Day 204-ode to Amy Winehouse-introducing "Amy Crafthouse"

After the sad news overnight of Miss Amy Winehouse departing this world, I am paying homage

to a great singer, a style queen and a troubled soul, 

RIP Amy...

Introducing Miss Amy Crafthouse

amy introduces us to her "crafthouse"

she is very serious about craft (and her hair)

 amy hard at work up-cycling one of andee's shirts (it was an ugly one, I am sure he won't miss it...)

Amy used the cuffs to create a little money pouch for nights on the town

 perfect size for cash and cards

 amy shows us her stitching skills

Amy likes to stash it in a safe place

Craft out

xx

RIP Amy Winehouse

Day 203-tea and jewels...

Last night I had a "crafta-evening" at my great friend Elisha's house. Elisha and I have known each other since year 4! We might be nearly 30 but we are not too old for a sleep over (or perhaps that's just our excuse to drink more wine!). We had a great evening of pizza, wine, chocolate, lots of talking and a little bit of crafting, see the result below...

I purchased a selection of "nanna glamour" plates at cups from the local op shop

 Elisha's puppy milly was keen to be involved

 ooooohhhh cute (I am not a dog person, but Milly and I are slowly bonding)

 We played around with creating a "cake tier" effect with the various cups and plates to create jewellery stands. I decided to just try glueing one together initially to see if it worked. I used Araldite (a 2 part glue, which smells really bad! like hair removal cream! ugh burning nose hairs from here!)

 As you can see wine was also an essential part of the creative process!

 after glueing we decorated it with some of Elisha's jewels

 and then left it overnight to dry properly,

its still stuck together and even survived the drive home!

I think I am going to make a few of these!

Craft out

xxoo

Day 202-posting love to loved ones

This morning whilst washing the dishes I was thinking about the people in my life that inspire me, friends near and far, friends I so rarely get to tell how much I love them.
These people are always in my thoughts, but how often do I share those thoughts with that person?
So I was thinking of making fridays craft "friendship fridays"

Today I created a collage with my beautiful friend Katrina Hill in mind (Kat). I met kat about 6 years ago, I was working in a little moroccan home wares store and Kat dropped in, she had a great smile, a great sense of style and we started chatting straight away. It turned out Kat was looking for a job, so I offered her a trial at the shop I was working at. It turned out that the lady who owned the shop didnt like her (which turned out for the best because I didnt like the lady who owned the shop and quit soon after!). But from there Kat and I became great friends!
Kat is an artist
she wears her heart on her sleeve
she is not afraid to love
she is very generous
and she inspires me to want to be a better person....

so todays collage is for kat

it started with a picture of a cat of course

 a hat for style

 lips for laughing and loving

 a collar and bow for fun

 polka dots and paisley

 "hello" kat I love u

& some smiley balloons

 a picture of someone painting

 "inspiration fuels everything" 

 that is my collage for you my dear friend! sending you happy thoughts
(I haven't glued it down yet, I think I want to play around with it a little more, but I will post pics when it is finished!)

craft out

xxoo

Day 201-ikea lamp to sculpture

Tonight I wanted to attempt to join the plaster cast head sculpture I made on January 30th

I started with my old basic ikea lamp and the front and back sections of my plaster doily sculpture...

take one old lamp from ikea

 the doily sculpture from day...

Ive joined the front and the back pieces of the sculpture to create not just a lamp, 

but a piece of art

I love it!!

The height of the lamp is actually at eye level, so the head is a little haunting...

 it adds a whole new meaning to "headlights"

 my camera does not do it justice

Craft out

xxoo

Day 200!!! hot polka lamp

So following on from yesterday I still can't decide what to do with the "Moet Lamp", so I went to another op shop at lunchtime today and bought another two lamp shades (small, simple shaped ones) I thought it might be better for me to try covering my first shade on an easy shape.

op shop hunting (I am going to cover the one on the left tonight)

 making a pattern piece of the lamp's shape

 pattern piece complete

 snip, snip, snip some happy polka dot fabric

 finish the edge neatly with my hot little brother overlocker

 pin inside out, and then stitch on the normal machine

 then "hello mr glue gun!"

 I glued the bottom first, and then snipped around the top to release the fabric tension

and then finally glued the top sections down

 now for the finishing touches...

contrasting blue?

 frilly moulin rouge?

 with a bow?

 moulin rouge, feathers and bling?

Craft out

xxoo

For those of you who are having trouble posting comments!

Hello crafty friends! alot of you have been telling me you are finding it hard to post comments (in fact I was finding it hard to post comments too!) I went exploring in the blogger help section (grrr I hate those help sections!) but it did explain a solution (funnily enough)...
If you try to post a comment and then it keeps making you "sign in" and then keeps asking you to "fill out the security code" and then repeats this over and over getting you nowhere until you give up!!!!!!
What you need to do is "UN-TICK" the "stay signed in" box when you sign in, this stops it from happening (I have no idea why as these two things don't seem related! but it works!)
UGH computers!
happy posting, I look forward to reading your comments, suggestions and feedback!!!
Craft out
xxoo

Day 199-Moet lamp or lamp revamp?

Yesterday I popped into a local op shop in my lunch break and found an old lamp shade. It has a great shape and I thought I would re-cover it. I was initially thinking polka dots with a contrast brocade trim around the edge.

Here is the original lamp

 I popped it onto the empty moet bottle to take a photo before hand

 and then thought it looked really cool attached to the moet bottle as a base

 so... do I continue as planned and re-cover the lamp shade? 

or

do I work out how to turn the moet bottle into the actual lamp and leave the shade as is??

let me know your thoughts??

Craft out!

xxoo

Check out two new articles featuring "365 days of craft"

Check Noah Scanlin's "makesomething365" website which features 365 day projects from around the world http://makesomething365.blogspot.com/2011/07/365-days-of-craft-follow-up.html
and
another article on "Whip up",
"Whip up" is a craft website run by Kathreen Ricketson, Kathreen started this website in 2006, she also has her own craft book called "whip up mini quilts"
http://whipup.net/2011/07/16/365-days-of-craft-guest-blog-post-frombronwyn-bowerman/

Day 198-Guest blogger monday's!!

Its Monday again already, wow the weeks are rolling by!
I am really looking forward to Summer (although its still currently the middle of winter, so I have awhile to wait). The days are so short at the moment and life has entered that hibernation mode... which is perfect for crafting (and sleeping...and lots of cups of tea!)

Tonight's guest blogger is Jesse Cooke, she lives in Melbourne and has recently discovered a love for making handmade felted furry friends. Jesse's creations are generally inspired by nature and her favourite project to date is a giraffe called "Gatsby".
"Gatsby" is super special as her and her partner worked on this one together. Check out "Gatsby" and more crafty critters below...

"Gatsby"

mini wabbi's

how cute is this squirrel!

 three little bears... where's goldilocks?

I think mr monkey is my favourite though

 I think he is doing aerobics, or perhaps directing traffic whilst laying on his side?

either way he looks cute!

To check out more of Jesse's work have a look at her Etsy store http://www.etsy.com/shop/pigglessquggles?ref=seller_info
or
If you would like to learn how to make one of these little felted fellows then have a look at her tutorial
http://indigoinkcreations.blogspot.com/2011/01/needle-felted-owl-tutorial.html

Craft out

xxoo