Linaloo

And they call it button love...

Anyone who reads this blog regularly will likely know of my affection/obsession for vintage buttons.  Recently I've tried to curb my instinct of saving things for best and now I'm on a mission to stop simply admiring my button collection and start using them. First up, these two bracelets.  I'm no great jewelry maker, in fact, I find it rather a tedious process for some reason, but I love the end result. 
Then I remembered this free printable from How About Orange a while back and used it for teacher thank you notes.  I'm not making gifts this year, but still wanted the children to send a small thank you note to each of their teachers. I pretty much let them pick whatever buttons they wanted from my jars - some old, some new. 

I love what Ruby wrote to her teacher who's expecting her first baby shortly...spelling mistakes in French somehow seem more sophisticated than English!

Dear Madame Gabrielle, I hope your baby comes out of your tummy.  Thank you for being my teacher.  I hope you have a lovely holiday.  Ruby.

Not mellow yellow

Quite the opposite in fact.  I'd say it's more like "so screamingly bright you couldn't possibly miss this" yellow.  It's our new picnic blanket, or sunshine quilt as I am optimistically calling it, made from thrifted pillowcases for the top, a thrifted fleece blanket for the batting and a thrifted sheet for the back.  
 
That's right, thrifted, thrifted, thrifted and very loud.  
The pillowcases have been purchased over the last year ever since I finished up my baby zig zag quilt. I'm not sure if I'm just drawn to their sunny cheer, but there always seems to be an abundance of vintage yellow sheets and pillowcases to be found, more than any other colour.  Not that I'm complaining of course. 
For the first time ever, I sewed the binding by machine because I was just too plain lazy to do it by hand and you know what?  It looks absolutely fine. I'm so rebellious, I may never go back to hand sewing binding again.

The weather has been spectacular this weekend, so it had its first grass testing and I'm hoping the craziness of the patterns will cover up all manner of spillages and stains. 

Let the picnicing begin!

Crochet love

I haven't been to my (yes, it is mine) thrift store for a while, but today I had an overwhelming urge to visit.  So I went and I found this beauty.  For the princely sum of $4.99. 
Apart from one easily fixable little tear, it's in perfect condition.  I have had my eye out on blanket like this for the past few years, but most of them I've come across have been nasty colour combinations, worn out or just too expensive.
When I look at all those tiny squares and how much love and effort went it to it, I think it's maker would be happy to know that it's now with someone who appreciates all the hard work.

Spring flowers

This was supposed to be a craft project for my children.  Inspired by this and this,  I came up with this version of a spring tree using some twigs from our back yard, paper from the recycle box, vintage buttons and my trusty glue gun. But I'm an impatient person, so I did it before they got home from school instead.   
There goes my mother of the year award I guess. 
They didn't seem to mind too much, bless 'em.

Sewing with paper

A little preview for you of my tutorial posted by the folks at Sew Mama Sew today.  Go check it out and have a wonderful weekend!

  
 

Shadows and silhouettes

Last week, after two and a half years of living with two layers of hideous shiny wall paper, we had our stairwell and landing painted. It's the first time we've hired someone to paint, normally tackling these types of jobs ourselves, but after seeing a professional take two days to grapple with getting the paper down, I'm glad we did.  Now I have neutral, echoey stairwell and a blank canvas to fill, I'm planning a black and white family portrait wall.  Here are the first contenders.

 
  

Despite the many helpful tutorials that likely exist, these were made using a long winded, work-it-out-as-I-go-along process of photographing, printing, tracing, colouring, scanning, photoshop fiddling, printing, swearing, more printing, cropping, shopping (for frames), mounting, assembling and admiring. 

I know.  I made it sound so easy. 

Hopefully we'll get to the hanging part some time soon.

PS The lovely Heather from Shivaya Naturals is taking sign ups for vintage winter swap here. Hurry!

Fru-cool recycled Christmas wreath

   
 
I found a link to a video tutorial recently with really clear instructions on how to make German stars, also known as Froebel Stern.  After a couple of false starts (me getting my right and left mixed up, not the tutorial!), it finally clicked and now I can't stop making them, they're so addictive.  Perfect for a garland or ornaments on the tree and a great way to use up newspaper and old magazines. 

The two dimensional versions are pretty too.

I ended up making a wreath for the inside of my front door using eight stars made from newspaper.  Each star is made up of 4 strips of paper measuring about 2cm x 65cm (50cm for the two dimensional version). To make the wreath I simply joined them togther by inserting two points of one star into the gap between the two points of another star, securing with a dab of a white glue.

With a bit of practice, each star takes about 15 minutes to make - so this is about two hours worth of folding in front of the tv watching Dexter (to which I am also addicted).  Nothing like a bit of calm paper folding whilst watching a serial killer go about his business. 

This year's Christmas cards

We're Ed Emberley fans here and our first introduction to his books was through our local library where we found a copy of his first thumbprint drawing book from 1977.  His website is fun too and includes an excellent holiday activity page here.

His thumbprint art (and an image somewhere on flickr that I can no longer find) was the inspiration for this year's Christmas cards.   A fun little activity with all the family joining in.

 

Done!  I have never been this early with my Christmas cards before.

New to me

A list of new things that are making me happy this week.

I found some excellent non fabric related thrifty scores at la fripe yesterday.  Vintage glass baubles and some bargain milk glass bud vases.  The idea of recycling someone's cast offs never fails to bring a smile to my face.

I am really enjoying the hilarious, very clever and new to me, Tim Minchins (best listened to out of the range of children).  Introduced to me via Monda.  My particular favourite here.

I am being sucked into the geeky side of Ravelry - I've recently spent time logging my knitting needle sizes into my profile details.  Seriously.

I found an amazing new yarn store last week with a friend.  I'm knitting a hat and scarf with Merino (as suggested by owner of said new yarn store when I told him of my aversion to itchy wool) which is so so soft. 

I'm excited about my first ever photography course which started last week, my teacher is amazing.  I have an assignment already.  Still life, shooting in RAW and using a tripod.

Hers 'n' hers

 

This weekend I have been reacquainted with my sewing machine, it feels like a while since I've sewn anything and I needed a simple project to get back in the swing of things.  Amy Butler's lounge pants again.  I've made quite a few of these now and I'd been saving this particular sheet with another pair in mind.  They really are super comfy and there was fabric enough left over to whip up a pair for my daughter.

I wasn't sure if she'd go for 'hers 'n' hers' matchiness.  She politely declined. Unfortunately, it seems she has yet to inherit my appreciation of old sheets, although she did say that she might wear them on my birthday (so as not to hurt my feelings)!  Ah well,  on the bright side, they fit her really well, so I will use them as a template for some flannel pjs in time for Christmas perhaps.

More pyjama fun here.