Looking Forward To 2010

This is the wreath we have hanging above our door at the moment. It was a ready made plain one just with holly leaves which my grandma and I added to. She added some more leaves and berries from the garden, and I wove some Gisela Graham red enamelled bells on a ribbon through the wreath. I think it looks really pretty and traditional. The bells are lovely as they actually ring.

I'm looking forward to 2010, I love New Year as it is like a fresh start, as well as a chance to look back over the achievements of the previous year. 2009 has been very up and down for me, with moments which were amazing and others which were utterly rubbish, but it has been the start of a lot of good things. I have started my own business, improved upon my creative skills, and thought a lot about what I want from life and how to get it. I am going into 2010 with a much clearer idea of who I am as a person, and how to go about life so that I can enjoy it to the full. I have a really positive feeling about next year and think it is going to be a particularly good one for me. I will write my New Year's Resolutions tonight, as I traditionally always do, and will share a few tomorrow. I'm going to make big overall ones for the year, including travel plans, big achievements which will take a lot of build up, and getting rid of some bad habits which I've held onto for too long. Then I'm going to set myself more short term targets which will help lead into the bigger resolutions at the start of each month, to keep myself motivated. I have a habit of being too hard on myself and expecting miracles though so I'm really trying to avoid that! Anyway, I wish everyone a very happy New Year and a fabulous 2010 full of love, health, prosperity, fun and sparkles!

Marzipan Fruits

These are the marzipan fruits I made for a few people's Christmas presents. I'm afraid I used ready made marzipan because it's cheaper and I was pushed for time, but I enjoyed shaping and colouring them. From the back to front, left to right, are a lemon, an apple, a banana, a peach (although it looks very orange in this picture), a pear and a lime. I think the apple and pear are the most realistic. If you'd like a tutorial on shaping and colouring marzipan fruits leave me a comment and I'll do one in the next couple of weeks, along with a round up of recipes for making it from scratch.

Christmas Village

This is the Christmas village I made to decorate my mantelpiece. I was inspired by Alicia Paulson's snow village but I didn't want to make little cardboard houses as I would probably crush them by accident. I made my houses out of polymer clay in white, glitter white and translucent white, with the roof tiles in different shades of purple. I had the little hearts left over from another project (more on which soon) so I pressed them in as decoration. I painted on the doors and windows, and I decided not to varnish the houses as I didn't want them to look too shiny. The bottle brush trees are from the gift shop at the American Museum. Originally I had planned on making the houses like little Japanese pagodas and having bridges and paths and gardens linking the houses, but I ran out of time and polymer clay so couldn't do anything so complex. I think this is something I can add to each year though, so next Christmas I will make some little Japanese inspired houses. Hopefully I will eventually end up with a big collection, with all different styles of houses!

Pandas and Rabbits and Owls Oh My!

More Christmas presents I made for people! First up is a small square mirror decorated with polymer clay. It was for my boyfriend's sister whose nickname is Panda so I did a cute little panda face design. She likes Japanese kawaii things too so it's influenced by that. I think it came out pretty well, I like the blushing cheeks.I decorated a compact mirror for my middle sister with an Alice In Wonderland themed design. I really like this one. The rabbit has a ruffled collar which matches the colour of the hearts on the playing cards. I painted his nose, mouth and the inside of his ear with acrylic paints and then varnished the whole thing.My youngest sister is completely obsessed with owls and her favourite colour is purple, so I made her a decorated compact mirror too, but with a big purple owl on the top! I also did a matching hairbrush. I liked making these and think they were quite successful, so that's another thing I'm going to look at making to sell. Perhaps with a simpler design than an owl though, as all the feathers on the tummy took ages to put on!

Fancy Fascinator

This is a fascinator I made for one of my friends for Christmas. She likes vintage fashion and goes to quite a lot of burlesque events so she wanted a fascinator to finish off her look. Luckily I already had a sinamay base I had bought at the Hats:An Anthology exhibition, along with the millinery net and the black flowers with pearl bead centres, as I had a tiny budget for Christmas presents! The loopy bits are actually plastic boning for corsets, I shaped it into loops and then sewed it in place. I made leaves from satin and sewed them onto the base, then glued the beaded flowers and some tiny ribbon roses on. I also added a really pretty organza butterfly which has glittery patterns on it. I sewed the millinery net onto the front of the fascinator and then glued ribbon over the edge to cover the join. There is a plastic comb hot glued on underneath to fix the fascinator to the hair. I'm really pleased with how it turned out. It was one of the presents which worried me the most as I felt it could easily turn out too OTT, but I think I managed to stop before it became ridiculous! The person it was for really liked it, which is the main thing, so it was a success all round. I think I'll make some more to sell, and also for myself....oh dear, a new craft obsession!

Lots of Lovely Presents!

