For Your Next Project: Love Book Folding

If you love the idea of book art, but find it daunting to figure out how to design a certain image, you could actually buy patterns for it. LoveBookFolding on Etsy sells digital patterns so you can turn your own old books into pieces of art!

They come with printables so you can accessorize your project or spruce up those end pages with any color you want!

There are a bunch of owls available, as well as plenty of other animals and designs to cut and/or fold. The shop owner is even willing to do custom work, should you have something else in mind or want something personalized.

If book folding is something you want to learn more about, be sure to also visit the Love Book Folding website as it has much more info and even some tutorials!

For Your Next Project: Nomadic Yarns

A new skein of yarn is one of the best joys life has to offer. It's very similar to that "new notebook feeling" for me. So imagine my excitement when I found Nomadic Yarns, a yarn shop that exclusively has pictures that make me drool.

And there's not just yarn, but also project bags! Medium sized ones or clever "sock cubes". There are some amazing prints/colors available, and you could even go all matchy-matchy with your knitting project if you pick the right yarn.

Anyway, I love the colors this lady picks for her self-striping yarns. And she tends to add glitter too, which makes them even more awesome! So plenty of reasons to head over to Nomadic Yarns and check out the shop for yourself!

For Your Next Project: The Unusual Pear

My absolute favorite thing in the world is crafting (I'd even pick it over chocolate!), so I thought, why not blog about some amazing shops that sell beautiful supplies that can either up your crafting game or help you start a new hobby.

I'd like to kick this new series off with a shop called The Unusual Pear. It's a magical shop full of everything you need to make woven wall hangings. So that means tons of looms! And in lots of different shapes and sizes too. Also, I love that they are all flat, which means they take up extremely little space when stored. Clever, very clever indeed!

If you want to make a wall hanging absolutely from scratch, you can add an extra step and spin your own yarn with their roving and spindles. If not, you can buy your hand dyed/hand spun yarn at The Unusual Pear as well.

As I think I have two basic square looms somewhere in my mom's attic, I'm personally especially intrigued by the round looms and the adorable tiny ones! Also, I just wanted to add that all the looms and spindles are made of certified bamboo, so you can craft to your hearts desire without killing trees, yay! This shop looks fantastic!

The Ultimate Blogger Animation!

If, like me, you are the type of blogger that adores vintage and decorating and crafting and cute little animals and figurines, you just have to watch this animation. It even comes with an amazing song!

Granted, the ending was a little sad, but wasn't this video amazing?! Did you think you had died and went to blogger heaven? Because I was almost jumping up and down when I found this!

Owl Things Considered

There are so many things on Etsy that I love, but every once in a while I still find something that somehow really stands out. Pannikin's threadholders for example.

Unfortunately they're too expensive to get enough of them for all your threads, but they're so unique, and most of all, so cute! And having just one or two for a current project would be pretty amazing too.

But that's not all. This shop is filled to brim with amazing items. Ranging from craft handmade craft supplies to ready-to-use items.

Just look at these buttons for example. Aren't they the cutest? Those pink flowers might just be my favorite. Though I'm really loving everything in the picture below as well.

You'll also find a nice selection of earrings and brooches. They're a bit pricey, but very cute as well.

And I love this tea towel as well. I'll get my own place soon and I bet this would look great in my future kitchen!

Great items, aren't they? If you want to see more, and I have a feeling you do, visit Pannikin.

Start Spinning

As I mentioned earlier, I learned to spin and have finished my very first skein of yarn! Here it is, in all it's tiny glory!

It's only about 40 yards worth of yarn, but I'm so happy with it! I'm actually already busy on a new and more complicated spinning project in which I'm combining two colors. But here is a progress picture of the first.

I'm still contemplating what to make with these 40 yards. If you happen to have a good idea feel free to leave it in the comments! I do have something in mind, but I might very well do something else...

I learned to needle felt!

This is something I've wanted for ages. I took a workshop because I thought it would be complicated, but it was a lot easier than I expected.

