Fantastic Friday Felt Wonderful

This is a treasury of some of the wonderful felt articles to be found on Etsy.  There are many, many more but here is just a few:

'Felt wonderful!' by astridsgardenshop

Some of the fantastic felt items available on Etsy

Felt flower brooch/ red Popp... Marywool $25.00	Felt Colorful Unique Linen N... FeltZone $32.00	Ecofriendly Felt Necklace Fe... FELTandGEM $30.00
Artisanal Felt Necklace catrinel777 $63.00	Autumn Marathon / Felted Clo... LybaV $200.00	Red felted slippers with hol... jurgaZa $69.00
Nuno felted vest blue, ye... HandyMaria $170.00	ARtWeAR - 'Flame' ..... Innerspiral $74.00	Blue felt hat merino wool G... jannio $85.00
Nuno Felted Scarf made with ... plumblossomfar... $65.00	Felted Jacket 'Butterfly... doseth $149.00	Custom Blue Felt Bag, Felte... Shannybeebo $50.00
Blue Felted beaded necklace ... DevikaFelt $24.00	Statement necklace felt peac... thelintballoon $250.00	Felt necklace / collar AleksandrabWin... $36.00
Blue Felt Bead and Recycled ... RowanSongCraft... $6.00

Treasury tool supported by the dog house

Last days of summer!

We have been trying to make the most of the last days of summer recently and unfortunately that has meant I am falling behind on blogging. So here I am, what have I been up to?  One night this week we finally got our barbeque up and running and we had a lovely family evening. It was a reasonably warm evening and Beast was enjoying herself running off with the leftover corn cobs.  She was hoping for more but we ate it all!

 On Tuesday it was a mini holiday.  We piled in the car and went to New Quay (Wales) and went on a dolphin spotting trip.  It was pretty choppy but we had a great time. We only spotted a few dolphins in the distance but we also saw a couple of seals, including a little baby one (I took a photo but it was a bit blurry because of the waves) and some cormorants sitting on the rocks.  We stopped for drinks and sat out in the sun.  Silly, we live only about 20 miles from New Quay and we so rarely go there.  I got a few nice photos of the cliffs and I am sure I will paint some of them! They are truly inspiring both in colour and form.  I hope you all had a great summer in spite of the weather.  I am making sure that my family and I will enjoy every last nice day this month!

 I hope you enjoyed this little peek into our summer, now it is back to some art and craft.  By the way these photos on here are my first try at making collages, I just discovered this feature on Picassa.  I think I may have some fun with this!

Thursday Treasury.

'Like a summer sunset.' by astridsgardenshop

As the summer has been a bit of a wash-out just something to remind us of a wonderful sunset.

Red Sponge Coral, Carnelian,... MidnightStarDe... $15.50	Laying Tool Stiletto Sewing ... TJBdesigns $12.00	3 Apples and Cinnamon Scente... ambersaromas4u $5.00
Orange Button Necklace / Bib... Becorations $20.00	Pillow Cover - "Ravens ... floorartetc $55.00	Orange and Iridescent Blue T... DiomoGlass $10.00
Wool Tops. Orange and yellow Thecraftmagpie $4.00	Yellow Resin Flower Flat Bac... magpiesstash $1.00	Natural Baltic Amber polishe... BalticAmberAnd... $13.00

Treasury tool supported by the dog house

Wet Felting Work Shop

My friend Ali makes the most wonderful felt art (you can see it here ) and she offered to do a day of showing me the basic principles of this old craft.  When  I had  tried some wet felting  before by myself I hadn't enjoyed it and I really needed a bit of help.  I followed the instructions in one of my felt making books and I found the whole process rather tedious and the felt was not really what I expected.  So I contacted her and she was very enthusiastic.  So on Monday I got in my car and made my way to the deepest, darkest ... No, no just kidding, it only felt like I was driving for miles along winding Welsh roads.  Well anyhow I got there and had a wonderful time, so lovely in fact that I forgot to take fotos until halfway through, silly me.  Here are a few though:

 Here I am making pre-felt

I  blended three different colours with carding tools

Partially felted

Shapes cut out ready to go onto my  background

 I forgot to take a photo of the background making but that was made with a layer of needlepunch felt and a nice layed of blended colours (black,charcoal and grey) with added silk, bamboo an mohair fibres

Here the tulip pattern had started to felt nicely but it needed a bit more work.

Here it is, felted and fulled, my first finished piece!

