putting the stuffing into Christmas...

Its been an 'odd' 72 hours here at Domestic Goddess Tower!  

Friday evening (after what felt like the longest work day in the history of mankind) had me dashing home and straight back out again to take my sister to babysit my Great-Nephew and my collect my niece to come to the local Moving Picture house to see the next instalment of The Hunger Games.

After dropping her off back at home, saying a quick 'hello' to my Great-Nephew (who was still wide awake!!) and then bringing sister back home from her babysitting duties, my sister explained that while we were out, details had come through about our friends funeral :-(   This is the second good friend we've lost to cancer in six months and we're all still reeling from the H losing her fight against pancreatic cancer, just 3 weeks after her diagnosis.

I'm not the biggest fan of 'Christmas' and most years find myself caught out (which always surprises me as it is ALWAYS on the same day!!!) and running around like a loon trying to think of gifts to buy the nearest and dearest.

This year, I've made a selection of 'home made' gifts for the girls of the family and they've already been wrapped up (I started making them in September!)

Two weeks ago I set about making 6 homemade Christmas Stockings for the nearest n dearest's pressies to go in.

Last weekend I designed, cut out the lino blocks for and printed 150 Christmas Cards (having bought the lino blocks, inks, blank cards and polypockets weeks ago) - I've sold enough to family and friends to have broken even...this makes me happy...its still a way from being a 'self-funding' hobby, but I do enjoy doing it.

This weekend I had 2 birthday card commissions to complete and I wanted to make some homemade Christmas hanging decorations with the left over fabric from the Christmas Stockings...so this afternoon I drafted 3 basic paper patterns.  I've done 'test' runs of the first two designs - I can't do the 3rd as the fabric I want to use is currently sitting on my desk at work!!! doh...

So, I've tried hard this year to summon up some festive cheer, despite the horrible year we've had and all the while knowing that my 'christmas celebrations' with friends will all be done and dusted by 5th December!! and that I still have a friends funeral to go to on 10th December (that will obliterate what little festive cheer we have).  

I've posted pictures of my 'festive creations' on my social media pages - which my friends and family comment on (no one ever comments on these pages, so its almost like a personal diary!) and today, received a 'warning shot' of sorts from a 'friend' stating that her craft work has been copied and she has copyright over her designs....I've subsequently been 'unfriended' from her social media pages!  

I've found this whole experience rather laughable (initially I wondered why it hadn't particularly bothered me and then it dawned on me....can a grown woman, well educated and on the face of it, normally quite rational, state openly on social media sites state that she has 'copyrighted' christmas craft designs ???!!!! god help all the little ones handmade cards of 'hand print' christmas tree's etc and anyone else in Christendom that want to make their own decorations in these recession hit times!!! 

So, especially for anyone who cares to look and see....here are the Christmas Hanging Decorations I hand drafted and made this afternoon :-)  hope you enjoy them as much as I do...(even more so knowing that apparently all things 'Christmas Crafty' are not allowed ?!?!?! presumably without giving due credit to some little cottage industry/hobbyist crafter!!!) 

HO-HO-HO peeps!!! xxxx

Weekend Festive Fun...

Last weekend I found myself with a few spare hours, which has been a little unusual for me, so, with lino blocks, lino cutters, designs, inks and over 100 blank cards to hand I set about creating my Christmas Cards for 2014.

I only did 1 design last year, this year I wanted 3.  And I did 3.  There's something about lino cutting and printing that I just love.  I'm not saying for one minute that my designs or technique are perfect, far from it, but I just thoroughly enjoy each process.  Maybe its the 'repetitiveness' of it?  Maybe its the definite stages you go through with printmaking?  Maybe its just the whole kit n caboodle! :-)

So, in just under a weekend, 120 cards have been designed, cut, printed, dried and bagged up - and even more surprisingly, I've managed to sell enough to family and friends so that I've just broken even! Which is handy as I've already spent any profit I may have made on more lino blocks, ink, roller etc ready for more designs for during the year.  So many people have suggested I do some craft fairs...so I think I will, would be nice to have a self-funding hobby!...

 Not many people can say they have 40 snowmen drying out in their dining room!! I think this has turned out to be my favourite design... and prints up beautifully.

