Some very loved bunnies :-)

Hello everyone, I hope you are all well.  I haven't blogged for a while properly due to several viruses knocking us out here :-(  I had a day off work a couple of weeks back only to wake with a lovely flu/sickness like virus which made me stay in bed for 2 days - I don't think I have ever had to do that in my whole life.  Then Mr Sweetpea got it , all over half term week - great timing :-)  Little Sweetpea has also had to be on antibiotics due to a chest infection which made her feel really unwell for 3 weeks.  The joys of winter :-)

This week I thought I was share you what I created out of all those pieces I had hidden in my sock drawer some time ago :-)

I recently treated myself to Helen Phillips book, Simply Sewn Gifts and just had to make some of these cute little rabbits for the Sweetpea girls.  If you don't know Helen then pop over to her gorgeous blog.  There is also a link to her book below.

I was a bit worried about creating these as I am very new to sewing but then I thought, nothing ventured, nothing gained and gave it a go :-)  I contacted Helen a few times whilst creating these bunnies and she was so lovely and helpful (thanks Helen :-)).

I cut out all the pieces from some Linen trousers that I had worn whilst I was pregnant with Little Sweetpea and sewed them together ..... Each rabbit had different coloured ears so we knew whose was whose :-)

The book said to sew the legs to the side of the body (I may have interpreted it wrong though lol).  This would be great for an ornamental rabbit but I hoped these would be well loved so I took the legs off and sewed them in to the body instead so they were floppy legs :-)   I felt rather bad doing this to poor bunny!

I then created their litttle faces and tried to make them some girly clothes.  Helen's book does have a lovely dungaree pattern but I wanted more girly outfits for them.  This was harder said than done by a novice like myself so I ended up creating a skirt and very unflattering dress :-)  (oohh don't you just love family life, trying to type this blog and middle Sweetpea manages to knock hot chocolate all over the dining table and the laptop - and breath - no wonder writing a blog takes me so long - gggrrrr).

Luckily Nanny Casey is a good knitter so she created them some cute little cardigans, the pattern can be found here  (I found this via the lovely blogger Millefeuilles :-))

So after lots of sneaky sewing whilst the children were finally all in bed the girl Sweetpeas opened these bunnies on Christmas morning.  They are loved very much indeed which makes my heart swell with pride and joy :-)

Little Sweetpea takes hers to bed every night and then Millie/Bunny/Jessica (her name changes every now and again) comes down stairs every morning.

She even gets to go out on trips to places like Music Hayhem (as little Sweetpea calls it, it is really called Music Mayhem - a kiddies music group little Sweetpea goes to).

I am so glad I pushed my insecurities and tried to make these bunnies, they came out way better than I thought they would :-) 

 

Oh before I go I wanted to say a big thank you to the lovely 'The Vintage Hobby House' - pop over to her blog for some great blog reading.  I won a lovely giveaway she was having a few weeks back and she sent me the items below:

Aren't they all lovely, oohh I will be having posh cups of coffee in that cup and will be framing the cross stitch (or even make a cushion from it).  Sorry I have borrowed your photo Manda - I haven't had a chance to photograph the items and didn't want to leave it any longer to say thanks on here :-)

Love to you all and I hope the bugs keep away from you x

Thank you giveaway ........... Part 2 :-) £35 in Smallprint vouchers.

Hi everyone (apologies if you have read part 1 of the giveaway - just thought it would  be easier to copy and paste the info below).

As you will know, if you have read my blog for a while, it has been 2 years since I first stumbled into this little corner of the internet :-)  Along with my bloggy birthday I also wanted to celebrate starting my facebook page which now has lots of lovely 'likers'.  Both of these lovely parts of the internet have helped me get back in touch with my creative side and have encouraged me to keep creating.