Not bad for a first try is it?    I did a multi coloured "sausage" as well as a rope,

A rope in the colours of a twister ice cream

The "sausage".  It has three colours on the inside

I will leave you with a few photos of Ali's workroom as I found it a wonderfully inspiring place

A drum carder, to lay out all the fibres nicely

Imagine this, isn't it lovely?

Lots of lovely colours

A basket full of inspiration.

Home Sweet Home- There's nobody home but us chickens.

Today not inside but in my back yard.  It is rather overgrown and messy as we are still trying to get it fenced and made safe for the chickens and geese.  But they don't care.

 The cockerel is called Button and he was our only chick that we have had hatch.  He's taken over from his dad Chirpy who died about 6 months ago.

These two lavender ladies are called Cinders and Charcoal  and they are perched on top of the gate to get to the weeds that make a tasty snack for them.  It is hilarious to see them squabble to get near to the end of the gate.

The geese (Sid and Gussie) like to patrol the area an keep the chickens in check.  The chickens depart swiftly  but they do return as soon as they have passed!

Home sweet Home is an idea of Barbaramama, you can find a list with all participants on her blog!

What have I been up to?

Not a lot as I have been stupidly tired this week.  I have been doing very little crafting (partially because the cats keep breaking out and I  have to go and capture them again) and the little crafting I have been doing has had its ups and downs.  I have been working on some beads for my new collection (hush hush, not telling you what it is yet) and on a new pendant made from paper.  This is a totally new idea that has kept me awake recently.  I think I have cracked it now with the help of some videos on Youtube  I have made my first one and I have a few more lined up for finishing.  I haven't got a photo of the other ones but I can share my first trial pendant.  Let me know what you think and what colours you'd like to see them in.

I have been making some beads too but they take time Mod Podging and varnishing them.  For some reason they just keep  being sticky.  But with a little help from my friends I have been able to work out what was causing that and hopefully I can finish those lovelies off in the next few days.  I also have a few orders from Funki Blue outstanding so I will have to work hard next week to get all things finished and delivered.  Still, it is doing things I love so I'm not complaining.

Home-Sweet-Home

Apart from being a busy, home educating mum, and "pretend farmer" with lots of animals to look after I like to be creative  making jewellery and other pretty things for  "Astrid's Garden"  and  "Astrid's Jewel Garden" As well as that,  I also enjoy doing some painting from time to time.  To be quite honest, I LOVE painting and I really don't do it so much  as I get very grumpy if I have to stop to deal with everyday stuff.  These are three paintings that are in my living room at the moment. The two top ones are hung up but the bottom one normally just sits on a shelf as it is quite small (I hung it op for the photo as my shelf is rather cluttered)

  These paintings were done about four years ago. The top one is my youngest daughter in pensive mode and the other two are of  my youngest boy when he was a baby. I have painted more recently but they have been miniature ones called ACEO.  But more about those another time.

What's for dinner?

Ok, today I am sharing what is in my oven. A couple of trays of delicious stuffed peppers. I love making this recipe as it makes a lovely dinner and any left overs are great for a packed lunch or a picnic. The only problem is that there aren't often left-overs!  I serve it with a nice big salad.  If you want to stretch it a bit serve it with crusty rolls.

The recipe (serves 6).

3 medium bell peppers
125g almonds (grated or chopped)
125g cheese (grated)
100g couscous or bulgur wheat
225g chopped tomatoes
8 tbs red wine
2 cloves of garlic (crushed)
salt and pepper to taste
bread crumbs and grated cheese for topping

Heat oven to 190 C/375 F gas mark 5

Cut peppers through the middle and remove the seeds. Put them in a slightly greased dish.
To make the stuffing put the nuts,cheese, couscous,tomatoes, garlic and wine  in a bowl and mix it up.  Add salt and pepper to taste. (If you don't want to use wine replace it with stock or apple juice)
Spoon the filling into the peppers and sprinkle with breadcrumbs and top with grated cheese.
Bake for 30-40 minutes , uncovered until  the peppers are tender and the topping golden brown

Friday Fantastic

Lately I have spend too much time searching for beads. Not on the internet, but in my craftroom.  I kept most of my beads in zip lock bags in a huge glass jar.  I thought they would be easy to see but I ended up throwing the beads on the table every time.  Finally I had had enough and I decided to go and see if the local pound shop had some plastic boxes.  I had real fun sorting through all the beads and  put them all   in the boxes. The result has been great, I can find everything easily now and it is very easy to spot where I need more beads of specific colours. So off to get some more beads!