Next Big Thing/Mini trend i probably missed?

Ok. I realise I am not the most fashion conscious person on the planet and i tend to go with whatever i love regardless but it just happens that both worlds seem to have collided of late.

   so what could it be? well, FOXES, of course!

As I await the arrival of our own Fox number 5, I have been looking around at various cutie things. I am also trying to prepare for that jolly (crazy) event known as Christmas. As I don't really believe my kids will accept a baby brother as their main gift I have been trying to get everything prepared well in advance. I have alas become somewhat side tracked by my new found joy in Pinterest. Where I have been gathering my Foxy findings. Here are a few of my favourites....

Find these foxy earrings and necklace at Accessorize

The lovely Carrie Lewis does it again with this Fox necklace found here

Asda are getting in on it with this girls jumper dress which my daughter is pretty chuffed with!

You can have a lovely Donna Wilson cushion to show off on your couch from here

some lovely printable Fox bookmarks Here

have a fox join you for tea?? As found Here

A beautiful fox print as found on tumblr.com

Have a made to order crochet Fox from etsy found here

 

here

and these too!

decorate your tree with loads of these

and fill your home with these thanks to this tutorial

some other things to do your self include this Lego Fox,

 

and a bit of Foxy origami??

and these are just some lovely things to look at that i couldn't actually locate but are great inspiration.

cheers Angie xx

guitar hero crochet scarf

over christmas i was given a whole stack of truly inspiring craft books. of these books world of geek craft has taken my interest, alot! 

i have alot of men in my life. brothers, sons, husband, bestfriend, etc. lots. men who are important and interesting and funny. well, to me anyway. and as a crafter i've found it challenging to turn my favourite things (crochet & sewing) into gifts that they would truly appreciate.  i am always on the lookout for new and exciting projects.

 so this brill book has opened up a whole world of cool (not only girly) craft that i hope the lovely men in my life will be proud of. 

my 1st forage is something i located whilst blog hopping.

 a guitar hero crocheted scarf. on craftster.

i was blown away.

i was quite desperate to make it but who for....? thankfully my older brother stepped forward to take the bullet. so here is my own homage to geek chic and guitar heros all over the place.

my Guitar hero 3 - muse knights of cydonia crocheted scarf

the scarf is around 300chain then hdc all the way down the side repeated until you have your desired width.  

then light and dark grey for the background details. i made sure i could fit 4 notes into each 'bar' but you can chose what fits you and the song best.

 

 after some seriously obscure searches i found a proper selection of notescores at scorehero . from this link simply select which difficulty level you want and then pick the track you love.  i tried to follow the score as faithfully as possible. i decided that each 'bar' could fit 4 notes and adapted the original score to suit.  each note is a magic circle with 7 sc then ss into 1st and cast off. i then sewed in the spare threads leaving me with just dots in red, blue, orange, green and yellow.

 having done what felt like a million of these i made chains to the various sizes needed. using a tapestry needle and the black wool i sewed each in place. chain 1st then dot over. 

And that left me with this...

its the closest thing to cool i'll ever get.

cheers angie xx

cupcake crochet blanket

Last year was pretty insane. the first half i was laid up with my broken cocyx. a brief holiday swanning round lancashire and yorkshire. then crafting like mad getting things like this amazing (if i do say so myself) cupcake crochet blanket finished for my friends' daughters birthday. i was so chuffed she comissioned me to make it. I didn't have time to share it last year but i thought you might like a peek now.

my friend aimie chose the colours she wanted. 

I always get excited about using beautiful wool!

I made each cupcake seperately from a pattern by twinkie chan found here 

then when i thought i'd made enough i laid them out,

to see how they looked.

 

then realised i definately needed more....

after what seemed like forever,

my labour of love was complete.

and here it is on the lucky ladies bed!!!

Its a one of a kind special throw just for Ingrid. 

happy birthday

cheers angie xxx

my drifting (wood) heart

hi all,

i have been hanging out by the sea all summer and even though we live 20minutes drive from the coast it just doesn't feel the same as when we're away. we've been at Lytham st Anns, lancashire (with best friends ben and emma) and around whitby, yorkshire (camping) . Plus a most amazing, and occassionally hair raising, drive through the yorkshire moors. I find all these places so fresh and inspiring that it forces creativity to happen. 

well that and a tight budget. 

      

so whilst enjoying the lovely north beach at St Anns we noticed loads of drift wood. Lying in the sun begging to be collected and made into something beautiful. plus we really needed a special gift for our special friends who let all SIX of us live with them for TWO weeks!! This included coping with my early rising kids (5am, i kid you not). there's nothing like bens dulcit tones telling the kids to 'SHUT UP' in the morning. especially while steve and i are hiding under the covers laughing. sorry ben. and well the small incident involving steve, oakley, a wooden meat tenderiser and bens face... um, yeah.... lets just say everyone is ok now and i am not still laughing so hard it hurts when i think of it... well not every time...

And because they love the beach and coast so very much, and we love them so very much, this is what we decided to make. steve helped with the drilling, he seemed to think i might hurt myself?? 

its amazing what you can do with a wire hanger, driftwood and a drill!

 it was so simple and yet works so well.

i have actually brought enough home to make a matching heart for our home. a little bit twee but i loved it so much i can't wait to get the drill out. I especially love that it can be so personal to where you are and have been. 

but always be careful what you take. we want our beaches to stay beautiful!

cheers 

angie xxx

teacher appreciation

 Teachers work hard! no question. they plan, they mark, they put up with kids being rude, active (mine), crazy (mine again), sad, slow, fast, you name it they deal with it. as primary school teachers they are expected to sing and dance too, not to mention teach drama! scary!!! so at the end of the year i think its only fair to give an appreciative token to these amazing educators.

But what to give to a teacher who will recieve gifts from possibly 30 other kids? its a mine field!  Last year my sons teacher expressed a great love of donughts. so come the last/few days of term he ended up with close to (if not over) 100 donughts! not all would feel this to be a bad thing but as a parent i felt a bit foolish!

i actually broke my coccyx at the very begining of this year, and it has taken this whole half of the year to recover and i'm still not there. so they have done loads extra.  as a result this year i wanted to focus on doing something useful and due to my husbands redundancy coming up fast, economical. previous years gift have included doughnuts (of course), notelets, mugs, sweets, chocolates, biscuits, bookmarks, bag charms etc...

for our teachers we have some special recycled keyrings. i'm always looking for new ways to recycle and i'm happy to see these work so well...

first i cut up some old leather boots (they were totally beyond repair) 

and some broken wellies (no one wants wellies that let water in)

then i drew & cut out the desired shapes allowing one side to be a little bigger for the actual ring.

adding the keyring cleaning the edges. perfect. 

I've gathered some other awsome ideas ou there in blogland, check these out...

its really american but i just love this DIY teachers survival kit found here

this teachers kit would is a bit easier to replicate

what could be cutter than these cookies here (look out for all sorts of ideas!)

lovely bookmarks here  and beautiful book covers here

gifts in a jar round up here thanks to club chicacircle

quilted notecards here

or quick note books with a difference here

for quick and easy treats that make you smile here

 for the 5 minute bread bag tutorial

  tutorial for covering pencils & jars with scrap paper here
i've actually seen this done with book pages. really great especially if you can find a favourite book. especially effective if the print runs the length of the pencil!

If the idea of making your own doesn't appeal then here are a few things i rather liked,

found here all thanks to not on the high street

 

i'm not a teacher but these happy apple brooches

feature pretty high on my own wish list!!

there are so many more options and i will be adding a couple more of my own shortly.
good luck!!

cheers angie xx