"Happy birthday!....I ..er.. made it myself..." *insert awkward silence here*

I think it's probably fair to say that there's very little I enjoy more than finding the perfect gift for someone else. In the olden days, by which I really mean roughly 1995 to February 2010, I would find myself gathering little snippets from random conversations and pasting them into my "birthdays and christmasses" mental scrapbook ready for the next appropriate gifting opportunity.  Ah, so delightful to just use my actual memory. Then I got an iphone. And now I just have "notes" to do the remembering for me. The end result is the same, but it feels a little bit like cheating.

Anyhoo, I have NO notes for my best friend.  She is the girl who has everything.  Pretty much.  Now, given how I love a crafty project, I've taken to presenting her with nowt but homemade bits and bobs.  What a fortunate individual... Most recently she was the lucky recpient of this natty little item, the cabled cushionette:

Not bad for a first attempt and done from a completely-made-up-off-the-top-of-my-head pattern! She professes to love it, and as she lives down under (so I have no real way of knowing one way or the other!), I am happy to imagine it taking pride of place in her apartment. I would have whacked it up here sooner but didn't want to ruin the surprise for her as the cushionette sailed the high seas to Oz.

Wheeeeeeee!

Time on my hands?  Or something else entirely?  Um...like a ring, perhaps...a GREAT BIG DIAMOND RING!!  Okay, it's not a great big rock because that would be crass (and frankly, unaffordable) but it is beautiful and I adore it.  And most importantly it's mine, it's real, and I didn't buy it for myself so I could pretend to be engaged.  Only a crazy person would do that.  And I'm not crazy. Anymore.*

*okay, just enough crazy to spend my lunch hour crafting a giant ring.  What?  Totally normal...

Pauper-proof craftage

In these credit-crunchy, belt-tightening times I've been quietly entertaining myself with a few little paper based projects. Amazing what you can do with a bit of parchment and a sense of humour...oh okay, and a book full of cool ideas that you're not quite clever enough to have for yourself (Minhee Cho, Randi Brookman Harris and Johnny Miller of "Paper + Craft" fame, I doff my imaginary hat to you, you little geniuses.).

Much as I love the knitting and sewing and whatnot, I'm a bit too poor at the moment and I've not yet embraced the whole Make Do and Mend "Why not turn this pair of highly flammable rayon curtains into a fab retro tote?!" mentality.

So my soft furnishings remain in tact thus far. And anyway, paper's free, innit? Well it is if you borrow a few sheets from work. Which I would NEVER do. Obviously. (much)

To date, we have mostly been enjoying the oh-so hilarious moustache straws. I made these for a friend's party, which I then spectacularly failed to attend because, well, that's how I roll...generally into bed at about 10pm with a copy of "Making" magazine (by rights, I really shouldn't be invited to hip parties anyway).

Cost to me? Roughly 99p for the straws.
(I managed to procure the paper gratis. I know...I can hardly believe it either...)

Return? Literally HOURS of amusement. Priceless.

Crafty? Moi? Yeah I am!

I love to craft. It all started with a spot of innocent knittage. A baby hat here. Um..well..another baby hat there. What can I tell you? My friends were spawning like there was no tomorrow. I, clearly, was not. Hence having the time to indulge in a spot of crafting. A couple of years later, and I am in proud possession of a world of yarn, needles, fabrics and threads. Not to mention umpteen books about the many, many other things I might want...nay need..to make and the numerous purpose-built tools I definitely cannot live without let alone craft without!

So anyway, here you'll basically find me showing off (yes, to the ether) about all the cool things I have been making. You know, instead of babies...you never know, perhaps I shall just knit myself one in a spare moment...