Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

The Bunnies have gone out Trick or Treating disguised as a pumpkin, a ghost and Franken-bun, while I stayed home and put the pumpkins on the doorstep to welcome any ghosties and ghouls.

Can you guess which is mine?

Yep, you guessed it! 

I can't do scary! I have tried and tried, but it's impossible so I surrendered to the cute with my carving :)

Have a spooky cute Halloween Night!

xo

Halloween Eve Makings

I am having a lovely day-before-Halloween day!

As it's so cold cold, I wrapped up tightly in a wool dress, scarf and big coat (with a pumpkin pin on the lapel) and went out to buy my Halloween supplies.

I got loads of sweets for Trick or Treater and some things to do so Halloween baking tomorrow (very much inspired by this Etsy How-to), but more importantly...

... Pumpkins! 

yay!

We ended up buying 4 pumpkins, one for everyone. Mine is the medium sized one with the long stem, its not as broken as it looks luckily. I always look for round pumpkins with interesting looking stems, most the ones today had none :(

My crafting today has been Halloweeny too!

I joined a fantastic craft forum a little while ago and they host "The Thursday Night Project". To take part you just pick and project for your Thursday and share how its going on the forum, fun and very motivating! Today I decide to make Ollie a Halloween costume...

Bat wings for Ollie

I think I'm a bit too old to make a costume for myself, especially when I planning to just stay home and watch creepy cute movies, but I figure Ol can get away with it. I am not the kind to dress him up too much, he doesn't like it and I don't want to make him look silly, but we are both ok with the wings!

I made the wings by cutting 4 wing shapes out of thick black felt and sewing them in pairs on the machine, leaving the narrow end open. I then slipped them over the lead rings on an old chest harness he had as a puppy and sewed to secure them. Super easy!

 

This photo would have been so sweet, if only the little winged dog had stayed still!

I have to go carve my pumpkin now!

Hope you are having lovely Halloween eve's as well!

xo

**Oh, just incase you'd like to dress up/annoy/humiliate a little dog too, I have put my wing pattern on Flickr

Darling Little Nervous Niles

I would like to introduce you to a dear bunny friend of mine...

Niles

Niles is a nervous little fellow. He likes to stay at home, with a cosy blanket, a cup of tea and lots of cookies, seeing the world through books and movies. 

He wishes he was a more confident bunny and hope to travel to new places one day. Studying the encyclopaedia (his favourite book) has pluck up his courage and he is ready to go out into the big old world.

Niles looked so nervous the moment I finished him, almost like the world was a little too big for him. He looked even more nervous when he sat with the other softies and I felt I had to wait a little while before sending him out into the world. He is definitely ready for his adventure now and I hope he finds a lovely friend who will take him on it. 

Niles is my favourite bunny yet. I don't really know a bunny until I sew the eyes and I try not to plan how they'll turn out. I like the surprise and it feels like the bunny has its own personality, rather than I'm just making up stories for them. That probably sounds a little nutty, but I really feel they have a character that comes from the stitching, not my imagination. 

And so, my darling little bunny friend sits a little nervously on a floaty shelf in the little etsy shop, waiting to see where the world will take him

xo 

Spidy Inspiration

I thought I share the inspiration for my dangly spider today.

I have spotted a couple of links to the dangly spider around blogland and can't tell you how touched I am. Thank you so much for your support! You can visit those blogs here, here and here

I originally made the spider and web Atc for a swap last year. The theme was "All that glitters" and I think there was a lot of rain-sparkled and shimmery webs around the old house at the time. It's a Victorian house with loads of character and period features, unfortunately a big feature was draughts and ways for the spiders to get in! 

The web was stitched with thin gold thread onto punctured card. I didn't send the web for the swap, I still have the card and even looking at it now, I can't tell you what kind of stitching I used. It was before I learnt any thing about embroidery and seems to be running stitch, feather stitch and huge open chain stitches all thrown together. I love how you don't have to follow the rules of embroidery but it still can work out somehow!

Tomorrow I am hoping to share a very dear bunny friend with you!

See you soon 

xo

Paper-y Goodness

The Dandelion Bunny Notecards and Notelets are now in the little etsy shop!

