A Cuppa and A Catch Up!

Hi!...its been a while huh? Get youself a cuppa, sit down and ill try and catch you up on what’s been going on around here. I can’t too apologetic for my absence here because not showing up here means that I have been present in the lives of my kids and as Mama, that’s’ my job!! BUT, I am sorry not to have had you in on the journey. I’m finding myself very unorganised at the moment which, although not that unusual, is a terrible burden to getting things done!!

How are you? Spring Summer has come upon us and that is distraction enough for all the things we know we should be doing right? Who wants to fold laundry or wash the floor when its sunny outside?? NOT ME, and I’m hoping you neither; get out there and smell nature uncurling from it’s slumber. How we have loved already venturing into the woods, finding beetles, eating snacks al fresco in natural suntraps, spotting bluebells and butterflies, peering down holes and wondering who lives there. (*sigh* remember this feeling)

When I finally got off my butt and decided to write another post I thought id have a look back at my pictures to remind myself of what I’d been up to. I never feel that I am any good at taking photos but I try and take them anyway as a way of capturing memories. You might look at my photos and think ‘what is that/were they doing/how is that significant?’ but to me they are all linked to a feeling (usually love) and a time that I know I will forget if there’s nothing to nudge me to remember. Well, when I took a look back I was truly overwhelmed by the beauty of my life and my people; no, they’re not perfect pictures but they are bursting with beauty, love, joy and colour. I was so blessed just preparing to write this post!! I can’t share most of them with you because lots have other people’s kids in, or are just too personal, but maybe reading this will prompt you to flick back through the photos you’ve taken in the past few months and count up your many blessings? I hope so.

So, in no particular order, here’s what’s been goin’ down;

We decorated our bedroom: it took over two slow weeks doing it between hubby being at work and looking after the kids. SO thankful it’s over, although the finishing touches are still to come (hence the lack of wardrobe doors up there).

I taught my second ever crochet course which was fab. I had a totally different kind of group which was such a great learning curve for me; seeing how different people learn, choose colour, approach creative projects. Fascinating!!

I made a little bag for a very special little lady in out lives who turned 1. My boys adore her :)

We began a little love affair with Lego. When we poured the pieces from their packets onto the tray I scrambled for my camera shouting ‘don’t touch, don’t touch…just wait for me to get the camera!!!’ tripping over things to capture the crazy cute colour before they jumped in and scrambled it all up!! oh, I wonder what their memories will be of their childhood and Me??!

I started a summer wreath…although it may be autumn before I finish it.

We bough a real drum kit because, erm, our 2 year old can somehow drum? (what?! I know, he can't use the toilet but he can hold a brilliant beat.... it’s true!)

I hosted my mum’s 50^th Birthday; which was great!! My sister gave her the most incredible painting that I had the priviledge of seeing every stage of the process; and We gifted her a blanket which I’ll share more of soon :)

My Nan turned 80 and we celebrated that how we like to celebrate nearly all birthdays; afternoon tea. We got together to paint her a Yarn bowl with hand prints of her grandsons on and finger prints of myself and my sister. We did it at Viables 'Pots to Paint' in Basingstoke and the result was so much better that I could have imagined!! (gutted not to have a picture, but I promise I'll get one!)

I attended a printing course which, although didn’t stretch me how I had wanted, was fun and I came away with a good number of the print below!!

I’m also just jumping into a whole new adventure (actually two), but I’ll tell you more about that next time!

Thanks for reading, and thanks for checking in on me even though it’s been so long; it means a whole lot!!

Love

Hayley

xxx

Fish Mobile

I have had this idea in my mind for so long now I cannot even remember what first inspired it! Recently, when we were looking forward to meeting our dear friends beautiful baby son for the first time, I knew I wanted to give something special; something handmade, I finally had the opportunity to create it. The mobile was the perfect gift as it didn't take tooooo much time and was easily hidden should the parents find it visibly offensive!! (I don't think they did though :))

I gathered all of the blue/green papers I could find and dug out my box of driftwood (yes, I know, please don't mention it), some glue, pencils and scissors and just got to work. There was very little planning...

I drew some templates on stiff card...

