Fantastical Felting Adventure

Hello everyone :-)

I haven't been around as much as I would like recently.  Not even on Facebook, my little Etsy shop or Twitter.  I'm so busy with the day job as there are people on holiday and people leaving that I've been pretty much working there none stop.  I always think to myself I'll do a bit when I get in but i don't get in until gone 7 then I have to make tea and eat it then all of a sudden it's almost 10 and time for bed :-P

Well anyway enough of my moaning.  I have decided to teach myself felting.  It all started with a kit I got from a craft fair last year.  the girl selling them was really lovely and we got chatting.  She made the most amazing felted and crochet pieces including a giant stags head you can put on your wall at Christmas.  I was fascinated and bought the kit.  I never opened it though, sometimes I would think to myself oh I really need to open that kit but I never did.  In the meantime I have been finding other great felters and their amazing creations.  Some of them really are beautiful.

Finally I opened the kit!!! It was a rainy day and I was quite bored and tired and I just thought now is the time.  i wish I had done it sooner, it's amazing AMAZING!! I find it quite relaxing to stab a piece of finer million sod times with a little needle....... :-P

Here are the results so far!  The first things I tried were flowers from the kit but flowers really aren't my thing so I went free style :-P  The B is a wall hanging and is actually a present for someone!  The little bunny was just me trying to follow a youtube tutorial and try 3D felting.  I must learn that bunny ears look better closer together!  I'm so excited by this new craft that I've ordered more stuff and i have BIG plans so watch this space :-)

And last but not least here is a canvas bag design I have been working on!  I can't decide if it needs more hearts or maybe some buttons between the hearts?  It's quite a big bag and I feel like these little hearts might get a bit lost on there!  What do you all think?

Well that's it for now, take care everyone :-)

Summer of Colour week 2: pink pink orange

Another quick post from me today!  I had high hopes for the pink, pink, orange week as they are the kind of colours I love!  I went for a bit of experiment...hmmm one I like, one not so much :-P

I bought some new Pebeo mixed media paints to play with.  For those of you who haven't heard of pebeo they are paints that react when you put them on to canvas and other materials.  They also react with each other!  Honestly, that is a terrible description of them...if you would like some actual proper information then click Here you can also look on youtube for some really good tutorials!  I'm still getting used to them, they react in an unpredictable way so you can't really have a firm idea in your mind because it probably won't work out like that!

I like the top one, that worked out quite well! I painted the canvas board with pink UV paint (it's soooo pink) and then just added my pebeo stuff on top to see what happened!  I have to admit I'm not very good with the stuff yet, I either add too much or not enough and I'm not getting the cool effects the youtube tutorial people are :-P It's a start though and I'm just going to have more of a play around until I get used to it!

Well that's it for now, I'm off to have a nose at everyone else's lovely work :-) It's all so inspiring!!

It turns out I like lilac a bit.

So this is just a quick stop in to say hello and show you some of the baby booties and hat's I've been working on!  I'm hoping to have a wide selection of styles and sizes come the autumn/winter ready to go in my shop!

Everything is a bit lilac and purple at the moment :-P I was working with the yarn I had left over.  Although I did buy the fancy one at the bottom, clearly I am drawn to purples!  The bottom one kind of reminds me of a painted Easter egg.  We used to have competitions in school where you would get a hard boiled egg and paint it and the winner would get a chocolate Easter egg as a prize!  They were good days.  Any colour suggestions you may have are very welcome, might help me get away from the usual colours I am drawn too :-P

The only other thing I have to say is SUMMER OF COLOUR IS HERE Hurrah!  I am quite excited about it in case you couldn't tell!

If you would like to learn more about it and maybe even give it a go visit Twinkle Twinkle Blog.  There is even a little video you can watch of Kristin making her art for this weeks colour pallet.  I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with.  There is never anything that is the same, and some of the things are just so inventive!  I actually have a holiday coming up from work so I will actually be able to keep up for the first 2 weeks at least :-P

That's all for now, I'm off to get my summer of colour colour pallet ready...oh yes!!

The Liebster Award

So I know I said I would Blog again on Friday and here I am on Monday....only a couple of days late which is pretty good for me :-P

Ok ok so here is my exciting news....I have been nominated for The Liebster Award by the lovely Crafty Milka.  I have to be honest I'd never heard of this before now but it's just so lovely that someone would nominate me and my little blog for such a thing!!

I have taken some information from Crafty Milka's Blog which I believe she got from other blogs, which helps explain what it's all about!