The bunny has been printed using my print gocco and lovely blue and silver ink. The silver gives the dancing dandelion fairies a little shimmer in the light.

The Notecards are printed on glossy white 3 1/2" x 5" single fold card and are in sets of 3. 

The notelets are  printed 5" x 3" thin cards and have 5 in a set. 

Each come with 100% recycled brown craft envelopes and all the packaging is now biodegradable. I found the eco-craft supplier who I get most my papery goodness from also supplies display bags and sealers made from corn starch, instead of plastic - How fantastic! I like to try to do my bit and I am so pleased to say that they all brilliant quality.

I also gocco printed my dandelion bunny on blue and lilac folded card and on blue lined notelets, which I will listed shortly too.

Happy weekends!

xo

A Girly Thursday

Lizzie has two new drawn sister.

Susan and Suzy

Lizzie has gone to live at my Nanna's house with her and my Grandad. My Nanna is the sweetest, she showed Lizzie to a couple of her friends and they asked for drawn girls of their own. I think they are to be presents for someone, which makes Susan and Suzy very excited indeed!

Susan is a ponderer, always thinking about something or other, like "how do all the trees know how to turn brown at the same time?" She is also a fan of big buttons and chocolate eclairs.

Suzy loves eyeliner, she feels it gives her deep soulful eyes with which to see the world. Her eye inspirations are pirates, the 60's and Margot Tenenbaum. Her favourite snack is oatmeal cookies and she is not impressed with this photo of her "The angle's all wrong!" she cries, but it is the best I took before sending her off to her new home... 

Some other wonderful girly thing that has happened today is the Dottie Angel has re-opened her Etsy shop and filled it to the brim with her gorgeous, customised vintage slips. I can't tell you how happy I am, I have been dreaming about owning a dottie angel slip for quite sometime and I now have a gorgeous blue-green one on its way to me!! 

Lovely happy girly wishes

xo

Lovely Craft Goodness

This weekend I went to the Festival of Craft in Farnham to have a look at all the lovely handmade goodness!

and I came home with a couple of goodies too!

A handmade stitched and printed card by Amy Aardvark. I'm developing a bit of a crush on all things deer at the moment and this is so sweet that I won't be sending it to anyone, but I'll be hanging it on my wall in a pretty frame instead.

My other buy is this gorgeous ruffled capelet/collar by Diana Morrison, knitted using a navy stripe ribbon. I love the modern Victoriana look and I think this will be the thing to add a touch of that to basic black tees.

I really wanted to share with you an owl inspired art doll by Sewsister, it was amazing! (I can't seem to find a photo on her website but there are many more dolls to see there.) And these to-die-for bracelets, I have been thinking about them constantly since I saw! They are made from vintage teacups and as I was looking at them I just kept thinking "I am too clumsy for them, I would break it and die from the disappoint of it" A little dramatic, but they were just so gorgeous it all seemed just at the time and I dragged myself away from them. The lust as won over my fear now and they are at the top of my Xmas list!

I am find the best part of starting Xmas sewing at a time that seems too early is having plenty of time to dream yourself the perfect Santa list

xo

Ghost Bunny

It feels like ages since I last posted, a sign (me thinks!) that my blogging habits are getting much better...

I can't claim this to be a 'proper' post though, more of a ghostly bunny apparition to say "I'm still here"...  and I just had to share this bunny, she is definitely my favourite of all my Halloween scribbles this year!

I am currently busying myself with lots of Xmas stitching and it just feels a bit too early to be sharing those now!

xo

A Little Halloween Something for All

Welcome back Treat or Trickers!

Thank you for all the lovely comments and Halloween links!

I thought it would be nice to have a little something everyone could share, so I have some instructions for a Halloween decoration I stitched up over the weekend.

Dangly Spider Stitch Picture

Being the silly girl I sometimes am, I forgot to take photos during the making! So I settle down with a large cup of fruit tea and scribbled the instructions instead...

