Craft - Frozen Cape for Madam

What did you do with your Saturday night? I ended up spending hours making an Anna/Elsa cape inspired by Frozen for madam. She, like many many other little girls around the world is totally in love with the newest Disney film.

She asked me, originally, to make a cape like Queen Elsa's coronation one, but that one is really too hard for me to recreate easily. Princess Anna also has a purple cape on for the majority of the film and this has a pom pom trim. I decided to make a combination of both of them. It is full length on her and flows really well.

checking the length!

I found this simple tutorial on Pinterest and used that to make the cape. Obviously I scaled it down to make a child sized version and also made the hood a snugger fit as I didn't want it to be sinister! 

I chose to make the hood and cape ties in a different colour and fabric to the main cloak, just to make my life more complicated! It all went well until I came to attaching the hood to the cape and then I managed to break my sewing machine needle. :(

After a frantic hunt through the house I managed to find the spare needle I knew I'd seen somewhere. *Mental note: buy more machine needles!* After finishing attaching the hood I only had to add on the pom pom trim and the neck ties. Simples. Yeah, except the trim wouldn't go through the machine!

Pom poms pinned in position.

Hand sewing trim down the full length of both open edges takes ages! And I had promised it would be ready for the morning. Argh! I just used a simple back stitch and got cracking. That's a lot of pom poms.

But I am so glad I did it. It really finishes off the cape perfectly and it makes it look less like the quick sew it really was! (She has ordered a red one and a black one as well. You know, to be Red Riding Hood and Darth Vader. Obvs.)

Finished! Just waiting to be snuck into madam's room for a morning surprise...

Madam has not taken it off since waking up to find it hanging on the wardrobe door in her room. Well, except when I insisted during painting at Sunday Club earlier!

She wore it over her coat whilst walking to church and back and she wore it to the restaurant for my parents Ruby Wedding lunch. She even wore it whilst we watched Frozen after getting home from the restaurant again.

a demure, queenly pose

yeah, that's more like madam!

I'm glad all my effort was at least appreciated and the number of people who've commented on it has been quite satisfying too! But, no, I'm not making any more that quickly. At least not with pom poms!

She asked me to take a video of her dancing on her bed in it this morning, so here it is for your amusement...

What did you do with your Saturday evening? I think my next one will be *much* quieter!

Love, Pearl.

Books - A Full Set of Happiness

So, you remember how I said I got some new books the other day and I said how I had my eye on two more that would complete the set? Well, my friend Tabatha tweeted me the other morning to tell me she'd ordered the books I was after from The Works. Then she sent me this:

@p_gen_says Ordered them from The Works website. Knit was £4.99 and crochet was £5.99 but then got 20% off with code SPRING20 xx

— Louise Z (@tabatha_tweedie) March 14, 2014

I mean! How could I resist, so I didn't! And they arrived yesterday (prompt service, The Works, well done!). And I unwrapped them in all their polka dotted loveliness and, obviously, took a photo! (Bloggers are weird creatures).

Knit and Crochet Step by Step

I then spent a happy afternoon reading them and learning an awful lot more than I thought I would! Who knew there were *quite* so many cast-on techniques for knitting! And I discovered that the stitch pattern I used for my hat and scarf set is called Tiara stitch! 

The books are just as good as I was hoping and there are a few projects in each that I want to have a go at. And then I put them all on my bookshelf with my other craft books :) I am such a dweeb I rearranged them a couple of times to get the colours the way I wanted them! 

Pretty books all in a row!

The only downside to all of this (other than my bank balance) was actually The Works website! I have to say that although I put one book in my basket with no difficulties the second increased in price when added. I had to take it out and put it in a couple of times. And do a different search to get the price it was actually displayed at! (No, I did not feel like paying £5 more than the advertised price!)

And when I checked out I couldn't use the reward card that I had just carefully registered! It wasn't even an option. Why give them out in store, make you register them online and then not let you collect points online! Stupid. 

