Recycling/upcycling and 1000 blog views - yey!

Woohoo! I just logged on to blog today and discovered I have just over 1000 views of my blog. Yey! I know that some of these will be my own views but hey - still good and they def aren't all me.

Today I have had a lovely day of making cards - I know that I always really enjoy it when I get into it but often struggle with ideas so today was all about recycling/upcycling. As you all know I have just had my birthday but the time has been and gone to have my cards up so I thought this was the perfect opportunity to recycle these and use them for ideas. I hope no-body that gave them to me minds that I have re-used a lot of the pictures.

I have made 5 cards in total today - I love how quickly they come together when the images are there and ready to be used. I don't think they turned out too badly either and my aim was to not make them look too recycled.

I have photos of 4 of the cards that I made although I have saved the fifth from photography as I made this one for my husband's birthday. I have to say that I think this is the earliest I have ever made a card for anyone's Birthday and I may end up changing my mind about giving it to him if I find someone else would like it before then (his Birthday is New Years Eve).

Here goes:
The first one isn't too different from the original card just to ease me into using my imagination. I did add a few more flowers to this one though. I think this will be a thank you card to send to an old friend who sends me money every year for my Birthday and Christmas.

 I love making these really big cards - I think it's 8" x 8" (A3 in half and then squared off) - the only minor problem I do have with this is that I'm struggling to find envelopes for this size card. I think I might have to investigate on the internet to see where I can find some fairly cheaply.

 I discovered some purple ink for this one to stamp the words with. I love experimenting with new and different things - I have quite a bit of different crafty things in my crafty room and need to try to make myself use them more. As I said before, it is just ideas that I seem to be lacking.

 Pretty. All of these cards were lovely the first time around as well but I love how simply you can change them into something new and different. I have realised that I really should have taken some "before" photos so that you could see how I have changed these but that's all part of the magic of recycling. Hopefully the new item is suitably different and good that you forget just what the old item was like anyway.

 Here's a photo of all 4 of the cards that I can show you from today's crafting.

I think now is time for me to escape to my little comfy den to continue knitting my bolero that I got the yarn and pattern for for my birthday. I have finished the back already and have started on one of the front panels. I might continue with the cushion cover as well...decisions, decisions. Time to make a cup of tea and see what I feel like after that - fair isle or not fair isle...? See you soon.

Walk around our local lake

Well, who would have thought that there could have been such wonders to be found on the outskirts of a big city. As the weather was so lovely again this morning and as the beginnings of our new health kick (probably won't last too long but it's always worth saying you're starting one then I think there's more chance I will stick to it for at least a few days!) we went on a lovely walk this morning.

We went and parked up only about 5 minutes drive from home and then had a wander along the canal and down to the lake. I have no idea how far we ended up walking but my pedometer says I have done 8980 steps so far today so I guess that has to be quite a long way right...? We were out for about 2 hours in total with a short stop for a cup of tea at one point. It just didn't feel like any exercise at all (which I find is the only kind of exercise that I can do) as it was just so pretty and such a nice day.

Here's a few photo's for you:

 I think either of these (above or below) could almost be a postcard - I like the runner in the one above! Far too energetic for me - walking was plenty!

 The ducks seemed to be enjoying the sunshine too

 Perfect weather for fishing...

 Or for all of the dogs we saw to be running in the lake - much to our amusement but the annoyance of the fishermen and the dog owners I think!

 I like all of the reflection here - so peaceful

 And then we found a little lake hidden away - it seemed to be only us who had found this one - the perfect place for a picnic - I would love to go for one next weekend if the weather is this nice again. This will hopefully be a place to be regularly visited this summer - with a pack-up, flask of tea and a blanket - what could be better? I might even take a book, or of course some knitting/crochet.

 The water in this little pool was a lot clearer than the main lake - I love seeing all of the plants on the bottom. This was taken at the very edge but the water can't have been very deep here, even in the middle, I don't imagine

Swan's always look so impressive, if a little scary!

And finally there were loads of planes flying around, little ones just doing loops and enjoying the freedom, scenery and nice weather.

I thoroughly enjoyed myself - sorry for the loads of photo's but I hope you enjoyed them too. It's always worth taking a look around, are there any pretty little secluded areas around you, where you might be able to go and get away from it all? I love that once you walk away from the main road and around to the lake there was no noise, no cars, and all you could hear were the sounds of birds in the trees and planes in the sky.

