Superhero Cape with Cricut Joy

Hello!  My last post of the year, with something that I made Emily for Christmas!  She had been using an old muslin as a superhero cape, so I decided to make her a nice one!

It was made using things I already had in stash, which was satisfying.  I used two pink cotton fat quarters - one for the front and one to line it.  Emily is a big fan of pink, which is why I chose that colour!  Some pink ribbon is used for the tie.

Then came the fun part...

I used the Cricut Joy to cut out SUPER EMILY, a lightning bolt, and some stars from smart glitter iron-on vinyl.  I hadn't yet tried using iron-on vinyl, but it went very well - I love the result!  It is so lovely and glittery in real-life too, but hard to capture the true sparkle on camera.

Emily seems happy with her cape!

It feels lovely to give her presents that I have made myself!

Tomorrow is the start of 2023 - I hope that I will be back soon with a lot more crafty makes!  2022 was far too sparse on the creativity!

Felt Gingerbread Man Christmas Tree Decoration

I have managed to complete another item, ready for Christmas!  Each year since 2018, I make a felt ornament for the Christmas tree.

This year, I made a gingerbread man...

I found him a bit of a pain to make, but I knew my daughter would love him as she does like a gingerbread man!

I embroider the year on the back.

Here is the collection I now have...

It is actually Christmas morning as I type this, so Merry Christmas!  My son woke up at 2.40am... it took me till nearly 4am to get him back to sleep and I have been awake since then, very annoyingly!  I just couldn't for the life of me get back to sleep.  It's now about 7.30am and I thought I'd get this post done as I wait for everyone to wake up and the festivities to begin!

Crochet Penguin

I have finally finished a crochet project - I think it must be the first yarn related project I've finished since Max was born!

I did plan for this to be a birthday present for Emily, back in May.  Well, that didn't work out and it wasn't completed by then, but I managed to finish it in time for her December box.  It's a bit like a Christmas Eve box, but she gets it at the beginning of December with festive things in for the month!

I used the free pattern for Brian the MBP Penguin.  The only thing I changed was to do one less round on the feet, as mine were coming up very big.  Oh, and the blue "coat" of the penguin came out bigger than the white body - so I added stuffing at the back of the body to fill out the coat so that it fit snuggly when I sewed it on.  I'm not sure why that happened - maybe something to do with my tension - but stuffing the gap did the trick and you wouldn't really know!

I think he's rather cute, and Emily is very happy with him which is lovely!

I hope to be back soon with more makes!

Cake Toppers with the Cricut Joy

Goodness me - I've not posted since January, and it's now December tomorrow!  This is by far the least I've ever blogged since starting my blog back in 2011!

It seems that having a second child has had a big impact on my crafting - it is so difficult to fit it in around working part-time and looking after the children, and being very tired from the lack of sleep I'm still suffering from!

But something I did make - back in May and June - were some cake toppers for Emily and Max's birthday cakes.  I designed them in Cricut Design Space and cut them out of gold card with the Cricut Joy.

The shiny gold of the card shows better in the pictures below, on the cakes!

Cake making and decorating really isn't my forte, so excuse this rough and ready cake!  Emily loved it, which is the main thing - she adores rainbows!  (I bought all the decorations apart from the "Emily is 3" topper I made.)

Max's topper was the same but with his name and age.  For both toppers I cut them out twice, with one a mirror image of the other...

I then glued them together, so that both sides of the topper were gold.  I stuck the toppers to a wooden stick thingy, tied some ribbon into a bow around the stick, and jabbed them into their respective cakes!

Another very simple scruffy cake!  Candles were added to the cakes after these pictures were taken.

I do enjoy making things with the Cricut Joy, in the rare moments I get to use it.  There is so much potential that I will hopefully get chance to explore more at some point!

I have very recently completed a couple of other projects - a crochet one and a sewing one!  I will try to take reasonably decent photos, in the dim light we have this time of year, and will share them soon - so watch this space!

Creation Consolidation - 2021!

As per my standard practice, I am rounding up my creative makes of 2021.  I started pretty well, but things ground to a halt when my son was born!

So, first I'll share my biggest and best creation...

Our little boy Max was born in June!  We now have Emily and Max - two adorable little children!  As gorgeous as they are, they certainly take up a lot of time and effort!  I need to try to find some time for creating again!

But here are my crafting makes over 2021.  Click the headings or the pictures to be taken to the relevant posts.

Crochet Strawberry

Knitted Bracelet

Valentine Watercolour Hearts

Knitted Rosewater Shawl

Memory Tags

Storage Labels

Easter Buckets

Crochet Easter Bunnies

V-Stitch Crochet Blanket

Knitted Baby Hat

Art Book

Felt Penguin Christmas Tree Decoration

I hope to have time for more crafting this year, but who knows!