Don't get me wrong, my addiction to The Works is still in place and I will definitely be shopping online with them again. Just, could someone clear up the glitches on the site, please!

Have you got any new books recently?

Love, Pearl.

Craft - More Of My Drawings

We're at the next point in my #BLCreativePrompts journey and I thought I'd share this weeks bad drawings with you. As I've said before I'm really enjoying taking part in this challenge, I'm just very aware of how much less talented I am than some of the other participants! 

But I should stop being so negative. They might not be stunning works of art, but I have enjoyed creating them and they give me pleasure so I am proud of them (which is why I'm sharing them with you!)

This week I have drawn:

6: something on my wishlist, 7: a favourite lyric, 8: your favourite creature, 9: hair, 10: a first, 11: the weather, 12: book.

I put it into a handy little collage so I don't bore you with loads of pictures! I drew:

6: an arbour for my garden, 7: "Not all those who wander are lost.", 8: a cat, 9: a mermaid, 10: Mother, 11: rain (there are rainbow coloured raindrops, but you can't really see them in the photo...), 11: green rabbits from Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood.

Today is a hot air balloon. I'm quite looking forward to making it as Montgolfier as I can :) 

I've spent quite a bit of time browsing dressmaking patterns for my Sew Dolly Clackett attempt and think I have found one I really like. It's a Simplicity Amazing Fit dress and it has both short and long versions. And it has pockets! Not enough pretty women's clothes have pockets... 

The pattern is Simplicity 1800 and I hope to make it in a blue based print. This should surprise no-one as most of my clothes are blue or purple! I should try going right out of my comfort zone and making it something really bright and beautiful. But I don't think I dare! 

What do you think? Recommend me some nice print fabrics people, please! 

Love, Pearl.

Craft - It's All Just Sew Dolly Clackett

My plans for doing different types of posts on different days was obviously foolish! My inability to plan what will bubble to the surface should have been more obvious to me from long experience... So, today I am back on the craft/creative bent again. I have got another Pearl's Pantry post in mind and shall be putting that up as soon as I remember to buy the ingredients and do the tutorial!

Today, I mainly wanted to tell you about a couple of books I bought at the weekend whilst buying yet another (bigger) pair of school shoes for madam. She's on her 3rd size since September, when will her feet slow down? 13.5 is nearly as big as quite a few of my friends and their teeny feet!

Anyway, books... I have a bit of a thing for DK books as they are genuinely some of the best reference books I've come across and are always well laid out and easy to read. I've been lusting after some of their Step by Step series for ages and have been putting off buying because, well, I'm skint.  

The ones I'm interested in are the Knit, Crochet, Sew and Stitch books. And it's those last two I managed to get. They were on sale at The Works for £2.99 each so I snapped them up despite my mum rolling her eyes next to me and complaining I didn't need any more books and where was I going to put them? 

One day I will post pictures of all the book piles/bookshelves stuffed full that my mum owns and let you work out why I found that statement hypocritical. 

But as you can tell I paid no heed and merely joined the queue and happily paid out for my new prized possessions. I sat and read through both of them on Saturday evening - my rock and roll lifestyle showing there... For those who have never read or heard of these books, Sew is about dressmaking and mending and Stitch is about embroidery and decorative stitching. 

There is another, bigger, version of the Sew Step-by-Step which is called Dressmaking Step-by-Step and includes some projects to have a go at, but it's way out of my budget, sadly. Even in The Works! 

I am particularly interested in learning as much as I can about dressmaking because I still feel very nervous about taking the plunge on my own to make an actual garment. I really want to take part in the Sew Dolly Clackett challenge and have to just give it a go and get on with it... But, but, but... ugh. I know Roisin herself would be telling me to just have a go and do the best I can.. It's about the taking part, after all!

The idea is to make a Dolly Clackett inspired dress, like these, modelled by the lovely Dolly Clackett (Roisin) herself...

