Beautiful Diaries for 2012...

Is it just me, or does everyone get excited at the thought of buying a new diary? All those blank pages to fill! A new year ahead, full of possibilities! And, best of all, you get to use your best handwriting and your special nice pens....

Here's my picks for the new year's best diaries:

Weekly planner from Little Otsu

Illustrated Diary from Minasmoke

 

Undated Diary from O-Check

And my personal favourite (of which I have bought many over the years) - the Master Plan from Milestone Press. A perfect A5 package, week to an opening, with enough space for all the family's activities, and best of all it runs for a year and a half, so you can buy your new diary in September and start using it straight away :)

 

Need more choice? You can't go past a Moleskine, complete with a turquoise leather cover.

Handmade gifts for the family oddballs

 

My sister in law likes tea. Earl Grey, specifically. Not so much your average cup of Bushells. Deb likes to pack a little stash of teabags wherever she goes in case of emergencies (that is, emergencies of the English Breakfast variety). 

So I thought I'd make her a little tea pouch to keep in her bag. 

A bit of grey wool, some velcro, a scrap of bias tape left over from a doily garland and a little bit of stamped twill tape, and I had a cute little pouch that holds about 6 tea bags.

Hey Deb - if you're reading this - surprise!

My mum is also a huge fan of tea, and considering she's off travelling for nearly 6 months of the year, she's also one to pack her own stash of home comforts. When I asked her roughly how many tea bags she'd take on an average trip, she replied 'a couple of handfuls of teabags, a tube of vegemite, and some press-seal plastic bags to put biscuits in. That's all we ever take.' Like that's a perfectly normal assortment of things to pack for a holiday.

So, after getting over my disgust in realising that vegemite comes in a tube, which just seems wrong, I spent half an hour that evening trying to work out how to make a little carry-all wallet for those three essentials. 

It was tricky - three very different shapes and sizes aren't so easy to work into a neat little package.

But I think it turned out quite nicely. I used some sweet co-ordinating travel-themed quilting cotton that I'd bought a while ago with mum in mind.

Some stamped twill labels for the vegemite, twill tape and bikkie bags, and another for the velcro closure tab, and mum's survival kit was finished.

Are you planning to make some handmade gifts this Christmas? (Planning being the key word... actually getting time to do so is another matter!)

Paper love: Japanese Katazome-shi

Katazome-shi means, literally, stencil-dyed papers (also referred to as Wazome). Based on traditional kimono-printing techniques, these beautifully patterned papers were developed in the 20^th century. Producing these special papers is extremely time-consuming and a true art.

Katagami, the Japanese art of making paper stencils, is utilized to cut the pattern from persimmon-dyed kozo (a plant used to make Japanese tissue). The paper is hand cut with a combination of knives and punches and the resulting patterns are often extremely intricate and consequently quite fragile. To stabilize the stencils and prevent them from tearing, a fine silk mesh is attached to the back. The stencil is placed over a sheet of washi (which I always thought was rice paper, but Wikipedia tells me is any traditionally made plant-based paper) and a paste resist is brushed through the stencil to define the pattern.

Wherever the paste sticks to the paper, it will resist, or prevent, any colour that is subsequently applied. Multiple alignments of the stencil are made with different colours of pigment applied at each stage. The pigments are allowed to dry thoroughly and the paste is washed off, allowing the beauty and craftsmanship to be revealed.

This labour-intensive process results in a paper that has timeless appeal, long-lasting vibrant colour and the unmistakable look of a print truly made by hand.

There's a wee bit of Katazome-shi in this little paper pack in the RaineCloud store. Whats your favourite specialty paper? 

Info via The Paper Place. Image credits 1 2 3 (via here), 4

Nanna style: 3 lovely gift ideas for Christmas

 

 

 

Vintage doily garlands - ready to ship in mint stripe, blues and pinks or green and chocolate.

Or, if you get in very soon with an order, I can make you a customised garland in time for Christmas.

 

 

This lovely set of four vintage hand cross-stitched napkins - so neatly worked with love and care. Available here.

 

 

And finally, a little frou-frou flowery inspiration kit with Nanna written all over it - the Peach & Plum vintage paper craft kit is available here.

The Christmas countdown is officially on (51 sleeps to go, to be exact)!

Handmade Christmas Part 1: Shabby Rag Wreath

Confession: I have too many wreaths. About six at last count, yet I only have one front door. However, that's not going to deter me from making yet another one.

