Red Roses, cause its almost Valentine's Day

Hi Everyone,

Hope you are all happy and content in your worlds.

Myself and Dr. J. have just returned from a few days out in our camper van, to the coast, and I am feeling very content because of it. I love the sea, in fact all water, and since we live in the centre of England more or less I don't get to see it as often as I'd like. So we combined a trip with some work Dr. J. needed to do and had a very nice relaxing time.

Award Winning, Yay me !!

Good Morning All,

Just had to share this with you I'm so chuffed to be able to tell you that I have won an award for my cloth dolls; the Great British Doll and Bear Cloth Doll Award 2015 to be exact.

So here a few pictures of the doll that bagged this little beauty for me, and I'm sure you'll agree she is beautiful to. You can find my current dolls for sale over on my Etsy page, there's a link in the side bar.

Hugs and Kisses

Ally

My flower girls headband or making fabric flowers

Morning All you lovelies

I was just looking through some photos I'd got stored on draft blog posts when I came across these ones and thought I'd share them with you. My lovely little flower girl had neat fabric roses on the first headband I made for her, but I decided I didn't like them, well that's not true I liked them well enough, but I felt they where too 'neat' for the look I wanted.

Finishing touches

Good Morning Internet Lovelies

So this post will just be a round up of the rest of the wedding items, starting with the top half of my dress. I made it fully steel boned with a corset style back so that I didn't need to worry about underwear as it was supportive in itself.

Cake topper and other decorations

Good Morning All

It's a beautiful morning here in Birmingham, perfect autumn day. The sun is out and the sky is blue and now 'Dear Prudence' is going around in my head. No it was a lovely crisp cold morning for dog walking, but with that out the way it is now time to blog and as Halloween becomes further past, I thought I better share our wedding cake and Halloween trimmings before the mood goes entirely.

The cake was the first I have made in the topsy turvy style, so I did a little internet research and decided to make it big and cut away the excess which seemed to work well. (Although it did mean that we had rather a lot of cake sitting around the kitchen, Dr J didn't mind too much though!)

18 and counting

Good Morning All

Hope you are all well.  It's 18 days here till our wedding and I have only had 1 panic so far, which I think is quite good. I am on schedule with most things, thankfully, but there is always the unexpected. Like yesterday when I went to roll the marzipan out for the fruit layer of the wedding cake, only to find that my rolling pin has gone missing. I search everywhere, Dr J. had joined in and even my daughter had a look when she came in from work. There is no sign of it anywhere, so today it's of to the shops for me to buy another one. 

Fabric flowers from flames, well heat really

Morning All

today I wanted to share with you someone else's blog, I came across this while idly looking for ideas on new ways to make flowers with fabric, and I thought it was ingenious.  You see I am looking for ideas for my bouquet, I know the wedding is a while off yet, but I bet this year flies by and I need to be on top of these things. Also with it being a winter wedding, I was thinking fabric bouquet rather than real flowers to get an icy look, it's still in a very loose thought form in my head.

But this lady is so clever, she writes the polka dot closet blog and it has quickly become a firm favourite of mine with so many posts of craft ideas and lovely inspiration, her name is Carol and she is from the States and if you follow the link below it will take you to her blog.


https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBqwpxH1sDP91PO45yrTtuYSnqD6oafn391CANThgw9_v8dfgb4zdnzoAjc1OsoWu0V2ESzK0X3kPQS_6ka6HWg94-oWx2ZNDYkbQEjxU1HTFHGprUk-u1Xg_Wgf-czOR3qmHZfqJKkIUe/s640/b+3+close.jpg

http://thepolkadotcloset.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Fabric%20flower%20tutorial

Aren't they so beautiful.  Well full of excitement and, having read through her instructions, hope, I grabbed some material and my blow torch.  Let me tell you it is not as easy as she makes it look.

Ok first change, use a candle, you can still burn yourself easily but it is less ferocious.

Two, check your material before you cut out lots of circles, it may not be synthetic enough and they all seem to melt in different ways.

This material below just seemed to melt wrong rather than curl nicely, and I did get a few burns and holes in the material trying too hard.  If the material don't want to play, go find some more material.

 and Three, pay attention, because it is a very fast process if you have the right material in the right place above the candle and it is all too easy to go too far.

But with perseverance and quite a few ouches I got the hang of it, so now I can make a flower with a lot less pain and I think I will, I can see a whole lot of hats coming off the production line with these on.

old vintage lost earrings make great centers

Well that will do for today.

take care everyone.
ally x