Blanche dress - Christine Haynes Emery dress

Madarch dress - By  Hand London Elisalex bodice, Simplicity 2444 skirt.

I used two examples as I couldn't pick just one! And I adore that mushroom print! And if you click on the photo it'll link to the post about the dress (I'm starting to get technical with this blogging malarky...) 

So, I have to find a (simple) dress pattern that will actually fit my plus-sized and gorgeous self and then some impressively wonderful printed fabric to use. The print is the defining thing about Roisin and her dresses. And quite frankly being big and beautiful lends itself to some funky prints. Ditsy prints look stupid on me... 

Um, yeah, so this post started out about books and ended up about sewing love, wasn't sure how to categorize that, went with craft! (Is there a category that I could invent for mindless rambling from one topic to the next?). Anyway, that's enough from me. I'll update you on my #BLCreativePrompts next post...

Love, Pearl.

My creative progress

I have decided to attempt to be more organised in my blogging and perhaps get the hang of scheduling my posts so that they always appear at the same time so people know what to expect (I give this a week before I have forgotten or something has gone wrong!)

Anyhow, I might try doing one crafting and one cooking post every week. Particular emphases on the word “try”. I have every hope that this will be easy enough to achieve but I might have to shufty things around a bit when I forget change what I planned!

Back to today, I found out yesterday (Tuesday) that I have been given the job as a voluntary Teaching Assistant at the school I interviewed at the other week. I was quite confident that they would give me the job but hadn’t heard back in just over a fortnight and was beginning to be disheartened; the news arrived just in time to stop me throwing myself at an ice cream tub in consolation.

I just have to wait for all the security checks to be gone through now and then I will officially get to have a (voluntary) job! I really have missed the good sides of being in work that a protracted period out of it highlights. The ability to have conversations with other human beings is quite high up there.

Those who know me are aware that I do spend quite a lot of time on Twitter, but barring a few people, most of the lovely folks I chat to I have never actually met. This is sad. I’d love to be able to organise a tweet-up with all the people I like the best in one room at the same time. But then I guess I wouldn’t get chance to speak to everyone and I would probably be intimidated by the crowd! Ah, I am an enigma for sure…

As I mentioned in my last post I have decided to take part in the March creative prompts from being little’s blog. I had to draw somewhere I wanted to visit for day 3 and my ultimate stack of pancakes for day 4. Although, I have to confess to cheating, again. I took a photo of the stack I concocted at lunchtime instead of drawing it as I thought it would be the best way!

Today, day 5, is myself. This was a hard one for me as it meant taking a good look at myself in the mirror and trying to get that across on the paper. I think I habe made myself look a lot older than I really do and I *cannot* get my nose right. But I'm satisfied that, given how out of practice I am, it's a good representation of the brief.

In the next week highlights from the creative prompts are going to be a favourite lyric –typography- and a first. I’m sure that my attempts will be as rewarding to me as my others have been so far. I’m quite obviously bottom of the class when it comes to the drawing talents, but I’m loving having that chance to do a hobby I used to dedicate an awful lot of time to, again.

I am also plodding on with my crochet project and will show you the final product asap.

So, what creative things have you been getting up to? Let me know in the comments.

Being Creative

I can't believe it's March already... It seems to have flown by. I guess that's what I get for being actually quite busy... I was rather enjoying the start of spring yesterday, the nicer weather and the flowers suddenly appearing all over was quite a nice change from the dismal grey of the last few weeks.

Yesterday I also came across a new blog that I rather enjoyed reading. It's called being little. and has lots of loveliness on it. I did spend quite a while reading recent posts... But it was actually yesterday's post that really struck me. 

On it was a list of Creative Prompts for March. The idea is to draw something every day that fits the prompt. Now, I do love a doodle, and the typography ones are right up my street, but I think I shall have to use my own creative urges to fulfill some of the briefs! For example, Day 1 was pattern. I would normally have drawn something, but my latest crochet project took up all my time yesterday and is a pattern, so I used that!

