Love 'n Kisses

A friend gave me a craft magazine just before Christmas and one of the articles featured a particular stamp, I think it was called 'stitches'. The effect was a border of large, primitive stitches; some crossing over one another. I thought this might work well in actual stitching and was eager to try it out on my cats.

Love 'n Kisses with heart balloons.

I was really pleased with the results when I used it as an over-stitch to the machine - applique I use to attatch the bottom trim on the cat.




I made a couple of cats using this technique and also discovered some delightful little rainbow-coloured jingle bells in my local craft shop, which added a nice touch.
I've enjoyed discovering that one or two other paper crafting techniques transfer quite nicely to textiles.
I'll share more about that in a later blog.

Love 'n Kisses caption

I plan to make some more of these, as I think they make a nice gift idea.


This little guy on the left has already sold, so I think they may go down pretty well in my Folksy shop.


I'm enjoying making the distressed labels to finish the whole thing off.

Grey Swirl Bowtie

I have been very busy over the past couple of months setting up my new Folksy shop: Bow Ties for Hot Guys.

This is something very different for me and I'm having so much fun with it!

There is no specific reason why I chose to make bow ties, although I'm a big fan of vintage and nostalgia, so perhaps that had something to do with it.

I wanted to make bow ties that were very different and offered men a chance to have some fun accessorising and I thought it would be a good idea to turn the whole thing into a complete gift idea and designed my own packaging.

If you've never had a go at this, I can thoroughly recommend it - I had soooooo much fun!
I chose fire damage as my packaging theme, to compliment the name Bow Ties for Hot Guys.
I sourced some cute little woodchip boxes from the internet and distressed them to make them look as though they had been snatched from burning embers, and made a label to match. I also designed a label to go on the box and packed the bowtie inside using fire-red shredded paper.

So far, the new shop on Folksy is VERY quiet and I may have to accept this is not the right platform to sell them. But I will give it a year, before I give up and try elsewhere.

It's been a hard day.

Cat lovers who enjoy visiting my blog will no doubt be wondering what Boo is up to. Those of us who know and love him are never surprised to learn that Boo is sleeping

While the weather has been so icy here on the coast, Boo has rarely moved from the stove. He has a range of chairs he likes to sit in and if anyone sits in the chair he has set his sights on they have to move - that's the law.

Boo will be 7 this year. We got him from Cats Protection as a three-month-old kitten for my daughter Milly, who absolutely adores him. Just to tell you a little bit about his profile; he loves Dreamies and sleeping; hates Whiskers and going to the vet for his annual jab; Boo's biggest secret that he doesn't like anyone to know about is.......his name was Lola.