Day 16 (OADCC)

Today I made this little fellow. It is a french beaded butterfly. I love french beading but it takes a long long time. In addition to this guy I also made the bodies to all of the little ones below. I have had the wings done for a long time now just waiting to get put together. Funny enough the wings are by far the easier part. Anyway It was good to get a production line of bodies going.

You can still see the wires behind the butterflies, I will need these to attach the butterflies to their final destination.

I was originally going to make these into hair sticks like the one below, I made him earlier in the year, I have modified the wing shape and the body since then. I am now thinking that I will make some hair clips/barrettes too! Any other suggestions of things I could do with my butterflies! The big problem with them is that they takes so much time to make If I charged by the hour they would cost a fortune.

Why are my butterflies fellows and hims ??

Day 6 (OADCC)

A short and sweet project today. Remember the A wall that I am making? Well I bought a large wooden letter A at a garage sale so I wanted to paint it, I did a base coat of white and then little vines and flowers over it. I am not thrilled with it at the moment, but it looks better than the plain wood A that has been hanging up there for a few months now.

Day 4 (OADCC)

Today's challenge, Bunting! I am hosting a mini Blue baby shower for my friend - she doesn't know about it, unless she reads this blog in which case now she does (Surprise!).
I am trying to save the more time intensive projects (like this one) for my Days off work. I managed to do this whole thing today, including going to the fabric store and battling the labor day sales event and registers that weren't working. I must have spent 2 hrs there and they were not fun! Unfortunately I still ended up working on it this evening because of the length of time I spent in the store.

Left side of the bunting. I made a pink set for the same friend when her daughter turned 1 and she loved it, I am sure she will be very pleased with a blue set. Once again I am very pleased with my work today, this would normally have taken me forever to do - because of the dreaded procrastination!

Day 21 (OADCC)

Hi everyone, I know I haven't blogged for a few days but it doesn't mean that I haven't been making. Day 17, 18 and 19 I made more flower brooches, I decided it wasn't really necessary to write about each one of these as you have seen the idea a few times now. The flower is easy for me to do on those very rushed days and I still feel like I am getting something done. Anyway today is another day and I made a different kind of flower necklace. I made 3 rosettes out over layers of silvery fabric. and then sewed them onto a ruched length of ribbon. The sheer fabric is actually a silver check on a black background which makes a great pattern when layered over each other (detail below).



On Day 20 (yesterday) I quickly sewed up some cushions. I have had this fabric for years. Another great thing about this challenge, it has got me completing those little projects which I have been meaning to do for the longest time.


And due to Floss' suggestion I took a picture of one of my butterflies in amongst the flowers to see what that would be like. I think he looks quite charming perched on the Hydrangea.

Day 10 (OADCC) Another Brooch

I am so sorry everyone, I just didn't have it in me today after getting home at 10pm, and having a fiasco filled morning, to make anything other than another brooch. Same shape, just different fabrics and beads. I do like this fabric it is a beige colour with a metallic purple/blue top weave. Shot fabrics or multi toned ones are perfect for these wrinkly flowers.

Again with and without flash above and a nice detail below.

Day 11 (OADCC)

Hello, I did not make any brooches today. I did however make this lovely necklace. I made some smaller flowers using the brooch technique and attatched them to twisted ribbon tubes. I have not embellished it yet with beads - do you think it would be better with or without?

Close up of the 2 flowers on the right side. I am really happy with this one. I am going to have to bribe someone to do a photo shoot of me wearing some of this stuff for my shop.

Day 30 OADCC

Today is day 30, the official last day of my one a day craft challenge. I am ashamed to admit that even though I made this challenge I haven't quite been able to keep up with it. I had a very hard week at work, 4 5am starts, that led to lots of falling asleep on the couch in the afternoon, my most productive time of day usually (because I have the house to myself). The mistake was not blogging every day, when I did that it was essential that I have a complete item to photograph. When I let that slip it was easy to fall behind. :(

With that said I am determined to get 30 items done, even if they are mostly brooches.
I went to take some pictures of some of the items I have made and the battery in my camrea was not charged.
I couldn't let this post go by without 1 picture so here are the postcards that I sent off for my postcard swap. Of course the scribble heart is my favourite. So much so that I have made it my new icon. I promise some pictures of more One A Day Challenge items tomorrow.


Please check out some of my friends who have been very good about joining me in this challenge

juanitatortilla
sara at soap rehab
TiLT
topknots
Julie of Musings of a Northern Girl
Anjeanette of Roots and Wings Co

Juliann of The Sick Chick

Jen D of The Silver Lining


I am going to have to declare TiLT the absolute champion of this challenge she definitely rose to the occasion and produced some wonderful items.

Big thanks to everyone who participated. Look out for the rest of my items to appear here in the next few days!

Day 12 (OADCC)

For Day 12 I made this .....
A lovely little square cushion, or a massive pincushion! It measures 7 inches square. As I was doing this One a Day craft challenge I became increasingly aware that I did not have a pin cushion! Amazing, right? You would think that everyone who had a sewing room would have a pincushion. I used to have one of those tiny tomato ones but I have no idea where it is. I have been using lids to hold my pins and often nothing at all. Anyway I needed a big pin cushion and I used the basic idea from kootoyoo but having no cute handkerchiefs I made a cute square of my favourite fabrics.
It felt like I put so much stuffing in this thing. Then when I came to put the button in the center I didn't have a big long needle, so I had to clamp my cushion and use pliers to pull the embroidery thread through! Necessity is the mother of invention!