I have no idea why the bottom of this photo has disappeared :( And the colours are *much* brighter IRL

I am trying to make sure I put all my projects on to Ravelry, with photos, so if you want to know what I'm doing on there why don't you follow me and check out my other projects :)

Today I had to draw the contents of my bag, so I did a rather poor sketch of everything I carry around with me all the time... I confess I forgot to draw the eyeliner and mascara I have in the little pocket, but I'm hoping no-one will hold that against me! I also took a photo of everything together to prove I had got everything.

I am a walking advert for the loveliness of paperchase things! Also, if you look carefully at the clouds notebook you can see a madam artwork peeking through the clear  parts of the cover :)

So, I am going to keep going and see if I can do everything on the list there is a Twitter/Instagram hashtag to follow if you're interested to see how everyone is getting on... #BLCreativePrompts there are already some pretty amazing things going on out there and I am excited to be part of it.

Are you guys doing anything exciting at the moment? Let me know...

    

Reading Challenge - February Update

This month I have read a lot less than I did in January, but I have still managed to squeeze in a reasonable amount of books. Mostly, I have been crocheting this month and wrote about that in my last post and I have multiple other crochet projects on the go as well.

I started a cushion cover last night, after having crocheted a large granny to make the basis of the blanket the Guides are doing as part of their latest challenge. The large granny I designed to look like our company necker, which did make it a rather boring/tedious make as it's pretty much all burgundy...

It's already got a couple of friends, but eventually will be part of a cushion cover. Really love the colours together!

Anyway, back to the books. This month's book from The List was The Shipping News by Annie Proulx.

Now, this is a bit of a slow burn of a book. I ended up really quite enjoying it, but it does have one of those annoyingly long preambles before the good stuff starts happening. The main character is a bit of a wimp of a guy as well. One of those anti-hero types. The action takes place in a remote part of Newfoundland and mainly centres around a tiny community newspaper being run on local issues. 

The shipping news is the section of the paper our hero writes and it leads him to many different stories about the local fishing heritage, the boats and the culture of a place that is slowly changing and modernising. It also features a lot of people eating cod cheeks. Ick.

It kind of is a bit like a written soap opera as it is about the daily life that surrounds you. The things that make up the everyday can be the things that are the most interesting. The story, obviously, is driven by the series of events that happen around our central figure. He seems to be one of those people always in the wrong (or right, in terms of the story) place at the wrong time. 

He becomes involved in a murder mystery, he is part of an ancient dispute with members of his own clan, he falls in love. It's all told gently and over a period of time. And I quite liked the way it flowed. I can also see why you might completely hate this book. The main character is not really that likeable, it is set out right on the first page.

I'm not sure that I have become a devotee of the book, or even that desperately keen to read other books by the same author, but I liked it. It was worth the time.

I have also read a Georgette Heyer for my sort of subsidiary challenge and really enjoyed the one my mum picked out for me! She does know my taste so well. I think I even preferred this to last months. I found it really quite funny and it had a mystery running through it which is always right up my street. Really recommend that one if you haven't read it. 

I have a much shorter list of books read this month, but here it is in full:

1. The Shipping News by Annie Proulx - 31/1/14 ~ 11/2/14
2. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins - 28/1/14 ~ 6/2/14
3. The Colour War by Jodi Picoult - 7/2/14~7/2/14 (really short book!)
4. The Reluctant Widow by Georgette Heyer - 12/2/14 ~ 26/2/14

And that was it! Though I have been reading 12 Years a Slave for what seems like forever too... That'll show up on next months list. I have chosen next months book and am looking forward to starting it as I've read and enjoyed the author before. I have next months Heyer picked out too...

My Reading Challenge is inspired by essbeevee's books are amazing monthly feature. This months is all cook books! Heaven.

Raspberry Ripple Crochet

This month, although I have still been motoring on with my reading challenge I have also been getting on with some crochet for myself. I got hold of some lovely yarn in Boyes the other week with the intent of making myself a new scarf. The yarn is King Cole Galaxy DK in Pink Tourmaline and is lovely and soft and sparkly. 

