Christmas Decorations (Part 1)

I've been digging out my Christmas decorations from last year and realised I never did a post about them. So, before I show you the ones I have made this year, I thought I'd show you last year's ones. 2010 was the first year I had a Christmas tree in my house. I was very excited and had grand plans to decorate it with only homemade decorations. Unfortunately my eight foot tree was a bit of a challenge but I did manage to make some felt hearts:

Felt stars:

And felt Christmas trees:


I can't remember where I got the idea of this type of decoration....I think it might have been from the Hobbycraft website! (Ooooh yes - I've just checked, the inspiration for the idea was here.) I took the idea to the extreme and made loads of little hand sewn ornaments.


I spent some lovely afternoons last November sitting on the sofa making these when I really should have been being more productive. I remember having great fun choosing different buttons especially the tiny little ones.


I even managed to get some little mitten buttons which you can just about see in this picture:

In the end I didn't have enough decorations so I supplemented these with plain white baubles from John Lewis. It was all very tasteful - and I always swore I was going to have a tacky brightly coloured tree when I got my own!!

I haven't put the tree up this year yet but will post some pictures when I do. I'm not feeling that festive yet and I feel so much less organised this time around. The tree was definitely up by this time last year because I had some people round for a Christmas do on the first weekend of December! Last year I was so efficient I even screen printed my own cards and wrapping paper!! I can't find any pictures of the cards but here is an example of the wrapping paper:


I'm not doing anything that ambitious this year! Although I am making lots of presents so I'd better get to work!! Will be back in a few days to show you the decorations I've made this year and hopefully a fully decorated tree (fingers crossed).

Hope you are all getting into the festive spirit a little more than me! xxx

I’m back!

Hellllooooooo! Anyone out there?

I’m back! Finally! It’s been a while….and I’m sorry I left you for so long. Things got pretty complicated in my life for a while and I wasn’t very well. And then by the time things started to improve I’d got out of the habit of blogging.

Anyway, you don’t want to hear about that – you want to know all about the crafting! You’ll be pleased to hear that the lull in blogging wasn’t combined with a lull in crafting. In fact I think I’ve been doing more and more. I find making things very therapeutic and it has been very helpful in improving my health. I’ve carried on with sewing and monster making but I’ve also learned some new skills which I am looking forward to telling you about.

But, before all that, I wanted to talk about this post. I signed up for pay it forward AGES ago and started working away on my gifts for the people who had signed up. I had most of my gifts complete months (years!) ago and then things went a little bit downhill and the PIF project fell by the wayside. I feel really bad about it, especially as Beaky sent me such a lovely gift. So, before I started blogging again I wanted to make up for it and send my PIF gifts on and start with a clean slate. I managed to get hold of Sue from BeeDesigns and her gift is on its way as I write. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to get in touch with Sandra or Wilkie and both of their blogs seem to be defunct now :o( Guys, if you are out there then please get in touch…….

Right, that’s the business out of the way. Now for some sneaky previews of what I have been up to in my time away……

There’s crochet:

And fused glass:

Screenprinting:

And stained glass:

Patchwork:

And Tapestry:

And finally a spot of mosaic:

More detail in later posts…..

I’m looking forward to it.

Dotty xx