Project 8: Japanese Sanbo box, October 19th

After a mental day involving Ikea and a lot of screaming from Cem, today's make has to be a quick one.

It is a Japanese Sanbo box, used as an offering tray. It's a simple design but looks lovely.

Project 14 & 15: Greetings Cards, October 25th and 26th

Greetings cards with a Parisien Chic flavour.

Project 13: Gift box, October 24th

A beautiful little gift box with a gift label inside made from some cut off paper.

Just need a small gift for someone now!

Project 12: Peg Doll Fairy, October 23rd

'Retro doll' might be the sales speak for this little lady!

Project 11: Folded journal, October 22nd

Today I made a mini journal with folded card and decorated each page with patterned paper. (I admit I did try a harder book design first but got in such a folded mess I gave up!)

Project 10, Cem's bag, October 21st

This is Cem's bag for when he starts nursery in the Ladybird class!

Project 9: Flower of Toys, October 20th

I have sewn, folded, moulded and glued so today I had a go at an 'srt attack' style sculpture and created this giant flower out of Cem's toys.

The time limit for making it was the time it took for Cem to get fed up in his bo

Project 7: Clara the Bird, October 17th & 18th

It shouldn't have taken me 2 nights to make this bird but have had busy evenings so have been working on her very late at night for 2 nights.
She came out smaller than I expected but I managed to use 4 of the beads I made to add detail to the wings. Just 1 bead left to use.... hmmm what to make???

Project 6: Key ring, October 16th

Today's make is a C shaped key ring to go on my son Cem's bag when he starts nursery in January. He is going to be in the Ladybird class. Cute!

Project 4: Bracelet revisited, October 15th

The beads worked! I lost 2 in the removal from cocktail stick process, by which I mean they wouldn't budge but I had plenty left. Am surprised by how pretty they look, you would not think they had been cut from old magazines.

Here is the final bracelet & am pretty pleased with it!

Project 5: A Garden Sign, 14th October

Today's make was an unplanned one but I enjoyed it. We live on a large estate which has a great communal garden area with allotment spaces for whoever is green fingered and wants to grow things. There is also a BBQ and an intriguing round shed with some tanks, books, various gardeny things which I don't understand and today there was a little TV with David Attenborough playing on a loop!

In the garden today was a family fun day, a man came with some sort of portable oven thing and he would give you some dough to roll out, you could add your own toppings and he would cook it in the oven for you. Tasty!

Over by the benches people were asked to paint some signs on pieces of wood to go in the garden to mark the areas. My chosen topic - the humble courgette patch...

Colourful, if a little one dimensional!

 

 

Project 4: Upcycled bracelet - stage one, 13th October

This is my upcycled paper bracelet in the making. Each bead is made of a triangle cut from a magazine and rolled around the cocktail stick. I didn't plan to post pictures of projects in production but I have with this one for 2 reasons.

1) To promote the use of bread rolls in bracelet making. It was genius! Not only did it keep the beads off the table but each bead had to be coated 3 times in clear nail varnish and so each time I could move the cocktail stick a little and keep a track of how many times it had been painted by how many holes were in the bread roll. Boooom!

2) I also decided to post this one because I'm not convinced I'll be able to get the beads off the cocktail sticks tomorrow when they're dry! If the bracelet doesn't work out - I'll change the title of this make to something along the lines of  'A hedgehog made from a bread roll and cocktail sticks'...

Wish me luck for tomorrow. x

Prologue (Probably should have been right at the beginning!)

I am less than a week into this challenge and I have already come across a problem. I live in a 2 bedroom flat which houses 2 grown adults and a baby - where am I supposed to keep all the things I am making?
I can't keep them all in the flat so this is another good reason to take pictures of the projects. I am hoping my skills will improve through the year so the photos should also help show me if this is happening - hope so!
These projects added today are things I have made in the last couple of months but before the 365 challenge began. I still want to remember that I made them so will add them in today. (Haven't done todays project yet - still deciding what to do so will add it later.)



My first quilt - made by hand.

A bag for Cem's books and stories









A feltie - keyring size



My first doll - an unplanned
make and only had grey felt
which is why she looks weird!






Flower

A mini quilt - my first project with a
sewing machine!

A new challenge - what to do with it all!?



 

Project 3: Wooden Bunting, October 11th and 12th

This project involved painting the hearts and arranging them on some embroidery thread to create some festive bunting. What did I learn from this? Don't put wooden hearts covered in acrylic paint on to a magazine page to dry - trying to paint over the magazine print is not easy.



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy ARTernoon!

Project 2: Window, October 10th

As well as finishing Darcey, today I made a screen from patterned paper for my kitchen window. On the shelf behind that screen is where we keep recipe books and from the outside it looks awful so I made this to hide the mess! Hope it looks prettier than the back of all the books.

 

Project 1: Darcey, October 8th, 9th, 10th

My opening project is Darcey. She is the second doll I have ever made and she came out ok, Bless'er - she's not perfect, but then who is? I had some trouble sewing around her final arm with the machine so if you look closely the stitching is rubbish and her arms are at completely different angles but I think this makes her look a bit ballerina-like. This is why I called her Darcey since Darcey Bussell is the only ballerina I know.




















Make A Day challenge - onward and upward.

Introducing The Challenge

The idea for this challenge came from an impressive blog I read by an Australian girl called Bronwyn Bowerman. Her blog, 365 days of craft, charts her creative journey as she makes a crafty item every day for the year. I am not an artist. My art teacher at school suggested I don't take it up as a GCSE and she was completely right to say that. I can't draw or paint well but I do like sticking things together and am learning how to sew so I can stitch them together when the glue doesn't work.

Because of my beginner status in this arty world, I am allowing myself the luxury of including working towards something as a make for the day. How Bronwyn Bowerman managed to start and complete so many projects in a day is beyond me.

Let the journey begin...