Not entirely sure why I chose such a bright shade of pink, but the black helps to make it less in-your-face and I am glad of the cheerful shade on miserable days. 

I spent ages on Ravelry looking at scarf patterns and found one I quite liked which had been invented from a hat pattern the writer had previously made! I did look at making it and then at the last moment spotted a pattern in Simply Crochet issue 4 called Raspberry Ripple which just seemed the perfect thing to go with the yarn.

I got out hook and yarn and set to it straight away. I found the project grew quite quickly, but getting through 2 whole balls of yarn still takes time. The pattern is a pretty fan and mesh design which, when I finished, I decided to add tassels to the ends of. 

I was so pleased with it and still had two balls of yarn leftover, so I decided I could make a matching hat. Going back to Ravelry I came back to the original hat pattern that had inspired the scarf I liked (this is so much more complicated to explain that it is in practice!)

The pattern, Urban Jungle, is finished off with a rather cool star shaped top and it made me think if I could maybe use the pattern but with the fan and mesh design rather than the puff stitches of the original. 

Are you keeping up with all this at the back? Not sure I am anymore...

Anyhow, I cast on, using a slightly smaller hook than recommended as I had a lighter weight yarn than suggested. I crocheted the band exactly as stated in the pattern and then, after crocheting a foundation row of DC (SC to our American friends) moved in to the mesh and fan design I had used for the scarf. I had somehow managed to make the hat exactly 3 times the pattern of the scarf. Genius. So I crocheted away, joining my rows, but turning each time to keep the pattern correct. 

I have ended up with a slightly weird bit up the back, but as my rows started and finished on the back seam, which you don't see when the hat is worn, I just went with it. 

The other adjustment I made was to not make the hat quite as long as the stated pattern. It says to crochet until 12" from the bottom of the band, but I stopped at 10" as I was happy with the amount of slouch that gave me. I then had to make a solid band around the top so that I could use the star shaped closing that I was after. This meant I chained and slip stitched all the way around once and then did a row of DC into that.

Yes, this is really out-of-focus, it's not your eyes!

I then followed the pattern to the best of my ability (it's a bit fiddly/confusing to me at that point) and have indeed ended up with a star closure :)

Sadly, it doesn't show up terribly well on the photos I took... 

But, there you have it. My new hat and scarf set :) Now, I am just working out if I could get some mitts out of what I have leftover...

  

A busy old week so far

Well, hello! How are you? What have you been doing with yourselves? I have been all over the place in the last few days! I shall begin at the beginning and see where we go from there.

First of all, I finished the other mitten! Here it is, complete with fastening sewn in place. Cute, no?

As mentioned in my post from the other day we went to the panto on Monday. We set off fairly early on Monday morning so that we got a bit of shopping time in before having lunch. This was quite painful as madam and I have been enjoying our lie-ins whilst we've been on Christmas holidays. But we knew we would be getting back in to it with school starting on Tuesday anyway.

So, madam and I did a bit of shopping around York and got my mum a magazine with a free sewing pattern that I thought she would like. We also got madam some Frozen stickers to go in her new album. She has not stopped talking about Frozen since we went to see it with the Guides in the middle of December. And I still love that it contains a song that references fractals :)

We did end up in the Disney shop as well, somehow... I managed to drag madam away and we went and looked at pretty shoes in Schuh for a bit before heading over to the restaurant where we were meeting my parents and younger bro for lunch. 

Having lunched hugely on risotto and ice cream we headed to the York Theatre Royal for the panto to start at 2.30pm. Madam was so excited and I was a little worried she'd fidget. But I should have known better. She sat through the entire first half completely glued to what she was watching and with her mouth open like a fish! 

When the first half finished she looked devastated whilst I took her to the bathroom. I managed to find that this was because she thought the show was over! I promised her there was another half to come and reminded her that Grandpa had foolishly promised her an(other) ice cream! She perked up rather a lot at this prospect!

