Zippity doo dah!

I've been making these zip brooches for a few years now, just as gifts for friends and family.  I dream of opening my own little shop on etsy (one day, one day...) and always thought these would be great to sell.  However, I was never too happy with the back of the brooch.  There were loads of visible messy stitches and it was quite hard to attach the pin.  But may I present to you... zip brooches, the next generation!

I made the little disc from felt and fabric sewn together, turned it right sides out, attached the pin to the disc and then sewed the disc to the brooch.  Simple!  But oh what an improvement! Now I feel like these little cuties would be acceptable to sell.  One baby step closer to being a pro crafter...  Hee hee!

By the way, I found some other lovely zip brooches on flickr.  Why not take a look at this beautiful one by Marilu?

I got mail!

I got two great packages today. Here is Poppy investigating them shortly after I gleefully opened them. They did not disappoint. If I was rich, I would order so much more stuff from the internet. Getting mail cheers me up so much.

The first parcel was my postcard and stickers from Chelsea a.k.a. Bird Nerd. I posted one of her pictures a few days ago. Let me say, the goods did not disappoint and I can't wait to jazz up letters with a gorgeous bird sticker and frame my beautiful postcard. They arrived so quickly too - I can't believe they came all the way from America in such a short time. Yes, so a visit to her etsy can be thoroughly recommended!

The other parcel was from a lovely online store based here in the U.K. called Bettyjoy which sells handmade goodies from a few different people.  I got a cowboy goodie bag for a cowboy loving friend, a hanging red printed polar bear who is gorgeous, and a really sweet little wooden brooch with a bird printed on it.  The brooch cost £1.  I do not joke.  You should really go and search her site for lovely bargains.

After receiving mail, Graham and I went on a touristy trip to the tenement house.  I'd never been before.  It was great - so many lovely little old things to peer at in the rooms - but a tad expensive and so hot and very crowded.  However, no photos were allowed so I can't share any of it with you!  Great to visit if you are ever in Glasgow.

I have been feeling very worried today so I am going to make this a high speed post and go and eat some crisps, drink some wine and watch a film.  Zatoichi, I think?  Hopefully that will calm me back down.

memoir monday (one)

My sister sent me her diary from 1986/1987 a few months ago.  At that time she was 9-ish, I was 6-ish.  The diary was written (often but not frequently as far as I can see) as part of her language work at school so is not private in any way.  It was definitely written to be read.  My sister is much cleverer and funnier than she realises and her old diary has entertained me in so many ways since she sent it to me so I have decided to share it with the world at large.  I plan to post one of her diary entries each Monday, or thereabouts.  Very soon Mondays will not be a day to look forward to for me (scary new job is looming) and it would be nice to have a fun routine to keep me blogging positively.  I'm not planning to post entries in chronological order, I'll just post one that tickles my fancy for whatever reason. Today's choice of diary entry was inspired by a lovely post at Kitty Genius.  

30th January 1987
Yesterday we had to go to Brownies. The snow must have been quite bad at Gartly because at the sides of the road there is still about two feet of snow. At home I went upstairs to get changed and looked out of the window. (I know it sounds stupid because it was night but outside when it's dark lights shine and it makes it more interesting.) Suddenly there was a noise and it gave me a big fright but it was only Percy on the bean-bag.

(Percy was one of our cats.)

bird is the word

Mod Titmouse 

Originally uploaded by foftychel

Excessive rum consumption has zapped my energy and inspiration so I thought I would try blogging about somebody else's work. Isn't this collage beautiful? I bought a similar postcard (and some stickers!) at this talented lady's etsy store yesterday. I can't wait for my postcard to arrive!

Happy birthday, Angus!

My nephew, Angus, is one today and will be opening a parcel containing this robot very soon.  Poor Angus is not well and has come down with the same horrible illness that landed him in hospital on christmas day.  The boy has impeccable timing!  He's quite happy though, apparently, so his birthday barbecue will go ahead as planned.  My niece and nephew live in France so I don't get to see them too often.  My mum and dad are visiting them at the moment and I am a bit jealous.

I was sad not to be able to decorate the robot's control panel with some of my junk/random assortments collection but lord knows I would not want to be responsible for choking my nephew on his first birthday!  I made the control panel design on photoshop and printed it onto iron on transfer paper.  I embroidered on the nuclear symbol with sparkly red thread.  Instead of using buttons for the eyes, I used two of the circles from the liberty fabric I used for the robot's body.  I strengthened them up with interfacing and some meshy material and then just sewed them on.  I like the way they turned out - tres chic!

