rediscovering playing

It was a tough week last week and I really felt the need to relax and revitalise my soul this weekend, nothing fits this bill better than surrounding myself with colour and texture. All too often lately I have been fixated on the end product and forgetting to enjoy the journey. So I dug around in my crafty stash and pulled out tissue paper and oil pastels - just the vibrancy of these colour was enough to bring a smile to my face

I had so much fun playing with all these, my favourite effect was to place the tissue paper on some card and use watered down PVA glue to leech the colour out. By swirling and scrunching the paper I go lots of interesting effects.

I then experimented with the pastels, dragging them over silky card and then using my finger to smudge them gave really interesting texture, whereas using baby oil on a piece of cut and dry foam spread the colour more evenly to create some beautiful sunset backgrounds.

Of course my husband and sons reactions was to giggle and ask what on earth I was going to do with all of this (and who was going to clean up all the mess!) but sometimes it does us good just to 'play' and I was so much more relaxed and happier that it was better that any therapy. I'd love to know how you use your creativity to relax.

ooh - I love a good stamp!!!

I started card making a couple of years ago and the classes I went to focussed on decoupage and creating mats and layers - well, the novelty soon wore off. Then I was lucky enough to be bought an IPad and have spent many happy hours browsing the web and realising how many fabulous and creative ways there are of creating handmade cards. So my love of stamping started to grow.
I started with some basic stamps bought from a local craft shop and have been practising my colouring in, and now I have discovered Chocolate Baroque and WOW what amazing stamps. I've totally fallen in love with this range and on Sunday made my first purchase.

Indian Elephant and Indian Textiles

I couldn't resist these, such amazing value at £20 for 17 high quality grey rubber stamps. I ordered some distress ink so my total order came to £26 and I qualified for free delivery. They arrived within 48hrs, I am so impressed with their service.


Indian Elephant

My only complaint... I'm too busy to play with them this week and the weekend feels like a long way off!!! To take the edge off the craving I cut them out and did a quick test stamp on some copy paper and WOW again - they stamp perfectly and now the urge to craft is even greater. I have a feeling there won't be too much housework done this weekend!

Tribute to a mum

My best friend's mum died earlier this year after a short period of illness. My friend is an only child and so the burden of clearing the house has fallen to her. As an avid knitter (and hoarder) her mum had left close to a hundred part used balls of wool leftover from the many projects she'd completed. She kept all the oddments as, also being an animal lover, she would use them to make blankets to give to the animal shelter.

My friend loves crafting but we've never persuaded her to knit or crochet, but she was loathed to throw away or donate the wool as, unlike so many of the other posessions, the yarn held a significance for her. She gave me the stash and asked me to make something for her to remember her mum by. This was a great honour as well as responsibility and I was determined to find a pattern worthy of the task. After much searching I found the ideal crochet pattern on ravelry called flowers in the snow

I decided early on not to try and colour match the blanket but to randomly chose three colours for each of the 120 circles and tie them togther with a neutral beige wool. It has been liberating putting together colours and ply that would not normally go but somehow do work together. I hope will it have it finished by her birthday in two weeks time, as it will be her first since her mum's death and I hope in some way having the blanket will bring comfort and good memories of her.

I also wanted this to be my first blog post as my way of paying tribute to her and would love to hear about any craft projects you have made in memory of another.