Coffee Mug Sleeves

Knitting all sorts of mug sleeves and mug hugs for one's favourite cups has been very trendy lately. I keep seeing lots of projects like these around in books, magazines and on the internet. I'd been thinking of having a go at it so not so long ago I knitted one for myself and recently I've knitted another one :)

Basically the story is: at work for the children's safety we have got to use the so called safety cups (they can be plastic or ceramic, anything as long as it comes with a lid) so I got myself a "hearty" ceramic mug and knitted my first mug sleeve using a knitting magazine. The turquoise colour was a random acrylic yarn I took to knit "a prototype". It looked acceptable so it stayed and I started using it. The mug despite the double walls which are supposed to act as insulation gets too hot to hold it in hands so a coffee mug sleeve proved to be very much needed. In the meantime my bf presented me with another lovely ceramic coffee mug with a knitted pattern on it (!!!) Collection: The Nordic Pantry from Sainsbury from around Christmas last year. (He knows so well what I love! Bless him! x x) 

My cat, Cookie, has been posing for you as a live background for the mugs :)

However with time and through the frequent use and under the hot temperature, the turquoise mug sleeve has stretched  and became too loose a bit so I had to make another one. This time a different pattern - lace. I've learnt a lot new knitting steps with this pattern: yarn over, pass the slip stitch over, knit into the front and back and slip the stitch purlwise :))) It's not 100% ideal and it probably won't impress someone who knits laces for years but I'm proud of myself as until now I've considered myself unable to read the knitting patterns from the books and mags ;) I'm definitely getting more confidence about it now. 

This is the source of my inspiration: Simply Knitting magazine of 2013 with lovely 3 patterns to knit.

The chequered pattern turned out to be very easy. The lacy one is more complex but with a bit of help of the books and YouTube tutorials I managed well :) Now the remaining pattern is a cabled variant. I can't do the cable knitting right at the moment so I'll have to practise a bit before I have a go at this one.

In the meantime I keep on knitting Easter eggs using my cotton yarns. I enjoy this activity a lot as it's a chill out for me after work. I knit for pleasure and with no rush :)

For the knitted eggs "shells" and small balls of yarn I found at home this wooden bowl. It's not a real yarn bowl but will act as one for the time being until I get a real one for myself one day. It turned out it is a bowl made by my bf years ago at DT lessons :) How unusual! Forgotten, unnoticed and under dust for such a long time! I think it looks good with these natural colours, don't you think so?

This week is going so fast! It's Friday tomorrow and then WEEEEEKENDDDD!!! :) Looking forward to some crafting and chilling out in the comfort of my home.

Have a good  evening x X x

(Early) Christmas Cards 2013 (8): Cards with washi tapes

Yay! Weekend finally! This weekend I won't be doing much, I guess. Just a bit of knitting and cross stitching. Perhaps I'll find some time to sit down to make some more cards. In the meatime I'm going to show you  some cards I used the washi tapes on. Washi tape is a relatively new product on the market. It's a type of a low-tack masking tape but as opposed to the traditional boring masking tape, washi tape is patterned and decorative and it can be used in scrap booking or applied to various surfaces like glass or plastic. I have a few of these tapes at home and thought they may look good on some Christmas Nordic cards ;) So here are my attempts at including the washi tapes in my cards :)

Mine are naturally (surprise! surprise!) Nordic-themed :) They are a bit translucent and your can layer them to get some overlapping shades :) For this card I used Himalayan Snowflake from Martha Stewart, stamps from Scandinavian Christmas set, also from Martha S. and the Norwegian star stamp comes from craftfun.pl :)

Moving away from reindeer to ... Scandinavian wreath hearts :) This lovely heart stamp is from Noolibird and it has been one of my favourites since the beginning. I wanted to create a red and white card with some green accents :) 

And finally a festive card with a mixture of red, white and turquoise. This time three snowflakes have been stamped and heat-embossed with some scalloped layers and washi tape. The snowflakes are a Noolibird brand again. I love how they come in various shapes. The Merry Christmas stamp is from Scandinavian Christmas stamp set from Martha Stewart (as mentioned above). The red paper is Scandinavian Christmas from Marianne Designs, the polka dot paper comes from the last year Hobby Craft Christmas paper set. 

And what about you? What are you up to this weekend?