Henlow's First Outing of the Spring/Summer

What a lovely day it's been and still continues to be here although my garden no longer has the sun shining on it at this time of year. I have to wait until summer and for the really high sun for my garden to stay bright long into the evening.

This was the first opportunity we've had this year when it's been warm and sunny enough to let the little man have a wander around outside.

He seemed to absolutely love the fresh air, fresh grass (complete with plenty of dandelions) and sunshine.

It's so nice to see some flowers around now even if the best thing we have in our garden seems to be daisies.

Henlow does seem to like climbing as we have been told that many tortoises do - I'm not sure if this is exactly what the log was intended for but he seemed to love it...

...until it came to getting down

We left him to try for a little while but he couldn't figure this one out so eventually we took pity on him and rescued the King from the top of his castle!

He does seem to really enjoy being outside in his little outdoor run - let's hope there are many more days like this for the rest of the summer.

Baldrick even came out to join us today and also seemed to enjoy the sun - our little budgie loved chattering away to the other birds outside - usually he cheeps and squarks from inside the house. You can just make out the bottom of his cage on top of Henlow's run.

Lovely Birthday week off work last week including some fabulous crafty gifts

This week has been a long one back at work but last week was absolutely lovely. It was my Birthday last Tuesday so I took the week off work. I decided to myself that I was just going to forget about everything and concentrate on enjoying the week.

The weekend before my Birthday we went to my parents house and had a lovely time. On the day we went to Cadbury World - which I have to say is absolutely brilliant! A bargain for only about £20 for the two of us - including a cup of molten chocolate with your choice of filling  - I chose marshmallows and my husband had white chocolate buttons. Amazing but every so sickly!

The rest of the week was fairly chilled - had a nice evening with my friends on the Wednesday, went shopping with my Mum for birthday clothes on the Friday and saw some other friends in the evening. Absolutely amazing to have that much time - I have no idea really how we normally fit in work as well! This week has been a struggle and I have felt that I have had no time for anything else.

Anyway, enough of that - here's my lovely crafty gifts that I received - possibly the most thought presents that I have ever received!

This is a project bag I got. A blank canvas with some embroidery thread and brightly coloured buttons. I love this and cannot wait to start designing my bag. I think I might have to have a look for a few tutorials before I start as this makes me slightly nervous. I'm not too sure how is best to do this.

I also received this amazing selection of knitting goodies. My parcel included a pattern for the lovely boleros, the correctly sized knitting needles for the pattern and also the relevant yarn to make one of these as well. White is always a good colour too as it goes with everything and can be dressed up or down depending on the occasion.

The above picture includes the little gauge swatch that I did before starting as I was nervous that my knitting would be too tight for the pattern as it was for the sweater that I made around Christmas time. This turned out to be perfect for the pattern - only a little persuasion from me required to remember to not be quite as tense with the yarn and this seems to be ok for the pattern.

I have really enjoyed working on this as again it is a relatively simple pattern but grows quite quickly as it is only a small item. I have already got just passed the arm pits on this back piece.

What a lovely week - I am sad that it is over and that I had to go back to work this week. I haven't had hardly any time to work on anything this week. A few rows on my blanket and that's about it.

My notebook cover craft swap

I have now received an email from my swap buddy, Liz that she has received the goodies that I sent to her for my most recent swap - the notebook cover. She said that she really liked it which is always good. Here's a few photos:

I was very relieved when I saw my notebook that there was a little butterfly on there as well as a couple on the card that I received with it - I hoped this meant that Liz likes butterflies - I think I was right judging by the email that I received to say that she had received her parcel so that's brill.

I stamped the butterflies using a clear sticky pad (not too sure what it's called and them dusted them with mica pigment powder and set with hairspray (the cheaper the spray the better apparently). Stuck down with a little double sided sticky tape and the tops of the wings curled up to give the 3D effect shown here. For the antenna (as the once on the stamp are far too small to cut out) I curled a single strand of gold picture wire and stuck this to the back as I place them on the cover of the book.

I wanted to make my notebook as reusable as possible so the lined pages are just from a standard A5 notebook with the cover removed. I also added a little pen/pencil holder to the spine of the cover and a little wallet on the inside to hold any loose papers - I wanted the cover to be as user-friendly as possible. Finally, I also made a little bookmark to send with the notebook - another butterfly - I love this - I found the pattern on Ravelry. I think I might have to make a few more of these and experiment with different colours and yarns to make them from. I made the wings of this one with all yellow acrylic and the centre and long tail for the bookmark part in two colours of acrylic as well - I crocheted the two colours together. I would have liked to have added a bead to the bottom instead of just finishing this with a knot but I didn't have one with a big enough hole in the centre for the 6 strands of yarn that I had at the end.