This award exists only on the Internet. It is given to bloggers by other bloggers. 
Award has German origins. The word "liebster" has several definitions: dearest, sweetest, kindest, nicest, beloved, lovely, kind, pleasant, valued, cute, endearing, welcome, sweetheart.
This award follows similar principles as a chain letter, in a sense it should be passed forward to a certain number of people. 
The choice lies within each of us to accept the award and continue forwarding it. 
You are not obligated to accept the award and can stop the chain. 
Over the time, variations have been made to the "rules". 

There are also some Official rules which you follow if you accept the award.

The Official Rules of the Liebster Award

If you have been nominated for the Liebster Award and you choose to accept it, write a blog post about the Liebster Award, following few simple rules.

1) Thank the person who nominated you and post a link to their blog on your blog .

2) Display the award on your blog by including it in your post and/or displaying it using a "widget" or a "gadget". 

3) Answer 11 questions about yourself asked by the person who nominated you. 

4)  List 11 random facts about yourself. 

5) Nominate 5 - 11 blogs that you feel deserve the award, who have less than 1000 followers.  

6) Create a new list of questions for the nominated bloggers to answer. 

7) List these rules in your post. 

8) Inform the people/blogs that you nominated that they have been nominated for the Liebster Award and provide a link for them to your post so that they can learn about it.

the above information was originally taken from The Wording Well.

So here are the questions I was asked by the person who nominated me!!

1) What made you decide to start a blog?

I actually don't really remember why i decided to do it in the first place.  I was getting more in to social media and searching for things I enjoyed on the Internet and reading more Blogs and thought it might be fun to give it a go!!  I decided to go with art/crafts because that's what I enjoy doing most.

2) What is the most rewarding thing about blogging? 

I really enjoy the community feel of it all!  I've made some lovely friends and received some lovely hand made gifts just by being involved in the Blogging community.

3) What is your favourite craft?

I'm always wanting to try new crafts, I love learning new things and ending up with something lovely at the end.  My favourite is knitting though.  I can spend all day knitting
4) What time of a day do you do most of your crafting? 

I'm an early riser so i like to get started as soon as possible after i get up!

5) What do you do with all the items you create?

I either give them away as presents or I sell them in my little shop Snow Bunnys Knits :-)

6) What is your favourite colour?

Red but i like most bright colours! 

7) What is your favourite instrument?

I'm not very musical so I can't play any but I like to listen to the clarinet!  I also like Spanish guitar music. 

8) What is your favourite season?

Spring 

9) Which holiday is your favourite?

Christmas time.  I love everything about it! 

10) If you could go anywhere in the world where would you go?

There are too many places I would like to visit.  Japan, Machu Pichu, California...i could go on :-P

11) What makes the world go ´round for you?

Happiness

11 Random Facts About Me

1. My Dad was born in Wales making me half Welsh
2. I am one of the only people I know who doesn't generally enjoy comedy films
3. My dream is to meet The Rock
4. I enjoy watching the obscure sporting events in the Olympics
5. I have a degree in psychology
6. I am super interested in ancient civilisations such as the Egyptians, Aztecs and Incas
7. I love real life crime programmes (FBI files, forensic detectives etc)
8. I would love to travel on the Orient Express like Poirot (minus the murder)
9. I don't have any brothers or sisters
10. My fave computer game is Fallout 3
11. My fave drinks are coke and milk

 My Nominations

1. DJ Kard Kreations
2. Do More With Less
3. whoopidooings
4. Twinkle Toes 2day
5. Breathe
6. Denthe
7. Hand Made Little Things
8. Willowing
9. That Girl Fritchey
10. Falling ladies
11. Green Crafting

My Questions

1. How did you get in to Blogging?
2. How did you come up with your Blog name?
3. What is the best bit of Blogging?
4. What is an art/craft you have always wanted to try?
5. Where do you do most of your art/craft?
6. What would be your dream job?
7. Where is your favourite place in the world?
8. can you speak more than one language?
9. Where/how did you learn your art/craft?
10. What is your favourite film?
11. What is your dream for the future?

So there you go :-) I'm off to contact the lovely Blogs I have nominated :-D

Mixed Media Mermaid

As usual I have left it so long between blogging.  I always think it's only been a week or so when it's usually closer to two weeks!  Time just seems to pass me by without me noticing at all.  Especially since I started working on Snow Bunnys Knits pretty much full time.  I'm super busy and always have a to-do list as long as my arm but because I enjoy knitting and crochet time does go a lot quicker than when i worked in retail.  I do worry about time though, that I'm not getting things done quickly enough, that I'm not updating my shop enough, that new ideas take too long!