The second half brought more fish impressions and another sad face as the panto finally drew to a close. Her favourite thing had been the Gene Genie and the bit where they had gone into a filmed section and one of the characters had ended up upside down in a bin. She chattered about it non-stop on the bus back to the car-park but was so tired by then she just leant on my shoulder quietly on the drive home.

Tuesday was back to school day and I also had to go and sign on. I went round to the folks to get myself ready for the Jobcentre. It always makes me feel like I've done something wrong. I got to my appointment a few minutes early but then had to sit and wait, and wait, and wait! I was kept waiting for nearly 45mins which is not good when you're already feeling kind of anxious. 

I ended up having a half an hour or so consultation when it was finally my turn. I am looking to change my job search as I am not finding anything really to apply for. They offered to sign me up to a (and I hate this title) Fast Track 2 Work course. I, of course, said yes. I'm all for a course :) The drawback is that it is in Driffield and that I had to have a one-on-one interview before being accepted. Again, in Driffield. 

And that is what I did yesterday. I got my dad to give me a lift (aren't dad's great?) and went for a chat with the lady that will be running the course. She had also come in from Beverley to chat to me (ah, yes, bureaucracy is stupid). Anyway, we drew up a learning agreement and I told her, honestly, about the things I find hard about job searching (the forms, the phonecalls, the lack of self-worth!). She has promised she can help. Excellent. So I start this course next Tuesday (14th) and it runs until 4th Feb.

Today is the first day I have had to myself this week, I am quite enjoying being back at my fave cafe nursing one bottle of diet coke for as long as possible! They know me quite well, they don't mind!

And how is my reading going? Quite well actually. I have already read 3 books this year and am about a third of the way through an actual Georgette Heyer. I'm just starting another on my Kindle and will hopefully get that finished shortly. I think this is setting itself up to be a reading year. In the same way that last year was all about the crochet and the year before was knitting! 

I seem to only obsess over one thing at a time...     

A mitt of crochet (sorry, not sorry)

I decided to finally get around to my new crochet project last night whilst I watched Pitch Perfect for the hundredth-odd time. I have been meaning to start it since I got Issue 13 of Simply Crochet Magazine last month. It came with free silver (coloured) fasteners to use with the project and they are dead cute which totally made me want to make them even more!

How the mitts look in the magazine.

I read the pattern and realised that the finished mitts would be too small for me. I umm-ed and ahh-ed for a bit trying to work out how I would make them big enough to fit me and my man-hands. I came to the conclusion that if I used a larger hook and followed the pattern as was that would be the easiest way. I just hoped that would work. 

I had found some DK yarn the other week that I had thought would be perfect for the project. I have used it before in different shades and know it is a slightly thicker yarn than some other DK weight yarns. This would mean that using the bigger size hook wouldn't leave me with less warm mitts.

That's madam's lovely patchwork blanket the yarn is on. 

The yarn is a James C. Brett Marble in shade 21 which is a lovely grey/teal combo. I made madam a lovely cardi in a pink/grey colourway when she was 2.

Ahh! I miss that hair...

I found the pattern easy enough to follow though when it switched from back and forth to in-the-round I got a little confused, but figured it out after a little puzzling. Not sure it could have been written more clearly, think I was just being dim... I still haven't got that much experience in pattern reading for crochet.

The whole of the mitt is worked in Double Crochet (dc) which makes it good for beginners. I did find I got a bit lost with how many rows I had done whilst working in-the-round, but again, that's just me and not a fault of the pattern.

From start to pretty much finished.

I got one completed in the evening so I just need to do the second tonight and I can have a lovely new pair of mitts to wear on our trip to York on Monday :)

    

A New Year's Eve Summary

It's New Year's Eve today. I am deciding whether to attempt drunkeness on my own or whether it is just quite pathetic to sit alone with a bottle of red wine, a Harry Potter marathon and possibly my five year old...

