Crystal Shoes and Lambs

You may or may not (more likely not) have seen in the forums that I have been wanting to “strass” my shoes. I believe “strass” is “covering in diamantes”. It’s how I’m using it anyway. Now although I’m not finished with my shoes, I have done quite a bit! About 10 hours worth of mind numbing work. But I can tell it’s going to be worth it. So I am going to show you where I am up to so far.

But first, a couple of pictures because they are so cute! This weekend we popped up to Blaze farm (google it). They are fantastic with chickens and lambs and cows and their own homemade to-die-for ice cream. I highly recommend the rum and raison. They people are lovely, especially the farms wife, with whom we struck up a conversation and she actually got us the lambs to hold. (Too many children to get anywhere near them at first.)

Anyway, here are the lambs and us. And then my shoes.

Folksy Friday Fascinating Fascinators

Cheesy? Yes. But who could resist such alliteration?

Anyway! You may or may not have seen my new fascinators that I spent yesterday making for myself. Anyway here they are again (mainly because I am so proud!)

But because of this I thought I would dedicate my folksy Friday to all the lovely fascinators that inspired me to do this :]

Peacock Feather Fascinators

In the near future I have at least two and possibly three (when my brother in law and fiancé decide) weddings on the agenda. And I have noticed recently that there has been a rush of (or perhaps I just never noticed them before) beautiful fascinators.

I’ve been lusting over a peacock feather flower one for a few months now. But unfortunately they were all a bit out of my price range and I’ve always been a little cautious about how much of a prat I look like with things in my hair. I didn’t think it would be an issue, but t’was a risk for the amount of money!

So, the next logical step in my mind was to try and make one. And so I have. This was my day with a hot glue gun and a shit load of peacock feathers :]

Firstly I bought loads of clips, as I had no idea which would be best.

And these are some of my supplies.

But I eventually settled for these two types of clip. Well, one clip and a comb.

Then I cut out rough shapes on paper before attacking the felt (surprisingly slow paced for me). This felt was then glued to the sliver clip. (Ignore the blue heart, it never got used….)

I then curled a peacock feather “sword”. And glued it to felt.

And glued on some more peacock feathers.

And, quelle surprise, more peacock feathers! This time fluffy rump ones. And like scales.

And finished it off with a slightly gaudy but still pretty sparkly thing! This was sewn on to the felt by my patient, lovely boyfriend, because it was too heavy. (No idea what it is, it’s just been in my box of crap for years. I’m guessing a brooch because it looks like it’s been cut and filed down on the back.)

Then was the go of the comb.

As soon as I discovered I could successfully curl the feathers there was no stopping me!

I stuck five curled feathers to the felt for the comb, trimmed it down a bit on the back, and then stuck the comb on.

And there we go! A second fascinator, that’s very pretty and a little less over the top.

To be honest, I was quite pleased for a first attempt! In fact, I even got flowers while I was out to celebrate my pre-empted success! (Or mourn my failure…)

More Adventures (but this time Mother’s Day ones)

Well, hopefully everyone had a lovely weekend? I don’t know about your weather but ours was wonderful, despite a few showers. Me and my partner spent the day doing the rounds and everyone, at least seemed, happy and cheerful.

Once of the things we did do was we decided we wanted to get flowers for our mums. But have you seen the withering, wilting forlorn looking flowers, that are insanely expensive, this time of year? And don’t get me started on the glitter roses. My mum’s 52. She doesn’t need glittery flowers…. So, presented with this, we decided to make our own bunches up.

So we searched high and low (and it was a search. I got pretty nasty with some people trying to steal the last bunch of decent roses…It was Christmas all over again) and eventually got £30 worth of lovely flowers! And for this, we got two large ish bouquets of mixed flowers, two medium ones of tulips and a litter one of tulips and a vase.

I did, however, over estimate my floristry skills. It’s hard and I have tiny hands.

Two tips. Take the leaves off! You get much much more in your hands that way. And that “crossing and twisting them”? Bloody hard! Perhaps it’s not if you have a teacher but I have one youTube video and buckets of confidence.

Anyway these are the efforts! All our flowers (and my breakfast).

The open flowers midway through our bouquets. I forgot to take more pictures; I was too engrossed.

This is a bunch mid way through.

And some of the end results. My Mother in Law’s main bouquet and my Mum’s wee tulips (they got two bunches each but my mum’s main one is in the sink and that was far too dirty to take a picture of….) sat in some water. Not too artistic but you get the idea.

And last but not least my Mum’s present. I got a wee felted rabbit from ToadyBobbins and she loved it so I got her one too.

My Mother in law got her pearls :]

All in all a successful day!