Here it is in use with the very needle I used to make it. Pin cushion tip, Always keep a short strand of thread in your needle it makes them much easier to find in amongst the pins. I just have to pick all of the pins and needles of the floor now!

Day 13 (OADCC)

I decided I wanted to make a more casual brooch. What better material to use than T-shirt. I embroidered some simple flower shapes on t-shirt (with peltex backing) I layered some more t-shirt on top and cut petal shapes.

I cut the whole shape out and added some more petals. This whole piece went into the washer and dryer so the edges could curl.

I then added some beads and voila - this is how we dress up a plain white T!

Day 8 (OADCC)

Little purse/pouch. Just the thing for carrying your jewelry when you get tired of wearing it. I made a similar one for my pay it forward this is a bit different though with some ribbon knots to finish it and mitered corners (sort of, good practice anyhow). The main piece of fabric is gunmetal quilted with black thread in random spiral patterns. I admit that I had a little help, I cut one of the ribbon ends far to short and my hubby had to help me tie it with a pair of tweezers.

The back of the purse you can see the quilting pattern much more clearly here.

Day 7 (OADCC)

Today I decided to make another flower brooch, this time its a little different. I used a thinner interfacing which actually shrivels under heat. This can be used to make a great texture in the flower petals.
I used fabric from a friends bridesmaid dress. I love to get old bridesmaids dresses, they are rarely something a person would wear again and often have great fabrics for bags and brooches etc. Let me know if you want to get rid of any (and you live in Michigan).

Since I was making something smaller today I made 2 brooches instead of 1. I will try to get some better detail shots up here tomorrow.

Day 2 (OADCC)

Day 2, I need to go to bed 10 mins ago because I have to be at work by 5am, yuck. I will post this really quickly and then I am off.

You should never try to take pictures at 10 pm, the light quality isn't very good.

I recently bought some lovely hard back notebooks with the express purpose of recovering them, for creative people (like my Mum) to carry around in their handbags. You can see the after and before above and below.

The back must have a little something.

And the inside cover is pretty too.

I actually have a lot more to say on this, like how hard it is to do corners and how frustrating this was, because I started by using the wrong glue. But I will settle for being pretty happy and quoting my Art teacher - "A person who never made a mistake never made anything!"
And I think it turned out pretty well in the end .

Ok Nighty Night!

others Up for the challenge.

Day 3 (OADCC)

Day 3. After I got home from work I fell asleep on the couch while watching the baseball, oops. So we had take out for dinner and I made this little squiggle heart (5" sq). I actually had the idea to do this over a year ago when I made my big red stripey linen quilt of the same fabric. It has been sitting in my to do piles for a long time. I thought this was a good opportunity to do it. I now would just like to mount it (mat it for you Americans ) and frame it in a little square frame. This is for our bedroom, but maybe I could make some others for my shop, what do you think? Just the one picture, the in action ones I took came out a little blurry.

Day 9 (OADCC)

Well it was coming to the end of day 9 and the bigger project was not looking anywhere near done so....... yes another flower brooch. This is the exact same size as the one 2 days ago, just in a much more sophisticated gunmetal and black colour scheme. You can see it above without flash and below with. I am happy because any other day I would have gone to bed with a 1/2 finished project but today i am going to bed with a a 1/2 finished project plus a pretty flower brooch!
I am getting quite good at making these, what kind of price would you be willing to pay for one (if you couldn't make it yourself that is) I am definitely producing a few of these for my Etsy shop.

I love this detail shot of the center, pretty.

Day 5 (OADCC)

Today I decided to make myself a little travel bag for my undies, I always end up carrying them in a plastic bag and have been meaning to make one of these for quite sometime.

The lettering took forever because it was done the hard way (free machining) and not with one of those fancy embroidery cards (I have a suitable machine but do not have the letter card to put in it!)
In the end the hardest part was the cord, I decided to be clever and do french seams which totally ruined the pull through on the cord tie. I need to sleep on it.

Day 1 (OADCC)

After deciding to do this craft challenge and getting a good response I looked at my work schedule in horror last week as I saw that Day 1 was going to be a pretty hectic work day. As I was working hard all day and then had to buy groceries and make dinner, I decided I better do something quite small and achievable for my first day. I know, (I thought) a small little fabric brooch!

How about a lovely little purple flower.

Little! LITTLE, little (I said). Well I made a fairly large purple flower brooch.

Detail of the clown size flower brooch!

Despite its size I am quite pleased with the fruits of my labor on day 1 of my One A Day Craft Challenge. To see other participants check out who else is Up for the challenge! at the end of my first post.

If you want to join in at any time let me know and I will add you to my list.

Day 14 & 15 (OADCC)

The observant among you, may have noticed that i was off by 1 day on my count. I had worked very late on projects 2 nights running so just posted about them the next day. Yesterday however was the day of the baby shower for my friend, at my house. I live in a state of chaos and so I spent most of the day cooking, cleaning and generally preparing my house for guests. The most crafty thing I did was a bit of flower arranging.


Anyway to make up for that I planed to do 2 things today. I actually needed to do 2 things today. I agreed to be part of whosies postcard swap over at Whosies.blogspot.com
I had 2 swap partners and the postcards had to be mailed out today! So I got to making 2 postcards - I carefully measured and cut and after making the first one I discovered I had made it an inch to wide, oops. I loved it so much that I sent it anyway ( actually that would have been a good excuse to keep it). I made the second one to the correct size. I am sorry to say that 1 is better than the other, but I did like them both. I don't want to show you them yet but I will when I think they may have received them.

Here they are sitting in my mail box, after which I took them out and took them to the post office to be mailed.

P.S. My friend loved her Bunting that I made on Day 4!