Cross Stitched T-Shirts

Before Christmas, I was trying to think of gifts that I hadn't made before, or a new take on some of the crafts that I did.  It was while I was pondering this that I found a fantastic tutorial over at  Wee Little Stitches called "How To Cross Stitch Anything".  It is a really good step by step guide to how to use waste fabric and it is something that I haven't attempted before.  So I set about making  cross stitch patterns to suit my brother and brother in law.  I should point out here that I am still relatively new to making patterns, but that I thoroughly enjoyed having these items come together from an idea to a finished item.
For my Dr Who obsessed brother in law I made this.

Dr Who Fezz and Bowtie

This was the Dr Who image I made, then added the phrase "Fezzes are Cool"  

Fezzes Are Cool

I think he was quite happy with it!

Then for my brother who adores Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory I came up with a Bazinga pattern.

Bazinga!

Bazinga T Shirt

I'm really happy with how these both turned out. It was a lot easier that I thought it would be to stitch onto the tops and waste fabric is now my new best friend.

2013 - Update

Hello 2013! I am here, honest but I have had a bit of a busy start to the year.  Regular Scheduling should resume, but I thought I would start with an update of my absence.

My next OU Psychology course started yesterday,( DD307 : Social Psychology) which looks to be really interesting, and it is my first level 3 course so I am scared to death looking forwards to the increased pressures that go a long with that..... 
However I did realize over the Christmas break that I have exactly half the points needed towards my degree, which is an achievement that I am proud of and will hopefully keep me motivated.  Distance learning is a tough cookie to crack, but in my opinion it is well worth it.

Also I start volunteering this year and as part of that I got to go to the  Us Girls Conference which was amazing and inspirational and also quite fun.

Just Me and Gemma hanging out with a couple of Olympic Athletes...as you do.....!!!

Me and Gemma .... working hard....

This was a completely new experience for me as I was very young when I had my daughter so my only work experience is waitressing.  I was completely out of my comfort zone but surrounded by a lot of very inspirational women and am eager now to get started on UsGirls Chorley and am hopeful that we will be able to put some of the knowledge we gleamed to good use.

After the conference and before I started preparing for the course, I was whisked off to sunny Scotland for a long weekend with "The Hubby" and "The Boys" for a Ski Holiday.  As it turned out we had a good Scottish Holiday with a couple of runs on the mountains. Ironically the kids, who were being looked after at home by Nanny, had more snow that we did. It was the first time I had ever been to Scotland and hopefully it won't be the last as it was absolutely gorgeous. Even the drive up was lovely!

The beautiful Scottish Highlands

It's a bit nippy!

At the bottom of Glencoe Mountain

The Boys on the way back down Glencoe Mountain

I hope you have all had a good start to the new year and I will be trying to turn my attentions to something craft related.

Pixelated MsStitcher

One of the Birthday challenges over at Sprite Stitch recently was to make a pixel version of yourself.  All of the entries were really good, and a few have now been used as their avatar.  Including my own!

Pixel Me

I am genuinely debating stitching this, because it is a bit fitting. With it being for Sprite Stitch, I have put something about everything game related that I have made since being a member.   I may have gone slightly OTT... But it is nice to see a pixel version of myself.

Christmas Tree Cross Stitch

One of my new year resolutions has to be to keep this blog up to date a little better.  A lot of what I have to show you is are Christmas presents.  But I have been playing with my pattern maker and I thought I would make a little Christmas Tree cross stitch pattern, in case anyone has time for a little cross stitch before the big day.  Now I have started making a few patterns, all I ask is that if you do use them, you share the finished item so I can see, and that if you post it online you credit the pattern back here.  

Treble Clef Cross Stitch Pattern

My MiniSwap partner has received her parcel recently so I can show you the little package I sent off to Belgium.  I was quite excited to be sending something I made off into the world, and I was very relieved when it got there.  I made her a mobile case with a treble clef on, a Maplestory meso pouch (with some chocolate coins in) and a Fable bookmark:

The other side of the Fable bookmark is this little sword.  

I am slowly getting used to the KG software for making patterns and was quite proud of the way this sword turned out.  I am going to have to go and search through my camera to find the photo of it, but this pattern was the first one I have made and stitched where I have had to tweak the actual pattern a bit.  Then with the normal list of favorite games and information that I got about my swappee, it was mentioned that she loves music, and her icon on the forums is music related, so before I decided to do the mobile case I did a quick search for a free treble clef cross stitch pattern.  I couldn't find one anywhere, so although I didn't use it I thought I would share this little pattern that I made in preparation.  After Christmas I am going to have to make myself a bookmark with this on.