I also made a bigger project, a bird, but I have yet to sew its eyes on. I'll show you soon, in the meantime there's a smaller bird project below.

Have you picked up any new hobbies recently?

Project catch-up

Last month I knit my very first sweater. I've been dying to show you guys but haven't gotten round to it before. But... here it is! (Pardon the picture! Not a lot of daylight and not a lot of time...)

It took quite some hard work as it was a pattern for quite small needles, but it was fun to do and I'm pleased with the result.

The yarn was given to me by a friend that wasn't going to use it anymore. As a thank you I made her a cowl with it. I really love those buttons by the way!

She seemed to love my sweater and was really happy with the cowl when I gave it to her yesterday. Though I absolutely love cowls, I know they're not everyone's cup of tea, but I'm glad they were hers too.

Are you busy crafting anything?

Owl Things Considered

If you're an Etsy member you probably know you can add people to your circle to keep track of all their activity. However today someone added me, and because of that I found their amazing shop.

Needle felting is one of those hobbies I just have to try one day. And the shop cutelittlething has the loveliest DIY kits!

They have 3 different animals too choose from, and what a hard choice that would be, as both the owl, the hedgehog and the adorable little bunny look so incredibly sweet!

Not only do these kits provide everything you need to get started(material, as well as, I hear, really clear instructions), you'll also help raise money for charity. And they'd make a pretty awesome Christmas gift too! Whether it's as a kit, or as a lovely animal made by you already.

I recommend you check out this shop!

Suki's Applique Tutorial

Suki is always busy with wonderful projects and I'm so pleased she came in today to teach us how to make an amazing Autumn themed embroidered appliqué!

First of all, thanks so much Laura for hosting this glorious Autumnal blog party!

Did you ever think that all those plain onesies in your little one's wardrobe (or all those plain t-shirts in your own!) were just a little bit boring? Well, here's a simple way to liven them up and make them look altogether more personal and delightful. And it's easy too: I'm no sewing expert so you can be sure that if I can do it, it's pretty simple!

My Autumnal inspiration came on a walk in the park with my toddler. He found an acorn on the ground and held it up to me. I realised it was the first one he'd ever seen. The leaves on the oak trees are just starting to turn golden yellow, while some rusty ones lie on the ground.

You'll also need some card (I use old cereal boxes) or paper for the template. You can probably manage without the embroidery hoop, but I am new to embroidery and find it makes it much easier. They are very cheap and can be used over and over.

I drew my own templates as you can probably tell! You can find lots of inspiration on the web and there are even free templates to be found and printed out if you prefer.

All those glowing leaf colours made me think of the bright colours in my collection of Japanese fabric scraps. I found these in Paris on a trip last year. I use a mixture of vintage/recycled and new fabrics in my projects. I cannot resist buying new fabrics but I try to buy scraps and off-cuts that need using up! Appliqué is great for using up small scraps of material.

There are various different types of "no-sew" backing to create iron-on appliqués. At the moment I'm using bondaweb. The instructions on the packet are really easy to follow. Just remember to iron it onto the "wrong side" (i.e. back) of the fabric.

After cutting out your appliqué shape, you peel of the backing paper to reveal a nice sticky coating ready to attach to your onesie or t-shirt. Do this with all your shapes.

Yay, this is the fun bit! You can see it all coming together! If you're adorning a onesie, make sure the design is on the top half so that it can be seen if the little angel happens to be wearing trousers (pants) or a skirt. Now you just need to...

...iron down those shapes under a damp tea-towel. Isn't this a lovely old tea towel by the way? It's been in the family for many years. Remember it because at some point I'll be sharing a project using some of my old worn-out owl tea towels!

This is where the image takes on definition and shape. You can use embroidery to "draw" lines that bring the leaf and acorn shapes to life. I used brown thread and a small backstitch and 3 threads (embroidery thread is usually 6 twisted together), to give a well-defined, quite solid line. I used very short stitches to help me go round the curves more easily.

I think that it was important to have a well-defined line to make the shapes "pop" over the printed fabrics. If you used plain fabrics, I think a big, gappy running stitch could look good too.

