Ah, that's more like it

Thankfully, these are a bit of an improvement from my last creation. Just as well -would you want that terrifying bunny as a present?

I've not updated the blog for a wee while because I've been so busy with making these before Christmas. Most of the sock animals are stuffed with cotton wool, scraps of fabric and, er, old Heat magazines!

There's more to follow.

Sock cat. He's getting sent down to the Cotswalds for my cousin's daughter Cameron. I'll be sad to see him go. I've grown quite attached to him.

The very first sock cat I made. I gave him to my little cousin Rachael.

Brooches made from felt, buttons and old clothing.

Sock friends posing with the brooches. The miserable-looking goldfish was for my best friend Julie as a joke. The snake is made from a long sock and his tail rattles!

Brooch for my little cousin Rachael made from felt, lace, ribbon and a feather.

Felt 'Russian doll' coasters for my best friend Julie.

Silk bracelet and ornament. For the ornament, I decorated an empty Jean-Paul Gaultier bottle.

Mittens for my cousin Emma.

Cuff for my cousin Emma. I just cut the wrist part of a shirt I've never worn and stitched lace around it.

A disaster!

Oh dear. Feast your eyes on this hideous gonk.

 It was supposed to be a bunny, but as you can see, it didn't quite go to plan. Suppose it's all trial and error though, isn't it?

A very merry un-birthday to you

Here's a selection of some of my homemade cards:

Alice in Wonderland birthday card for Karen, March 2010 (pen drawing).

Birthday card for Gail, January 2010. The blue 'carousel' sign and butterfly are taken from one of my photos of an old New York carousel (the photo is published in an earlier post).

Birthday card for Gran, April 2010. More use of the New York carousel photographs. I used the image of this horse because it says 'Granny's Folly' on it. The background is tissue paper layered over a damask-patterned postcard. I then added buttons and lace.

Christmas card for Mum and Dad (pen drawing with coloured pencil and embellished with feathers, lace and tissue).

'Happy new house' card for Julie, July 2010 (pen and coloured pencil).

Birthday card for Julia, October 2010 (lace, card, tissue, patterned paper).

Birthday card for Sian, November 2010 (tissue paper layered over a Damask-patterened background, lace, patterned knapkins, paper).

Here's one I made earlier . . . . . . . .

Here's some examples of miniature models and costume accessories I've made before:

 Faerie wings for Halloween 2009 (by the way, I've not spelled 'fairy' wrong. This is the original form of the word used in Tudor times).

 For these wings, I used ordinary cheap dressing-up wings as a 'skelleton' - the wire ones covered in thin gauze. I coated the gauze with a watery layer of acrylic paint, then gradually added strips of lace, cuttings of wool from a scarf I picked up in the Pound Shop, feathers, fake foliage, strips of tissue paper coated with acrylic, and feathers. 

 

 Here is the crown I made to wear with the wings. The structure is just pipe cleaners covered with brown tissue and set with acrylic paint. This technique's really easy and good for emulating branches and twigs. After twisting the 'branches' together and bending into a crown shape, I decorated it with more or less the same materials I used for the wings. Though you can see on the right that I've added a shell and a web I made from wire.

Top view of faerie crown.

Me wearing the wings and crown, along with wire and fake foliage jewellery I made. My friend is dressed as Freddie Kruger by the way, hence the scary hand invading the picture.

This is a card I made for my little cousin Rachael's 10th birthday. It's made from cardboard painted with acrylic, tissue paper and fake foliage. Fake foliage is great, you get a big bag of it for a fiver in the model railway shop.

The turrets are just rolled up card and the spires covered with tissue paper and painted with glittery nail polish. The smaller spires on either side (you can just make out the left one in the picture above) are just pink pins. The gate door is made from wire and is probably the most fiddly thing I've ever made in my life.

 

This card for my cousin Emma's 18th birthday took me three days and nights to make. Made from a shoe box painted with acrylic, I've created a faerie scene with fake foliage, pot pourri (for the leaves and flowers, not to make it smell nice!), wire, wood, beads, pipe cleaners, tissue,  paper, twigs, shells, cocktail sticks, the odd pebble and lots and lots of glue.

I curled the stems of the fake flowers to give it a more creepy, magical feel. The sign is just black pen on balsa wood.

Pretty things and Inspirations

This pretty little ride in Bryant Park, Manhattan is New York's oldest carousel. It also appears at the start of the first Sex and the City film. I want it in my back garden.

Magical things at Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood. I love carousels. I use them a lot in my homemade cards.

 A miniature wooden theatre, Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood (look closely - is that Spiderman on the right?) I'd love to be able to make something like this for one of my wee cousins, but it would probably take me until about next Christmas. And it would probably just end up covered in dust as well. Or somebody would stand on it.

More tea vicar? Afternoon tea and cake at Cafe Dollhouse on the Hill, Harrow, London. This charming little cafe looked like a gingerbread house. It sold lots of pretty handcrafts and had a cosy fireplace and an Edwardian dollhouse in the corner. I tried to spend some time writing in here (the cafe, I mean, not the Edwardian dollhouse), but naturally as soon as I sat down, a bunch of annoying posh schoolboys in blazers and boating hats came bursting in like a rowdy gang of mini Boris Johnsons.

Just been to Granny Would be Proud - a monthly vintage fair at Hillhead Bookclub - on a research mission. What torture that was.

I could hardly even afford the bus there, never mind treat myself to a badge. Why is it whenever you're skint, you want to buy everything?

The stall holders must have thought I'd lost the plot: inspecting every detail of lapel brooches; poking at buttons; savouring material between my fingers.

I did get some good ideas, so it wasn't totally pointless. I should be able to remake my own variations of some of the hair clips, head bands and hats.

Though I'm not so sure about the pendant of Burt Reynolds . . . .