Anyway, in a Blog a few months a go I wrote about starting a mixed media mermaid class that was taking me ages to do because i never had enough time (there's that phrase again) to do it.  I finally decided to dedicate a fixed day and time slot to art and I'm so glad I did!  I finally managed to finish her!

I didn't actually have all the right tools or colours but I just went for it anyway and despite the fact the paper is curling up like crazy (pretty sure I shouldn't have used cold pressed paper) and I went crazy with the spray ink at the end and covered her face in a light mist of blue, I'm very happy with the result!!

This is where I last took photos, i forgot to take photos as I was going though DUR!

 Adding colour to the background

 I probably should have left it at this point but I decided to add more colour!

I don't know if you can tell from here but her face is now darker where I tried to get rid of the blue spray :-P

Here is the finished painting.  It's terrible lighting so I will try and take a better one at some point!

I'm going to be starting a new class this week but I will most definitely be going back to the mermaid at some point, with better paper and different colours!  At least I can finally say I finished it though which is the main thing as I never seem to finish any of these personal projects at the moment! So I'm giving myself a pat on the back for that!!

I've also been trying to teach myself crochet and that's going very well indeed!  I'm trying to come up with cute amigurumi animals that i could maybe sell one day (looking in to CE testing has scared me slightly though :-P).

Here is what I have so far! You can't really tell in these pictures but the one on the top has come out a lot bigger because his body is fatter! I really like the big head of the bear though! I'm planning to use the same body and head so they all look similar even when they are different animals.  Which combo do you guys like best?  Ah decisions decisions!

Crazy about.......Barcelona!

Ok, so it has been waaaaaaay longer than I planned since my last Blog post! I had a request for my biggest order yet for a snood so I've been working on it none stop since last week!!  It's almost done now though so here I am back in Blog land :-)  I will hopefully be able to post some photos of the special order in the next few days!

Those of you who know me or have been following my Blog will know about my love for Barcelona! There is nothing about the place that I don't like! I love the weather, the atmosphere, the architecture, the culture everything! I would live there if I could, I guess I still hope to one day! I've visited a few times now, and hope to go back again soon.  I love visiting the Sagrada Famillia, it is one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen, designed by Antonio Gaudi it should be completed in 2024!

This is a picture i took when I was there in May! This is only one side of it, it has 4 facades that are all different.  The inside is wonderful too, beautiful columns and stain glass windows! 

I bought a make your own paper model version of it when I was away and i can't wait to start it! But on a recent trip to Home Bargains I found a Nano Blocks version of the Sagrada Famillia! Nano Blocks are like Lego but the blocks are a lot smaller.  This is supposedly to make the models more detailed but I'm not sure how true that is! I HAD to buy it!  I don't know if you ever get one of those moments where you literally have to buy something but this was definitely one of those moments!!

I can't even tell you how pleased I am with this :-P To me it is the best thing in the world, even if it doesn't look EXACTLY like it! I've put it pride of place on my shelves in my work room.  It makes me smile when I look at it.  It did take me a few days but I did it as I sat and watched Star Trek....yes I am that cool :-P

That's it for now really! As I say I've been holed up for over a week knitting like a crazy lady haha! I'm off now to have a nose at all your wonderful Blogs!!

Is it really nearly November?

I feel like I closed my eyes in may and now it's nearly November!! I'm really not sure where the time has gone! They say time flies when you're having fun so maybe this is a good sign?!?  As usual I have lots of things to squuuuuuueeeeeezzzzzeeee in to one post :-P If I don't do them now I won't remember them later!!

First up i have an announcement for my little shop Snow Bunnys knits! For the whole of November you can get 20% off any order over £5 by using the code WINTER14 you can also email me directly (snowbunnysknits@gmail.com) for the same discount if you don't have an Etsy account! I've been adding quite a few new things in time for winter, my fave so far is a bobble hat I've done which you can also get in any colours you like!

This is me in said bobble hat.

Anyway i will probably mention this a million more times but please do feel free to have a nose around my store and let me know if there is anything you would like :-)

Next up is some more Happy Mail! I love getting happy mail in the post.  The only letter I've really received for the last few years have been bills and various other official things whilst dealing with my mum and dads estate.  So I would like to say a HUGE thank you to Darnell (you can visit her Blog here) for sending me the sweetest little card.

Isn't it lovely? It sits on my shelf with all my other cards people have made/sent me.  I've actually had to start a new shelf but that sol because I just love it!! I'm in the process of trying to make her something equally as nice to send back!!