Unfortunately I can't show you anything else that I am working on until after Christmas.

Ponies!

My darling daughter absolutely loves anything equestrian related and so we have a nice little collection of pony crafts.  It started when we put up her first poster:

First Poster

On request we drew and coloured a picture for her bedroom door together.  This is "Lil Dan", her favourite pony.(Yes I said it my daughter has a favourite pony)

The second painting-by-numbers I did was also for her room. I know that painting-by-numbers is cheating, but I thoroughly enjoyed painting this. I love painting but can't draw and don't mind cheating:

Painting-By-Numbers 

Then the little minx found up a pen drawing I did a couple of years ago as part of a mixed media art course and pinched some blu-tak when I wasn't looking. The next thing I knew this was on her wardrobe.  I don't even know where she found it, but I am presuming that she found it when we unpacked and hid it until she found the courage to put it up.

Since she is so fond of it I decided to turn a blind eye and she thinks that I haven't noticed yet.  Bless.

I want to share a photo of her My Little Ponies with you.  When she was younger some friends of ours found up the collection of My Little Ponies that they owned when they were younger, including a stable that their father had made.  They didn't even mind when we painted this lovely stable bright pink and purple!

As luck would have it, one of the blogs I follow posted some My Little Pony patterns, (Dork Stitch: Old School My Little Pony Sprite Patterns ) so I think I am now going to stitch these on to something for my daughter's stocking, what with that C word just around the corner.  

Spotty tops for Children in Need

I received a text message from my daughter's school last night! I just wanted to put that sentence out there because I thought that was really odd, anyway the text was reminding me that today is Children in Need and could children bring in a donation and wear something spotty.  We had the donations set aside and I knew that it was to wear something spotty, but for whatever reason it didn't click in my head that they didn't have any spotty clothes. So cue me last night sewing felt spots onto tops for the kids.  I think they turned out quite sweet, although my hubby thinks they look more "Gruffalo pox" spots rather than "Pudsey" spots.

The kids were thrilled with them and they both went off to school/nursery as happy as clams. The teachers and pupils at both school and nursery had all made a brilliant effort and as soon as my daughter got to the playground, despite being November and cold, she had her coat off so she could compare spots with friends.  
There is plenty of Children in Need stuff out there so I'm not going to go on but it is particularly close to my hear so just in case you want it here is the link to donate.

The Door to Moria

I received the best swap gift last week.  I genuinely could not have chosen a better hand made gift for myself.  So first of all Thank You to Starrley - go and check out her blog here .  
Now I was having dog issues when the postman knocked and I desperately needed to take my mind off of it so it couldn't have been better timed. ( Lets just say that our neighbours poodle got into our garden and my boxer was rather pleased to see her...nobody should have to deal with boxer/poodle love first thing in the morning!) Anyway...
The first thing I saw was a card with this image:

Now this was exciting enough as I love Dune, and when I listed it as  one of my best games/books etc I really didn't think many people would have got it. So this card alone cheered me up, then I look at the framed item and all I can say is WOW!!!

The Framed Door to Moria

This is so beautifully stitched and just looks so right in the frame. Also this was sent all the way from Texas so the fact that she actually added the frame is so lovely because it would have increased the postage by a ridiculous amount.

The Embroidered Door to Moria

The elvish on this is tiny and detailed and done so neatly.  I know that I am being overt with my praise but I still can't believe someone sent me this, so so so happy with it!
Also for a quick comparison, this was the image that it was based on:

The Door to Moria

If there was ever an incentive to hurry up and get my map done, this was it!

A Homemade Chalk Board

We have been decorating!  I love painting so am always happy to don some rough clothes and a roller out. I really like having a blackboard in the kitchen because i quite like to have something to cross out  (if it is on the blackboard I am much more likely to do it so I can cross it out) and since a lot of the recipes we use are online I can write it all up on the blackboard while I am cooking.  So my lovely hubby decided that this was something that we could make rather than buy. 

We painted a big black rectangle on the kitchen wall with blackboard paint which for some unknown reason amused the kids to the point of hysterical giggles.

Blackboard paint

I had nothing to do with the cutting of the picture rail other than holding the "non-being cut end", but found that varnishing it was ridiculously therapeutic.

The lovely blackboard fairies put it all together when I wasn't looking so I don't have any photos of this stage, but the next thing I know VOILA :

Fin

Look at how lovely it looks!

And an action shot:

The recipes are for homemade naan bread and rice pudding  ; )

Happy Halloween

Just a quick post to say Happy Halloween!  

This was the first year that I have carved the pumpkins so I found a template for my daughter and a template for my son, I think they turned out ok...

