Punk'd!

Well not exactly, but something a bit different was needed for my friend Paul's birthday (you can take a look at the jewellery he makes here: Clockwork Zeppelin ) He's very much into Steampunk and although it's not a style I know a lot about, I thought I would give it a try! So armed with some lovely card stock (amazing what you can get from Costco these days!) and a handful of watch parts, I came up with this:

I still have some parts left so might think about using them in different ways.

Other than that, it's been all about crochet this week. I'm crocheting madly to get a few things done ready to try my hand at other projects, There's a big box of beads urging me to have a try and jewellery making, and a trip to Selfridges for a fascinator for mum yesterday has put a few seeds of inspiration in my head too. Not to mention I've been challenged to get a children's story published in People's Friend in the next 6 months... does writing count as a craft???

It's all about flowers...

I seem to have been making a lot of flowers recently. And I'm not really a flowery kind of girl. There's been a flower shaped chocolate chip cake (thanks to a silicone mould I bought the other week) the flowers for my mum's favours (pictures to follow after the Big Day!), a flowery scarf for Little 'Un, a couple of flowery bookmarks and a flower brooch donated to a friend for a charity craft fair.

The flowery scarf and bookmark are all courtesy of my friend Sharon who introduced me to the Happy Hooker. The scarf is from a pattern there (the garden scarf) and the bookmark is just 3 of the flower motifs -simple.

I thoroughly impressed myself by reading American crochet instructions and not getting into a muddle!

The brooch was based on a pattern in a kit I bought from  Purplelinda Crafts, a site I have (un)fortunately recently discovered and will therefore be spending quite a bit of time (and money) on I'm sure!

I'm quite pleased with the brooch in particularly, since it's the first time I've made one and I think it's quite pretty.

The flowery cake was delicious too!

Next project: A scarf for Himself. Wool is chosen, foundation row is made... watch this space!