A small victory!

And no, I'm not talking about Arsenal's fantabulous 5-2 win over Spurs in the North London Derby. (And once again, can I apologise to my twitter followers for any sweary  outbursts!) Instead I am referring to the fact that not only have I discovered a new craft as I promised I would here, but I have found a use for the wool tops I bought when I decided to give wet felting a try. (and have been sitting, unloved, in my craft box ever since!)
It's fair to say I have been influenced by a lot of the lovely crafters, whose blogs I read regularly, and also Kirstie Allsop must partly take the blame as well. I watched her series on different crafts in Handmade Britain just before Christmas, and she she made all the different crafts not exactly look easy, but accessible. I think that crafting can sometimes feel as though it is too difficult, or only certain people can do them, and it can be a bit off putting to the novice like me. But I have learned something, give it a go, you never know!
So one of the crafts that I saw Kirstie attempting, and have read about in the blogs too, is needle felting. I have to admit to having been put off by wet felting. I had a few attempts and never got the effect I wanted despite what seemed like hours of work. I think this negative experience made me steer away from felting full stop. But I really like the idea of making my own embellishments for paper or fabric crafts, and I have seen such lovely things made by needle felting. So I bit the bullet and purchased a kit.
Yes, I know, I promised to not buy any stash for 3 months. But can this really be counted as stash?? It is for a new craft after all!
Well it was a success! I thoroughly enjoyed making my first little piece, and I'm looking forward to making some more.I was surprised with how quickly it started to come together, not like the hours of pounding wet wool with a potato masher and a rolling pin!  Ok, it's not perfect by a long stretch, but practice makes perfect you know! And you never know, it might just inspire me to venture into wet felting again in the future.

Not a great picture, but you get the idea!

I promised you an update on Hermann's progress. Well today I split him into 4 and passed him on to 2 other people. I decided that I would keep 2 portions, one to bake now, and one to carry on the process all over again. So tomorrow me and the Flip Flop will bake one of our Hermanns, and I have had my orders about what we're going to put in to him. of course, knowing my daughter, chocolate had to feature. We're also going to add dried fruit, a lovely tropical mix actually not just raisins, but also dried papaya, pineapple and apricot. I'll let you know how he turns out!

I've also been doing a few ATCs for swapping on UK Scrappers

And I've just signed up for a Fabric tag swap... I'll probably regret that but it seemed like a good idea at the time. At least now I can attempt to needle felt some embellishments for it!

It's time again for Handmade Monday hosted by the lovely Wendy, so don't forget to check out what everyone else has been up to! Something I will be doing...just as soon as I've watched Match of the Day!

5-2. Blimey!

Til next time!