As a thank you for all your support I am having a giveaway.  The giveaway is in two parts, one is a local giveaway and the other is open to everyone.   This one is open to people located in the postcode areas of  CB, IP or NR (East Anglia) :-)

(photos courtesy of Smallprint)

For this giveaway I have £35 in Smallprint's vouchers to give away.  If you haven't heard of Smallprints before they offer a service where you can have fingerprints or drawings put into silver to create a wonderful keepsake.  Have a nose at their website here Smallprint.  Lucy is located in the above post code areas and offers this service - she has a facebook page so you can see where she is taking prints or you can go to her home for prints or drawings to be made in to items that can be kept forever :-)

To enter this giveaway all I ask is that you comment on this blog post or e-mail me at scentedsweetpeas@yahoo.co.uk

You can get an extra entry if you share this blog post or share on facebook - please comment here if you have shared via a blog and if you share via facebook I will see it there.   I am not asking you to like anything on facebook to make sure I keep in their rules (which are a little confusing).

The deadline for entries is Friday 2nd March 2012.

Thanks again and good luck
Zoe
x

Thank you give away ....... part 1 :-)

Hi everyone

As you will know, if you have read my blog for a while, it has been 2 years since I first stumbled into this little corner of the internet :-)  Along with my bloggy birthday I also wanted to celebrate starting my facebook page which now has lots of lovely 'likers'.  Both of these lovely parts of the internet have helped me get back in touch with my creative side and have encouraged me to keep creating.

As a thank you for all your support I am having a giveaway.  The giveaway is in two parts, one is a local giveaway and the other is open to everyone.   This one is open to EVERYONE :-)

Now although I love creating little felty creations for children I thought it probably better to have a giveaway that was more adult orientated so everyone could enter.

My first prize has kindly been donated by the wonderful Becky Pearce.  I have bought items from her on several occasions and can vouch for her wonderful items, they are first class.  Her customer service is also second to none.  You can see more of her work on her new web-site Becky Pearce Designs or her facebook page Red Bird Jewellery.

The first giveaway is for these very cute, fine silver heart earings.

She made these especially for those people who love a little stud earring. They measure 5mm across. These are hand made fine silver hearts, with a sterling silver earpost - the post is around 1cm long which makes it secure but doesn't hurt your head!!  Becky has hammered and polished the silver to reflect the light.

Fine silver is 99.9% silver content, as compared to sterling silver, which has 92.5% silver.

To enter this giveaway all I ask is that you comment on this blog post or e-mail me at scentedsweetpeas@yahoo.co.uk

You can get an extra entry if you share this blog post via a blog or share this facebook link on facebook - please comment here if you have shared via a blog and if you share via facebook I will see it there.   I am not asking you to like anything on facebook to make sure I keep with-in their rules (which are a little confusing).

The deadline for entries is Friday 2nd March 2012.

Thanks again and good luck
Zoe
x

Sew crazy :-)

 

Thanks very much for all your get well wishes on my last blog post.  My arm is getting a bit better sometimes and then worse others but I am sure with time it will heal.  I suppose it doesn't help that I can't just sit down and do nothing - if I am watching tv I have to be creating at the same time.

One of my creations this week includes this little lovely which was designed by Lili Popo.  Quite a few of us are taking part in her princess embroidery group.  We all get sent the same design and then add it to flikr to see how we all interpret it.  This is my little princess:

I really enjoyed creating her and the creative paths it took me down in my head :-)  She just had to have some daisies somewhere and some Mary-Jane shoes.

I also created this brooch for me last week.  It took a while cutting out all the felt shapes which then sat there for a while whilst waiting to have time to create it ....

I added beads in the middle to add some sparkle to it :-)

I also had a go at free-style embroidery on the machine recently - oohh what fun it is, I did manage to break one needle though.

I was rather pleased with the result of my first attempt until I looked on the reverse ......

I then thought I might be because I had the hoop the wrong way up for this technique but it didn't make a difference when I tried again.  I tried to tighten the tension but think I may have to play a bit more to get it right.

With my love of sewing at the moment I invested in a thread sorter - it is so much easier finding the exact thread I need for a job now and all the colours look delicious in their little box.

Whilst on a sewing frenzy I also created some new hairclips - I have wanted to create some butterflies for some time but wanted to make them look like they had just landed on the clip.  This is what I came up with.  I was really pleased when I listed them on my facebook page and they went within a few minutes of me putting them on there :-)

  

As my page is getting more busy I ordered myself some Moo Cards - I have seen other peoples cards and just had to have some myself :-)  I ordered quite a few designs - I love the way you can upload so many images to the site to get them printed off.

