Wednesday 31 March 2010

I love buttons! You love buttons! We all love buttons!

Here are some things that have made me happy this week and so I think they are worth sharing.

I have always had a soft spot for gingham and I love the daintiness of daisies. I once designed and made a purple gingham dress and some daisy Fimo earrings specially for a lecture at art college. Oh! How pretentious but I loved every minute of it. So imagine how I jumped for joy when I found these gorgeous mouth watering little beautys at http://www.cardsandcraft.co.uk/ . They are so perfect together and I am eager to start creating.


I've also recently bought these must have flower buttons. Yum! I do feel very fortunate that not far from where I live is a small yet perfectly sized haberdashery. It is stocked with everything a crafter could possibly need including a wall of buttons, yes a wall of buttons!



My girls. They always put a smile on my face- although not when they spend the whole day on their DS'. But today I don't care because it's the Easter holidays and we can just chill. No clock watching for two weeks, no making packed lunches before I've had time to fully open my eyes and no uniforms to iron. I bet my youngest daughter won't even wash her hair! I love it.

Thursday 25 March 2010

Mega mini small challenge update, No.2

Pin cushions....ready!












Colourful brooches almost ready.........













Oh! No! I've succumbed to the Craft Kit.

As usual I've got carried away chomping my way through gorgeous fabrics. The colours, the patterns, the textures, I love it all. I'm a real fabricaholic. There's no time left before my Saturday craft fair to make beautiful, quality brooches/pin cushions. So this is why I've decided to bag up everything I've cut out and prepared, and turn them into mini kits of loveliness.

Not exactly part of my challenge, but if it makes someone happy that's fine by me!

Friday 19 March 2010

Small challenge update!

So far so good....my small item challenge is going sort of ok!

It has just been hampered slightly by me having to make a Victorian outfit for my daughter's Victorian Day at school.
Thankfully Pinnikity came to my rescue. I now think she she is truly amazing because despite poorly children, making 32 aprons and getting organised for a craft fair she found the time to help me out. You can read about her craft fair here by the way http://pinnikity.blogspot.com/

Since starting my challenge I have made 7 pin cushions, 1 Victorian apron, almost made 2 bird brooches and 2 flower brooches. I've found it really satisfying to see an item finished within one day, I usually make bags and they take ages. Oh I know what to do next mini lavender bags....

Tuesday 16 March 2010

Small item challenge

I received a lovely phone call yesterday from a sweet lady who asked me if I would be interested in selling some of our prints and textiles at a craft fair. Well I'm a sucker for doing craft fairs and because I was slightly flattered that our little business had been discussed at a committee meeting I said yes. The only trouble is this craft fair is in two weeks and I don't have any thing new made. I have plenty of ideas that will come into fruition by the end of April, this being the start of my Craft Fair season, but not for the end of March.

So I've decided to set myself a small item challenge. I aim to make one small item a day- this will include pin cushions, needle books and brooches. Here goes........first problem with my challenge is a poorly daughter!


Some things I will need. Fabric! Where do I start I can't resist fabric and I have so much.



Look how organised I'm becoming- I've got patterns, scissors, a tape measure and....



BUTTONS! Look at our fab button box me and Julie bought a few weeks ago. Yummers!



I discovered a pretty shop in Hawes on Sunday and bought these ribbons. Well someone had to and I was obviously meant to get them!


I've started cutting out some brooches, I hope I'll get a little further than this.

Sunday 14 March 2010

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all you lovely mothers.

Here's some "far out" flowers for all of you




Saturday 13 March 2010

Hard day at the office....well sort of!

Hello and welcome to the Once......blog. We are obviously very new to the world of blog (6 attempts-starting to tear my hair out) so please be kind. Hopefully with a bit of practise we'll soon become blogtastic!

Let me introduce us and give you abit of an insite to what we do. It won't always be work, work, work



This is me......

I'm Grace.






and this is Julie. Or as I like to call her- Mrs. Bellas that's because she's a teacher and I think I'm really funny! Sometimes when I think I'm super funny I just call her Mrs. B! Ha! Ha!

We love to take pictures, print pictures, craft and create. Best of all we love being mums!

We also really love our unit at Brougham Hall (near Penrith, Cumbria) even though the building is a ruin and the renovation work is in "working progress". Its ours, where we work, hang out, have belly laughs and where we...

print cards.....

print LARGE pictures

make bags.......



Look at one of our lovely little make-up bags sitting on top of a flowery print. We screamed with excitement at the beautiful colours. Hopefully one day the print will be made into a lampshade. Busy! Busy!

Someones photograph about to be spewed out of our amazing printer and be turned into a poster sized print. WOW!

More soon.....