A new craft challenge- house ownership

I've hit one of those landmarks in life that shows that I'm in adult mode, I've started the next big adventure- home ownership!  It isn't much, a little two bedroom place (or rather, one bedroom and one craft room) but I can do what I want with it and no one can complain.

So to ease into my life of DIY I'm going to start with the main bedroom.  Apart from having a faint to strong scent of the previous tenant's smoking habit (urghhhh!!!), it also has a very... brown... feel.  Plus I won't be into the place properly for a few more days yet since I'm hiring big strong backs with a truck to move the furniture to the new place so the only things over there are things that I can move myself.

Well apart from the piles of clothing, but they are only temporary!

That's a chocolate brown feature wall.  Not necessarily bad, per say but with the bits I can't change easily right now (beige wardrobe, beige window frame and a beigy grey carpet) it's really brown.

So step one is now complete.  I've taken the curtains down to wash (not a pleasant job when I saw the colour of the water after the first few rounds but they came up well), used lots of bicarb on the carpet to hopefully absorb odours from the carpets and I've given the walls a wash to prepare them for paint.  Next step, fill in holes and decide on colours- stay tuned for updates!

More Christmas cards

So I've been on a card making extravaganza- I want to make sure I have enough cards to see me through the season as I'm moving in two weeks and need to pack up the craft stuff.

Oh and then there are these, which include two of my favourites... The dandelion one is absolute favourite which is funny since there isn't any Christmas specific parts to it (aside from the Merry Christmas sticker)

Lessons learnt?  Dies don't like mirror card very much and if it's looking lovely and perfect it's because the gremlins are waiting to put a fingerprint somewhere.  The bottom of the shaker card wasn't going to be like that but the gremlins put a big smear right along the bottom and some emergency additions were needed.

Just a few to go, mainly to use the bits up that I have already cut out.  Then it's back to the fun job of packing boxes... two weeks until moving day (eep!).

Tis the season to be carding. Card making? Oh well. I've made some Christmas cards

Hello strangers,
As I've hinted in previous posts, I've started to get into card making a little more.  Well since I will need quite a few cards fairly soon, I've been experimenting with the Christmas stuff I've accumulated.

Of course some of these I'm happier with than others and there are some that... lets just say that no one will ever know of the horrors lurking off camera... :P

Kits are good projects when travelling

And this is why- I'm down visiting my family which means living out of bags.  It also means that it is much trickier to do some crafts as bringing all the tools, glues etc, isn't ideal even if you are not limited by space (apart from what can fit in the car of course!).
So choosing what to bring requires careful consideration.  Knitting can be good- throw the project, pattern and maybe a spare ball of wool (or two- depends on your speed and length of the trip!) and you are good to go.  But whatever you do, don't take the cable blanket that you are working on with you and leave that little cable needle on your coffee table at home... ask me how I know... *sigh*

Since I was without a certain knitting project to work on (well at least until I can get to the shops), I dug out one of the kits that I had thrown into my 'things to do' bag that had been in the cupboard for a while.  A day later and I have a new pretty shiny bracelet (bought from the Bead Shack yonks ago).  Being a kit, it had all the things needed- the only thing I needed was a pair of scissors and I always have a pair in my knitting project bag.  It would even be useful if you are flying (well provided you threw it into your checked bag).

I have one other beading kit in the bag I might get to (it's a necklace so it will take a little longer).  Or I will have to dig through my bag for what else is in there after I get back from the shops.  Seems I need to get myself a cable needle, you see...

Hiding stitching on braids (and a dragon cross stitch)

I have a project that just needed a bit of gold braid sewn on in order to finish it off.  So I stitched it on and sat back to admire THOSE BIG WHITE STITCHES STICKING OUT LIKE A SORE THUMB!

Well OK, it's not that big but it was noticeable.  And there was already a dodgy area where a thread pulled when I sewed it up so I was feeling a bit miffed.  Then it struck me... I just need gold.  Not thread- metallics are often temperamental anyway and besides, I was feeling a little lazy....

So I broke out the gold pens and found the nearest match.  A careful daub on the thread later and...

I mean it is still there if you know where to look, but it is far less in your face.  As a bonus, I also added it to the end of the braid where the white core was showing:

It isn't a perfect match, but it is far less eye catching (and yes, I did go and do the other end after taking this photo!).  A word of warning though- I would be cautious if the object needs to be laundered regularly, you might need to keep the pen handy for touch ups
All that in order to make the final touches of this:
Teresa Wentzler's Delightful Dragon Fob

Those lines in the background are 1cm apart for scale.

 The main change I did with this pattern was to bring out the glow-in-the-dark thread to replace the ecru for the decorative stitches on the back (with the initials) and the background stitching on the dragon.  It is a very subtle effect- I find that the DMC glow in the dark thread is very faint, even when looking at it on the thread bobbin.  But it does glow and I know it glows, which is the main thing as it is stuck as mine now unless I ever met anybody who liked them and who had my initials!