I have four adorable children, 17 year old Oscar, 11 year old Tom and my identical twin girls Kate and Rosa aged 13. My girls love to dabble with various crafts. Lucy over in Attic 24 waxed lyrical about many things yesterday, including using Decopatch. This is a decoupage tissue paper with a special finish which lends itself well to wet glue without smudging. Reading this reminded me that my girls also covered some cups in Decopatch.
What fun they had! The glass vase behind the cups is merely part of my stash of glass bits that I brought back from a glass blowing site in Stockholm. I made Oscar, then only 14, carry it all through customs in a rucksack, and it was heavy. Well, you can imagine what the scanners at customs thought of that.... They didn't know whether to allow it through, or treat it as a dangerous weapon or what! After some discussion they let us all through, but it took Oscar some time to get over the embarrassment - I'm sure he wouldn't do it for me now. Remind me to show you what I did with some of that glass sometime.
Anyway, I digress. So, the girls have made several things recently. Kate has started making stuffed toys, using her own designs and patterns. We wondered what material to use for the body of this bunny. We had no calico at home at the time, and I thought cutting a piece of fabric off the dust sheet we bought from Homebase would be just right - it was. Those cotton dust sheets for covering furniture when painting are enormous, and probably a good deal cheaper than calico in John Lewis. It's a little bit rougher than standard calico, but a pretty good substitute.
Not bad for a first attempt, wouldn't you agree? Kate has also made a mummy owl and baby owl without any input from me, and a bowl full of stuffed hearts for the Christmas tree.
She likes to draw also. This is a picture of crumpled paper for her art homework:
Rosa has been doing cross stitch and crochet. Over half term she decided to teach herself to crochet. She didn't want any help from me, which was a relief, because she doesn't take counsel easily! She has a dogged and tenacious character, so she crocheted, pulled it back, crocheted again, pulled it back.... until I was weary watching her. She pulled it off (no pun intended), now she's producing all sorts of crochet, little purses, Afghan squares, circles, the list goes on. I'm so impressed with her determination!
And then she saw the bird on Attic 24 (Oct 29th 2009), she was gone.... I didn't see her until birdy was made and ready to hang also on the Christmas tree.
Rosa has also got an ongoing project cross stitching a cat which is in our craft basket that sits by our sofa for when we get the urge to create.
It's wonderful for me having girls who want to do crafts. I would have been in heaven to have had such resources around at their age. My lovely boys, by the way, have no interest in crafts whatsoever! They would much rather play guitar, watch films, play on Playstation. No surprises there then, but they have lots of other talents.
You might be able to see my part finished tea cosy sticking out of the basket.
I'll let you see the finished thing soon. It's made from recycled dyed blanket pieces in the style of Madeleine Millington, who is usually at the Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace in London in October. I'm also covering some coat hangers in fabric, and painting some others before adding some text.
I'm currently making some more pouch bags like this one.
The bags I'm making now are using different materials. The outside is the same as the one above, but in blue striped linen. I bought this at a Habitat closing down sale in south London. They were selling things off ridiculously cheaply. These were tea towels, so I bought lots of them for craft projects. The inner lining of my new bags will have a bold, retro style pattern which I found in the remnants box at IKEA for about £2. Will show them soon. I got this pattern from Amy Karol's book, 'Bend the Rules Sewing".
I would like to thank Vanessa and Lucy for their kind words of encouragement to a new blogger and for their wonderful blogs to give me inspiration. Thank you girls!
It's now very late, after 12.30 am, the wind is raging outside, and we may get some mini tornadoes tonight we're told - not often heard of in London! So I'm going to snuggle down in my little bed and listen to the commotion, which I hope will be over by morning. Goodnight.
