Mousy Brown's House-Creating, crafting and collecting. Enjoying Life.

Joining in.

I was feeling like I needed a challenge, something a bit different, something to kick start my fingers (and brain) and as if by magic I discovered Kate's Creative Jumpstart course, Blair's Granny Square Sampler Project and Rachel's Handstitched Class and just like that I am sorted for the Summer....

In the frame.

Do you remember me mentioning the wonderful paintings that Jennie was creating for me?  Well they arrived safely and are now framed and ready for hanging.  I can't express how much I love these paintings, she has managed to capture the spirit of my two boys so perfectly...one bursting with energy and life, the other thoughtful and contemplative. 

I am sorry I can't show you a photo of it in situ but the weather is conspiring against most forms of photography at the moment (unless you count underwater!)  As we love it so much though I am sure it will appear in many photos in the future and you will get to glimpse it then....In the meantime, you can see more of Jennie's work over at her blog "the Distracted painter", if you visit please tell her hello from me!

A homemade solution.

Jack will be 14 on Sunday and I have been looking for a card to give him for weeks.  I have decided that teenage boys are not a popular audience for card companies.  Everything is either football, "cool dude", too young or if you look at adult cards, just way too adult.  So I spent an afternoon with my water colours and a bug book and made him something that I know he will like. I am not sure I will win any prizes for my pun but for my nature crazy boy, who is getting geckos for his gift, I don't think the words will matter!

Saartje's bootees and a not cotton hat.

My cousin's baby arrived a little earlier than expected at the end of last week, so my knitting needles were full pelt at the weekend and these cuties are on the way to her now...The Saartje's bootees are a free pattern found here and the hat is based on the children's cotton hat pattern in the Last Minute Knitted gifts book.  I say based as I used some Manos silk blend left over from my pinwheel blanket and the last of my Wildfire fibre left from my hourglass sweater, so it isn't really cotton and I left off the i-cord tie and added the stem at the top instead as I thought it was a touch more masculine.

Before I go I must share something very, very exciting...The amazingly talented Jennie of "the distracted painter blog" in New Zealand has just finished this for me...do you recognise it?  If you have been reading for a while you might remember this trip...I am not sure who was more excited me or Sam.  I do love this whole world of blogs!

Another gift for my Mum (and Dad).

I hinted ,back here, that I was cooking something else up to send to my Mum for her birthday.  Well it arrived and was dispatched off to Spain as a gift for her and my Dad (they are both February babies) and now I can show you....

365 A view from my eyes by A photo a day starting 1 Feb 2011. | Make

Your Own Book

I am so pleased with how it turned out and have to say that using Blurb was a joy.  I simply imported my Flickr set into their book maker and within a couple of hours it was all ready to print.  The service was really quick and the book itself is beautiful quality.  I had another copy printed for us to keep as a  reminder of last year and am inspired now to create all kinds of other books as a way of getting some of our digital photos in solid form...can you believe we haven't printed anything for five years now?  That's quite a bit of catching up I need to do!

365:365

I did it! Today was the end of my year of photo's and I made it through all 365 days without missing a single one...and more importantly I have enjoyed it all the way through (despite sickness, travelling, lack of light and busy work days).  You can click on the arrow below to see them all, I have set it to go fast but understand completely if you get fed up before the end, a year of photo's are rather a lot no matter how fast they are going!  For me though, they bring back so many happy moments and memories I will treasure forever and you know what? I think I might try 366....

 

Alabama Stitching

I have to start with an apology...I lied about showing you more handmade birthday gifts, so look away now if you have had enough!

This weekend I finally made something that has been on my "to do" list for nearly TWO whole years...I have picked up this book so many times and done my usual panic about following instructions and put it back down without starting....I don't know what came over me on Saturday  but I decided to quit being so silly and to get going in my own way, using the pictures as inspiration and the resulting headband is just about my favourite make ever!  This one was made as a gift for my Mother's birthday but I love it so much the fabric is already cut out for me to make one for me too.

In the package to my Mum, along with the headband, I have also included some gratitude beads that I learned to make over at Creative Kismet when I took part in Regina's creative e-course....it took me ages to get around to making those as well.....I sense a theme here! 

