I'm back!

No I haven't fallen off the face of the earth, been abducted by aliens or anything else special. I have been busy, sick, away, busy, away, sick or something like that. But I am better now, less busy and due to go away again this weekend. So I thought best get a post done before I go away and then am busy busy busy once I return to the bosom of my family.

Part of my being busy has been creative busy. I have been preparing for teaching at a creative retreat in June (more on that later). Tidying up my crafting space in an effort to actually have somewhere to craft. And I have been trying to keep one of my New Year's resolutions. Every now and again I experience pinpricks of guilt about the amount of crafting stuff I own. In particular the number of kits and patterns I have purchased with the best of intentions and then never completed. So one of my New Year's resolutions for 2012 is to complete one kit or project per month.

First cab off the rank was an Abby's Garden Babushka Stitchery & Appliqué Canvas Kit. I purchased this from Threads & More at Sherwood possibly in 2010!?! Anyhoo, it's super cute, super simple and here is the finished product.

My only complaint was about the finishing off - once you've stitched your design onto the fabric you wrap it around a canvas and use a staple gun to fix it in place. Which leaves you with a lot of messy edges and in my case more fabric at the top than the bottom. My desire for crafting perfection did not cope well with this. But there's always a solution and me being me, my solution was to make my own pattern.

As you can see I haven't yet attached it to the canvas. I'm thinking that pinking the edge of the fabric might be the way to go. I will let you know when I finish it in 2014 (I so hope that's not the case).

Now onto all things Stampin' Up! and cardy. The other prompt to blog today was that I made two cards.

The first card I made stemmed from an idea for the Baroque Motifs stamp set that has been bugging me for at least a week. I gave it a whirl and whilst I still don't love the Beau Chateau Designer Series Paper I do think the card is a bit of alright. The second card I made as a sample for my first cardmaking class which I will be holding in March. Also the stamp set Fabulous Florets and the Designer Series Paper Beyond the Garden are from the Summer Mini Catalogue. I got these items on a preorder and they have been sitting in my stash patiently waiting. When I heard this week that the Autumn Mini Catalogue was on its way I thought I should definitely get these pretties out and give them a whirl before the Summer Mini Catalogue closes.

If you would like to order anything you see please email me and I can hook you up!

Anyone else out there made crafting New Year's resolutions? Leave a comment and let us know. Accountability increases your chances of sticking to your resolution.

Anne

Season's Greetings

Merry Christmas to everyone out there in blogland. A quick share of my recent craftiness.

For those who don't know my first love is jewellery. I started with beaded jewellery, primarily stringing and bead weaving and then progressed to chain making and finally to a little bit of everything and anything. Card making fills the need for an instant creative fix but jewellery, oh jewellery well that's something else. So, on the Wednesday before Christmas I finally finished a sterling silver Egyptian Spiral bracelet that I have been working on forever! I used a pattern found in Art Jewelry magazine (Jul 2007). Little word of warning - don't believe it when they tell you that it's 'repeating an easy coil link'. There is nothing easy about this initially. My mentor, Garry and I followed the instructions and ended up with several unusable links. It took some trial and error to work out the dimensions of each element of the link (eg. spirals, u-bends & hooks). I'm super pleased with the end result. It's not perfect but my skills are developing further with each project I tackle.

Next share is the softie I made for my niece's 3rd birthday. Her birthday was in November and I finished the softie three days ago. I picked the pattern from the book Simple Softies: for the whole family. I was very excited when I espied this volume in the book store. I have somewhat of a love-hate relationship with my sewing machine. So while I was excited by the books 'Softies' and 'More Softies', I was very excited when they published a volume that uses mostly hand-sewing and felt! The softie is called Sampler Kitty and whilst mine doesn't have the array of cute ribbons that the book shows I personalised it with my niece's initials and the blue zigzag was cut with my Big Shot.

The next time I make this I will consider making the tail shorter and stitching it to the body before the front and back are stitched together. It was rather painful trying to whip stitch it to the body as the final step. My niece was tickled to receive the kitty making me a happy aunt.