Turquoise and Brown once more

Time for another batch of cards with brown and turquoise features :) I already blogged about some of them before HERE -  have a peek if you interested. Again - it's all has been made using some scraps of paper, kraft cardstock and stamps :) My favourite card making motifs: hearts and cross stitch pattern.

This card has something new I wanted to try out - hand sewing on card. The cross stitch on the central card topper has been heat-embossed in seafoam white and the squares have been embellished with cross stitches by hand. I'm quite pleased with the effect. "Dla Ciebie"  = For you :)

This card has been literally made from remaining scraps of paper. I had a few coloured offcuts and why not go for a stripey composition? 

I think the vellum fishtail and the pearls are my favourite details here. 

Another card with a heart card topper. Used one of my cross stitch stamps on it.

And the last card, not with turquoise this time but with pink / purple shades. 

And all cards together:

A crafty fellow Emma from Emma made blog awarded me a blog Liebster Award.

What a lovely surprise! Thank you Emma.

Brown sugar or caramel?

Brown sugar or caramel? Which one do you choose? I like both and these "sweet" colours were my inspiration for the set of 8 hand-made cards I have created this week. I'm very pleased with how they turned out. Today I'm showing you the first four. Basically I limited myself to this range of colours: A) turquoise + brown/caramel + white or B) brown/caramel + white + pink to see what comes out of it. I worked on kraft cardstock blanks (Love it! - my favourite cardstock), did quite a lot of stamping and heat-embossing. It was great fun composing those cards.

Do you perhaps recognize this central card topper in a form of classic medallion? This is exactly the same motif I used for my medallion cards earlier on (if you're interested I blogged about them HERE and HERE).

Raspberries in chocolate anyone? This time my central card topper is a big flower in a cross-stitchy style. The backing squares have been distressed for a more "rugged" look :)

And back to turquoise again :) This card has been made literally from scraps of paper. Would you really say that? I have finally had a chance to dig out my vellum paper sheets that have been squirrelled away somewhere in my craft boxes. Together with the fishtail dies (my another new fascination), I discovered what a great addition to your cards a vellum paper can be. Added a couple of Hydrangea flowers for some elegance. Not a big fan of excessive bushy floral compositions so I went for a rather modest option. I like flowers just for... accentuation

And raspberry and chocolate once more :) This time it's the same medallion but on a lacey bedding :) Textured cardstock gives us a different heat-embossing effect.

Would love to share those card with the other crafty people so I'm linking up to Hand-made Monday blog hop tonight!

Hope you have had a great sunny weekend! Thank you for your comments x x

3 cards

Between one crochet project and the other, I decided to take a short break and show you my recent three cards :)

Gorgeous Polish folky papers from GoScrap and butterfly stamps from Ambrosia Bitsy by Basic Grey. I wanted something really cheery and vibrant with colours on this card.

A highly contrastive card with a folky feel ) Martha Stewart's punches - Garden Gate and the Floral Heart punch. 

And finally my first attempt to make a card with a Dala horse. I used a Panduro stamp and coloured the outlines with Promarkers. Didn't have any idea what to do with the flower though! Tried all the arrangements possible and wasn't fully happy with any of them. The flower ended up being glued in eccentric circles. 

Mega-tired today. Off to my bed. Will do some blog visiting tomorrow. Thanks for popping by and leaving a trace behind :) x x x

Cards with owls

Two trendy owls "glass painted" on a piece of acetate and made into cards :)

A Christmas owl surrounded by stamped snowflakes :)

Both cards, side by side

Dots again

And back to dots again :) This time 3 big cards - two for birthdays and a retirement card for the boss.

A paper doily is the main element of the background here. I thought it would introduce a nice texture to the card. I also used Lilly of the Valley circular badge stamps and Core'dinations Chocolate Box Papers. The dotted paper has been machine sewn.

And the three cards together:

In case someone wondered what this huge shadow of a buttefly is doing here in the picture - no, don't worry, I don't have any giant butterflies around my place :) it's just a shadow of a big acetate butterfly suncatcher I've got on my window that comes out when the sun shines straight through my windows.

So glad it's Friday evening now :) Time to  relax by doing some crafts - something I always wait for the whole week to do and enjoy.  A very busy and crafty weekend lies ahead of me. I'm planning to sew some more Cheeky Chickens to sell on the oncoming summer fair! :) Wish me luck! :)