I had so many Christmas presents this year! I was very surprised as I wasn't expecting much, I had asked for some things and thought that would be it but everyone bought me extra things which I didn't know about. And they were all absolutely lovely! So now I am going to show them all off and make people thoroughly jealous!This is a beautiful jewellery box with a cherry blossom design. It has a pretty closure on the lid and three drawers, I really like it. It is also useful as I had already filled up all of my existing jewellery boxes (of which there were four...eek!). I am always making myself new bits of jewellery so I have a rather large collection and it takes up a lot of space. I am definitely going to need a large dressing table now though as I can't fit all of my jewellery boxes onto my existing chest of drawers!Some jewellery to go inside the box! Lots of lovely quirky pieces from Lady Luck Rules Ok.A gorgeous Ollie & Nic ring, which I think has a 1940s feel to it.And a "pearl" bracelet, I can't get enough of them. This is a pretty sheer top, which I was much in need of as most of my clothes are falling apart as they are mostly at least 5 years old! It is black with puffed sleeves and a white pattern of tiny hearts and big swallows.Cute little purse with a rose pattern and shiny sequins. This one has different sections for cards, notes and coins which my current purse doesn't so I think I'll be swapping things over into this one. Plus it is very pretty! Bonus!Red Revlon nail varnishes, perfect for a vintage pin up look. One of my New Year's resolutions is to give myself weekly manicures and pedicures so these will help with that.This is an eco-friendly lavender soap, apparently you can plant the wrapper and grow lavender from it! I think that's a good idea, I hate packaging that you can't reuse, recycle etc.This is my Cath Kidston writing set which I adore.It has all different vintage style patterned papers and polka dotted envelopes. I can't wait to use it but I need to use up a lot of my existing letter sets first...I've amassed quite a collection!More stationery-Hummingbird Bakery cupcake cards. These are really tiny so can be used as gift tags as well, but I think I will use them as birthday and thank you cards, they seem appropriate. They make me want to bake!This is a gorgeous writing set with shoes on. I love writing letters and I love shoes, so this is perfect for me! The paper is really nice and thick, I do like a bit of good quality paper.This is a notebook which is made to look like Japanese laquerware. I love the design. I got quite a few Japanese and Chinese themed gifts.This is super cute maneki neiko fabric from Etsy seller lilymeru. I don't know what to make with it yet, maybe a top for summer? The cats look so happy! This is a very striking box which I think I will keep special letters and cards in. It has cranes on the lid which look like they are made from mother of pearl but I don't know if it is real or some kind of imitation material. Whatever it is, it is pretty! It is red on the outside and black on the inside.This is my first piece of willow pattern, unless you count a doll's tea set. I have always loved it and wanted some of my own, my grandma has a collection which I covet. I think I'll start building up my own set now.These are little sparkly birds, I think they are really sweet and I'm going to hang them in my window where they will catch the light. My sister gave me a candy cane, because you can't have Christmas without at least one candy cane. My mum used these wooden hearts as gift tags, which I thought was a good idea as then you can keep them rather than just throwing them in the bin. That is one of the things about Christmas which I don't like, that most wrapping paper and tags can't be recycled or composted. I think next year I will wrap most things in brown paper and use ribbons to cheer it up. I love these syrups! I won't be putting them in coffee as I hardly drink it, but I like to make hot milk and add syrup to it, especially caramel. I can also use them in cocktails and baking, and on ice cream. Ahhh the many treat opportunities! And this was the biggest treat of all. My boyfriend managed to get a colleague who was visiting Birmingham to bring back a dozen Krispy Kremes for me. There are no outlets anywhere near where I live, and I haven't been to London for ages, so this was a lovely surprise. I really hope Krispy Kreme open a branch in Bristol because I need my maple glazed fix! And this bag came with the doughnuts, which is great. I am going to take it with me next time I go to London, I always buy a dozen Krispy Kremes to bring back and getting on the train with the flimsy plastic bag they give you is a nightmare! So this will make it much easier. I had a pleasant afternoon watching Cry Baby (Allison's breathy exhalation "I'm so tired of being good" basically sums up how I'm feeling at the moment) and Grey Gardens, while drinking mulled wine tea. Drew Barrymore was great in Grey Gardens, was nice to see her playing something other than the kooky romantic interest. I loved the clothing in both and I now want to stand on a car bonnet and sing a la Cry Baby!

