Is your creative space working for you?

I have a confession to make, I don't like my sewing space. Ugh, I feel so selfish saying that but honestly I don't. This is what it looks like: 

My sewing space is small, really small. It's actually in my kitchen, if you look to the top right of the photo, you can see my stove, the kitchen table is to the right of the photo. It's not an ideal location but I found it's the only place that works for me. I often sit at the sewing machine & sew whilst I'm cooking dinner or sit at the kitchen table & pin fabric whilst the kids are eating their dinner. When the sewing machine was in a separate part of the house, it was never used. The sewing table is small, too small for my long legs and I can't shift the sewing machine to a more comfortable position so I quickly get a sore back and to be brutally honest, my sewing space often looks like this:

Such a cluttered space, everything gets dumped there because I get frustrated & crabby when I get a sore back from the ill 'fitting' desk. Also, because it's in the kitchen, I often get cold. I wish it was like back in high school when they had the decent heating and you'd kick off your shoes to get toasty warm feet, I'd love to have that in the kitchen, I wonder how much underfloor heating costs.

So, my frustration got the better of me. I packed up the desk into boxes, cleaned it up and sold it! I sold it within a day, way quicker than I had anticipated! So now I don't have a proper sewing space, it's currently a pile of boxes and my sewing machine is on the kitchen table. I've sat down and tried to design my ideal desk and hubby & I will be working on it over the next week or so (building it ourselves). I think I need some better lighting, increased storage and maybe a new chair too.

Tell me about your creative space. Is it working for you? Do you need to make any adjustments so it's a more pleasant place to be? Perhaps you have an actual dedicated sewing room! I'd love to hear about it!

This has been a collaborative blog post.

Eco: 'unpaper' towels or bench wipes

 

Have you heard of 'unpaper' towels before? You may call them bench wipes or cloth wipes or reuseable wipes/cloths. You can use them instead of paper towels, use & wash then use again. No waste.

Can you tell what these were made from? 

I made them from the kids old bibs! I found the pile of them in the back of the cupboard as I could never figure out what to do with them when they out grew them!

Yes, I could have donated them to the charity shop but they're old & stained and they'd probably have been tossed in the shop's bin. The wipes were so easy to make, I just sewed a seam across, trimmed the top off then zigzagged along the edge. Easy. A quick satisifying project that didn't even take 10 minutes!

I'd love your feedback, what else should I add to these Crafty Inspo lists? 

I utilise affiliate (aff) links throughout my blog as a way to help me keep crafting. 
If you click on an aff link, I receive a very small amount from it at NO cost to you. 
So please help me to keep CraftyRie up and running by clicking on my aff links!Many thanks, Rie

Scraps to usefulness: curtain tiebacks

I 'uncovered' a window the other day aka, tidying up all the stuff in front of it so it lets more light through! So the next thing I wanted to do then, was to let in even more light and the best way to do that is to make curtain tiebacks as they pull the curtain back all the way to let the daylight in.

I couldn't decide on what fabric to use, so I used the one that 'fell' out of the cupboard, old jeans!

I then used all the fancy stitches on my machine along with all the odd remnants of thread to make it colourful. After trimming, I edged in remnant binding stripes and voila.

Curtain tiebacks for the backroom!

And now on to the next stash busting project, I wonder what I can make next!

I'd love your feedback, what else should I add to these Crafty Inspo lists? 

I utilise affiliate (aff) links throughout my blog as a way to help me keep crafting. 
If you click on an aff link, I receive a very small amount from it at NO cost to you. 
So please help me to keep CraftyRie up and running by clicking on my aff links!Many thanks, Rie

Favourite Craft Ideas, Craft Gifts & Craft Supplies

It's a miserable wet day today and I'm sitting on the couch, perusing the internet for all the best craft stuff, so I thought I'd share all the awesome stuff I found with you! Firstly, you could just jump straight on over to check out my curated lists OR you could have a peek below for some ideas!

Firstly, let's talk craft kits. I love craft kits, absolutely adore them. I love receiving them in the mail, cracking the package open and diving straight in. I love how everything is in there: pattern & all the supplies. I've created a list of all the best craft kits here for you to see, the above photo is a sneak peak of some of the kits.

Then, lets talk about a pretty home, we all desire it right?! Here's some quick inspo to make your humble abode even more cosy, link is here..

Do you have a penpal? I do, in fact I have five, two overseas and three within Australia. I'm always after cute things to send to them but of course, with postage being quite expensive, I need to keep an eye out for smaller stuff that fits into a regular envelope along with my letter. I'll share with you my not-so-secret Penpal ideas list here, hopefully you'll like some of the ideas and maybe send a surprise letter to someone special.

And just in case you need some ideas on what to make for the child who has an 18" doll in their life, cos yeah, that's me, check out these patterns.

Remember, there are more lists here and it's fun to make your own. I often browse the stores when I have free time and add them to my lists, as it makes birthday & Christmas shopping so much easier if I already have some ideas up my sleeve! In fact, if you have a curated list or even just a favourites list, share it with me, so I can do some extra drooling!