I've had some simple bamboo hoops laying around for ages which I intended to turn into more dream hoops but never quite got around to it. So I figured, because I really need another wreath, to turn one into a shabby rag wreath. Here's how to do it:

I found some Christmassy fabrics in my stash (red striped ticking, calico and a pretty fleur-de-lys voile plus some other scraps) and cut them into a big pile of 1 x 6 inch strips (a rotary cutter comes in handy for this). Then, you might want to put something good on telly because tying them all on can be a little  brain-numbing.

I gave my fabric strips a haircut when I was finished because it looked a bit like a shaggy dog with lots of uneven straggly bits. Then I found some glittery gold ribbon and wrapped it loosely round the wreath with a loop at the top.

Now comes the fun bit - I had a MDF star shape in my box of tricks (that was meant to be turned into a door hanger for Holly's room, but that never happened either) so I covered it with lots of PVA glue and strips of old sewing pattern. Once it had dried I layered it with red ink, vintage photo distress stain, black cherry glimmermist, silver glimmermist and gold ink until my hands were so red and sparkly I looked like I'd just murdered an elf.

I found a little iron-on applique to glue to the middle of the star, glued the whole thing together and gave it all a liberal spray of silver glimmermist. Voila!

Now I just need another door to hang it on...

A Very Vintage Tea Party

1. Vintage doily garland from Pork Chop
2. Blue fairy flower tea cups from Sushipot Parts
3. Tin teacup collection from Sushipot Parts
4. Vintage silhouette tea set from Beca Runs
5. Rustic white stool from Tearing Up Houses
6. Felt cherry bakewell tart from British Cream Tea

Upcycled bag: Boring to awesome in 5 easy steps

A few weeks back, one of my work colleagues gave me a stack of advertising leaflets he'd picked up at a recent firefighting industry expo. This little mound of assorted paperwork was handed to me by Nick inside a simple black shoulder bag, with the expo logo emblazoned on the front. It had little pen pockets and nice long straps and was made of sturdy cotton drill... and it was big enough to fit all my usual necessities plus nappies plus a million kid-sized snacks... the perfect bag! But how to make it less ugly?

1. My initial thoughts were to sew a few crocheted doilies over the logo - but then again, sticking a doily on it is my solution to a lot of things. A large hot pink lace doily, a small green one and a cross stitched napkin fitted over the logo perfectly. But it was a bit too frou-frou frilly, and I was intending to use it for work, so I kept looking for something a bit more modern, but still pretty.

1. At the bottom of my fabric box, I found this little Apple & Bee cotton drawstring bag which was a freebie giveaway with a magazine years ago. It fitted perfectly over the screenprinted fire logo, so I sewed it on with contrasting red thread. Then I realised I needed to add velcro to the inside, as the pocket gaped open and wasn't very practical.

3. The back had great pockets but was pretty dull, so I added a little ribbon pull tab and some velcro to the main pocket.

4. So I had a front pocket for my Moleskine and my diary, a back pocket for my keys, but where do I put my phone? A bit of salvaged navy cotton drill from my hubby's old work pants made a neat little inner pocket. I also put a strip of velcro along the top of the bag itself, in between the handles for extra security.

5. A bit of dangly stuff on the front pocket - a jump ring from my scrapbooking stash, an old skeleton key and some pretty blue cotton ribbon - and I've got a great little bag that suits my work gear during the week and comfortably holds all the kiddy junk on weekends!

What kind of things have you turned from drab to fab?

Sneak peek...

Look what I've been making... lots and LOTS of lotus flowers!

I love making these, folding paper repetitively is very therapeutic. Plus, they are my own little design, discovered whilst fiddling with paper shapes in front of the telly one evening!

Many different packs to be listed in the RaineCloud store soon.

Enjoy the remaining hours of your long weekend!

A fresh start!

As you will note from the date of my last post, my blog has been somwhat neglected of late. In fact, the last time I posted was on my 30th birthday, so this could be some kind of age-related re-evaluation crisis / rethink of priorities, or maybe I just need a broader canvas for everything that wants to tumble out of my brain.

Anyway - onward and upward! This fresh new look is a mash up of my personal craft and scrapbooking projects, as well as representing my two online stores, RaineCloud (for vintage papercrafty goodness) and Porkchop (for baby gear, funky gifts, and doily garlands).

Love to hear your comments as always!

Love Lace Exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum

Sydney's Powerhouse Museum is holding an amazing exhibition of ultra modern and traditional lace techniques as interpreted by artists from around the world, as part of it's international lace award.

Love Lace features works ranging from bold large-scale installations and sculptures to intricate textiles and jewellery. Materials include gold and silver wire, linen and silk as well as mulberry paper, tapa cloth, horse hair, titanium and optical fibre.

You've got plenty of time to see it - the exhibit opens 30th July 2011 and runs right through to April next year. See all the finalists and get more details here.