The promised treat

Before I show you what I received in the mail yesterday, I'll quickly show you a few more fabric beads I made. I took apart a scarf I had bought at a recent boot fair and used snippets of the brocade and velvet with a little bit of lace on base beads made with a cotton/linen mix cut from a hole-y French tea towel -

I love making these!

Now for the treat I promised you in yesterday's post. Better make yourself a coffee or cup of tea, there are lots of photos. The package which arrived yesterday came all the way from Australia ( at record speed, I hasten to add ), and that can only mean one thing - it was from Suzy!!!

I know you are all familiar with Suzy and her beautiful work, so you can understand that I was super excited. I had known it was on its way, but I didn't expect it that quickly. What did it contain? Nothing less than a one of a kind Suziqu's Threadworks exclusive fabric book! It arrived wrapped in the most beautiful velvet fabric -

 I really don't need to say anything else, do I, just sit back and enjoy the beautiful nature inspired pages -

I keep picking it up and studying the pages, there is just soooo much to see and admire.

I have a little bit more to show you, that will have to wait until tomorrow though. For now I wish you all a very happy day and thank you for visiting. Toodlepip xxx

Just tags

Just a quick little post today to show you two recent tags, one for this week's Tag Tuesday challenge and one customer tag.

The theme over on the Tag Tuesday blog this week is OPPOSITES. Of course you know that my favourite style is vintage, and I stuck with that for the Opposites tag as well -

How many opposites can you spot? On the Tag Tuesday blog they have all said 6, but there are more......... ;-)

The other tag I wanted to show you is a customer tag which went with an order for some awesome gilt finish curtain rings. So of course it had to have gold, lots of gold, lol -

Thats all for today, but tomorrow, OMG, tomorrow I have such a treat for you! Nothing I have done, but something I have received. And thats all I am going to say for now, lol.

Toodlepip xxx

Following a tutorial

Usually, I am pretty useless at following written instructions, even with pics. I am much better having somebody sitting right opposite me and showing me how to do it. BUT, Sandy from QUILL COTTAGE has the knack of making really logical, beautifully presented and easy to follow tutorials that even somebody like me can follow. Remember the wrist cuff tutorial she made ages ago, which I managed to follow and produce these -

Well, a few months ago, she made another tutorial, this time for WIRE WRAPPED FABRIC BEADS and they looked so gorgeous, I really wanted to make some myself. It has taken me a while ( a looooong while, lol ) to get round to it, but I finally started on them last night and made the basic beads. I used some scraps of a lovely 100 year old hand loomed French linen. They dried out nicely overnight, so this morning I got together a few tiny scraps of lace and scrim and a few odd beads I had in my odd-beads tub and dug out some jewellery wire. 

I had so much fun! There were a few mutterings as well. Trying to hold everything together whilst starting the wire wrapping takes some practice, lol, and getting fiddly little seed beads on there wasn't easy either. But I was loving it! Using up the tiniest bits of fabric and lace this way is such a very satisfying thing to do. And here are the results, nothing spectacular, but I am happy with them for a first try -

A huge thank you goes to Sandy for her fabulous inspiring tutorial.

I must say that I also got a huge amount of inspiration from Suzy, as she also made some amazing fabric beads and showed them on her beautiful blog. You have probably seen them already, but just in case you haven't been there yet, HERE is the link. The beads are at the bottom of the post.

And while we are talking about Suzy, this wonderful artist has just started filling the shelves in her Etsy shop again ( long overdue ), and oh my, the offerings there are just so delicious! You can find her shop HERE.

Thats all for now, I have to get some orders ready for posting tomorrow ( yep, on a Sunday, the only good thing to have come out of the privatisation of the post offices, the local post office is open 4 hours on a Sunday ).

Wishing you all a terrific weekend! Toodlepip xxx

Masked Beauties ATC swap and a dangerous tag

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, Kimberly is currently hosting a Halloween swap with the theme MASKED BEAUTIES. I took some time out yesterday to make the ATCs so that I can get them in the mail. You can never tell how long a little package will take to get to its destination.

I used some of my precious vintage Swarovski trim on them and a little bit of gold paint under the cut out corners. It wasn't until after I had taken the photos that I noticed that I hadn't used enough of the gold paint on one in particular, lol, but I have fixed that now.

I also made a tag for this week's Tag Tuesday theme, which is DANGER. Difficult theme and it wasn't until after I had watched a horror film that I knew what I wanted to do -

I started by colouring the background with different blue inks. Then I cut out a spooky old castle. Had to cut the pic and rearrange it because the tower was too tall, so I cut a piece of the right side and glued it on the left side. Next was the screaming lady, which I hand coloured with Spectrum Noir and Promarker pens. The lightning wasn't easy to do, my white pen wasn't very co-operative, so I used a glittery jelly roll pen as well. A bit of a large moon in the top corner, and a flock of menacing birds completed the scene. All that was left was to add the words. 

She is definitely in danger of being pecked to death by that flock of birds of maybe even of being torn to pieces by the walking dead in the castle............
Lol, I know, I should stop watching horror movies!

Toodlepip xxx