The "Bits and Bobs** of Spiders and Stitches"

I stitched this up in the time it took to watch a movie, so quite a quick little thing to do

* a needle *

* 4 inch embroidery hoop *

* Roughly 6 inches of lovely fabric *

* Floss that stands out on said lovely fabric *

* 2 small black felt circle *

* Some black and white floss *

* Black wool *

* Scissors *

* a little bit of ribbon *

* magic pen * 

**

Part 1 or "Jump in the hoop and big fat stitches"

Put your lovely fabric in the hoop nice and tight. Find the centre and from there, draw 7 cobweb 'legs' with your pen. 

With a nice fat piece of contrsting floss, stitch all the 'legs' with a back stitch. I used the whole 6 strands for this bit. You now have 7 big chunky legs (and I mean that in the nicest possible way!)

**

Part 2 or "Spinning a web and cutting it free"

To 'spin' the web, use a thinner piece of floss (I use three strands). Starting near the centre, stitch across from one leg to the next with big, long stitches. A bit of random wonkiness looks best I think, but don't cross the threads! You can see a close up of my web here to see what I'm trying to say. Keep stitching like this until your web is full and you think it will make a nice home for a spider. 

 

The quickest way to neaten the pictures edges is to make sure the fabric is stretched tight over the hoop and the hoop is fastened as tight as possible, then just trim off the extra fabric. For a more secure fastening, leave a little extra fabric and glue this extra to the back of inner hoop. I didn't glue mine this time, but I have zigzag machine stitched the edge to stop fraying.

**

Part 3 or "The little spider friend"

Take the wool and wrap it around your hand twice, making two big loops. Then tie the ends in the middle tightly making four loops as shown. Cut the loops open and you have 8 wooly legs tied together.

Put the knot in the centre of an felt circle and sandwich it with the other circle. Spread the legs as you like around the edge and stitch the black circles together with the black floss. If you like chubby spiders, you can stuff him with a little spare wool before closing up the body. Give the little guy some eyes with the white floss. Smile at what a cute little spider you made :)

Attach your spider friend to his web with a length of thick web-coloured floss.

Tie a ribbon around the hoop's fastening to make it spooky pretty, hang it on the wall and...

Tada! A Dangly spider stitch picture of your own!

I hope you will get a treat from my first little tutorial.

 

And last but not least

 My little spider friend and I can tell you that the super fun random name fruit machine picked...

Patty

as the winner of the Halloween goodies!

I am so excited to be sending Patty my blog giveaway parcel as she has been a brilliant friend to me and is an angel of the crafting world by sharing millions (its a guess but probably not far off!) of crafty links to free patterns and more. She left me the 'treat' of this link to this witchy blog filled with happy pink halloween-ness! 

You can find Patty at her wonderful Pipstitch blog

Thanks again for stopping by!

Happy halfway to Halloween

xo

**These is all my ingredients but please feel free to use your own! Spiders don't have to be black, floss or pipe cleaners make good legs and I have a huge crush on air erasable 'magic pens' but pencils are great too. And I'm sure you clever clogs have many more fun ideas too :)

Lost to Tales

I spent a sleepy long weekend engrossed with fairytales.

On a sunny day after a lovely late lunch, I went to the book shop and this book just called to me...

The lovely papercut cover, the greed of its 279 stories and the curiosity of what I had been reading in another book, it all got the better of me and I had to have it.... and I had to curl up and start reading it immediately.

I love how short but satisfying each story is. They are and yet they aren't the stories I know from childhood. There are ones that I know, ones that are fuzzy in my mind, ones I never heard of and parts I wasn't told - I wasn't told how the stepsisters cut off their toes to fit into Cinderella's slipper by Disney or Mum for example. Whenever I have felt the need to take a break from sewing or scribbling, or chores much less interesting all together, I sit and read just one tale, after which I feel much more refreshed than by a cup of tea. They really are so much fun to read, maybe more so than as a child!

The other book was "Off with their Heads!", a look at the meanings and lessons of fairytales in childhood. Its rather wordy and studious but fascinating, especially if you like a darker side to your fairytales - you won't see them quite the same after.

***

A bit of an itty-bitty post today. I was going to share some pieces I was working on during my sleepy weekend but I've let it get so late without uploading the photos, they will have to wait for another day as I must go and prepare a little something for tomorrow's post before I curl up with another tale...

xo

Dead Cute

This was a slightly twisted idea for a Halloween Bunny...

