I made: a cup candle

Ta dah!  Look at what I made.  Doesn't it fit in niceley with my other blue and white ceramics?  I bought some porceline tea-cups a while ago with the idea of turning them into candles.  I saw a tutorial somewhere online and decided I wanted to give it a try, and I must say I'm pretty chuffed with how they turned out.
It's good to have a project sometimes that's just for fun.  Most of the time I'm thinking about new products for my shop or gifts for friends and family.  Saying that, this would make a great gift and I may end up making more for friends.

p.s. I made a little video on photoshop to go with this post, but I haven't quite figured all the technical stuff out yet and I'm not sure if it can work??  Basically I'm not sure my laptop has the power I need to make the magic happen just yet :(

My first craft fair (part 1)

Nearly a year ago (July 2013) I attended my first ever craft fair as a vendor.  I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to show you – oops!  It was one of the hottest days of the year, the Wimbledon tennis final was playing and my legend of a mother helped me set up my first craft stall.  If you knew my mum you would know how much of a sacrifice this was for her, especially as Andy Murray ended up winning!  *thanks again mum – I love you!

I was a little anxious at first.  I had spent the majority of the week leading up to it frantically making more stuff thinking that I didn’t have enough.  It was a beautifully sunny week that I had booked off work.  With hindsight I should have chilled my boots a little and enjoyed the sunshine, but hey-ho!

Once we got there I was really excited.  We were allocated a great spot, and I couldn’t wait to get set up and have a wander around all of the other stalls (I do after all love a good craft fair).  As you can see from the pictures, there was soooo much on offer.  There was the sound of vinyl records playing whilst girls had retro makeovers at a mobile vintage hairdressers, all kinds of different arts and crafts and plenty of antiques and vintage for the second-hand junky.

I took about a million pictures, so I’m writing this post in pieces.  Special thanks to: Greenside Deli, Juniper Creates,  Studio Aitch, Me and Thee, and Vintage Rosie For allowing me to take their picture for this (extremely belated) post.

Reetsweet March 2012

Almost exactly one year ago I went to this awesome craft fair in Sheffield.  I can't believe I forgot to share it nearer the time - I only came across these photos again whilst browsing through some old pics and thought they're too good not to share!  I actually ended up buying one of those felted tooth brooches - cute.

DIY: crocheted beanie hat

I mentioned in this post that I was going to share the pattern for this easy crocheted hat, so here goes...

You will need

5mm crochet hook

Approx. 80g King Cole Moorland Aran

A tapestry needle to thread in the ends

Pattern

You begin the hat with a series of chain stitches.  I found it useful to measure a row of chains from the centre of the top of your head (where the top of the hat would be) to where you want it to end.  For the first hat I did about 40 chain stitches, and for the second hat *pictured below* I did about 50 chain stitches.

Leaving a long tail, ch between 40-50 stitches (depending on your preference).

Row 1: Once you have your row of chain stitches, Hdc in the back loop of the second ch from the hook.

Row 2-46: Continue to Hdc across the row in the back loop only.  Once you reach the end, *ch 1, turn the work and continue with Hdc in the back loop until you reach the end of the next row - repeat from * 45 times.

To finish: Join the beginning and end rows by matching the last Hdc with the first ch st and linking with a series of slip stitches to form a tube, fasten off and weave in the end.  Then using the tapestry needle, thread the long tail through the top of the tube with a running stitch, gathering the fabric as you go.  Weave through the top of the hat a number of times to make sure it's fastened well and won't come loose.

This is the first crochet pattern I've shared, so please let me know if you spot any mistakes or recommend any improvements.  I hope you have fun making this hat.  Please leave a link below if you decide to give it a try!

DIY: Gold Guilded Geode Rings

With Mother's Day fast approaching, I've been searching the net for some DIY inspiration.  I think this DIY from swellmayde ticks the boxes.  Have you found any good DIY's recently?  If so, leave me a comment - I'd love to check them out.

Washi Hanger

I just love alternative storage solutions.  Maartje from 'Silly Old Suitcase' has come up with a brilliant idea for storing your collection of washi tapes.

I'm in desperate need of organisation at the moment - I'm feeling a little chaotic!

DIY: Washi Tape Tea Lights

Since the dark nights have been drawing in I've been burning a lot more candles around my flat.  I love candles and always have a supply of various kinds knocking about the place - church candles, scented candles, bog standard house candles and of course tea-lights.  Tea lights are great because you can put them almost anywhere... they look great in jars and other glassware, on pretty plates, they're okay on their own too - but recently I've been decorating them with washi tape just to make them that bit prettier.
It's so easy, and here's how I did it...

Supplies needed:
1. Tea-lights
2. Washi Tape

That's it!  Simple.  I chose to stick to a polka-dot theme, just because I love polka-dots.

Wrap the washi tape around your tea-light.  Depending on the size of your tea-light, you may need to fold the tape underneath the candle (I did).

Tear off the strip and voila!  A lovely set of patterned tea-lights.  I will be doing this all the time now, and it also gives me an excuse to extend my washi tape collection ;)
If you're interested, I sell a set of yellow and polka-dot washi tapes in my shop - you can buy them here.

Ahh, these dark nights are not so bad after all.

Creative Mess

This is the state of my dining table recently.  We haven't eaten at it in weeks!  I've been pretty busy thinking up new ideas, making prototypes, re-making prototypes, designing packaging, crocheting, painting, creating and generally making a bit of a mess.

I feel like I've neglected my blog a little bit though in the process and for that I apologise.  I won't promise to fix that issue this week, because I've still got quite a bit to catch up on before I head off on my hols at the weekend (Spain this time - woohoo!), but I do promise that I have lots of plans for this little corner of the internet for when I get back so please bear with me.

For the time being I'm going to make some lists, draw up some sort of plan (I'm quite a visual person and need to see my goals drawn up in front of me) and make a promise to myself that I'm going to be more organised after my, fingers crossed, refreshing break.  Wish me luck :)