Saturday 25 February 2012

Discovering Pinterest

I've seen Pinterest about on quite a lot of craft blogs in the last couple of months but couldn't really figure out what it was. So when I finally figured out what it was and what it does and WHY I had seen it mentioned so much recently I thought that I would write a quick post for anyone else who hasn't quite caught up with the latest social media platform.(Hopefully I'm not the only one to be slow on the uptake of these things)
Pinterest is basically an online pinboard where you can "pin" pictures of things you like. These can be pretty much anything but obviously I really like it for all the crafts stuff!These "pins" can then be shared with other people and "repinned" or "liked" or commented on. It is such a simple idea, but seems to work. Not only is it the basis for another online community but it's another way of getting your stuff seen because every "pin" is linked back to the original post or website that it came from. 
You can have boards for different things as well, so for instance my boards are:
Cross Stitch
Crafty Bits
Geeky Stuff
My Blog Stuff
(I know they aren't the most imaginative titles but they get the point across.) 
I quite like this idea, it's a new slant on the social media idea, with interests at the core rather than games or statuses. I think it works quite well particularly for the crafter community because it is a new way of sharing all our homemade goodies. But I will admit that I was rather unconvinced to start with.  What do you guys think? Do you like it, or do you think that there are too many forms of this kind of thing out there?

Sunday 19 February 2012

Borovets

Although the holiday seems as if it was an age ago, we only got back last Saturday. So before I get time to concentrate on something nice and crafty, I thought that I would share with you some of our photos. A few are from my phone as our camera didn't work and some are from my friend's flickr and facebook account.
His photography is always extremely impressive - go and check out his photos - Flickr
We all had an absolutely amazing time. I do like to see my knitwear in good use - it is not the most stylish of hats but it was very warm and in minus temperatures as low as minus 20 a warm hat is very important! I knit one for my lovely hubby aswell but unfortunately it didn't work very well, so he borrowed one instead.

Tuesday 14 February 2012

We're Back!

We arrived back in the UK on Saturday safe and sound...
Well most of us did - our friend came back with a dislocated shoulder which looked very painful, but we all still really enjoyed the break.
Nearly all of my worries were needless (apart from the obvious one about someone getting hurt).
I promise there will be photos to come and soon after (hopefully) there will be something crafty xxx

Wednesday 1 February 2012

Handmade Dog Bed

For quite some time now the hubby has been wanting a nice big beanbag that he can use to sit comfortably near the telly when playing on the xbox etc. Well anything that would be suitable is ridiculously expensive and in the past month we've had Chrimbo and a Fifth birthday. So it's just not on the cards at the moment. Well he had a rare two day weekend last week and found he didn't quite know what to do with a Sunday, so started to search the net for something that he could do/make...and found this
 
Pillow Chair from Old T-Shirts - CRAFT Video by makemagazine
Well as you can imagine he was a very happy bunny. We didn't have old T-Shirts to spare but we did have spare fabric that wasn't set to be used for anything in particular. So the four of us set out the fabric and cut out the shapes and my gorgeous other half decided he'd have a go with the sewing machine...
I am very impressed! He needed a bit of help with the bobbin but was quite happy once he got going.  Well we stuffed it with an old duvet and old sheets all stripped, but it still wasn't big enough, so we found up old cushions that have been lying around for a while, still not big enough....we filled it with stuffing left in my stash and a bag of "beanbagballs" and it still wasn't big enough to actually sit comfortably on...or so we thought...
Harley the dog had other ideas though. It is just right for him. He's getting quite a big old boy now and his last dog bed got eaten (what can I say he is a very dumb dog). But he has calmed down (a bit) now and is very happy with this. Also this saved us spending a fortune on a dog bed as everything used was just lying around the house unused. 
The plan is to get some proper bean bag filling (enough to actually fill a beanbag) and try to duplicate this but larger at some point. 
All in all though, I thought this was how a Sunday should be spent - making stuff as a family!