If you are interested, here are my consolidation posts from previous years:

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017
2018

2019

2020

I didn't do a round-up for years before that, but you can see other finished items at the below links:

Crochet

Knitting

Sewing

Wishing you all the best for 2022.

Felt Penguin Christmas Tree Decoration

If you've been following for a while, you will have seen that I started a tradition in 2018 of making a felt Christmas tree decoration each year.

This year I made a cute little penguin, with Max's name on it, to celebrate that this is the year he was born!

Each year I embroider the year on the back...

I made a special decoration in 2019 too, the year Emily was born - here they are together...

And below are all four I've made...

You can see my posts on them as follows... 2018 Star, 2019 Mouse in Stocking, 2020 Pudding.

The collection is growing!

I hope you have a merry Christmas and a healthy and happy New Year!

I'm hoping to have more chance to create and craft next year.  If we can get Max sleeping at a reasonable hour in the evenings, then I'll have an hour or two then to work on things... trusting I'm not too exhausted!

Cricut Art Book

Emily loves playing with stickers, and Santa is putting some in her stocking this year!  I thought a little notebook that she could use to stick the stickers in, and for drawing with her crayons, would be a nice idea.

I bought a kraft notebook from Amazon and decorated it with shimmer permanent vinyl cut on my Cricut Joy.  Very quick and simple, but hopefully she'll like it.  She can't read yet, but she knows a lot of her letters and hopefully will learn to recognise her name!

A cute little personalised Christmas present for under the tree!

A New Arrival

Well, it's been a while!!  As the subject of this post suggests, there has been a new arrival!  Not so new anymore...

Max was born back in June!  Here he is looking festive in a Christmas jumper and hat my Mum knitted for him!

And here he is with his big sister, Emily, also in a Grandma creation...

Having these two doesn't leave much time for crafting I'm afraid!  I do have a couple of things to show you though, so will aim to get those posts in before the end of the year!

Blue Knitted Baby Hat

Not long to go until the baby is here, all being well!  I have knitted him a little blue hat to wear in hospital...

The pattern I used was the Tegan Baby Hat that you can find here.  It is the same pattern I used for my daughter's hat two years ago.

Here they are together...

THE DETAILS

Yarn:  Sirdar Snuggly DK in Sky Blue (216)

Needles:  3.5mm for the garter edge, 4.5mm for the rest.  This is bigger than the needle size called for, but I have a tight tension and was also knitting the preemie size so wanted it to come out a little bigger, but not as big as the 0 - 3 months size.

Pattern:  Preemie size, knit flat instructions from here.

Check out my completed knitted projects here.


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What to do if your Cricut Joy Cards are Cutting too High

This isn't my usual "look what I made!" blog post... but I'm sharing it as I experienced this problem and I couldn't find anything online about it!

When I first got my Cricut Joy, I also got some Insert Cards and a Card Mat.  However, when attempting to make a card, I found that the whole design wasn't cutting centrally on the mat, it was cutting too high, and therefore the corner slits were cutting off the card!  One, this didn't look right; and two, it didn't function correctly - the top slits were unable to hold the insert rectangle of card.  You can see two examples below...

You can also see on the Card Mat below, which still has the leftovers from the 'Thanks' card, that it is too high on the mat, and the top of the corner slits are being cut into the mat rather than the card...

After searching high and low on the internet for some kind of solution to my problem - what was I doing wrong?! - I called the Cricut helpdesk.  They were so helpful, and after us trying a few different things while on the phone, it turned out...

...the Card Mat was faulty!!

This is something I didn't even consider!  The border at the top of the Card Mat was actually too big, so when the card was positioned correctly on the mat, it was actually lower than the Cricut Joy machine expected it to be.  The machine cut as it should, but because the card was lower down, it was cutting the design too high, and off the top of the card.

The Cricut helpdesk arranged for a new mat to be sent to me, and all was well with the world!

You can see the difference in the top border sizes below... the correct one is on top.

The new mat made all the difference, and I could now make the cards correctly!

I hope this helps anyone who experiences the same problem - as there must be a load of these faulty card mats out there!

Baby Boy V-Stitch Crochet Blanket

 I have finished the crochet blanket for my little boy bump!

This picture shows it in my little daughter's pink bedroom, as the nursery is yet to be painted for the new baby, and the cot is on order!  The baby's room will probably be bluey/aqua colours with accents of orange.

The yarn I've used is King Cole Cottonsoft DK in the below colours:

Azure (3366)
Opal (3460)
French Navy (741)
Orange (3030)
White (710) - not shown

You can buy this yarn from Love Crafts*.

I used this blanket as my starting point.  I started and ended with colour sections, though, rather than white sections, and I chose a different border.

