Bideford Heritage Day

I completely forgot to blog about this!
My town had another Heritage Day
this time celebrating our Elizabethan heritage.

My son made a ruff with this lady
and proudly wore it for the rest of the day!
I love that he still loves dressing up,
as a toddler he was always dressed up as something/someone, most often spiderman
and as he's got older he has got more creative in his choices .

we found out about lots of different aspects of Elizabethan life
we played the first ever patented board game and other games
we learned about what and how they cooked
and of course what they wore

both my children tried on the outfits
The boy was a bit shocked to hear that boys around his age still wore dresses!

look at this face of determination!
There was a lovely lady who showed us how to prepare the wool for spinning
and let him have a go at carding and then producing a yarn by hand he loved it!
She also showed us the different plants used to dye fabrics
and my favorite, buttons of the period!
There was also lots of ladies spinning wool which sparked my daughter's interest
as she has kept my Grandma's old spinning wheel
maybe one day she will learn how to use it.

It was a lovely way to spend a few hours with my children and it is so nice that they are both so interested in history and of course the heritage of our home town.
Bideford has a really interesting history which i've only really come to appreiciate as i've gotten older, it is the same way with my own family history, my Mum was always really interested and has done a lot of work tracing our family tree as did my Dad's Mum, i was never interested at all and pretty rude saying "who care's that's boring" but now i find it all fascinating!

button peppermint creams

i have been asked for a recipe for these peppermint cream buttons

to be honest it was so simple
i don't think you could count it as a recipe!

I bought a box of royal icing sugar mixed it with a little
pre-boiled warm water and some peppermint essence
to make a stiff paste {if the paste is too wet add more sugar}

then i tried it and added more
peppermint essence to my taste,

then I seperated the paste into three bowls
and mixed in some food colourings,
then i rolled out the paste and cut out the buttons
with pop {soda} bottle tops i made the button holes
with a cotton wool bud {q-tip} with the cotton ends cut off,

then i left them to dry out in a tupperware container
turning regularly till they were dried out.

then i ate far too many of them!!!

and sent some to Kat :)

there are loads of recipes on the web for peppermint creams
but this one was so easy i didn't bother trying any of the others!

crafter...oo button swap

the crafter...oo button swap

i was lucky enough to be partnered with the lovely Kat
of domestic-housekat-blog

http://domestic-housekat.blogspot.com/

here is what she sent me - a fancy jewellery roll

containing rather fancy jewellery style buttons and buckles

plus a cute rabbit made from perler beads :)

oh . . . erm . . . and these rather scrummy chocolates, which i hid away in my craft room
and didn't share a single one with my family!

*******
below is what i sent {very late} to Kat

a selection of british hand-made buttons

a. beautiful dorset button from bigbluebed http://www.etsy.com/shop/bigbluebed
b. recycled vintage embroidered linen by me
c. cute designer buttons from shedraws http://www.folksy.com/shop/SheDraws
d. fantastic fimo loveheart buttons from Lilley's buttons http://www.folksy.com/shops/lilley

it was hard to give these away
but hey what a good excuse to buy more!

a selection of buttons from my button mountain

and my favourite thing i made

homemade peppermint cream buttons

they do look a bit like play-doh
but they tasted good
honest!

all wrapped up in a Habitat button pot.

It was a really fun swap and i'm glad Kat was patient with me i was sooo late sending it as things have been a little crazy round here - we got a new puppy :) i picked him up the day before my Ofsted inspection and i'd been running around like a blue arsed fly trying to get my paperwork in order but i got a really good report so was very very happy :D

Tess the Wonderdog

Our beautiful dog Tess

beach lover

teletubby killer

intrepid explorer

lawn wrecking :)

sun loving

crafting companion

stinky muddy stream swimmer

crazy sand artist


nosey

sweetest ever family dog
has gone to run free from suffering in the big field in the sky.

R.I.P.
Tess the Wonderdog
our faithful friend
xxx

party dress for dolly!

ok so please excuse the awful photo quality
try as i might i just cannot get a decent photograph of my Blythe :(

but
i have finally made her a dress!
i made a tri-colour tu-tu using this cut out and keep tutorial
http://www.cutoutandkeep.net/projects/no_sew_tutu_2
obviously some what scaled down :D

i made the bodice section with a piece of vintage sequined trim
i'm pretty pleased with it, very simple
but at least she is now wearing something i made her
which was the whole point of buying a doll.

oh and i have decided on a name for my doll
i am going to call her Idris after the human woman
who the soul of the TARDIS is poured into
in the Neil Gaiman episode of Doctor Who
when i first got her i was going to call her TARDIS
because of her amazing blue hair
but it just didn't seem right.

perhaps my mojo is returning
:O

Tim Burton inspired craft swap

So i can finally show you what i made for the
Tim Burton Inspired Craft Swap
organised by the fantastic
Meridian Ariel
my partner has let me know that her parcel made it to America
BUT she is not going to open it intil she has sent my parcel
i can wait no longer to blog about it so have warned her off my blog :)

everything to be squeezed into a shoe box!

some crafty treats

a pumpkin softie or pin cushion
i made it with a vintage linen napkin - a recycled t-shirt - a vintage duffle coat toggle
and a big m.o.p. button

i found this swap really hard
which really surprised me as i love Tim Burton films
but i just couldn't get the creative juices flowing

collections of supplies lay around the work table
failing to inspire me

i had decided early on i was going to decorate a tote bag
i used this one which i'd previously dyed in burlesque red
my swap partners colour choices were i'm afraid ignored
as burlesque red - orange and teal seemed to force themselves onto this project!
i'd never of thought of using these colours together normally
but they just seemed right.

i used a band of vintage cotton lace aound the top of the bag
made several suffolk puffs from a vintage pillowcase
i'd recently inherited from my great Aunt

and selected some vintage doilies and teal buttons
made a teal zipper rossette
and pinned them to the bag
at this point i wandered off for several weeks
occasionally re-arranging the different elements

my swap partners favourite Tim Burton character is Sally
from the Nightmare before Christmas
i had a patchwork theme in my mind and visible stitches
but i've not yet attempted patchwork {scared}
so i felt these different textures and colours
could represent Sally's dress

and the embroidery the stitches Sally uses to sew her body parts back to together
the words are from the song she sings about her love for Jack Skellington

it always amazes me how many things i make for a swap
that never make into the final selection
does anyone else do that?
these spiders seemed a good idea but didn't quite work out!


so there you have it
everything i made i have made this year
i can't understand what has happened to my creativity
this time last year my blog hits were through the roof
i was prolific in my crafting
i need my mojo back
if you see it please send it home.

Button Swap

Kitty Ballistic has set up a button swap over on the crafter...oo forum
swap entries close at the end of the week so HURRY !!!

http://www.crafteroo.co.uk/smf/index.php?topic=8300.0

lots of good people already signed up
a nice cheap'n'easy swap
go on - go on - g'wan
:D

and if you've learned anything on my blog
it is surely that i have a HUGE button surplus!
more button swaps i say!