Merry Christmas To All!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! I had a lovely day with family, although the stress of getting presents done combined with being woken up at 6am by my 7 year old sister did mean I was very tired with a bad cold. It was good just to relax, eat lots of food, and watch my younger siblings playing with their new scooters and getting excited over presents. I try not to (and I think my family also try not to) place too much pressure on Christmas Day to be perfect, as I think then everyone gets even more horrendously stressed and it ends up being less fun and relaxing than if you go with the flow. We didn't watch loads of Christmas TV, the children wanted to watch Spongebob Squarepants so they did! They did watch The Gruffalo which I thought was beautifully done, and a bit of the extremely peculiar penultimate episode of Doctor Who. I adore David Tennant but really, those sideburns have got far too long now. I had masses of amazing presents, I really wasn't expecting so much! And I saw my boyfriend, which was particularly good as despite having been together for three years now, we have never managed to spend any time together at Christmas before due to family commitments. So all in all it was a very happy day! Christmas Eve was also really good, I went to a friend's house and she cooked me a delicious meal, before I headed into town to meet more friends for hot chocolate and cupcakes. I plan to enjoy each of the 12 Days of Christmas, and do something festive on each one; I think it is easy to forget that Christmas is more than just Christmas Day. As I don't have to be back at my "normal" job until after Twelfth Night (although I'm sure I'll get bored and do crafty work before then!) I intend to take complete advantage of this and retain the Christmas spirit for as long as possible! This afternoon I am going to do some hand sewing while watching a film and eating mince pies, which in my opinion is the perfect Boxing Day activity. I am also going to do a Christmas-y blog post for each of the 12 Days of Christmas, so today there shall be two to catch up. There is plenty to photograph and write about as I made 90% of the presents I gave people!p.s. All the photos are of the Christmas tree at my Mum's house. It has no colour scheme or plan as to how the decorations are put on, but it is so sweet as each decoration has sentimental value. Most of them are either ones which we have had for years and remember getting out each Christmas, or ones which have been made by myself or my siblings over the years.

Snow!

I woke up this morning to find everything carpeted in snow. It has snowed more during the day so I'm hoping some of it will stick around for Christmas. I like the contrast between these dark leaves and the snow.

There has to be an obligatory photo of the tool shed. I think this is cute without snow, it has a little heart shaped cut out on the door which I find adorable, but it's even better with snow!

I love seeing the little paw prints where the cats have been wandering around.

This is a strange tree at the bottom of the garden, I'm not sure what it is but I think it's native to Australia. It has little ridged cones on it which had caught lots of snow, it looked really pretty.

I really like the shape of these leaves, I think they'd be good to draw.

I'm hoping to get some more snowy pictures of places other than my garden, might take a walk in the next couple of days and see what I can find. I am also really busy making Christmas presents and decorations, and I have loads of lovely Christmas-y pictures to post as soon as I get chance!

Christmas at the American Museum

Yesterday I went to the last day of the Christmas opening of the American Museum In Bath. The grounds are closed at this time of year but the house was open and beautifully decorated for Christmas. Photographs are not allowed inside the house as many of the exhibits are hundreds of years old and would be damaged if they were exposed to too much light, so I couldn't get any pictures, but the decorations were all red and gold this year and themed on Flights of Fancy. There were little red glittery kites with letters to Father Christmas tied to them for children to find, a gorgeous mobile made from many layers of tissue paper butterflies in the main hall, and a huge Christmas tree decorated with sparkly organza butterflies, while outside were rows of red pinwheels sprinkled with gold stars. I hadn't been into the house (which holds the Museum's collection) for years, but I found the exhibits really fascinating. I don't know much about American history but I do find it interesting; how a country which started off being so inhospitable and largely bare, inhabited by indigenous people, has now become one of the most, if not the most, powerful countries in the world, largely populated by people of European and African descent. There is a lot I disapprove of in early American history, particularly the treatment of Native Americans and the slaughter of the buffalo, but it is amazing how so many people started off with practically nothing and shaped this modern industrial and financial powerhouse . I think that the trials and tribulations of American history have led to the "Yes we can!" attitude a lot of Americans have today. I do love Britain, but I do wish that the Brits would adopt the American optimism rather than often being miserable and self deprecating! Anyhow, it was very informative, and I particularly liked the slide show of photographs of people from different Native American tribes. The beautiful Native American crafts also grabbed my attention, especially some tiny beaded children's shoes. I love the Shaker furniture and sewing boxes, there was one which stood out as it was lined with a blue-green silk and had a matching handmade pin cushion. I would like to get a reproduction sewing box for myself but they are pricey as they are handmade from high quality woods. I could still remember the bedroom which reconstructs one in New Orleans in the 19th century, it used to be my favourite part of the Museum, and probably still is. The French influences were very clear in the shape of the furniture, it was highly carved and looked like something from Versailles, especially the bed which had a huge canopy over it. There was a lovely dressing table with engraved oil lamps-I am looking for a dressing table for myself at the moment so I am slightly obsessed. I would have quite happily taken all the furniture from that room home if I had the chance!

We visited the shop, which had this cute display of porcelain gingerbread houses and little bottle brush trees. I bought some bottle brush trees as I love them and haven't been able to find them anywhere else, and some gingerbread man and lady cookie cutters to make biscuits for people's Christmas presents.

There was also a demonstration on making gingerbread houses, I really want to give that a try. My little brother and sister visited Father Christmas and my sister made a kite. It was a great day and has re-invigorated my Christmas mood, which I had lost a little over the past week. Now I want to sprinkle glitter on everything and make loads of gingerbread!