... a Dead Cute Bunny!

(I'll never ever get tired of word play!)

I decide not to make Halloween Bunnies, I'm not really sure why. Some of the costumes I wanted just so and figured another year of stitching practice would make that happen, but also as I have a little voice in my head saying 'shouldn't you be making xmas stuff already?' so I didn't go as all out for Halloween as I liked :(

As well as being a bunny of another Halloween, she pretty much sums up how I'm feeling right now. I am so tired! I'm going to treat myself to a lazy evening of reading and slow stitches while munching on some easy-peasy peanut butter cookies.

 

I've made them a couple of times now and although they aren't the world's best cookie, they are a pretty much instant, warm, comforting sugar hit!

xo

OOoooOOh! One week to goooo!

Have you trick or treated me yet?

There is still one week left to get some Halloween goodies!

Little pumpkin is so excited by the thought of spending Halloween with one of you, he tried out a vampire costume (from the front of the sweet's packet). Don't he look cool? I wasn't going to share this pic as I thought it may be a bit too cheesy, but its been making me smile so I thought it might make you guys smile too :)

 

I thought I'd also share my Halloweeny inspiration with you too!

Sweet Pumpkin came from the idea of a bunny I would love to make one day - a bunny with a pumpkin costume!

 

I wasn't sure how to make the bunny exactly how I wanted her to look so I'll save her for another time. I hope she'll be around next Halloween to help celebrate. Her scribble made me think I could make pumpkin softie that would be cute, so the sweet pumpkin pincushion/softie came about with sweet bunny freckles and wide round eyes for this year's fun!

Happy Wednesday!

xo

Forget-me-not Blue

Oh dear! Oh dear! 

I almost forgot to tell you all about an extra guest at Benjamin and Dilly's end of summer picnic!

You just can't go down to the woods for a picnic without a teddy bear and look who came to take pine cone tea with us...

...A little bear named Blue!

Oh! the bunnies do look a bit surprised by their guest! 

It always makes me giggle how they have their own little expression!

You can tell by his expression Blue is a friendly bear though, if not a little melancholy. He (and Benjamin, who is made from the same lovely lambswool) are a blue Forget-me-not colour, which I didn't realise until I had almost forgotten poor Blue. 

You see he hasn't been around to remind me to introduce him to you, as he accompanied the Bunnies on their travels to Archie and Mabel's, where I believe he can be caught unawares,  sipping tea and eating yummy cakes.

xo

Brrrr... it's getting cold!

There is a definite icy crispness in the air tonight, so I'm going to cosy up with hot chocolate and a blanket to watch a movie.

I think it getting to be the time for everything to be getting cosy and that includes softies...

 

Timmie is feeling toasty in his official Timmie bobble hat which I brought from Marilyn a while ago, along with the cute badge he is modelling! I couldn't not get him the hat... he was begging me to buy it and said he needed it as it was cold and miserable! Now he is all set for the winter or so we thought.... He has now got his eye on a Timmie hoodie.

Well, it is getting soooo cold at night!

xo 

Trick or Treat! (A spooky giveaway!)

Happy October all!

Thanks for popping by and I'm so glad you did as I have my little Halloween giveaway for you today!

Two spooky-cute felt pins are here and waiting to be given away to one trick or treater. And how can I not give sweets out at Halloween? You just have too! so I have a bag of yummy gummy spiders, snakes and bats for you too!

These badges are not like the ones I am selling in the little shop.

 Oh no, these were made specially to give to you! 

A ghostie with freckles, just like the one haunting cozy home... 

... and a little round-eyed sweet pumpkin like the softie but with fangs. A sweet pumpkin/little pumpkin cross-pollination if you like :)

If you'd like some Halloween goodies, just knock on my bloggy door and Trick or Treat me in the comments below! 

And if you want to leave a treat (or a trick!) in the way of something Halloweeny (a link perhaps) and I'll put your name in the picking cauldron twice!

I'll pick the winner at random two weeks from today on Wednesday the 15th October giving you plenty of time to come a knocking and still get your spooky cute goodies by Halloween for your celebrations!

See you sooooooooooooon!!

xo