The only draw back of facebook and blogging is that you find so many tempting things out there.  I am trying very hard to be good as I really want to get rid of my mortgage before I am 40 having had one since I was just 19 but some things just keep on calling me !  Luckily with Christmas I got some money so I bought myself a lovely new Amber necklace from Giraffe Jewellery.  Actually this was Bears Footprints fault as she had one of these and I fell in love with it, luckily she gave me permission to get one too :-)  It came packaged in some lovely giraffe print paper and a cute little box.

I also bought this lovely keyring for my eldest Sweetpea.  He is getting into beekeeping so I asked Pippa to put a little bee on it.  This is his first house key, now he is at secondary school he can let himself in when he gets off the bus - oh how he is growing up :-(  It has been quite hard seeing him go off on the bus in this snowy weather we have been having here.  I have always been the one to look after him and keep him safe and now I have to trust a stranger to drive him to school on a big bus safely - all part of slowly letting him go I suppose.

Talking about snow, we have had lots of the lovely white stuff.

The chickens weren't sure about it at all !  It took them days to come out of their shed.

The children loved it and I am so glad it fell on a Sunday here so they could play in it all day long.  They made a snowman with the traditional carrot nose .........

But then Charlie took a liking to it when my back was turned for 20 seconds :-)

 

We were snowed in so I couldn't get to work either which was lovely (although I love going to work so missed my usual Sunday fun at the same time). 

Better be good and go now I suppose as my arm is aching - little Sweetpea has fallen asleep in it :-)  Thanks for popping by and all your lovely comments x

Keeping cosy but still having fun outside :-)

It is chilly here in the UK at the moment (well not as chilly as over in places like Russia or Canada but chilly for our standards :-)).  This week the temperatures have been going down to -10 degrees in some areas so I have been keeping the woodburner going non-stop and to save a few pennies I have been popping my kettle on top and enjoying waiting for the whistling sound to call me.

Now I don't usually like cold weather but I have been looking forward to some frosty weather so I can have a play with ice :-) 

Some time go I saw an idea for making your own ice art.   As soon as the icy weather was upon us I rummaged through the cupboard for a nice flat based dish and rummaged through the garden for some arty items :-)

I chose some lovely fennel seed heads and holly berries.  I popped them out over-night and waited until morning came to see if my creations had been created for me by Mother Nature.

They look so pretty swinging in the gentle wind - like rubies set in glass.

I love how they look against the sky and with the sparkle they create when the sun reflects off them.  Little Sweetpea has loved this experiment too, she has bought them in and sat then near the fire to see how they melt slowly.  She then popped bits of ice on her hand and is amazed by how it melts because of her body temperature.  She turned to me and told me how it was 'magic'  - she is right :-)   Obviously I told her why it was melting and how but I like the idea of it being magic.  PS if you are doing this with your children please be careful which berries you use, I was very careful to keep an eye on my little one as I didn't want her eating holly berries and being sick.

Another thing making me smile this week is Eldest Sweetpea running past the window with batons of wood.  What was he up to?  When I asked he told me he was making a bee hive.  He is hoping some of Mr Sweetpea's honey bees will see the new home he has made and move house :-)  I went out to the shed and this is what I found.  He has even carved an entrance hole out for them and put wire mesh on - oh how I love his DIY ways - it makes up for his hormonal outbursts :-)

Middle and little Sweetpea have been busy looking after the chickens.  The chickens are still enjoying pottering around the garden, I don't think my hellebore's are enjoying them being out though :-(  We had one chicken jump up at our dining room window yesterday, goodness knows how it got there as it is all locked off.  She was so happy to be re-united with her mates and they were very happy to see her too - you could hear them clucking about her arrival.

I had better be off , I am afraid I am not allowed on the pc as much at the moment due to being diagnosed with tendonitis :-(  I have been told to take ibuprofen 3 times a day and to limit things that exasperate it.  I will keep reading blogs and love reading your comments too but please forgive me if I don't respond or comment as much as usual. 

Take care
Zoe
xxxx