This was all wrapped in tissue paper and packaged to be send. Not forgetting to add a little Happy Henlow Crafts logo in there as well!

A photo book, a full rainbow and new chairs

I should really have blogged about this a few weeks ago but was in such a rush to finish it (and so excited during the making) that I completely forgot to take any photos. We made a photo book recently of our trip to Yorkshire. This included our favourite photos from our holiday which we combined into a book for my Mum and Dad who took us away.

Adam had the idea for the front cover which I think is absolutely amazing! Use a map - this does now mean that the central page of our map-book (the page showing the part of Yorkshire that we went to) is now missing so we will be fine with searching for directions except if we are going to anywhere that should be on this page! It was the perfect cover for the book though - I had though about something with snowflakes, of luggage to represent going on holiday - all kinds of ideas went through my head but this has to be by far the best one. Here's a few photos of the cover pages and a sample few from inside as well.

I love this so much I now want to make one for myself and have even been given Mum and Dad's old map book so we can do the same with the centre page. It would be so much easier if we were going to different places for our next holidays so we don't need to keep using the same pages of a map - I think I might have to see if I can find any old map books in any charity or pound shops!

I have also this past week become really obsessed with my blanket - I absolutely love the way that it is turning out and can't wait to have it done so I have now completed a full rainbow pattern.

I think I will need 3 more repeats of this same pattern for it to cover the length of our sofa so a little bit still to go - I want to keep working on it while I have the excitement for it as this could become a very big and annoying project if I fall out of love with it. Here's a photo of it draped over our new chairs!

Which brings me on very nicely to my next bit of news - we got new chairs for my crafty room/our study! I love them - they brighten the place up lovely and it is so nice to finally have two comfortable places to sit in here (ok so this is excluding my little nest area that I am creating and can only ever be semi-comfortable as they are still office chairs at the end of the day.

Mine's the green one!

Henlow couldn't resist making an appearance in this photo - don't worry he's not grown that much - we have an "oh my god! A Strawberry!" photo as our background on the computer at the mo!

The long awaited ripple blanket story

Ok so here goes... the story begins around Christmas time. Not too long after to be honest when Eleanor had a sale on at Knit Nottingham. There were humongous reductions on a fair few things - one of which was the DK acrylic which she was selling at a ludicrous £1 per ball.

I have been reading the amazing blog called Attic 24 for ages now and this is one of my favourite pass-times during little breaks at work and in an evening. I love all of the things that Lucy makes and am always amazed by the wonderful colours - I think we all need a little brightening up in our lives.

We have the rainbow crockery and the placemats to match from our friends Mum which always make me smile when I use them. Anyway we have gone off on a little tangent here but it is all related I promise. This is getting to the idea that I had of making myself a blanket for my little crafty room so that I could snuggle down with it when I was in here creating. I suggested this and even phoned Eleanor to buy the wool in an array of bright colours when the sale was on.

Then I got home to my husband...who I thought would have gone mad when I said I had spent nearly £30 on wool and bought nearly 30 balls to make a blanket but he was really pleased and was upset when I said that I was making the blanket for myself in my little room. This lead to the conversation about where the blanket would go and he said that I should make this for our living room. Long story slightly shorter - I sent pictures of our mugs and plates to Eleanor and she kept up with this fantastic array of colours to match - with the beige thrown in to just make the blanket slightly less bright in our brown and cream living room.

Here they are! (finally - sorry!)

The colours have looked lovely for a while sat in a basket in the corner or our room.

Here's the teapot and mug combo that I got and that the blanket is slightly based on. I started off making a little sample of the ripple pattern that I wanted to use. I found the pattern on the blog (which I can't find again now without looking through the whole blog - sorry!)

I have drawn out the colour pattern and how I wanted the colours to appear. Including my sums to figure out how wide the blanket will come out once the pattern has formed.

Then begins the humongous chain...227 chains in all - that took a lot of concentrating to count that high without missing the odd one or two. I think in the end when I worked back along the row I might have been 1 too short but I did manage to add this into the pattern to make it look ok anyway.

Then the progress stopped - sweaters came into play with deadlines for that to be finished - other things interfered - all of the other little projects that I have blogged about since January, mini blankets (I think this might have been what got me back into the mood to crochet and to pick this up again), courses, holidays to Yorkshire. Now finally I have had time to work on this the pattern is starting to take shape.