Pocket letters

Very recently I happened to come accross a novel form of snail mail, you gotta love Pinterest! Well if I'm honest I was pretty sure my pen pal days were well gone, I don't even get time to send as many cards as I'd like, but these looked intriguing. Basically pocket letters, if you haven't already come across them, comprise of a 9 pocket plastic wallet filled to the brim with crafty lovelies, tea bags and personal messages.

Pocket letters started in America by the lovely Janette Lane, She was very keen to try Project Life (A way to journal your life) but she couldn't afford all the cards and files etc to do them so, thinking outside the box, she found some old baseball card wallets and tried to journal on a budget.... But.... They became pocket letters! Here is her first video explaining all about them here. Well I have to say I watched this and wanted to find out more! I pinned like a crazy woman and joined a couple of fb groups.  I chose ones who swapped in the UK.

First things first, get online and order some pockets!  I bough a set of 10 on Amazon, (I didn't want to commit to more in case I didn't like it).  As soon as they arrived I set about creating my first pocket letter!  The papers I used came free in a magazine,  I never know what to use them for so a perfect opportunity!
Here is a little video of my first ever pocket letter.

So I had made this thing, it was fun but now what?? Well I posted my little video on the Facebook group and two people wanted to swap straight away!  Sooo excited (big happy dance) I sent this one off to the first person who contacted me and I now have another to make for the other.  I was also contacted by someone living in America to do a swap!  Ooo.  Now l am not someone who is good at keeping up with things if I'm honest but the joy of these is you don't have to strike up new pen pals for life, you can just do swaps.  I can't wait to receive my first one! 

Well I am off to share over at Handmade Monday, hopefully I Will see you over there checking out all the crafty goodness!

Bye for now and if you fancy giving pocket letters a go or even want to swap give me a yell.  I am thinking it is a great way to use up scraps!

Painting murals

It's been along time since I painted a mural so I thought it was about time I got creative in the house!  Our middle one was spending more time in our room at night than in her own, (I'm sure many of you can relate) It was driving us a little mad, a three year old tornado who kicked you and stole the covers in the night!  My cunning plan was to make her room so lovely she wouldn't want to leave it!
My ponderings took me to painting a mural.  I have done a few in the past and I have to say they work much better if you can work solidly on them rather than a stolen 10 minutes here and there.  But I had to work with what I had!
These pictures are a little dark I'm afraid, I took them at bedtime so that you could see the pretty fairy lights.  They are actually little butterflies which I staple gunned around the edge of the tree.

You may recognise some of the illustrations from past posts, I tried to keep them in keeping with the portraits I create.

Emily is just showing the size of the images.  It is quite a small room so quite difficult to photograph with out distorting things somewhat.

We had this odd box in the corner of her room which actually covers a slop from the stairwell ceiling.  this made a great spot for a seat.  I upcycled an old foam mattress (I made a right mess throughout the house cutting this up! Foam everywhere.)  I then covered is in a scrap of fake suede. It's quite deep but looks fab and is mega comfy as it has a memory foam top!  I was hoping it would make a nice nook to read.

I really struggled with what paint to use.  I bought some tester pots and used those mostly. When I needed more colour I mixed acrylic paint in white emulsion.  This seemed to work well.  

I then used a thick perminant maker to go around all the edges.  Over all I liked the effect. 

Here is a little video I took.

Well that's it for now!  I have decided I will be moving my blog to my website soon.  I am trying hard to have fewer things to maintain so moving my blog will help me keep my website up to date too... hopefully!  I will keep you posted however!

Well I'm off to visit homemade Monday so see you there xx 

Jenny xx

Valentines Day

Valentines Day.

Did you celebrate?  I must admit as I have gotten older it has become less exciting to me (think I am growing more pessimistic as each year goes on!)  either that or the thought of more stuff cluttering up my house puts me off!

Anyhow, that said I do like to try to create a little something special for the other half!

Here is my latest creation!  A family tree of us and our three girls.  This is a different format to my usual portraits, I love the quirkiness of the tree and that each of the girls names are written in the branches,   I also thought I would experiment with a little dimension and the couple in the front is raised as is the grass.  The whole thing was finished off in a Shadow frame.  The piece was 12x12".

I am not sure whether this is something I will start offering to sell, to be honest I'm not sure how to price it. What do you think?? Did you enjoy your valentines?

I'm popping by to link with handmade Monday, do pop by to say hi.

Getting ready for a new workshop!

I have been preparing for my first proper craftea afternoon workshop since having Lucy.  We are going to be creating spinner cards! Have you made them before?  These clever little cards require 2 pennies, round foam pads and a little creativity!  It'll be interesting to see how it goes!

This one is going to be great for those who don't like to cut!  it can be done with punches.  I just love the way the alien spins around in a circle. (sorry no video of these in motion I'm afraid) 

Cupcakes and candies

Flying high (looks less of a plane crash when you move it by hand... not sure I thought that one through!)

Have you made spinner cards before?  I will get round to a tutorial at some point.

Jen xx

I'm linking this up to handmade harbour, do pop by to say hi. 

February's Crafty What Nots Unboxinng

Hi there all! Yes I mean you! How have you been?
I have found that time has become an illusion! you think you have loads of it but when it comes to it.... it disappears! But today I find I have 10 minutes to do a little blog post! yeah!

I thought I would share my first proper unboxing!

I was a little brave this month!  I created an unboxing video of February's Crafty What Nots box!! Ok I know that that in itself isn't really very brave, but I decided I would talk on it.. that was scary!
Here is it is, what do you reckon? Should I do this again next month?  I did think I should add the finished makes on the end too so people could see what they are making.

Another new thing I featured this month were QR codes, I added them for exclusive Crafty subscribers on one of the more difficult makes.  I also added one that is available to the public but as some inspiration of something that could be made!

I thought more videos would help, especially on origami tutorials!  If you would like to see any of my videos so far then here is my YouTube channel.

I will leave you with images of the makes that were included in this months box.  If you would like to give a box ago then visit www.craftywhatnots.com and see what they are all about, read reviews and view buying options.  You can buy just one box or subscribe for a discount.  I also have kit boxes available too!  The deadline for orders is the 15th of each month.

I will be linking up with Handmade Monday as usual so do pop by to visit some fantastic blogs!