I will definitely manage the Harry Potter marathon and I'm guessing the five year old will insist on staying up as long as she can... I do have a bottle of red that has been hanging around at home for ages and ages and now seems as good a time as any to drink it.

I have had an interesting year full of highs and lows as ever. I think I can safely say that some of the littlest things have made me most happy. Spending time with good friends, improving my crochet techniques, teaching myself new things, trying new recipes. I think my post from the other day  is probably the best illustration of where I am now.

Although, to be fair, I try new recipes all the time! It doesn't always work as well as I hope it will. Last night's strangely bland potatoes being a case in point. How can potatoes cooked in buttered stock and thyme not have flavour? Well, I achieved it. The experimental barbecue chicken worked a treat though... 

Worst moments? Probably during my college course earlier in the year, it stirred up so many strong emotions in me. I spent a lot of time thinking about myself which, athough in the long term was helpful, was hard to get through. I think this post probably sums up some of that darkness that still haunts me.

Although, those feelings are retreating more and more and I go longer between the utter blackness that surrounded me more times than I care to think about this time last year. I hope that there will be more improvements at this point next year. 

Maybe I'll even have found a job and a new boyfriend! Stranger things have happened after all...

  

Advent Sunday 3

Oh, my poor little neglected blog! I really do have a reasonable excuse for not having blogged more this week. I have been on a training course. Yup, the job centre have actually allowed me to be trained in something that will actually be useful to me. 

I am doing what's called a Level 1 in Basic Computing. This is a four day course and I'm doing 2 days a week over this last week and next. I have spent a day learning Sage software and a day on Excel. Sage is something which I have never encountered before so was a good thing for me to play with and I felt like I really got quite a bit out of. 

Excel I have used before, but not much since my GCSE way back in 1994. This meant that although I couldn't remember much of the GCSE stuff I didn't take long to pick it back up again when he explained it. I spent most of the session explaining how to do things to the people sitting on either side of me. But hey, I like doing that kind of thing, so it was fun :)

Tuesday we will be covering Powerpoint which is, again, something I've never used before (I don't even have it on my computer!) and on Thursday we're doing Desktop Publishing. This is another thing I covered in GCSE so I might have some idea of what is going on, but then again...

I've really enjoyed putting my brain to use. I do sometimes think that I would be happiest as a perpetual student. I love learning things and trying new stuff out. Which was an almost subtle segue into what this post is actually about.

I done did another making :) 

I have been pondering making sequinned baubles for a little while and never quite got around to it. But yesterday I bit the bullet and decided to give it a go. I bought 3 packs of sequins in different colours (99p each and on a 3 for 2 though I couldn't get the red I wanted so had to settle for silver) a tub of sequin pins (£2.30) and a polystyrene ball from Boyes for 40p.

I emptied it all out on to my lap tray and got pinning. I had a couple of false starts whilst I worked out the design which meant I pinned and re-pinned more than I would have liked to. But eventually I settled on a segmented design and happily pinned away whilst watching DVDs with madam. It's incredibly easy to get quite a fancy effect.

It did take ages though, partly as I had such a big ball to cover and partly because I kept being distracted by a certain someone and her antics. I also realised that the amount of sequins I had might not be enough to complete the project and that started making me stress a bit, but I just kept pinning and in the end I finished, with the design I wanted, with only 2 sequins left over!

leftovers!

and leftover pins from a full tub...

the base of the bauble (and where the design started from)

A right way up bauble

spinning, hanging bauble!

I'm so impressed that today I have gone out and bought more supplies and some slightly smaller balls to decorate! I did buy more pins too, but this is mainly paranoia on my part as I have some left, though I must have used at least half of the ones I had originally so I maybe do need them...

I shall put some pictures up when I have finished making them, though I need to try and wrest the first one back from madam who has hung it up in her room. Mind you, when I look at it all I see is that it's not the colours I wanted so maybe I will let her keep it!