First I made a Hello Kitty pumpkin for my little girl.

Hello Kitty Pumpkin

Lit up Hello Kitty Pumpkin

Then the second pumpkin was Lightning McQueen from the Disney  Cars films. 

Lightning McQueen Pumpkin

Lit up Lightning McQueen Pumpkin

Needless to say I had two very happy children today.  Actually I had one happy skeleton and one happy witch.

Big Swap Goodies

I took part in the Sprite Stitch "Big Swap" in the Spring. Unfortunately no one had heard from my "swappee" or get in contact with her, which was a shame, but the guys on the forums were great and I know a fair few people offered to make something.   Well you can imagine my surprise when a box arrived from America! Unfortunately it took a little longer than that to actually get the box because it was stuck at a ParcelForce depot for a couple of weeks while I tried to argue against the extortionate import charges I had received, considering it was a gift.  Hubby kindly paid in the end and I finally got my Big Swap!!!YAY!!!

The box from America!!

All was forgiven!!!

The first thing I saw was this sweet photo on the top of a note to say sorry for being so late.

Angry Bird Magnets

I have to keep these on the microwave, out of reach of little hands, who keep trying to steal them!! My 5 year old has already suggested I make some squishy pigs and we play "real life" angry birds....hmmm.....
For the next gift you need to see this image first

Jayne

If you don't know who this is then firstly you need to go watch Firefly and Serenity. Now! As a side note I'm just going to throw it out there that we need to somehow scoop out the ideas formulated by Joss Whedon's brain in case anything should ever happen to him....Geek Rant over.

Jayne The Badass Teddy!

Jayne Hat!

I'm not entirely sure that I can really pull off the Jayne's Hat look BUT it looks adorable on one of my childhood ted's so is now perched atop the telly!

Portal Latch Hook Rug

Having done latch hook I can assure you that the time and effort gone into this would have been crazy! This is definately my favourite! I have been thinking of cross stitching some of the portal logos for a while, but it would never have occurred to me to make them in to a rug! GENIUS!

Yay! Totally worth the wait. It is a shame about the charges though, but I know it has been brought up on the forums since the Mini Swap is now nearly over, there will be a few more parcels arriving and departing with lovely geeky crafty things in!

Exam Week

Child Development ( ED209 course at the OU) has been  fascinating, to me anyway, but I am so glad to have a couple of months break before my next module!!!
I am a bit of a freak that actually enjoys writing essays, but really struggle in exams, and two hours into the 3 hour exam on Tuesday my brain just stopped working. I think it went on strike.  However I am very proud of my first essay, and you can tell towards the end that I have lost focus, as the last essay was barely strung together and probably doesn't make much sense to anyone. So I am going to write this piece of advice here partly so that I remember next time I do an exam and also for anyone else sitting exams in the near future.
DO THE ESSAY PLANS FOR ALL QUESTIONS BEFORE YOU WRITE ANYTHING ELSE. 
This way names/studies/information will still be fresh in your head. 

Me looking very stressed before the exam

Anyway, I have a couple of months break so hopefully images like the above won't be a sight in my house until February.  I can take all the mind maps off the wall and hide the books in a dark room.  

Me not stressed out!!

Strangely enough it has been quite nice this week, we have had some nice bright Autumnal days and I think I might deserve to relax a little so I am going to make the most of it while it lasts.

Also now the Exam is done, I will have more crafty posts coming soon! YAY!

Finished Cross Stitches

During the move, I unearthed cross stitches that I have completed and left waiting to be framed for far too long, so a couple of these have actually been put up, but first, a reminder of why newspaper alone is not enough to save your glass frames when being moved:

The Pink Piano

I love this little piece and it has been on top of the piano since I framed it last year.  However this was the only breakage, so we didn't do too badly, so unfortunately this has now joined the pile of stuff "To Be Framed".
I do have more Popcorn bears up now though.  I finished this piece ages and ages ago, and I absolutely love it because they are ALL so cute! I put it in an old frame we had and found a lovely space for it on the windowsill by the stairs:

Popcorn Sampler

Popcorn Sampler

I am so glad that I have this up now, it is a piece that makes me smile.
Then this next popcorn bear was found in my daughter's room when we packed up (just the fabric, it hadn't been framed then) so I thought that I would save it:

Popcorn bear with sunflowers

I'm pretty sure this little one was a freebie with a magazine but for the life of me I couldn't find the pattern anywhere! 
I really need to do some less "cutesy" cross stitch....oh well.
8 days and counting to my exam, so I should probably get back to revision, rather than looking at cross stitch....
OR I could cross stitch my revision notes!