Last share - three days before Christmas as I'm trying to finish Sampler Kitty and mentally ticking off Christmas presents to make sure that I haven't missed anyone I was suddenly seized with the need to make my tiddly-peeps Santa Sacks. Insane I know, but needs must. The funniest thing about this was that I had everything I needed for the job. Three pillow cases, some double-sided iron-on interfacing, appropriately themed quilting fabric for each child and matching DMC embroidery floss. I used Arial Black font in size 650pt for each letter. And so I set to work simultaneously thrilled to be making a unique gift for each child and shaking my head at myself for undertaking a task so close to Christmas. I pulled it off!

My kids, Bob (6), Bib (4) and Bub (2) (not their real names) were very happy with the results.

We put Octonauts figurines, a squirty bath toy and a mango in each child's sack. The funniest part of it all for me was listening to the conversation as Bob and Bib, who share a room, opened their sacks. Bob to Bib: "I've got a MANGO! What fruit have you got!?!" It hadn't even occurred to me to put different fruit in each child's sack!

We enjoyed two family celebrations this year, Christmas Day with the in-laws and Boxing Day with mine.

Me (centre) and my two sisters with our Secret Santa gifts.

My t-shirt says 'All Mum wants for Christmas is a Silent Night' a gift from a girlfriend with young children who understands my pain (cheers Deb).

From our family to you and yours, Merry Christmas! I look forward to blogging for you in 2012.

PS. Please feel free to leave a comment telling me about any last minute Christmas crafts you've undertaken.

Things I love...

Bit of a blog break to get another twilight market out of the way. This one even less successful than the last! But great camaraderie with other stall holders who were also having a less than fabulous market experience.

Back to the title, within the space of a week I came across a number of things and experiences that made my heart glad.

First, my biggest rode his big boy bike without training wheels for the first time!

Second, I bought a bunch of roses to prettify the house when we were entertaining. I usually pick variegated roses - I love the mix of colours and think it's a bit like getting two for the price of one. I didn't take a close look at these roses until I got them home and realised they weren't variegated, instead the petals are red on the inside and cream on the outside! I have never seen anything like it before. I didn't have any greenery to put in the vase with the flowers so I tied a large bow of ribbon around the vase - very Martha Stewart! They made me happy every time I looked at them.

Third, I got the Christmas shopping and Christmas gift tags finished. I was brave enough/mad enough to take all three of the children shopping. Once the shopping was finished I turned my attention to whipping up some gift tags. Surprise surprise what should pop out of my brain but more Christmas puddings. I used Early Espresso, Crumb Cake, Very Vanilla, Real Red and Pear Pizzazz card stock and inks. I used a 1¼" circle punch (SU), holly punch (Carl), small circle punch (Carl), scallop scissors, Dot Dot Dot stamp (SU) and Short 'n' Sweet sentiment (SU).

I was quite pleased with the results, after sitting for two evenings cursing whatever silly whim had made me punch out 60 little circles and then attempt to glue them into a holly like array! So now all that's left is wrapping my gifts (with a rambunctious 2½ year old in the house it is not worth wrapping anything until the very last minute) and enjoying the festivities.

Before I go here is the project I was getting the Photo Helper to help me with.

 These are two cards I was commissioned to make by my daughter's Kindy to farewell the director. I was really chuffed that with minimal time I managed not one but two designs that demonstrated a variety of techniques and most importantly were truly appreciated by the director.

(Apologies about some of the less than fabulous photos. It turns out that Photo Helper can only offer so much help when the original photo is a bit dodgy - thanks Darling).

With that I'll wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a safe and happy New Year!

Heads up!

Usually this is where I would announce the winner of last blogs giveaway. However, alas and alack no comments. I have a sneaking suspicion that because I added a 'subscribe' button it may have made it impossible to add a comment if you don't have your own blog or a gmail account. I have removed the  'subscribe' button until I can figure out the problem.

I will have a post in the coming days with an update of what I've been doing. Mostly I'm waiting to sit down with my Photo Helper (aka hubby) to edit some photos. I know many of you out there love Christmas. I'm still on the fence - one thing I definitely know I'm not keen on is the busyness of the season. For people like me who are disorganised at the best times adding Christmas to the mix is rarely helpful. So keep your eyes peeled for my next post (hopefully posted in the next few days and not the next few months :-).
Yours creatively
Anne

Free Felt Christmas Ornament Tutorial and Giveaway!