• I started with a chainless sc (US) foundation row of 149 stitches, plus 3 ch.  I would recommend doing a chain in this case, though, which would be 149 stitches, plus 3 = 152 ch.
• I did four repeats of four colours (with white inbetween).  I have tight tension though, and for me the blanket was a bit thin.  So someone else might get away with three repeats.  Or else do more chains to make a wider blanket.  (Your starting chain must be a number that is divisible by 3, then plus 5.  For example, 152 ch is 49 x 3 = 147.  147 + 5 = 152.)
• Each coloured band was 4 rows of v-stitch.
• Each white band was 2 rows of v-stitch.
• When finished, I went around the blanket with single crochet (US) / double crochet (UK) in white.  I did 2 stitches over the last stitch in each row of v-stitch down the sides.  Across the top and bottom, when I got to a v space, I did a long sc (US) / dc (UK) into it, to slightly mimic the zigzag of the v-stitch.
• I did a row of sc, skip 2 st, ch 2.  I then did a row of sc, before continuing the border in linen stitch in white, ending with a single linen stitch row in orange.  You could probably just go straight into linen stitch after your initial foundation row of sc/dc, though.  (I was a bit undecided on what I was doing at first!)

I'm really pleased with how it came out, and how the colours look together!

The blanket measures approximately 78cm x 103cm. 

If the blanket looks a bit rumpled in the last two pictures, it's because a certain little toddler decided to play on it during the photoshoot!  At least it has her seal of approval - hopefully her brother will feel the same!

What do you think?  I hope you like it!

*affiliate link

Check out my completed crochet items here.

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Happy Easter!

 Just popping in quickly to say Happy Easter!

Emily and I decorated this tree with eggs I'd made in previous years.

The very old felt eggs can be found on my blog here - in a post from nearly exactly 10 years ago!

Patterns for the crochet eggs can be found here and here.

Have a lovely time and eat lots of chocolatey goodies!

Crochet Easter Bunnies

 I decided to make some little crochet bunnies for Emily to find during her Easter hunt this weekend.

The pattern I used was this one from The Knotted Nest.  I used DK scraps of King Cole Cottonsoft I had in stash, and a 4mm crochet hook.  (You can buy this yarn at Love Crafts *.)

You make a front and back, add a little tail, then crochet together with a bit of light stuffing inside.

The pattern calls for a pompom tail, but I couldn't make one that didn't look too big, despite all the trimming I did.  (I used a thinner yarn than the pattern suggested, and I am a tight crocheter too, so my bunnies came out smaller).

So instead I made the tail from this pattern by Love the Bluebird.  I used 2 strands of DK King Cole Cottonsoft in White, and a 5mm crochet hook.

I was going to make a lilac bunny too, but I lost interest after two!  I'm sure two are enough, though, and I hope Emily likes them!

*affiliate link

Check out my completed crochet items here.

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Cute Easter Buckets with the Cricut Joy

I have been getting a fair bit of use out of my Cricut Joy - considering I have limited time to concentrate and learn what to do!

I'm quite excited by my latest project - some mini Easter Buckets for Emily to use for a little Easter egg hunt next weekend.

Everything I've been doing so far has been with the things you can get free in Cricut Design Space (or fonts I've uploaded) but I decided to go for the free month trial of Cricut Access, and it has been good to not have to limit myself to the free things.  (To be honest, maybe some of what I've used here is free - I'm not sure now that I have access to it all.)

The bunny design I used without any changes, as I knew I wanted a simple white silhouette, and I love how it looks!  That was my original idea - a white bunny silhouette - but then I thought carrots would be cute too.  I found a simple carrot image, but it was also designed to be cut in one colour.  However, I fiddled about with the image to separate the leaves from the carrot so that I could cut them in two colours.  I'm so pleased with how they came out!

Carrot Image: #M7866023 (that one might be free) - tangerine and mint permanent vinyl (from the Beachside pack)

Bunny Image:

#M248BFFB9 - whie permanent vinyl

The back of the buckets have Emily's name on:

(My camera really didn't like focussing on that orange!)  The font I used was Showcard Gothic.

The pastel buckets are from Baker Ross.  They are tiny 7.5cm high buckets, in a pack of 5.  Quite overpriced, once you pay for delivery, but they were just what I wanted.  And I hope that we'll use them for years to come.  (The dent on the back of the pink one annoys me greatly, though.  I may have to stick some trim on to cover it.)

These are hollow chocolate eggs - creme egg sized - so you can see how small the buckets are!  My husband bought the eggs when he did the food shop.  I wanted smaller eggs, but the colourful foil wrappers are just what I had in mind!

I also made a couple that will be for the little baby on his way... if all goes to plan.

Once he's safely in this world and we're sure of a name, I will put his name on the back of these buckets.

With the extra yellowy bucket, I did a simple 'Happy Easter' design.  Here they all are together!

What do you think?  I'm so pleased - they came out just as I had imagined!