Crochet and cricut

 Well two shower puff thingys made. I swear I have more of this cotton yarn somewhere in a blue colour, and black, but no idea where it’s been safely stashed. When I find it though I think wash cloths or some more of these will be made up. I’ve made a grand total of 3 of these altogether having made the first one a while ago. It’s a very easy addictive make. Very forgivable to if you lose count now and then.  

One was made on a 4 Mm hook and the other on a 5.5mm hook. Obviously the 4 Mm one is more condensed but until they’ve been used I’m not sure which one I will prefer. 

T-shirt wise I pressed the htv onto a black shirt for kiddo today. Am still chuckling over it. After knocking up my own Mercury symbol a lovely person let me know there are periodic symbols within Cricut Design Space! Could of grabbed one free as I’m on a months free access to there at the moment. Lesson learned though. Check the resources to hand to make life a little easier maybe. 

Kiddo is happy with this and I’m pretty sure he will be wearing this tomorrow for me to get a better picture in the daytime and on. 

Lovely daytime spent with my granddaughters today. They are off on holiday next week so this is the last day I get to spend in person with them for a bit. We ended up gluing sparkles, drawing and painting things today. A truly crafty day was had by all. 

Half term has flown by so fast, not sure how it’s got to Friday already but there you go. Relaxing weekend needed before Monday rolls around I think. 

Bubbles, yarn and vinyl

The plan of working from my list of eight things is falling by the wayside a little. However, I am still using what I have and am being productive. 

Last night I started watching things on Netflix and decided to look through my yarn as fancied crocheting something. Came across this lovely dark pink cotton. Yet again another one of my shower poufs/loofah/scrubby things has fallen to bits leaving me with a long length of net so I decided to crochet up a cotton one that won’t unravel and won’t end up clogging up a landfill or being harmful to wildlife 

It’s coming along well. I’m a slow crocheter so I will carry on and finish this one tonight hopefully and if there’s enough yarn I will make another one up for someone else maybe. 

My younger son has a few jokey periodic table t shirts. So when I saw something similar to this on a mug I decided a shirt must be made and he was up for it. So this evening I designed this in Cricut design space and cut out the HTV vinyl, with my Cricut, ready to press onto the shirt tomorrow. I hope Freddie Mercury would approve ;-) 

Spent some time in the garden with kids and bubbles earlier on. Loving the colours in the garden and the enthusiasm everyone has for bubbles whatever age they are. 

Really has been a fairly busy fun day. Looking forward to seeing what fun tomorrow holds being the half term but might need a rest on Saturday. 

Etching the afternoon away

After having a go at glass etching last week my daughter showed interest in learning how. Always being up for crafting we arranged an afternoon and settled for today and I even offered to light the bbq to cook dinner tonight. 

It rained and was cold enough to put even me off bbq so we ate indoors. It didn’t however put us off spending time crafting. We cut our stencils out of oracle 651 vinyl on the Cricut. Even had the granddaughters pressing buttons as needing and watching the machine cut. 

It must of all gone well as my daughter wants to come back and do more coasters or something another day. 

She made the fairy one and I made the butterfly one. Both went home with my daughter as she loved them. 

What is also cool about these is the shadow effect the etching causes in the light. 

Discussed a lot of ideas on what we could etch and what to do next so I think it’s safe to say I have gained a new crafting partner :-) 

Sometimes it goes wrong

Not horribly wrong but when it does go wrong you learn from it. I was talking about using what I had. Well I have 2 small A4 sized blackboards and decided to use them with a svg I have. It’s by the maker Digital Gems and was in a bundle from design bundles.com 

As it’s a split Monogram I added our family name and then when our family was established and was happy with it until I added the cut vinyl to the board with transfer tape. The tape took off patches of the blackboard coating. My thought was to reapply and take a few more areas off and to maybe distress the frame slightly. 

All in all I think it will be ok as it makes me smile. Not perfect but done at least. Needs a little something else but I’m not sure what yet. 

For the next board if I use vinyl on it I think I will seal the board first so the paint doesn’t peel off and make sure I rub the transfer over a t shirt or something similar a few times to make it less sticky. 