Then cut a load of fish out of different papers. The papers alone weren't thick enough not to curl when hung so I stuck them to card and had a number of fish that were double sided.

I used interesting papers lie maps and old book pages as bellies for the fish (sorry the pictures aren't in order of making, I didn't always have the ca,era so I took most at the end.)

I made loads as I wasn't sure what I would and wouldn't like/work. I then chose my best shoal for the mobile.

I used my spare time between caring for the boys and doing chores etc for adding some hand drawn interest to the fish.

I used coloured pencils.

And my current faves: Gellyroll pen; it has such an intense colour.

And the Uniball White Gel pen.

One fish was stitched onto some vellum paper before I stitched them all together leaving a few stitches between fish to allow for movement.

I added a small bead to the end to weight it down a bit and tied the top to a bit of driftwood. I used some yarn to make a string to vary the length of its drop and secure it to wherever it would hang, and to add a different texture (not entirely sure why but it felt it needed it, perhaps the colour helped).

I REALLY love the outcome and am already thinking I might use the reject shoal to make another mobile for myself, I mean, the kids. My favourite fish is the top one which is made from a painting that Little H did ages ago; the page was literally swimming in the glitter paint he was using but it was so beautiful when it dried I just had to keep it, I am so glad I did!!

I won't lie, it wasn't stupidly easy or quick; it took some slow time and thought and love, but really it flowed as I got lost in the creative process. I thoroughly enjoyed the entire project from start to finish and was so happy to give something that I had put love into and had given me joy.

The possibilities are endless; just imagine what Pinterest could inspire for your next paper mobile?! (I can't believe I haven't thought about this until now!!!) You could use all the pictures and bits you collected from a holiday, or pictures of people you love and miss in between colours and words that remind you of them? You could do as I did and up-cycle some of your kids masterpieces so you can keep them without hiding them away in a file or drawer? What about using letters from penpals? OH....it goes on and on....

I hope you like it and are inspired to have a go. If it all goes wrong, it's only paper and you can recycle it, no one will know. Have some fun and get lost in creativity for the sake of nothing more than having something pretty to look at :)

Thanks for stopping by,
See you soon,

Hayley
xxx

D.I.Y Scrap Paper Journals

I was given the gift of time over the Christmas break  (I have a really kind husband) and used my whole 7 hours alone making a beautiful papery mess in my living room. I am a hoarder of paper; it’s not a problem, just a bit inconvenient at times! Anyway, I took the opportunity to sort out all of my scraps of packing paper, handmade papers, ugly papers that really I wanted to throw out but didn’t want to waste, old wrapping paper etc. and decided to do something with them. I’d had in my mind the vague idea of making books out of them but the label ‘book’ was far too intimidating so I never really had a go, but on this day it just so happened that I had a cute little roll of pink and white butchers string hanging about and it was the nudge I needed to give it a go.

Initially I was just making one; I picked my biggest pieces in similar sizes and after lining them up ‘stitched’ them very simply with the string and a darning needle. I had an almost instant scrap/sketch book. I couldn’t stop at one. After that I had the pleasure of having themed books; one of all Christmas papers for the next seasons sketching; another pinky pretty ones; and another with a map cover!! (Ooooohhh….maps! I do love maps, especially ones bought for 30p at a second hand bookshop!).

The result is a small but great collection of sketch/scrap books ready to be filled with anything and everything. 

The best thing about them is that they solve the main problem I have with any kind of creative documentation of my days and that is the blank page- it’s so daunting and I’ll often not bother making a mark on that lovely white sheet for fear of making the wrong one. Now I have no such worries; all of the pages are already crinkled, cut, torn, wonky or dirty!

Here’s a little of what I have done so far; it’s over the top of a paper Little H brought back from Pre-school that had the letter ‘H’ stamped all over it. He loved it, and I’m so happy to keep it like this, merging both of our creativity into one piece. It’s far less likely to get lost or forgotten now and that in itself is so precious to me.

So dig out your papers people, or rummage through your recycling and see what you can find!! (quite a few of my pages were flattened out wrapping paper and parcel stuffing…and they happen to be my favourites!!)

See you soon!

Hayley

xxx

New Year and A Crochet Ta Dah!

