Shelly-Chic

So a few weeks ago, my parents dog, decided to eat a crochet rabbit that I made my sister about 3.5 years ago - not that it really looked anything like a rabbit, being the 3rd thing I crocheted (it would have been the second but my first attempt went really wrong and I turned it into a squid).

Like Butter Wouldn't Melt!

To be honest I wasn't really bothered. Katie however decided that she simply MUST have something to replace it with, so I gave her my copy of Zoomigurumi 3 that I got from my Secret Santa, and let her pick something. She decided on a turtle, but she wanted it to be all green

 And so "Shelly-Chic" (like Shabby-Chic) was created

And while I had the camera out, I decided to try out some of the different backgrounds for my light studio

    

 Then I got a little bit silly















But not as silly as my beautiful sister

New Camera!

For Christmas my lovely lovely boyfriend surprised me with a snazzy new Cannon 1200D camera and a portable light studio so I can take better photos of my crafting. It's such a thoughtful gift, he always seems to know what to get me, and its often things I would never think to get or ask for myself.

We finally got some time and decided to set up the light studio, I started with taking a few photos of my crocheting, but we soon got distracted by the knick knacks on the shelf in our dining room.
Here's the Little Red Riding Hood Doll I finished over the weekend. The pattern is by Lee Mei Li at www.amigurumei.com. It was a really nice pattern, and I loved the way the dress was made, you crochet the white underneath part first and then make the blue bit and flip it over the top.

This is my next project, I'm making a turtle for my little sister. I love this colour wool, it's left over from when I made a Snorlax for my friend Lewis.

Then I let Dave take control of the camera....

Here is Steve the Octopus riding a triceratop...

Then Han Solo and Boba Fett had a stand off.....

Iron Man popped by

I then got some practise in changing the focus using the camera 

I think this one is the favourite one I took! I love Jack Skellington!

I know I still have a way to go to get to the same level as a lot of other bloggers out there, but practise makes perfect!

x

(This was meant to be posted last week but I have had terrible terrible Internet)

Lots of Birthdays!

This is a particular time of year is just full of birthdays. Dave's brother and sister are both in December, its my birthday in January and then my sister, Dave and Dave's dad are all in February as well as our anniversary!

When I asked my sister what she wanted for her birthday she said she wanted a tortoise with a balloon attached to it and a Dachshund dressed like a hotdog. So that's what she got.

I made her a Brownie and Marshmallow pie (recipe adapted from one I saw on Sally's Baking Addiction) and made a marzipan tortoise for the top. The pie was really nice, but very sweet so we had very small pieces. Also as we served it hot the candles kept falling over!

And then I crocheted this guy, 

This is Lord Buttons the Dachshund in his removable hotdog costume, the pattern for the dog came from VooDoo Maggie's Adorable Amigurumi book but the costume was something I made up and will be putting up a blog on how I did it in the next week or so.

Tomorrow it is my lovely friend Katie's 21st birthday and she is flying off to Amsterdam,  Monday was her last day in work before her birthday and I promised her that I would make a giant cake so she could share it with as many people in the office as possible. Not everyone got a slice (there's 100 or so people just in our office) but I did my best:

It was dubbed the "Matilda" cake as it looks like the one that Bruce Bogtrotter ate. Just to give you an idea of how big it was, the plate that its sat on is a large dinner plate and the box is about 4 inches tall. It was 4 chocolate fudge cakes with whipped cream in the middle and then the whole thing was covered in dark chocolate ganache.

I also crocheted her this as a Congratulations on her new job in our department

(Pattern from Little Muggles in the Zoomigurumi book)

She named him Charlie after me :)

Hope everyone is recovering from January (gloomiest part of the year) and is looking forward to the rest of 2015 xx

September DI Craft Swap - Post 1

I was trying to hold off on blogging about the swap until I had received my package, but it seems to be taking its time, so figured I would just split it into 2 posts.

This was my first time taking part in any kind of craft swap and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I didn't actually know what Kawaii was until I started the swap but I now understand why everyone is so exited by it. I have decided not to take part in Octobers one because I have a lot of personal crafting to get on with. I'm hoping to join in with the one afterwards which is a Woodland theme (if anyone is interested, contact Hannah, she's on twitter at @DaintyandIvory or over on her blog at daintyandivory.blogspot.co.uk

My parcel went off to our lovely organiser Hannah. She sent me some information about herself, and I wanted to make sure that she would get use out of everything I sent.

I started with the bought item, she mentioned that she liked tea so I picked this coaster;

How could anyone resist the happy cakes and ice cream!

She also mentioned she likes to read so I made her a Panda bookmark, it was designed so that the Panda's head will stick out of the top of the book

I think this could be customised to be pretty much any animal. This is another pattern I'm considering posting on here at some point.

The last thing was something that combined that make it and buy it components of the swap. On Hannah's blog she has mentioned that she sews plush toys, so I decided to make her a pin cushion...shaped like a turtle, with a pastel flower on its shell as they are her favourite colours. 

He's pretty adorable! Hannah nearly didn't get him because my mum tried to steal him, but I pointed out she can't sew so has absolutely no need for a pin cushion of any kind haha.

I tried to match up the pins with the colours on the turtle's shell!

I also sent Hannah some home made clotted cream fudge to make up for the delivery being late because I had a delay in the delivery of the heart shape pins.

I wrapped it up like this because I thought it would look nicer than clingfilm or tin foil. Then the sound of music popped into my head "brown paper packages tied up with string, these are a few of my favourite things"

I was so happy that Hannah liked everything that I sent her, and I will continue stalking my post lady until she brings me mine!

Have a lovely weekend x