My Creative Space

This year, I've decided that I need to try and use up some of the scraps of fabric I've been hoarding as my collection is bursting out of the boxes I keep them in.  To encourage me to do this, I started a weekly 'Scrappy Friday' post so that I have to try and make something each week.

This week I've decided that I need to organise my scraps a bit more, so I know what I've got, and maybe get some more inspiration.

I have several colour coded boxes - and I started with the blue.  This is what it did look like (please don't be shocked - I'm very messy!)

I ironed and sorted them,and they fit much better now!

I also have a much better idea of what's in there!

And so, inspired, I made a start on this week's scrappy project!

I'm getting better at matching up the corners I think...

Come back tomorrow to see the finished product!

For more wonderfully creative spaces, head on over to Kirsty's place at Kootoyoo.

How are you Creating your way to Success? - Christy from A Christy Production

·Welcome my weekly post about how different people are Creating their way to Success.

My aim in this weekly feature is to :

• Provide an interesting insight into other people’s journeys towards their own personal success

• Help contributors to this post by encouraging them to advertise their own blog, website or shop / market within their post.

• Share motivation and encouragement with as many people as possible who are looking to use their creativeness to work towards their own goal of success.

This week's guest is Christy from A Christy Production:

What do you create? 

It's a bit of a mixed basket.  My desire to make things changes with my moods.  I have recently come to the conclusion I am a bit of a Jill of all trades.  I make greetings cards and other cardboard crafts like gift boxes and voucher books, I make hair accessories and brooches out of ribbon, fabric & felt, I make soft toys, I make children's clothes, magnet pegs, embellishments, library bags, hats... I really could keep going on and on.  I make whatever tickles my fancy each given day!  My list of what I WISH I knew how to make is also growing!  I also spend alot of time creating for my blog.  Some may not think this is a craft or skill, but it's hard work and can be very time consuming.  I spend alot of time trying to ensure what I post is not only entertaining or interesting, but visually appealing.

Why do you create? 

It is necessary for my sanity.  Crafting is my outlet, and without it I become a crazy lady!  Just like every other woman out there, my life is hectic, over-scheduled, full of time constraints & stress!  When I sit down at my craft table, I can channel that stress and tension into making something awesome!  It also gives me an opportunity to most importantly, be still, and think through the things that are troubling me.

Do you sell your creations? If so, how? Where? And is it profitable?

Although it can be hard at times to let go of something that I've made and love, of course I sell my creations!  I have a Madeit store which is where I am concentrating on selling my creations at this point in time.  I have done a few markets in the past year and am not a fan of the stress that occurs leading up to market day.  I like that I can work towards my Madeit store at my own pace, and put things in there as I want to.  It doesn't matter if my store looks bare!!  Infact, that's a good thing because it means people have been buying up!!  I am still fairly new to the Madeit scene, but have started to see the money rolling back in - which is my husbands favourite part.

What mistakes have you made or lessons you have learned?

It doesn't bother me to make mistakes.  I have made a few items that just look terrible.  So I take them apart and try again.  Trial and error is the best way to learn.  But probably the hardest lesson I've had to learn is to believe in MYSELF!  If I don't believe in myself and trust my abilities, how can I expect others to?  It all begins with me.  Since having that light bulb moment I have had greater success in selling items, made a tonne of great blogger friends, and enjoyed the blogging and crafting experience ten fold. 

What, to you is success? Have you achieved it yet, or are you on your way towards success?

Success is a term generally used for huge achievements.  Success to me is when you sell a $2 embellishment, or finish sewing a dress, or learn a new skill.  It doesn't have to be a $50 sale.  So YES I have achieved success, and I have hundreds and hundreds of successes ahead of me in the future. 

So, what's next?

I don't have any huge crafting goals for the upcoming year.  I just want to keep up with the pace of making, selling, blogging, befriending, networking and developing better photography & editing skills to showcase my products more effectively.  So my goal is to be better, gain more skills, and develop my existing skills to a higher standard.    


 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks Christy for you wonderful and very interesting answers!