The third something special I want to make for my Mum won't be ready in time, so she will have to be a bit patient (I will fill you in on that one later on in the week) 

The knitting is going well and I have two finished items to show you soon but the light has been so awful (I don't think it got light at all yesterday) that I have postponed that post until I can get some nice sunshine to take the photos.  The birthday yarn is not doing so wonderfully, Snap decided to kill it on Saturday while we were out and I am not sure I can save enough of it to make anything (except maybe a fairy hat!) Why, why, why does she always choose my most expensive/precious/special/beautiful/newest yarn to destroy?  Ok she has only done it once before but still that was a special skein too...maybe she just has particularly good taste in wool?  Ideas for very small knitting projects in the comments please.....

Life Interrupted.

I had such high hopes for this space this week.  I have two lots of swap packages to show (one I sent, one I received) and a new series that I am very excited about.  But in that way that always happens, just when I think I am in control, life took over and showed me very clearly just how wrong I am about that.

So, instead of sitting at my desk and writing the posts I planned, I have...

• Met the Mayor
• Created a new message board at Sam's school to show all their achievements
• Made a bouquet for the Lady Mayoress
• Made a new friend from Texas
• Learned how to play "Go Fish!"
• Sat a GCSE exam alongside someone else
• Met some Bees I am hoping to get more friendly with
• Taken my new Texan friend to a supermarket in another country
• Learned how to create new libraries on itunes
• Walked 15 miles with the dog
• Knitted two foot of a scarf
• Found the artichoke plants in my garden I thought had died

....and had one of my photo's chosen to go on Habit (one of my favourite blogs which has opened up its Flickr group to the world this week - can you spot mine?).

As to all that other stuff I was going to do, I'll try again next week, I will be very humble, ask life to slow down a bit and see where that gets me...

Amanda Soule's Mama's Bag.

Ever since I bought Amanda Soule's Handmade Home: Simple Ways to Repurpose Old Materials into New Family Treasures (on the 18th April 2009 Amazon just informed me - really? that long ago, oh my!) I have wanted to try making the vintage fabric  'Mama's bag'.  It is a little more elegant than my usual style but still utilises beautiful old fabrics and I thought the smaller size of it might discourage the clutter that I usually manage to gather in my pillowcase bags...you really don't want to know, let me just say a bit like Mary Poppins I can usually magic whatever you need out of the depths of my bag, in ANY situation...

Last Thursday I decided to stop dithering and get started and less than an hour later I was the proud owner of a Mama's bag of my own.  I used a piece of a vintage curtain I bought 20 years ago and have never found a window to fit, a piece of checked cotton that was given to me by a friend and the handles are made from a favourite shirt of mine that I have sadly had to accept is beyond repair.  The ribbon was grosgrain bought to wrap presents many Christmases ago and then sneakily rescued from the rubbish pile when nobody was looking.  It might have cost next to nothing to make but to me it is so much more beautiful (and certainly more meaningful) than any designer handbag I could buy.

And the contents?  Well at the moment (and I am aware this is likely to change!) I have my knitting (I'll be back with details soon) with it's cute little sheep marker (a gift from a very special friend, along with some other goodies I will also show you soon), my purse - a special purchase from Melissa at Tiny Happy, which I love and my journal which I am slowly filling with inspiration and ideas....and you know what? it seems to be enough....for now!

Holiday Album - Chinese brush painting.

Something on our summer list was inspired by a gift brought back by Daddy from his recent trip to China.  The contents were intriguing and slightly mysterious (we still don't really know what some of the bits are for, any enlightenment would be gratefully received!) but both the boys and I were keen to experiment.

What started as a lighthearted couple of hours outside, became a difficult learning experience as we struggled to make the unfamiliar tools do what we wanted.  Frustration, tears and scrumpled paper were not what we had intended but in a way were what made this such a special summer experience.  In trying to explain the importance of enjoying the experience over the end result to my littlest one, I also managed to see it clearer for myself.  My empathy for my little artist, who like his Mummy, always wants his pictures to be perfect, allowed me to see this fault in myself, so much clearer, and resulted in all of us being able to 'play' with no need for beautiful results.  At the end of the afternoon we were able to admit we had had fun and each of us had something we were fairly pleased with....even if for one of us it was not made using any of the materials from the set!

I am going to take some time away from a computer screen for the next couple of weeks.  As we are spending them all together as a family and trying to tick a few more of those items off the list before school starts back.  I hope you all have a great end to August and I look forward to catching up on what has been going on when I return next month....should have some exciting photo's to share with you by then too!