I STILL haven't got round to finishing my mermaid :-( This is hugely disappointing to me as i REALLY want to get it done! I've been getting my arty fix by painting vinyl toys at the moment!! I don't know how many of you have seen the huge array of painted vinyl toys you can get these days! My obsession with them started when I got a really cool Swatch Watch one Christmas.  It came with a collectible vinyl toy that an artist had painted to match the watch (it might have been the other way round :-P) either way each watch was by a different artist in a different style (I now have two of those watches). Since them I have been collecting them like mad! 

These ones are called Dunnys, they are by Kid Robot but each design is from a series and each series has a different theme and different artists painting them.....I feel like I'm not explaining this very well :-P Anyway I do have other toys by other companies but these are the main ones! They come in 'Blind' boxes too which means you don't know which one you will get...it also means you might beta  repeat! I've only had one repeat so far though :-P

I soon discovered you can get DIY ones that you paint yourself.....well i had to try that didn't I!! The kid robot ones are called munnys and come in different sizes and styles, I pretty much have all of them i think! Again you can get different ones from different companies! I also have a little android, a monkey type figure, a little girl with bunches and a boy.  They are plain white and you can just go crazy! For my first attempts I used sharpies but now I use Posca paint pens! I'm still learning the best way to go about things but its just so much fun!

These are my sharpie attempts! I'm actually pretty pleased with them.  Sharpies don't give great coverage but it does the job if you are just playing around a bit! The top one is inspired by Gaudi and the bottom one I just though lets use as many colours as is humanly possible haha.

These last two are my first attempt with the Posca pens! If you look at the bottom one you can see where the paint has chipped off...i think i need to prime them before i go in with the pens! Or maybe it was just a faulty pen as the other colours seem ok! I must investigate.  The top one isn't varnished and the bottom one is super glossy!! I do like shiny things!! I'm in the middle of painting 3 more..i can't just stick to one thing! I shall post photos when I am done!

Wow this post is long, I do apologise! I shall leave now before I bore you all to death with vinyl toy talk! If you have some spare minutes though, google munnys and have a look at what people can come up with using the DIY blank toys!! Amazing!!

An illuminating day.

Ah, I think I'm doing OK at blogging about once a week! I think I have become obsessed with the amount of times I Blog...have to let it go Carol :-P

Anyways, a few months a go I went to a lamp shade making class with the lovely IndigoStitch.  If you haven't seen her lovely stuff you are really missing out! She uses beautiful fabrics to make jewellery and other stuff that is just so lovely!!  One of the things she offers is lampshade making classes! Its a two hour class and you get to bring a lampshade home at the end of it.  Because you get to choose the fabric you use you get a really unique lamp shade!  I had so much fun last time I decided to go again and to bring a friend of mine who I knew would love it too!

So off we went to make lamp shades :-) There was me, my friend and two other really lovely ladies there.  They were super friendly and chatty which is good because I'm so shy sometimes its painful....I hide it quite well but inside I just want the ground to swallow me up :-P  There was also Whisper biscuits there! yum yum yuuuuuummmm!

First of all you choose your fabrics!  I am not a very decisive person, neither is my friend it turns out! The last fabric i chose was bright and lime green so this time i went for a more muted paler to match the bedroom!  Gayle (my friend) chose a lovely flowered one in the end!

Tracey who runs the classes is such a lovely friendly lady!! She helps out when you get terribly stuck like I do! Working with fabric is clearly not my strong point!!  You get to chat whilst doing it and we were all talking away about ourselves and stuff we liked to do craft wise! It's always fun to set like minded people.  The process itself is quite easy, but fiddly.  I think it is something you would get better at with practise :-P

Gayle was pretty good at this!  She is very good at sewing and using textiles!  She showed me some photos of some bunting she had made.  I am truly jealous of her skills!  I have a sewing machine I've not even turned on in about 3 years!  I can sew but nothing complicated and I'm always drawn to knitting as I find it so much easier.  I'd like to get in to sewing more though, i just need someone to give me a push :-P

Here are our finished lamp shades!! They all came out so well and look completely different.  You can do a couple of sizes but we all wanted them to hang down from a light fixture.  Tracey sells the kits to so you can do it at home......this is not a viable option for me though as I need about 10 hands just to deal with it :-P  It was a really nice fun day and I'm glad we went!!  The lamp shade is now up in my bedroom :-)

I haven't really done much else exciting this week! I've just been knitting away oh and buying Christmas presents :-P I got it in my head to be organised but then somehow I felt like I had to buy all the presents right now.  This has resulted in me being nearly done already and it's not even November.  Sometimes I do worry about myself!