I've been busy this week making a softie for my niece's birthday. This was going to be the focus of my blog post this week, until inspiration struck. Each year I make felt ornaments as a Christmas gift for my children's teachers. It started with simple embroidered hearts (cheers Kirri Griffiths!) and each year I've challenged myself a little more. I love love love working with felt. It is a wonderfully forgiving material and with a matching backing piece I can hide all of my messy ending off.

Back to the story... the inspiration was a Christmas bib that I bought a couple of years ago for our youngest. It featured a Christmas pudding in a santa hat and for some reason he was wearing it one day this past week. As I looked at the pudding I thought, 'I could use my Big Shot to cut two matching circles in brown felt, add a bit of detail and I'd have a Christmas pudding.' Here are the results.

Being a little on the obsessive side the next step was to make the pud again and again - isn't that what everyone does!?! So I made Cute Pud and Bling Pud.

To make your own Felt Christmas Pudding Ornament.
Materials

• felt in brown, cream, red and green
• embroidery floss to match (I used DMC)
• grosgrain ribbon (about 17cm)
• pinking shears 
• Big Shot Blossom Party die
• Big Shot Circles #2 die

Directions

1. Cut two circles of brown felt using the largest circle on the Circle #2 die (6.5cm diameter). Cut one circle of cream felt using the same circle.
2. Cut a wavy section of the cream felt to make the custard/cream on top of the pudding.
3. Cut a set of holly berries in red felt using the smallest flower on the Blossom Party die. Snip these apart using small scissors.
4. Using the pinking shears cut a leaf shape from the green felt.
5. Using one strand of cream embroidery thread and a running stitch, stitch the cream piece of felt to the top of the pudding shape.
6. Using two strands of brown/tan embroidery thread and a back stitch, stitch circles on the front of the pudding to represent the sultanas/currants/dried fruit.
7. Using two strands of green embroidery thread and running stitch or back stitch, stitch the leaf shape in the centre top of the pudding (see picture for placement).
8. Arrange the two holly berries to cover the end of the leaf shape. Stitch both using one strand of red embroidery thread and an applique stitch. Add a highlight to the berries using yellow embroidery thread (a cross stitch, or french knot).
9. Make a loop with the grosgrain ribbon. Secure the two ends to the second brown circle of felt with a couple of stitches. This is your backing piece. (You can also stitch your initials or the year on the back to personalise it further).
10. Sandwich the two circles together. Tuck in any ends of embroidery thread. Make sure the ribbon is at the top in the same spot as the leaf and berries. 
11. Using a whip stitch and two strands of brown embroidery thread stitch around the two circles. When you reach the starting point tie a small knot joining the end of your thread to the beginning and hide the tail by sliding your needle down between the two circles and coming out through the back circle. Snip off close to the felt and sit back and admire your handiwork.
12. For cute pud stitch on some eyes and a smile. For bling pud use sequins and beads instead of stitching circles and use more beads to add highlights and accents.

And now for the giveaway - leave a comment on my blog and on Thursday 1st of December I'll pick a name out of the hat. The winner will receive a kit to make their very own Felt Christmas Pudding Ornament!
Hope to hear from you.

Anything Annie is launched!

Welcome to the very first post of anything annie. I have been toying with the idea of blogging and what not for awhile. Recently things have come together and voila here is my blog. 

One of the things that came together was the opportunity to have a stall at the Fig Tree Pocket State School Twilight Christmas Markets (title long enough for you!?!) Yesterday afternoon, filled with fear and trembling, I rocked up to Fig Tree Pocket State School to claim my place and tout my wares. The photos show my stall and some of my wares. For those who are interested the keyring notelets and the recycled notebooks were my best sellers. The worst sellers were my handmade cards. Which reinforced for me what many people had been saying, you simply cannot tell what will be popular and what won't!

My table. Note the popcorn on the floor. In future I will be asking for the stall furthest from the man with the large slip hazard popcorn.

Close up of some of my goodies

Selection of the cards I had for sale - thought I should show you they weren't hideous!

The most pleasing part of the evening were the positive comments that people made about the things I had produced. It made me smile to watch people walk by, look over my wares, hit on something and start grinning. Many of the items were not original ideas - many thanks to those who inspired me. Thanks also to my hubby and kids who cheered me on, to my friends who listened to me panic and to all those who turned up and bought my stuff. Finally a shout-out to Catherine of www.catandvee.com and Ellie of www.rocknwrap.com - you guys are the greatest!