Jolly Lolly Freebies!

Hooray for Summer!

And Hooray because as promised I have turned my little Jolly Lolly into some printable paper loveliness for you!

Jolly Lolly Gift Tags!

I am even more smitten with these than I am with my labels and I hope you like them too.

So printers at the ready...

(click picture to enlarge to full A4 size)

Once you click the pic, it *should* fill the page with your A4 sized sheet ready to print (no downloading as I'm really not clever enough to do that!) I think they are best printed on thin white card but they are just fine on thicker paper too. As well as the paper, scissors, a hole punch and some String/ribbon are needed.

Once you have your sheet, cut around each double lolly shape (it very tempting to cut through!**) and fold along the middle line. Punch a hole just above the folded edge and tied a loop of string through each. Easy peasy!

As well as popping them on gifts, a blob of glue to keep them closed and they make sweet summery hanging decorations too!

I do hope you enjoy them and I'd love to hear if anyone does use some

(and if there is problems, let me know that too.)

Quite accidentally, this little freebie come on my 200th post! I had taken my eye off the post count so I was a little surprised to have reached such a number. A little 'Thank you for reading' giveaway will follow soon but for now there is cake and many many big Thank Yous!!

Whipped cream and icing sugar makes the best emergency frosting!

Do help yourself!
I am off to enjoy them with tea and granny squares...

xo

** oh, I suppose you could and make twice as many flat gift tags :)

Square eyed

By sticking to my plan of Granny-ing every day, I now have 56 squares in just over 2 weeks! I can't believe how addictive granny squares can be, last Saturday was the only day I manage to stop at just one!

All together that is just over half my blanket (although I'm thinking maybe it should be bigger and go for 140 squares... we'll see) so I think this weekend I will start piecing it together (thanks for the tip Hannah!)

Maybe its the granny effect, but seeing neat rows of anything squareish is really pleasing to me.

Like lovely new labels...

I'm so smittened with how the little lollies came out. I'm working them into some little paper loveliness to share with you all in my next post :)

xo

Going a Little Granny Crazy...

I proudly present my 1st ever granny square...

*takes a little bow as very pleased with myself, as not only is this the 1st crochet square, but all so the first time I have ever successfully followed a wooly pattern and ended with exactly what I wanted to make*

The urge to learn the granny square hit me quite hard after a week of Kirstie's Homemade Home repeats, what can only be described as granny square flickr porn and seeing the granny square blanket on FOTC many many times. The final push was an its-too-hot-to-knit wool sale which actually had some of my perfect colours.

In my wardrobe, I seem to be swapping black and white for grey and cream a lot right now, but a muted green has always been a favourite.

With my armfuls of cheap lush yarn I have decided to make my own blanket and knowing it takes a lot of squares, I started thinking a granny a day was a good plan.

Above is friday...

...Saturday...

...Saturday evening (a couple extra to get it going) ...

....Sunday (really should do something with my hands with all the tv watching going on)...

...and Monday (!?! I may had gotten a little carried away)

Maybe not the most successful -a-day project but a good start to blanket.

27 down... 73+ to go!

xo

Sunny = Lazy

Yep, I'm blaming my lack of craft (and blogging) on the hot sunny days we've been having!

The sun makes me want to be outdoors and the heat makes me so lazy... and then quite fussy after a while. One way or another, I find so way to link my productivity to the weather - too hot means laziness, too cold is uninspiring, too bright means I need to be outside (not in the craft room), too dull means icky photos..., what's a girl to do?

Well, she could take a tray of goodies out to the lawn and stitch there, which is exactly what I did albeit rather slowly with long pauses for clouding spotting and cordial drinking of course.

Hooray for un-melt-able felt lollies! Real ones would not have stood the heat at all, and neither could my needle - broke in half while twiddling in my fingers, poor thing!

I really am quite pleased with this guys, especially with those sprinkles. I never realised how difficult it is to stitch randomly on purpose, but I think all that daydreaming helped with the scattering :)

The stitching, and photos of, all happened a few days ago but the editing, shop listing and posting about was all today's work. I also made a start on a felt ball thing and crocheted my first ever granny square. Today the weather has been warm but overcast with a little bit of drizzle... proving my theory that it IS the weather's fault after all.

Have Happy 4th of July's and lovely weekends

xo

A lolly a day...

...a rather yummy idea for eating, but for crafting a rather slow week!

These Fabs are my favourite lollies ever! As well as being a cute colour combination of pink and chocolate brown which I adore, in real life they are super yummy. I always eat mine one layer at a time, starting with the chocolate and sprinkle top, through the milky layer and then the strawberry bottom. I can't ever bite into ice lollies, just too cold on the teeth, but I have a sneaky suspicion this habit of nibbling layers is childhood food-playing-with thingy.

Should I admit that at 25?

As well as jollying up the craft room, the little Fab lolly pins have already made their way to both the little shops, along with all the red and yellow lollies from the last post.

Hopefully next week will be a much more active craft week as I'm being to have dreams the Fab lolly softies will melt if I don't get round to them soon...

eek!

xo

Red Lolly, Yellow Lolly...

You know the one!

Say "Red lolly, Yellow lolly" over and over as fast as you can...

Red Lolly, Yellow Lolly,

Red lolly, yellow lolly,

red lolly, lellow lolly,

led lolly, lellow lolly...

oh heck!

Two lines and you can guarantee I'll be talking complete gibberish!

But if I sew nice and slowly...

... not a "lellow" nor a "led" lolly in sight :)

The Jolly Lolly Family holiday photo!

Since the weather has turned all Summery around here and I even managed to squeeze in a sunny day on the beach with a 99, I felt I need to sew something Summery too. Last year, the lollies came a little, so they seemed the perfect thing to revisit. One thing lead to another starting with an idea of a tongue twister stitch picture, the little pins quickly emerged and how could I not make softies!? They were just too fun :)

I'll be listing the lollies in the little shops over the weekend, or quite possibly monday because I don't seem to get much done at the weekend anymore. If I do get the chance, I'll be heading straight for my wip box...

...yum, my favourite!!

Have lovely weekends!

xo

Little Geisha Girl

Last month it was a friend's birthday and I really wanted to make her something a little special.

Last year she had given me some gorgeous Japanese style fabric, in the form of a much loved dress she no longed wore and I thought it would be sweet to make her a present from that and have her dress live on as it were...

Well I don't know if you have ever recycled a piece of loved clothing, but boy, was it hard to make that first cut! And the second and third for that matter... I have struggled with this before with my own clothes or charity shop finds, but a friend's was a new thing. With each cut I had the panicky feeling that I was doing something very naughty indeed.

The body is the lovely dress fabric with a little ribbon for detail, with felt hair and a drawn calico face. I recently bought a big bag of lavender so I filled her with a little of that, though I wished I had had something a little more oriental to hand...

I think my favourite part is her hair decoration which is made of a little felt flower and a button from the dress and 3 strings of tiny beads. I love the hairpins and combs worn by Geisha, if it wasn't for my desperately fine hair I may be tempted to wear them myself...

With the little geisha, I stitched up a matching mini tote to pop her in along with a couple of other little treats too :)

Happy weekends all!

xo