My little shop on Etsy (Snow Bunnys Knits) is getting nice and full now!  I've added some hand warmers, brooches and hats to the listings!  When you add the listing you have to to it in $ which makes for some very odd prices in £...I'm trying really hard to get things to be £12.50 instead of £12.83 but its proving somewhat difficult!!  If any of you lovely lot see anything you would like and don't have an Etsy account please feel free to get in touch with me directly (snowbunnysknits@gmail.com).  I am always happy to help and I'll be doing a little discount code for November too!!

Anyway that's me signing off for now!! I have things to knit :-P

Progress report....

Before I went away from Wales I had a literal blank canvas and a big idea! I always have big ideas but they never usually amount to much or they don't come out quite right! Well I no longer have a blank canvas........

This is a terrible picture but I just needed you to all see that I actually did draw on my canvas! The trouble is its awful quality! It's bumpy, not textured like textured paper but there are actual bumps in places! I have no idea if my posca pens will work or if I should just bite the bullet and go for paints! My actual plan is to buy a better canvas or paper or soothing and use this design on it and prime over this and use it for another idea I had! It's based on the idea behind my little shop....Snow Bunny's Knits (the link is at the side of this post), there isn't anything in there yet but there will be one day! I'm hoping to get some visitors who will let me know what they think :-P

Other works in progress are actual things for my little shop! First up is Zooey Zebra, she will be a present for my best friends little girls birthday (bit of a mouthful) so I'm working very hard to make her perfect!

I probably should have moved my tesco vouchers out of the shot first but originally this was just to show my friend my progress!! All I have to work on now is the mane and then she will be getting pink felt inside her ears and on her hooves so you know she's a girl!

For those interested you can order this in any colour combo you like and with any colour felt in the ears and on the hooves! You can also name he/she whatever you like! If anyone is interested you can contact me at snowbunnysknits@gmail.com or though Etsy since I haven't officially listed her yet!

I have made a promise to myself to make my days more structured and to do a bit of something relaxing in the evenings unless I have a special deadline I need to meet! I have some online art classes i will be starting shortly and I'm quite excited to get the old (and I mean very old) creative juices flowing!!

Big ideas......(Summer of Colour 3 week 3)

Hi Guys!

So this weeks summer of colour colours are pink, apple green and a bit of forest green.....oh I was happy about this!! These are colours that I could most definitely work with......or were they?

It all started well enough, I had my idea I just had to go for it...and go for it I did! I really should have planned it out more then I would have realised that A) my piece would be more green than pink which is not what I wanted and B) The medium I was using wasn't quite right for what I was using it on!!

I genuinely can not decide if I like this or not!! One minute I think yeah it's great the next I'm all like nook it's supposed to be PINK! I've been putting off painting this thing through fear of ruining it (I have a lot of fears about that sort of thing!) and ow I'm like ugh!

The close up of it is a little better! Damn you green for being too....green? haha! Well anyway i used my Posca paint pens on this bad boy. Which was a great idea until i realised all my pens are quite thick tipped as I usually paint vinyl toys with them.  I had to use all my powers of concentration not to get pink on green and green on pink! It needs some touch ups too....if I ever get a thinner pen in these colours I am so on it!

Anyway I hope you enjoyed stopping by my little Blog! I'm off now, I have about a million things to do today and I'm going to a lampshade making class tonight! Before that I have to finish knitting a commission for someone (shhh its a secret) busy busy busy......

Summer of Colour 4 (week 3)

Hello again :-)

I can't believe we have been doing this for 3 weeks already!! It's been good so far, seeing everyone else lovely work! I love going to each page and seeing how creative everyone is!!

This week the colours were plum, lavender and grey.....these are more my kind of colours!! Purple is one of my faves along with red! I love anything brightly coloured!!  So the challenge for this week was to choose what to actually do with the colours!!

I've had this little guy sitting in my art stash for a while! To be honest I forgot about him for a bit but I found him when I moved again this year! I thought what better time than to try and give him a make over than now?!? I decided to use Gaudi as my inspiration again (I do love his work) and drew out a pattern of mosaic style squares on the piggy!

I had to mix the colours myself, which I have to be honest I'm not great at.  I just mixed a lot of blue and red together to get the plum then added white to that to get the lavender colour.

Strangely enough it was the grey I had most trouble with! At first it was too dark and then it was too light.  I finally finished with this shade although I'm not 100% happy with it as it feel alike it has an odd blue tinge too it. I don't know if this is because of the colours it is next to or because I didn't prime him first!! 

Overall I'm pretty pleased with how he looks apart from the odd blue/grey grout colour :-P I even used a darker grey on his eyes so that I stuck completely to the colour scheme.  I'm off now to have a nose at all the lovely stuff that has been posted already....see you there!

P.S As you can see i have bright red glasses and lime green nails.....bright colours are definitely my thing!