random acts of craftiness...

Rather than make a fabulous felt advent calendar or whip up some red and white Pom Pom garlands (both on my to do list) I have been cutting and sticking non Christmassy things.

Much to Mr H's alarm I recently bought a large bag of wooden bricks from a charity shop for next to nothing. I said I was sure I could make something with them and hastily thought of a few ideas on the way home!

Messing about with patterns and colours I hit upon the idea of picture blocks. I remember having some myself and still have the little wooden box they came in, but sadly not the blocks.

Most sets seem to have a different picture on each face of the block but I'm leaving this set with just the one. It seems a shame to cover the coloured blocks up completely.

Now what to do with the rest?

yuk...

It's been a muddy week in more ways than one. It's not just the dog bringing in half of the field on his fur, the cat has been decorating the white windowsills with tiny paw prints too. Now the children are bringing home unidentified muddy objects...

(They both did really well in their respective cross country trials. *E* came 32nd out of 129 and *J* came 18th out of 126. *J* says he's not sorry he missed out on being in the cross country team by 8 places because its not as much fun as football and cricket; running for miles in mud, wind and rain, not fun?)

it's all sausages...

I've had a crochet break this last week or so. A resting of wrists. On the plus side it meant I could have a leisurely browse through back copies of crochet magazines, crochet books and websites for patterns. (The next best thing to actually crocheting!)

When I learnt to knit I made mainly toys to begin with. The Jean Greenhowe patterns are so clearly written and don't use any off putting techniques for beginners. My children were smaller and loved these creations.

Now that I mainly crochet (knitting is too painful) I've hardly made any toys at all. In fact, despite the many amigurumi patterns out there I don't think many of them quite match up to the magic of Jean Greenhowe. Just my personal view.

The choice is even narrower if you can't manage a size 2mm hook and 4 ply yarn. I found that was a popular choice for small amigurumi.

Anyway, here's what I found in the end...

A Dachshund! He's already part of the family. The children have named him Sausage (such an original choice!). He likes naps on the sofa, Judge Judy and chocolate chip cookies. He'll roll over for a tummy rub anytime!

Harvey is not at all sure about the sofa privilege.

I used an aran weight wool and 5mm hook. He's about 30cm long. It took two evenings.

The pattern is a free from Lion Brand. I modified the nose because I didn't like the huge one the pattern offered.

crafty things for teens...

This seemingly random selection of digits was *E's* favourite buy at Fred Aldous. £1 per letter.

You Me At Six (you knew that right?). Soon to be adorned with collage, paint, whatever takes her fancy.

The little artist I nurtured by introducing her to crayons as soon as she could grip will be one of their screaming fans at Wembley next month! Surely it was five minutes ago when I carried her in a little papoose?

retro photo booth...

How many of these have you got tucked away in photo albums? I've got one with a Canadian cousin (I must have been 14ish) and one with a school friend, I think I even have one with an old boyfriend too (don't tell Mr. H!)

That's me on the right hand side of the bottom strip. I really do hate being photographed!

My children, on the other hand, love it!

the country mice visit the city mice...

We ventured into Manchester this weekend, all four of us.

Visiting Fred was the main purpose; Fred Aldous. The children were less taken with the vast choice of art and craft supplies and most impressed with the vintage black and white photo booth. Not only is it black and white but you get 4 different poses!!! (I hadn't even noticed that modern ones give you the same pose four times - I must get out more!)

After lunch we braved the crowds and looked round the Christmas market, which is a lot like our own in Lincoln. You can see the sea of heads in one of the pictures. We held fast to one child each and shuffled through the crowds, managing to buy a couple of things along the way (will photograph soon).

There was an awful lot of food and drink stalls, mainly German it seemed.

Cities are so exhausting. Both the children fell fast asleep on the way home, and I may have had a small snooze myself!

nearly there...

This has been a perfect application for decopatch. The red floral design I chose in the end has covered up all the scratches and scuffs nicely. The glossy glue has given it a nice protective sheen which will cope with new knocks and scuffs well I am sure. In fact it looks like it was manufactured this way now!

I haven't got enough of the red decopatch paper to do anymore covering up (and the remainder of the case would be a bit fiddly anyway) but I think it needs a nifty luggage tag or something to finish it off. Maybe even a crochet flower charm (I know I'm not a flower person but I could bend the rules a bit here!)

It turns out that *E's* blue version is exactly the same size, not bigger as I originally thought. If my children were 5 and 8 all over again they could have had one each (the blue one with a geometric boy design of course).

Maybe one day I'll have grandchildren! 'Ugh No!' says *E*!