The project I did before went slightly wrong to. Deciding on a layered HTV project I chose 2 different makes of vinyl and with the heat they both shrunk a little unfortunately the red more than the white. It’s obviously my week of learning from my mistakes. Hubby however is still wearing his England flag proudly so cannot complain it’s not liked. 

So there’s 2 things completed in 2 days. Tomorrow I’m crafting with my daughter in the afternoon so something will get made even if it’s not for me. 

Using what you have

Last week I had a lovely day spent with friends where we shopped, drank coffee and crafted. We used to craft together a lot and it sort of stopped. Anyhow, we made a point of doing something and while we did my friend made a comment about the amount you can buy when starting a craft. I am guilty of this as my craft room would reveal. To be honest I would have more room if I didn’t have bookcases full of books. 

While unloading yesterdays buys, paper clips and feathers, I realised half the supplies I have I’ve probably forgotten what I originally bought them for. Time to make a list of things I had in my mind to do now and see if I can find the things to do them with on hand. Turns out with the eight things I listed I think I can do them no problem and more importantly not having to buy anything to complete them. 

My off cuts for today are these. So far so good. Faux metallic gold leather that came free with a magazine and red and white Heat Transfer Vinyl. 

Hopefully I won’t run out of steam and can complete all of the eight things. All are different makes and a variety of crafts so I think I will be ok and not get to bored. 

Rolled paper flowers

It's been a strange day, started normally then I got hit by a bug.  Feeling not well but still feeling the need to do things I ended up pottering around slowly and doing a few crafty bits. 

Something that has had me interested for a while is the rolled paper flowers I have seen so many people do.  Basically, you cut out the template then roll with a quilling tool.  Then you arrange it until it looks pleasing and then glue the base of the flower to the tab on the end of the template. Let me tell you this is an art which is fiddly for my fingers and although I have to admit they don't look as bad as I thought they might do I doubt I will throw myself into making a whole bouquet or a shadow frame full.

Cut them both out at 8 inches wide and being the petals were different sizes it made a big difference in the finished size.

Didn't get this glued correctly so it is a bit lopsided.  Still pretty though. I guess it's supposed to be rose like maybe?

These almost lost a few petals but I managed to keep them all together in the end. This one was my favourite one.

As well as doing these flowers. I have glass etched a coaster. Which reminds me, the turtle from my last post was white because I hadn't cleaned the cream off fully and now looks a lot more like etched glass not white.  I also designed and applied htv ( heat transfer vinyl) to socks today. Also, put some rainbow HTV split letter names onto caps for my granddaughters.  Even though I haven't been able to go out as planned I have been productive at least.  

Early night needed but first Pinterest calls as have an idea I need to look up. Hopefully, it won't swallow up a large cun of time again or I might be found asleep at my desk! 

Glass etching adventures

I’ve been on a crafting kick recently as was fortunate enough to get a Cricut Maker recently, which opened up a whole new way of crafting to me. 

While in Flying Tiger on Saturday we came across these glass candle mats/trays? And I thought they were the perfect size to try out a small first project with the small tub of Armour Etch I bought a while ago. And at only £1 each it wasn’t anything to expensive if I messed it up. On top of that if it’s used for candles no ones actually going to see it. Smart thinking there I thought. 

Cutting out a turtle in vinyl I reversed what I would normally take away and used it as a stencil. Sticking tape around the edges to make sure there was no overspill. 

Armour etch is a thick gloopy consistency and I’ll be honest I was surprised it didn’t get everywhere or smell bad. To often if there’s a mess to make its me that will make it! 

I simply brushed this over for a few minutes then left it liberally and evenly coated for around 10 minutes before cleaning it off and removing the stencil. Being very careful not to get any one myself of course. 

This was the outcome after I cleaned it off. Since drying it’s become a lot whiter and etched looking. 

So pleased with the outcome and how simple it was. I have plans for more glass etching involving fairies, lights and also some themed glasses maybe? 

Quick and easy project. The Armour etch was around £5 for an 80gram tub but a little goes a long way and the excess can be put back in the tub afterwards for reuse.