L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N

Yep, I know, it’s been ages since I blogged; as in the Noah and the Whale song…Life Goes On…sorry about that. A gentle nudge from Cazz reminded me that I have been neglecting my dear old blog and all the friends who come and visit me here!  I blame work and life and the internet, and all the good and bad things about real life.

So what have I been up to since I last visited my little corner of the blogiverse? Well, lets talk about the fun things since work is too boring to experience it, never mind to relate it to someone else!

Well, I continue with my yoga classes (once a week) and my belly dancing classes (in full practice mode at the moment since we have a month before the next Hafla and I have 3 choreographies to remember!! That is no mean feat, let me tell you, since I am a girl with very little mental RAM – those who know me will understand my poor memory! I’m also doing some Tribal Fusion classes so I’m trying to learn some ATS dance vocabulary – cues and transitions, that sort of stuff!

 

And because a girl can never have too many dance accessories, I crocheted a pretty hip shawl with a beaded fringe.

And you can’t really see, but there’s a lovely silver thread plied through this variegated grey yarn – the beads are a faceted black which catch the light.

I’ve also made a pair of black satin tribal style pantaloons and a few shimmy skirts. I’ll get some photos of those another time…

This has not been all however! I’ve been on a bit of a painting bug recently…. trees have been in my mind alot…I painted this one in the New Year

You can’t really see it in the photo, but there’s a tiny black cat sitting on the hill – well, Pippin had to get in there somewhere didn’t she! The trees have been blown around like that quite a bit this year; it’s been a windy year so far.

Then I painted this as a leaving present for a friend..

It’s actually a pen and ink drawing, on watercolour board, embellished with glitter, tiny jewels and angelina fibres, and then framed.

I also had this next one in mind since my holiday to Lyme Regis last year…

It’s acrylic on canvas with sparkling inclusions.

M and I went to London for the day and did the London Eye, the London Dungeons, the London Aquarium and Platform 9 3/4!

 

 

 

I’ve been out and about Geocaching with the Uberhound (especially now the weather’s got nicer, and I have a fancy dandy gps to help me now – an after Christmas treat!)

 

 

 

And the weather at Easter was so nice that M and I risked an early holiday and took the caravan to Glastonbury for a week! What gorgeous weather we had!!

We visited the Chalice Well gardens…

We climbed the Tor twice (and met a friend up there- what are the chances of that?!)

We browsed the shops in Glastonbury town (and bumped into my mum and her friends – what were the chances of that??!!), we spent a day in the Abbey grounds

We went to Wells for a day,

we did a bit of geocaching, we went to a Medieval Fayre and we visited Stonehenge!

We really didn’t want to come home!

Oh yes, I’m in the middle of organising the Hippy Swap Round 5 on Craftster too….

Anyway, that’s kind of what I’ve been up to…more next time!!

A Very Merry Yuletide…

Well, here we are, it’s nearly Christmas and I haven’t blogged for aaaages! Sorry if you’ve been a regular reader awaiting my crafty updates, but this last term has been very very time consuming! But that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been creating, ‘coz I have!

Soo, what have I been up to since my last blog, which was my Blogoversary?

Well, I went to the Barefoot Festival with some friends. I volunteer there every year; it’s a festival of dance and other goddess-y things,

There’s always a great show on the Saturday night, followed by an amazing fire show

M and I went to Lyme Regis for a holiday in the caravan. The weather wasn’t great; in fact there were alot of days when I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face! But we did some fossil hunting along the Jurassic Coast, finding lots of great fossils

 

We went to the Donkey Sanctuary, Monkey World (also a sanctuary) and lots of other great places.

Term time has been really busy; observations and OFSTED visits have been very much the order of the day…very stressy! Still, I have been able to get some therapeutic crafting done

 

 

 

Trousers have been embellished…

And brooches have been made – these are some reclaimed jumpers, felted and then needle felted and embellished.

This brooch I love, it’s made from scraps of netting with a shisha mirror and some beads…it goes really well with my black velvet swing coat!

I’ve really been getting into Geocaching this year as well. It’s a kind of treasure hunting…you follow the clues to find the cache (usually a box with some swappy things inside, and a log book to sign)

I normally go with the Uberhound…it gives our walks a purpose and I’ve been to some lovely places this year that I knew nothing about before! I usually take my camera and I’ve got some great shots!

 

We also had our annual Christmas Hafla where I ended up dancing three dances!

 

 

So, the last couple of months in a couple of photos!!