I utilise affiliate (aff) links throughout my blog as a way to help me keep crafting. 
If you click on an aff link, I receive a very small amount from it at NO cost to you. 
So please help me to keep CraftyRie up and running by clicking on my aff links!
Many thanks, Rie

Marching

Well, hello!  Did you blink and discover it was almost the end of March too? I did, phew, the year is flying by for me! Maybe because I'm trying to squeeze too much in!

Here's just a few things that I'm working on:

Crocheting this blanket. I was hoping to turn it into a jacket but I don't think I'll have enough yarn, so a blanket it is.

Knitting this shawl with self-striping yarn.

Knitting this top using mini skeins that I prewound into a ball so I'm having to stop judging the colours that keep popping up!

Need to block & press this cardigan. I've been waiting for the pattern book to arrive in the mail before I was going to do a proper show & tell but I've been waiting almost three months now and it's still on pre-order. Sigh.

I did get the buttons for it though, what do you think of these ones? I got them from here.

My 10yo son & I have been going through his craft supplies, tossing out what he doesn't actually want, so I've now ended up with a big box of scraps. I've been sewing them together and trying to film me doing it so I can add it to my YouTube channel. 

Also, yes, I'm trying to breathe some life into my YouTube channel, I have a few videos already planned for it. Have you subscribed to it yet? Before I bring it back to life, I thought I'd add some colour to things and have just ordered a new logo (from here), can't wait for it to be finished! If you subscribe to my YouTube channel, you'll be the first to see my new logo, I can't wait for you to see it!

 We started an art junk journal over the summer holidays and every now & then we do some more work on it. It's really relaxing and a great way to reuse something that was originally headed to the bin.

I sold my old sewing desk, it just wasn't working for me. I'm planning & building a new desk and will certainly show you that once it's done.

Oh my gosh, there's just so much more stuff that I'm doing but I try not to clutter my brain with all my wips! 

What have you been up too?

Can you do me a huge favour? 
Can you click over to here & check out my lists/ideas for
more crafty inspiration & great crafty supplies
and let me know what else I need to include there!

I utilise affiliate (aff) links throughout my blog as a way to help me keep crafting. If you click on an aff link, I receive a very small amount from it at NO cost to you. 
So please help me to keep CraftyRie up and running by clicking on my aff links! Many thanks, Rie

Breast Milk Jewellery

 

Yes, weirdly it is as exactly as it sounds: jewellery made with breast milk! In fact, they can also make jewellery with ashes, hair and other weird stuff too but I'm going to show & tell you all about breast milk jewellery!

These gorgeous items are both made with my breast milk! 

To clarify, no I'm not currently breast feeding BUT when I was (6 years ago), I had expressed some milk and stored it in the freezer and then later totally forgot about it. Until recently when I was cleaning out the freezer and I found this old milk. I didn't know what to do with it, it just felt wrong to throw it away. I decided to use it and have it turned into some awesome breast milk jewellery!

So, do you like it? I ordered myself a ring and a bead to go onto my bangle. I could have ordered lots more as I had heaps of milk but I restrained myself to just these two pieces.

I absolutely adore them. They serve as a great momento for a major moment in my life and will hopefully be able to pass them onto my children one day. 

Are you interested in getting yourself a treasured piece? You could try here or if you want to try to DIY it yourself, try these handy kits. 

...fact, the more you look at the word Jewellery, the weirder it looks!

Can you do me a huge favour? Can you click over to here & check out my lists/ideas for more crafty inspiration & great crafty supplies and let me know what else I need to include there!

I utilise affiliate (aff) links throughout my blog as a way to help me keep crafting. If you click on an aff link, I receive a very small amount from it at NO cost to you. So please help me to keep CraftyRie up and running by clicking on my aff links! Many thanks, Rie

 

Elephant Sleeping Bags

Ok, so I realise that Elephant Sleeping Bags is an odd topic but that's how I spent my day yesterday, making sleeping bags for some toy elephants so that I could hang them up on the wall instead of watching the kids drop yet another toy on the floor only to not find it again for months.

Sigh.

Does that happen in your house? Things going on the floor and piling up until all is lost and you just kinda want to throw it all out?

Yep? That happens in our house. A lot. So I decided that I was going to make some bags with hook tabs so I can hang them on the wall and then the kids will hang them on the wall too.

I didn't use a pattern for the sleeping bag, kinda self drafted one for the elephants. 

I'm thinking of making more of these sleeping bags for their toys, maybe even applique or stencil some designs by using free svg files for graphics to truly personalise them.  Ooh, wouldn't they make great gifts too with small teddies on the inside!

Oh, the elephants were actually made by me a few years ago, using this pattern and ironically, they actually have a bag/case that you sew with them ..but I never got around to it!

I've been popping them up on sticky hooks, so later on, we can always move them with out ruining the paint.

 

For more crafty inspiration & great crafty supplies, please check out this page that I put together here....

I utilise affiliate (aff) links throughout my blog as a way to help me keep crafting. If you click on an aff link, I receive a very small amount from it at NO cost to you.   So please help me to keep CraftyRie up and running by clicking on my aff links! Many thanks, Rie