spent 4 wonderful years at Glasgow University.

Left to Right: 1. My Daddy is Somebody - Gregory Ferrand 2. Landmark - Harry Magee

Friday Night Project

I have been coveting some wonderful Lotta Jansdotter fabric that I bought AGES ago and it all just seemed too pretty to start cutting and sewing. Well I saw the light, why buy wonderful things and keep them hidden away in a drawer. Whilst sewing trousers and patching some other clothes for Shane, I was getting annoyed with having to dig around in the pin box and therefore I decided I will make...a pincushion.



Ok so I know, not very adventurous but you have to start small and work up.I'm happy with how it turned out...oh and the Lotta fabric looks great. Now...what can I make next?

New Projects

So or should I say sew....(sorry I couldn't resist) I have a new toy and hopefully a whole heap of new projects. After some time spent dithering about which one to buy, I finally bought my first sewing machine! I also picked up a copy of Lotta Jansdotter's 'Simple Sewing' what a fantastic book. I know its probably old news but I wanted to wait till I had my own machine as I knew I would be dying to get stuck into the projects if her printing book was anything to go buy.

Anyway...I have to go I have a project to start!!

Did I hear...another swap!

This time run buy Lisa from the Bunny Log. The task this time was to make 50+ postcards with no particular theme.
After a few weeks of being sick and not really feeling like printing.I was sitting on the phone at work and doodling on my notepad...and my scribbles turned into an idea and a few days later was being cranked out on the Gocco! Its a really simple clean design and I am quite happy with it.

Scribbles from my notepad!

Oh and I wanted to print the typical postcard printing on the back so a came up with a quick template for the back too.
Check out the pics below of my scribbles and what it all ended up looking like in the end. I do hope me fellow swappers will be happy with my offering. Can't wait to see what rest of the peeps have come up with.

Sketching some ideas...

Work in progress

Drying printed reverse side of postcard

Close up of reverse

The final product...

The day has finally come...

A big day for me as I finally decided to add some cards to my etsy store..

After many people telling me to do it I finally took the plunge. I am sure that it will take some time to get going but I have a HEAP of ideas just waiting to come to fruition ...watch this space.

My travel diaries which I blogged about already are the next on my list, there will be some different colours and airport codes than what was shown below.

Gocco Swap

Well...I was in a bit of a panic wondering what I would make for the clothpaperstring - Art of the Note Gocco swap (see post below) and after delving through some of my photos I came up with a few ideas... So here are my 'inspiration' photos and what I ended up with.

Some mail boxes I'm always drawn to when we pass them. I knew this pic would

come in useful one day.

You've Got Mail - Card

Work in Progress..

For the second set i found a photo in my deleted folder and after some photoshop tweaking I actually managed to come up with something to print. I was using some dark grey card which I thought would look good with some silver ink...turned out well I think. This doesn't bode well for my hoarding tendencies as I was going to delete this and look at what I did with it. Now I will keep all my 'bad' photos just incase!!

I think this card has a slightly eerie quality which I love...I am not sure if it would be the same in a different colour combination.

Overall I was pretty happy with the results and I managed to put together a nice set of cards to send off. I do hope my fellow swappers like them.

The finished product!