Make sure you check out Christy's blog and her Madeit shop too! She has some wondeful creations!

Remember if you would like to be featured here, then please leave me a comment and I'll get back to you as soon as I can with the questions!

Please come back next week to see our next featured Creative person!  And do stop by other days too, and see what other creative posts are going on here!

Just before you leave today - please click on this button to give me a vote and help move me up the ladder!

Thank you!

Jill

I'll be linking this post to some of the wonderful blog hops whose pretty buttons are on the bottom of this page!

Battleships folders - a tutorial

Just recently I've rediscovered playing Battleships through teaching the game to my girls.  Now I'm not talking about the new fangled computer version, but the good old-fashioned pencil and paper version! See this post on my other blog - Be Our Best for more details about the game itself!

Anyway - playing this game again, inspired me to make some special little folders to hold the papers in and that the girls can use for playing the game!

I decided to shy away from the usual pinks and purples I work with for the girls..

And here's one in action! (they had to play a game as soon as they saw their new little folders!)

There is a little slide in pocket for a pencil in the centre - and space to store finished games or extra notes..

They're nice and simple to make - and could be used for things other than battleships too - like wordsearches, sudoku, crosswords, orjust plain paper for writing or drawing!

First the materials:

2 pieces of stiff card - 14cm x 22cm

1 piece outer fabric - 34cm x 24cm

1 piece inner fabric - 34cm x 24cm

1 piece inner fabric- 34cm x 12cm

1 piece inner fabric - 16cm square

1 piece each inner and outer fabric for flap - 10cm x 6cm

sew in velcro 6cm

First of all, attach one piece of the velcro to the inner fabric flap piece - about 1 cm in from long edge, and centrally placed.

Then sew around three sides of the flap pieces (right sides together) and trim the corners.

Turn right sides out, and topstitch close to edge.

Attach the flap to one end of the outer fabric (right sides together and centrally placed) then attach the other half of the velcro on the other end, 2cm in from edge and centrally placed.

Take the inner fabric piece (34cm x 12cm) and double turn then stitch one of the long edges.

Take the 16cm square piece of inner fabric and double turn and stitch all 4 edges:

Then fold diagonally and cut like so:

Then you need to pin all the inner pieces of fabric on top of the largest piece like this:

And stitch securely in place.

Now place the two pieces,right sides together. Pin and stitch around 3 sides, leaving the edge with the flap open.

Turn right sides out, and push the first piece of card all the way in, then stitch along the edge of it to hold in place.

Make another line of stitching 2cm further along - this will form your pencil pocket.

Push the remaining card into the other side, fold the edges of the fabric inside and stitch closed.

DONE!

Add the pencil...

Add the battleships sheet (you can download one for free here)

Or a wordsearch, crossword or something else (fits A4 paper)

And use it!!

Have fun playing!

If you're looking for some nice fabric to make this or any other project with , then why not take a trip to 

The Fat Quarter Shop 

for a great selection.

I'll be linking this post to many of the wondeful linky parties whose pretty buttons are on the bottom of this page!

A Round Tuit (42)

Welcome to this week's 'Round Tuit'

MOTIVATION and INSPIRATION are the key factors behind my Monday posts and opportunity to link up and encourage, motivate and inspire each other....with your very own ROUND TUIT

Tuits are very hard to come by, especially the round ones. For years people have been saying, "I'll do it as soon as I get a round tuit". Well now you can have one of your very own, and all those jobs that have needed doing will finally get done!

<a <br /><br /><center><a href="http://jembellish.blogspot.com/search/label/A%20Round%20Tuit"><img border="”0”" src="http://i912.photobucket.com/albums/ac329/jembellish/Blog%20buttons/ARoundTuit.jpg" /></a><center><br /><br /></center></center> Before I show my favourites this week, I just have to say a HUGE thank you to all who linked up as we reached 70 links! That's fantastic!  Thanks too, to everyone who also linked their clothes upcycling projects to the linky on my dedicated clothes upcycling page.That long term linky is starting to grow too - and since it's just a text linky, I've created a collage of pictures from the first 12 links - I'll do this for every 12 links in different styles - the first one I chose is my country - Australia! What do you think? 