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If, like me, you're an embroidery newbie or novice, I highly recommend this post on the Ais for Ampersand blog, by Mel from Thrifted. It's a brilliantly clear and helpful introduction to embroidery! It was quite slow doing all the stitching but I found it a relaxing thing to do in the evening.

(A final note: since there will be a fair bit of thread and knots at the back, you might want to consider stitching on some scrap fabric or backing behind the appliqué on the inside of the garment, to help it withstand washes/wear & tear etc. and also to make it nice and comfy. I haven't done this yet - I was too eager for the trying on session!)

And there you have it: an Autumnal upcycle to give new life to plain clothes! All you have to do now is find a cute model to show it off ;)

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p.s. many thanks to Josella of Tack-O-Rama for the 1950s-style Pacifico font (by code.newtypography) I used in the images for this tutorial. You can download it for free, here, along with lots of others.

If you're a fellow owl lover, you'll really enjoy Suki's blog The Owl Club. Though it's not just about owls. You'll get spoiled with all sorts of great posts about cute things, amazing collections, movies, books and crafting projects. So head on over there!

Owl Things Considered

Yes, it is time for my own owls, the ones I made a little over a week ago and have mentioned a few times. I was planning on making an owl for a long time, but was always waiting till I could go to the craftstore and buy sew-on eyes. Eventually I had enough of waiting and decided to make them with material I did have, and just started to crochet.

I made the big one first.

In the middle of crocheting I stopped to make eyes out of felt, thread, permanent marker and glitter glue. It turned out better than I hoped and really gave him more of a personality than fake eyes would have done.

I hope it's not silly to still give stuffed animal a name, I probably should've grown out of that ages ago. Well if it's silly, at least I gave them silly names to match.

The big one is called Mercator, which is latin for salesperson/seller. Why? I haven't got a clue, but it seems to fit.

I used the same color felt for the beak and the insides of the wings (;that's what the weird picture above is showing). You can really shape the wings in different positions, I love that. And they stay like that until you move them again, I didn't think they'd be firm enough, but they hold quite well.

I made the small one last, with the same material except for one kind of yarn (I used two strands for both), I picked a lighter one since baby owls tend to be lighter. I thought he should be fatter and have his eyes closed. I called him Calabash because of his shape.

They have such great shapes, although they are both completely different, they both have a tummy and a cute little butt.

I already made a different kind of owl, but it's still an idea that needs to be worked out more. I'm planning on putting them on my etsy, when I feel I've got the hang of it. And when I finally get that creditcard. It should be here any day now, hopefully. I can't wait!

I might make one of these owls for my etsy too (probably the baby), maybe in a different color, I still have to try some other things out...

Oh, one more thing! I start my 3-month art school course tomorrow. I am so excited! I feel things are coming together again. December was such a weird month, everything that was going great fell of track. Before the holidays came I stopped eating chocolate and was exercising an hour a day, doing exercises with weights, stretching and some other stuff. Not to lose weight, but to gain energy, although losing weight might be a side affect, of course. Then the holidays came, and the flu, and I started eating more candy and quitting on my program. On top of that my computer isn't working so I lost my workout-playlist on iTunes. But...

I started again yesterday! And have already done it again today. So I feel I'm getting back on track again. I hope I can keep it up when I'm starting school again; I'll try my best!

Wishlist

Something I love to do is knitting and crocheting. It's relaxing and inspiring at the same time and the possibilities seem endless. What makes it even more exciting is the diversity in knitting needles and crochet hooks. I am the proud owner of brightly coloured metallic needles and translucent hooks, but this week I came across something in a store I hadn't seen

before and fell in love with immediately.

Multi-coloured wooden crochet hooks!

I have searched the web for pictures, but I couldn't find the same ones, so I'll show you something similar, though not quite as beautiful.

The ones I am after were darker and more sophisticated, but you get the picture.

If you're still interested in the double ended ones, they are by KnitPro. The other one is by Sharky's original.

I'm planning on buying the one I saw soon. I might be able to show you then.