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PennyDog's Garden Swap has been such a great experience - I feel lucky that I got paired with Chrissy - it's been great to get to know her better (she goes dolphin watching! she lives in Aberdeen! she is considerably cooler than me!) and she has been so generous. Her parcel of goodies arrived here yesterday and as you can see I got some fabulous things - a lovely hand-printed tote bag (that I have decided to use for current crochet projects), a fabulous hand made ring and fridge magnets, a very stylish b&w rose picture, a japanese lantern, some chocolate (that didn't last long) and some incredible fabric. I also got a 10% off voucher for her brilliant shop. See, I told you I did well! There's been some other great swap parcels - you can take a look at the Garden Swap Flickr group. A huge THANK YOU to Chrissy for all the lovely thoughtful goodies you sent - can't wait to make something fabulous with that fabric!
While we're on the subject of the swap I thought I'd blog the bag I made to go in to Chrissy's parcel. It's a small bag (about 20cm x 20cm) made with navy cotton twill with a handsewn, wool felt, flower garden applique. I have to say that I am pretty much more proud of this than anything I have ever made, and it was VERY hard to send it off to Aberdeen. Doing the applique was a real challenge (I always like to set myself a bit of a challenge when I'm doing swaps!) but I think it worked well and I got the slightly retro feel I was going for. I'm also very pleased with the colour combination, because I'm never confident about how colours go together. The handles are recycled from an charity shop bag find, and I used that bag as a template for this one. That's my bag making top tip actually... You can find some ace bags in charity shops - I like to use them to make a pattern and reuse all the bits and bobs (handles, zips, buttons, beads, etc), that come with them. I am really hoping Mary Portas' ideas to revamp charity shops don't catch on - I'm worried I wont be able to find bargains any more...
I've signed up for another couple of things - just can't resist... Actually I always find it helpful to have something to be aiming for - nothing like a deadline to improve my creativity! And they give me a really good reason for trying new ideas and techniques too. This month I'm going to be working on Blotted Copy Book's Duelling Crafters' Challenge. Vonnies rules are as follows:
- Your starting object must not cost you any money. So no charity shopping it up. I am watching.
- You can spend no more than GBP£10 or the equivalent (USD$15, CAD£17, AUD$20, €11) on supplies to alter your starting object
- A flickr group will be created for this project and all completed projects must be submitted by 9pm on Friday May 29th 2009.
- The winner will be selected by vote which will be hosted here. Voting will open at 9.30pm on Friday May 29th 2009 and will close on Friday June 5th 2009.
- Any soliciting of votes will mean a penalty against the entry with possible disqualification. Play nicely, please.
When I first read Vonnie's post I was really interested in taking part but couldn't for the life of me think of anything that was within my capabilities! We have some lovely chairs that I would love to repaint and re-upholster but there's no chance that I could manage that between now and the end of May! It would be rather a scary steep learning curve. Then a week or so later I remembered this tie of my dad's that I found when we moved in here (his old home). I kept hold of it because I really love the fabric and because it was my dad's 'going out' tie, so it reminds me of lovely family occasions. And I wondered if I could make myself something with it. My initial idea is to use to make a wallet for my business cards. Think it cold look quite cool with the right lining fabric and a funky vintage button. I'm really looking forward to using the fabric.
The other thing I've signed up for is Kerry of PennyDog Jewellery's Garden Swap. The rules for this are:
- You must make one handmade item in a garden theme, this can be something for the garden, or something with a gardeny theme- insects, flowers, etc.
- An item of a crafty nature that your swap partner can use in their own crafting- fabric, buttons, stickers, etc
- An edible treat- chocolate, cake, etc
Really looking forward to making a start on this one - I have some ideas, but I want to do a bit more thinking first. My partner is Christina of SpoiltPig and I want to make sure that I send her something that she'll like!! I've been having a look at her excellent resin jewellery in her SpoiltPig Folksy shop and I am a bit scared because she is clearly a trendy young person & I really am not... But hey, it's good to be swapping slightly outside my comfort zone so I'm looking forward to it.