Hello! And Happy New Year to you all; I hope your Christmases were brilliant and you found time amidst the madness to stop, breathe and reflect on what really matters in this season. It’s all over now and a fresh New year stretches ahead of us; I always love the anticipation that it brings. If you have followed my blog for a while you’ll know I love to make new year’s resolutions, loads of ‘em, but I’ll wait to share those with you another time. For now I want to share my (very over due) Ta DAh! Moment of a hooky project I started back in October when I fell head-over-heels in love with Autumn :)

Enjoy!...

Waaay back in October, as Autumn was beginning to make way for winter I was worrying inside my creative mind about letting go of all the colour and beauty that had blessed my soul so much that year; ONLY autumn has this magical appeal, the shift in colour paired with the emotional anticipation and preparation of settling down for winter. I am sure it is its brevity that makes it so special; the same reason flowers are such a wonderful gift. Anyway, I got an idea to make a crochet scarf in all of those beautiful hues that I could drape about myself and cheer my spirit on those cold, grey, slushy, muddy winter days (that actually have been very warm so far so not as much scarf-draping/swishing has happened than I would have liked).

 Very unlike me, I just drove to the yarn store, and probably took less than half an hour to pick my yarn, colourway, pay and walk out with a bag of swag. Woah. No crazy planning, getting lost in the fascinating world of endless colour combination possibilities – just look, pick, look again…..and buy. It was a thrill just trusting my eye.

 I had already found my pattern on Pinterest and used my long car journey that weekend to hook the first few rounds and get a feel for the piece. It was fun, but scary as I hadn’t made anything like this before and the flower motifs were much larger than I had imagined. The fact that I couldn’t decide if I liked it or not was annoying, but it went away the more I made.

I spent many happy moments hooking methodically through the pattern. First I made all the centers (why do I feel that isn’t spelt right?); I can’t tell you how pleasing it was to see the little piles of colours grow.

Then I moved onto the middle round; this felt like real progress and was a little addictive.

But then the hard work came; deciding where each colour would go, evenly spaced in the whole scarf scheme of things and adding in the final round of petals, joining as I went.

This was slow progress and I spent many evenings at the dining table laying out all the pieces in their correct order only to have time to crochet two or three completed flowers before packing it all up again before bed (sorry, dark evenings = poor photos).

The reason it took so long to complete was due to the mini-crisis I had in the middle of the final round where I decided that I might not like the pink. My good friends (and some strangers) on face book were really helpful and all encouraged me to keep it in; as did the few people I unexpectedly assaulted as I thrust my crochet under their nose and asked for their gut feeling on the colour- goodness, the people I know are really nice to love me!

Anyways, after that I finally got round to finishing it, and then it sat. And sat. The ends; I couldn’t face darning them in, ugh. But just before Christmas when my hubby had the kids I took myself off to have coffee with my scarf and darn in her scruffy ends.

I blocked it the next night; never have I blocked anything this big. Blocking always sounds like it is offensive to me, maybe that’s why I tend not to do it, but it really needed it to look finished this time. 

Do you like my nice and tidy house? I do have lots of time for tidying as you can see from all the crochet I do.

And here it is! 

Ah, so pretty and warm….and a little under used but I think January is about to fix that!

Happy New Year everyone!

Thanks for stopping by,

Hayley

xx

Paper Leaf Garland

Apologies for the terrible quality in photos, but I just wanted to pop in and show you this crafty little number because she’s sooooo easy to make and the outcome is pretty beautiful! (It’s hard to take photo’s in poor light you know!)

I found the above photo in a Country Living Magazine and knew I had to make one. I really love the white/wood look but used what I had in my stash.

I simply drew some templates on card and when I was happy with the shape cut them out. I then simply drew around them and cut them out one evening whilst watching telly :)

After punching holes in them I thread them onto a piece of yarn. This works better than string because it is not smooth, which would just result in all of the leaves sliding down to the centre of the garland. Not cool.

I hung them with twinkly lights and I LOVE how they turned out!

So save your scraps from wrapping gifts, or use old bits of beautiful paper that you couldn’t bear to throw away and get making!

Enjoy and see you soon, thanks for stopping by,

Hayley

xx