Scrappy birthday card

Ok, so I know it’s not clothing, but it used to be! I painted and stamped the background with fabric paints then sewed on fabric houses made from my mountain of scraps. I couldn’t resist the button moon (does anyone else remember the cartoon?)

I then sewed the whole thing to a bit of folded card. There are bits of shirts, skirts, and allsorts in there – it’s a great way to use up your scraps :)

Beccy

 

Ah, fruitfulness – that’s more like it!

My grapes are actually tiny – we don’t have the climate here for real fruit, but the vine looks nice.

I hate cucumbers, I have no idea why I grow them every year – except that they are always the best growers and I know lots of people who do like them!

Butternut squash – soon this will be soup, yum!

Our solitary cooking apple, but it is a fairly young tree.

Some of our courgettes are turning into marrows – these always do really well.

And finally leeks, I love leeks!

Beccy

Season of mists and mellow… lupins?

Anyone who doesn’t believe in climate change is welcome to come and check out my garden! How is it possible to have a lupin first flower in September?

Round our way they usually finish flowering in July.

While I was out with the camera, I also took some piccies of things that are supposed to be in flower now, so pretty!

I love this time of year, cool enough for a cardi but still very sunny. The garden has matured into a riot of colour and is still very green. The fruit and veg is ripening, and it seems that all that hard work has been worthwhile.

Beccy

Decoupage with the stars themselves…

We were given this cabinet when a neighbour moved out. I forgot to take a proper before picture but you can see this cabinet was pretty boring!

We spray painted the inside with some midnight blue plasticoat…

…and photocopied a 50’s book called ‘The stars’ by H. A. Ray. It’s a fantastic book full of constellation maps, essentially written for children but it’s fascinating and the illustrations are lovely. Mum’s been busy cutting them up and sticking them all over with wallpaper paste.

When the whole thing was covered it was finished with a coat of clear varnish to seal it.

Beccy

I finished Que Sera and a new skirt!

The cardigan is the free Que Sera pattern from Knitty I started ages ago. Isn’t it pretty? Stop looking at those buttons, I know I went a bit wrong with my measuring :) I realised too late that I wasn’t going to have enough room to fit in another properly spaced buttonhole so I put one as high as I could in the neckband when I knitted it on. I think it’s ok?
The skirt was one I’ve had for ages, but it was far too big and had a bleach mark on the hem:

Yeuch, very sloppy! To fix it I added two box-pleats, one in the front and one in the back to pull in the waistband. Then I hemmed it shorter to get rid of that nasty red bleach spot.
This is my new teaching outfit – it’s the first day of class today and I wanted to make a good (smart-ish) impression. I might have to dig out my wide red belt though, to add a bit of zing - I am an art teacher, after all!
Beccy