 At one point I had over 130 cards on every available inch of space drying out (much like the artist herself should consider given the bottles of spirits battling for space!)

All three Christmas Cards 2014 - and very please with them I am too!  the Red Christmas Stocking was probably the nicest one to print and the Holly and Berries the fiddliest...but all good practice for other designs to come.

it's ho-ho-honly round the corner...

My first whole weekend off with absolutely no plans, parties, or people to see in weeks.  So I set about gearing up for Christmas.

This weekend has been designated 'Crafty for Chrimbo' weekend.

I'd bought my festive fabric from my trusty market stall fabric man in Canterbury on Wednesday - 1 metre of each, red, green, white.

First thing Saturday morning I ironed each, then drafted a basic pattern (this was reasonably easy...but I now know where I went wrong on one of the pieces....knew I had to allow for a seam allowance, yet still forgot!).

I thought it would only take a couple of hours....

I finally finished the last one at just gone 10pm!   to be fair, I was getting quicker as I finished each one, and a lot of time was spent drafting the pattern and cutting out.  Oh, and of course the odd bit of weekend housework still had to be done.

Despite this misjudgement in timings, I'm still very pleased with the final results - there not lined like most homemade Christmas Stockings are, but these are going to hold gifts so not necessarily for ornamentation.

I've enough fabric left over to make 3 more...if I can find someone who wants to pay £4 each for them!

Crafty of Chrimbo - Christmas Stockings

it seemed such a simple task!!!

I'd read the instructions, I'd checked to make sure I had all the fittings, I'd charged the drill, bought some pre-made polyfiller to fill the holes I knew there would be, measured and re-measured and generally prepared myself for the simplest of tasks - to remove the old pine curtain pole in my bedroom and to replace with a lovely new pewter/metal one and hang a lovely new pair of curtains to match the new bedding range I bought a few weeks ago.

So, at 10am, I removed the first of the screws holding the old pole to the wall...well...I say 'holding', it pretty much fell apart as soon as the first screw was removed, along with a rather large piece of plaster!

Now, to be fair, this wasn't wholly unexpected as this part of the curtain pole had been slowly sinking into the old paster wall over a few years! Not entirely sure the pre-made polyfiller will do the trick - the pot says its good for filling cracks upto 10mm deep - I'm guessing the hole the pole left behind was 1 - 2 inches deep!!! still...

With all remaining old brackets and subsequent holes removed and 'filled' I set about drilling the marked holes for the shiny new brackets.

Hole for bracket number one went a-ok... rawl plug inserted, bracket and screw inserted... wasn't 100% fixed but ok for the first one...

Problems arose for the second bracket.

Drilled the first hole for the rawl plug.  Was a little 'concerned' with the apparent ease in which the drill bit sank into the wall, but maybe I was just getting used to the pressure needed right?!?!?

Drilled the second hole...which suddenly turned into one BIG hole after the plaster crumbled around the drill bit and joined up with the first hole!

Tidied up said crater with a rather large amount of filler....again, I'm aiming to disprove the '10mm' limit on the pot!

Popped the kettle on for a cuppa and re-think.  Was at the point of no return - didn't want to drill more holes that would grow into unmanageable 'air ducts' to the outside world, but nor did I relish the thought of having no curtains at the bedroom window for the next who knew how long!

So, quick 'status update' on my FB page and 2 minutes later Dad was on the phone...and round my house with his industrial drill, drill bits, assorted rawl plugs, screws, measures, levels....and 60 minutes and 2 large cups of tea later - success!!! One new curtain pole with new curtains ironed and hung :-)

Dad even complimented me on my excellent measuring and re-assured me that I'd done everything right, it was just that the wall was out to get me (the house is over 150 years old and we don't think the walls in the bedroom have been re-plastered in all that time (the bits that fell out still had horse hair in them!!) and the fixings supplied with the pole weren't really up to the job (would have been if the plaster was in better condition or in a newer house).

It just goes to show...doesn't matter how much of a feminist with power tools I think I am (I did build my bed the other week single handedly after all!) there are still times when a girl needs her Dad! :-)

New shiny curtain pole and beautiful new curtains...now to find some time to re-paint the walls