Stamping Night at The Make Lounge

I had a bit of luxury time to myself the other evening and revelled in being a student again for a few hours!
I’d been meaning to get along to The Make Lounge in Islington for a while. To do a workshop and go crafty shopping was just great. Not having a little one tugging at your legs and occupying more than half your attention, wondering where he will wander next, meant real quality me time!
It soon became clear that carving stamps is totally different to the screen printing process and it was a wonderful loosening up exercise for me. Louise Best from LouLouLovesBooks was the tutor for the night and she was a star. Calm and enthusiastic, not too pushy but with loads of super tips and guidance for everyone. It was also nice to meet people who have ‘regular’ day jobs and were just doing it for a bit of fun, no pressure, just playtime.

The next night I had a birthday party to go to. So I messed about with my stamps et voila, instant cards!
All in all a very productive evening, which has got my old creative brain ticking again in a slightly different way! Highly recommended.

The Make Lounge is a great concept, lovely space and fab shop and thanks to Jennifer, you might be lucky enough to find my wee party bags and fabric patches on sale too!

Open Studio Countdown!

Well, as usual, I've got soooo much to do!

Tee Time!

Only 3 of each ever made! 1 is now in Amsterdam, the other in London....the rest are in my shop


Taken in the colourful bright home that is Moozle Land!

Tagging game: Number 8

Thanks to Novita of Very Purple Person for adding me to her tag list! Her trip to Ikea has a very sweet story and her blog is just swimming with fab ideas for making stuff and tutorials too. So for a bit of fun, I thought I'd join in. This was taken last year around my birthday and we were at the Barbican for the Do Something Different Weekend. I did a workshop there the previous year on my 40th, so it always brings back memories of my 'big' party and it's just fantastic for kids.

Here is Stanley in a blur of butterflies, made that day by children galore! He was mesmerised by all the colour and ran underneath them for ages. I couldn't get him to stand still!

It was good to have a rummage through my photos, it also struck me how time is flying and how quickly my little boy is growing up.

Here are the rules:

The Tag game goes as follows:
Go to the 8th folder in which you store your photos
Select the 8th photo
Post it to your blog and tell the story behind it.
After following the above instructions, you are ‘supposed’ to tag 8 other bloggers.

I had to cheet a bit on the rules to this as the eighth folder only had 3 pictures in it and the ninth was full of videos ... I'm not very organised... so this was actually a random pick from No. 10. I then realised it was taken on the 8th of March, so at least there is some connection to the tag!

Here is my list of super bloggers, dutifully tagged. No pressure to join in of course...........

Mr.PS
NurtureStore
Sea Blue Sky Abstracts
KLT Works
Kickcan and Conkers
Hannah Nunn
Sweet Sweet Life
Dee Beale

Happy Tagging! x

Bag Making

A couple of weeks ago I made some bags!A nice mix of print and ticking reminds me of lollipops at the seaside! Sue at the chocoate factory had stuck her deckchair outside her studio while the sun was shining, so I bagged a photo opportunity.

This one is reversible with the ticking and sunset strip pocket on the inside. The outside is made from one complete print of my big flower design. There's no seam at the bottom so it's nice and strong. The red ribbon tag holds a key clip inside the pocket.
You can find them in my shop and the fabrics too.

Better Late......

My part in the Elsie Marley kid's clothes week was low on makes due to our weekend break to Amsterdam.
I did manage to make these before I went and just put the elastic in this morning.
Recycled from an old skirt, which was a bit of a sack on me, but had a nice rippled print detail.
So I matched it up with some of me old pebble print!

I also got the Tees printed, one for Stanley and one for Dolly. Their reunion in Amsterdam at the fabulous residence of Moozlehome was one to be remembered! Had a glorious few days, cycling around and catching up. More to come on that when I get a minute.

I'll have a limited run of these in my Etsy shop soon, as I printed a few extras.

Hurray for Kids!

Can't quite keep up at the moment, but since I'm babysitting tonight and I've signed myself up for this and then I get a lovely post from Kate about this, all of a sudden it's kid's week around here, so I thought I'd better post something sharpish!

First of all, on the hunt for anything boy related, I came across this great blog by Elsie Marley. It's just a mass of great inspiration and I particulary liked this round up of boys stuff, which includes many of my favourites.
Red pants by Very Purple Person

Anyway, I'm attempting to join in with her 'kids clothes week challenge' which is basically to do an hour a day of sewing for your kids. So I began with printing off a pattern I bought ages ago from Etsy seller Dans La Lune for these great Bermuda Shorts.

I then spent well over an hour working out what I wanted to make them with and ended up going through our wardrobe of forgotten clothes including finding a bag of old maternity stuff.....plenty of excess fabric there! Lots of ideas later, I have a pile of things to make. I also bought this lovely fabric from Showpony, which I'm determined to do something with for Stanley, so that's in the pile too.

Today I started printing some Tees for boys, mainly with my boy in mind, but I printed a couple more for the shop....not sure if that counts, as no sewing was involved, but at least it's going in the right direction. So until I get my camera out and actually start sewing I've got nothing to show for it!

As for Moozles...thanks to Kate from Moozlehome and therikrakstudio, my Shapes and Things fabric is getting a nice feature here in all its MOOZLE glory..... it's a giveaway too!
This is all very timely as I'm off to Amsterdam this weekend with the boys to visit our Kate and the gang. Can't wait to catch up.
So if you want to own your very own HR MOOZLE in green, pop over to yet another lovely blog and find out how. You can also check out the Moozlehome playlist for some stomping tracks!

Plus a giveaway a day at The Rik Rak Studio's Kids Week!

Reveal Festival, Swanning around.....

Reveal Festival, Swanning around!, originally uploaded by Helen Rawlinson.

I've just had an idyllic day by the canal on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon in London. Friends invited us to come along and help more friends to feather a giant swan!
It's all part of the REVEAL Festival which happens next weekend, all around the King's Cross area. We were helping Helen Maurer and Sophie Charalambous with their grand plan to illuminate the narrow boats of the St Pancras Cruising club.
I even had a go at wicker work, adding some shoulders to a giant lady figurehead, soon to become festooned in lights. All very therapeutic and fun.
Stanley was in big kid heaven and his dad was happy to do look out patrol. Tea, cake, ginger beer and beer!
A fantastic, unexpected day out. London at its best!

Find out more about the Festival here

Starts April 22 and runs to May 02

More pics of the day on Flickr

...... and if you really want to know what the feathers are? A: bags and bags of bin liners! Well it is going on to another Festival after this one, so they will have more than one life at least! There was talk of a re run of Craft Night Tuesdays at the Club House, so they may well end up as something else too.

Studio Clear out!

No, I'm not leaving..... just having a clear out. It's Spring, so it's time for a change. I've had quite a few big shades hanging around in my studio and once the wrappers are off they get the title 'ex display'. So hop over to my shop and grab a bargain. More to come when I get a chance.

New Tops for My Boy

I've got a bad cold at the minute, so I'm staying in and feeling sorry for myself. Just going through some of my photos and thought I'd put these up as I never got round to posting them.
First top is using my shapes and things fabric, bonded and sewn to an American Apparel Tee. Second was a bit of recycling from an old top I love but has got too small and mucky. So I chopped it up and added a few shapes onto another plain tee. All happily received by Stanley!
BTW: The dogs in the blue top picture are a painting by my friend Dennis.