I promise not to leave it so long before I blog again…

The Happy Happy Hippy Swap…

Each year I organise the Hippy Swap over on Craftster. It’s become like a tradition; I finish school, I have more time for crafting and sitting for hours staring at a computer screen trawling through crafty sites…you know how it is! The weather has been quite nice here, so I’ve spent alot of time in my garden, digging and planting, and moving stuff around. Look here, this is the first ever water lily to grow in my tiny water garden (big water filled bowl) and it’s soo pretty! It’s a dwarf water lily.

I’ve also done a little bit of crafting for me. This was an old t-shirt that’d been sitting around waiting for me to finish. I’d done a little bit of re-fashioning on it, cutting on the crew neck (which I’m really not find of) and creating a v-neck, trimmed with pink and gold gauzy ribbon. And then I ran out of inspiration….it sat there for quite a while waiting for the right idea. Anyway, after doing a couple of refashioning workshops, I decided that what this t-shirt needed was a bit of appliqué. And so the butterfly t-shirt was born. Or rather, sewn.

 

 

I freehand drew a butterfly outline on some paper, transferred it onto Bondaweb, ironed it to some pretty pink fabric and cut out the butterfly shape. Then I ironed it onto some purple fabric and cut round it so that you could see the purple round the pink. I made a body and some spots out of the purple fabric too and ironed them on.

Then I embroidered round them using a blanket stitch and some pink and gold threads. I also added some gold sequins for a bit of sparkle. Much better!

 

So then I concentrated on my hippy swap package. I can now post photos because my partner’s received the package and I’ve received hers! Because my partner was in the UK, I knitted a nice warm hat for the cold weather which is very practical for this country. This is the Meret by Woolly Wormhead, it’s one of my favourite patterns. I made it a slouchy hat…  

 

with a combination rolled/ribbed edge.

 

I used a lovely warm brown…

I also needle felted and embellished this felt brooch, made from an old fulled jumper. It has green sequins and beads along the edge. I love needle felting, it’s so therapeutic stabbing away!!

 

Since my partner is a beginner belly dancer and wanted a coin belt, I decided to make her one. Her favourite colours were very autumnal, greens and browns and golds. It’s wonderfully jingly!

 

I also used some decorative ribbon and sequin strands for some sparkle.

I made sure that even the ends looked good!

And because you just have to wear flowers in your hair when you’re dancing, I made this lily hair clip. I used a flower from a cheap ‘pound shop’ artificial ‘bouquet’ and coated the edges in glitter glue…

 

Then I glued a spring clip underneath, making sure to hide alot of the clip in the leaves. I like to tuck flowers in my hair by my ear and I find the flowers on clips stay better than on bands.

My partner likes to write notes and lists in a notebook, so I also made her a felt notebook cover which she can take off when the notebook is full and change to another notebook. I covered it using the ‘paper fabric’ technique I learnt at a workshop a couple of months ago, and then embellished it using embroidery threads, flowers and sequins.

 

Hopefully using felt will make it quite durable…

 

I also used Angelina Fibres on it which are such fun to work with!

The notebook is just a cheap and cheerful A5 hardback notebook.

 

I sent along one of the rainbow light bulbs from my shop, because they are just so damned hippy-ish!

And in the spirit of eco-friendly hippy crafts, I upcycled an old Ferrero Rocher plastic box, and decorated it using glass paints.

 

It looks lovely in the sunshine.

I’m kind of an overachiever and I do tend to spoil my swap partners, and well, hippy crafting is such good fun, that I had to make some extras for the package, but I’d agreed with my partner that we’d do extras, so that was fine and dandy. I made a green and brown beaded necklace with a Celtic pendant, since my partner loves all things Celtic, and greens and browns….

 

I had planned to do a bit of hippy-like appliqué, but I just couldn’t find the right image, then I noticed that I had some green fabric left from my belly dance costume that would go really well with this top, and some green organza that complimented it really well, and the top sort of morphed and became a sort of woodland fairy type of top instead.

I made some ruffles by tearing two strips of fabric which were much much longer than the bit that I wanted to embellish. I sewed a running stitch along the middle of each strip and pulled so that it gathered it up. Then I sewed it into place. I did the organza one first, then the satin ruffle, the I sewed a faceted bead every cm or so. The fabrics  should fray and look pretty…. 

 

I also painted an ash catcher green, then decoupaged it with a sunflower and sparkly Modge Podge. I varnished it to make sure it was durable. This didn’t photograph so well, so you’ll have to take my word for it that there’s a sunflower on it!

To see what I received in return, click here. We were both very happy hippies!