That's it for today.  I need to clean up a bit before unsuspecting members of the public come to my house this evening.

Ambitions realised and an afternoon out

It took me the full time Graham was away but I finished the spur of the moment Mad Men inspired wall thingy!  It turned out to be a nice surprise and got approved for wall mounting on the first viewing.  So here it is on our living room wall:

It works really well in the room and I'm very pleased with it (though still a little annoyed that it was so darned time consuming).  As you can hopefully see (sorry the picture is not so great) I went with a selection of blues, greens and greys and threw in a few reds for good measure.  After hanging this, I actually left the house!  

We walked through the park...

...having a 99 on the way.  Mmmm!  This was a good antidote to the heat, for a while at least.  We walked into town and went to the GoMA (where we bumped into my cousin Isobel who was working there - this was a nice surprise as I never ever ever see any relatives of mine) to see the Jim Lambie exhibition:

I loved the floor (here are my feet on it) but overall I was a bit disappointed.  We did meet a very amusing security guard though, who told us about the 'concepts' behind it all.  It was all to do with music (the floor represents The Strokes apparently?) and he tried to blind us with musical trivia but seemed genuinely pleased when Graham out-triva-ed him.  In the shop, I found some gorgeous notecards of Charley Harper's bird pictures.  This was too much of a fabulous coincidence to resist as I had been trying to find some on the internet this very morning to no avail.  Hooray!

We walked home again, stopping off for a leafy pint on the way:

It hit the spot - lovely and cold.  Mmmm!

Tonight I will be staying in, resting my tonsils before tomorrow night's karaoke.  Don't ask...!

Over ambitious?

Graham is away for a couple of days and I have been scheming away.  My grand plan:  to transform the entire flat.  Clear out!  Clean up!  Create art!   Make curtains!  Make cushion covers!  Frame pictures!  Hang pictures!  Hoover!  Mop!  Polish!  Sweep!  Scrub!  Surprise!

Day one, one innocent trip to an art shop, and I've blown it already by getting sidetracked by a project that sits somewhere in the triple figures of my to do list.  And it's all going a bit time consumingly wrong.  Lack of planning!  Impulse buying!  Bad me!

Did you watch Mad Men?  I spent most of the series eyeing up the sets and there was a piece of wall art in one scene that got me really excited.  You can see it here if you jump to 41 seconds into the video.  Now, when I bought the materials to make it, I hadn't seen it since it was in the show for all of three seconds (I only found the above clip of it today after months of searching) and I don't think I've really got the right stuff...

Anyway, I made this little sketch:

Perfectly 1960, non?

And then I recreated it out of the very weak and easily breakable balsa wood I bought this morning.  This was tricky.  Who knew balsa wood was so attractive and interesting to cats who can break it with one swipe from their tiny paws?  Not me...

Voila:

It's quite big in real life, over a metre across I'd say?  

So I glued all these sticks together trying not to glue it to the carpet.  Of course, I should have put down some sort of protective layer but after such a long time arranging flimsy sticks I did not want to move them.  The carpet has survived thus far...  Now I'm in the process of coating the entire area with pva glue (with protective bin bags underneath - don't panic!) because it turns out you can't paint directly onto balsa wood without sealing it first.  Again, who knew?  Then I will paint it all black and then varnish it just to try and strengthen it up a bit.  After that, the plan is to attach some beautiful glass mosaic tiles but I think I chose completely the wrong colours (which look a bit darker and nicer in real life): 

I like the blue and the red but is the contrast too much for the style of the period? The yellow is not doing it for me at all when I see it in situ.  My plan is that the 'art' will be hung on a very pale blue wall above a navy blue sofa.  I'm thinking, now that I've seen the original inspiration again, that I should do it in various shades of blue with maybe just the odd red tile in there?  Or replace the yellow with brown?  Or just shades of blue?  With maybe the odd green?  I'm not very good with colour...  Please help if you are reading this!  I can guarantee you know more about colour than me.  I would like this to be a nice surprise but so far it's looking like it might be a nasty one, especially if it does end up stuck to the living room carpet!

Some brown might go with the cushion covers I made last night:

The crafty gods were smiling down on me when I made these.  They did not fit the cushions I had made them for but by some bizarre fluke fitted our other naked cushions perfectly!  If only I was having that sort of luck today...  

Oh well, back for the second stage of pva coating.