So let's get to this week's linky party - and see if we can get up to 100 links this week! The more links we get - the more people will visit your link in return too! So grab a button and link up those projects.  And it may just be a text linky - but I know you're all wonderfully creative people, so

GET CREATIVE WITH YOUR TEXT LINK TITLES!!  Let's have some fun with them!

 Here's my favourites from last week:

First of all, this brilliant kid's shopping book from She wears flowers:

Isn't it gorgeous!What a fabulous idea for keeping your child amused and involved while you do the grocery shopping - I wish I had a shopping list as cool as this myself!

Go and have a look at more fabulous projects on her blog;

http://www.she-wears-flowers.com/

Next, this amazing recycled outfit from A trip to Holland:

Just beautiful! Go and have a look to see the before and after pictures - amazing! She also linked this up to my Clothes upcycling page too! Thank you!

For more fabulous ideas, visit:

http://atriptoholland.blogspot.com/

Finally, for something a bit different - some lego marshmallow pops from Crystal and Co.:

How fabulous are they - and super easy too!

Crystal has a lovely blog. Do go and check it out:

http://www.crystalandcomp.com/

----------------------------------------------------------------------

So please feel free to link up your posts - maybe it's a project you've completed that you're proud of - something you have wanted to get done for a while and need some extra motivation to get going on it - or you'd just like some of that fabulous encouragement, praise and motivation that bloggers are so good at spreading around.

Whatever the reason - grab your very own "Round Tuit" button (see sidebar), and link up.

Then head on over to some of the other links and praise, encourage and motivate.

I'll feature my favourite posts next week.

(by linking up here you're giving me permission to use photos from your linked post on my blog)

One last thing before the links.. please please click on the below button to vote for this blog - I'm storming up the fence thanks to all my wonderful readers!  Let's keep it going - I'm getting close to the top 100!

Have a great week!

Scrappy Friday - book cover tutorial

Today I'm cheating a little and showing you a project I did months ago, which counts as a scrap project as it used up an old waistcoat I was never going to wear! Which means I can also use it on my clothes upcycling project page!! Yippee!

Anyway, back to my project, which was to sort out my recipe book - and revamp it with a nice new cover!

Here's the before...

And the after....

And here's how I made the cover:

First I chose my fabric - a waistcoat I was given, loved the fabric but was never likely to wear it!

 

Then I just placed the open book on the fabric, and cut around, leaving about 3cm above and below the book, and enough on either side for the flaps over (about 10cm on each side in total)

Then I double turned and stitched each edge to neaten. (As you can see my pinning is rather rough, I do smooth it out more when I machine stitch!!)

Next step is to place the book open and central on the fabric, which should be right side facing upwards. 

Fold one side flap over and pin at the top and bottom above and below the book.

Fold the other side flap over, but don't pin yet!

Because the material  will stretch as the book closes, shut the book now, allow the material to give into the bend of the book and pin the top and bottom of the flap above and below the book.

Stitch the top and bottom of both flaps about where your double turned edges end.

Your cover should now look something like this:

Next turn the book cover right side out, and fold down and pin, the middle parts at both the top and bottom.

Top stitch this to hold it down in place.

Your book cover is now finished and ready to slip your book into!

The side flaps can also be used as little pockets to slip notes into - or in my case here, new recipes cut  from magazines!

With the remaining scraps of fabric from the waistcoat - I covered a couple of sections of drainpipe to make little storage containers!

And the other, using the fabric inside out, which was a fabulous gold colour. It's the perfect size for holding those important kitchen utensils!

So there you have it - a mini tutorial for using up those scraps (or an old piece of clothing) to brighten up your favourite book!

If you've enjoyed reading this, then pretty please could you swiftly click on the below picket fence button to vote for my blog and push me a couple more rungs up the ladder??
Thank you so much!
Hope you come back soon!

I'll be linking this post to some of the wonderful parties whose pretty buttons are on the bottom of this page.