Maple Roses

Hello dear friends and readers :)

I've got a sweet little autumn tutorial for you today. Having seen this post on the Pillar Box Blue blog I'd been making to make some paper roses for a while. Meanwhile I'd been out leaf-gathering with Little Tomboy last week and we'd gathered lots of gorgeous red, russet and yellowy maple leaves. Loads of them. More than we knew what to do with really, I mean there's only so many leaf-rubbings you can do.

So I wondered could I use the maple leaves to make some roses. I had a bit of a look around on Pinterest and found quite a few tutorials, so I gave it a go. Turns out its very easy and also uses up loads of maple leaves - so much so that on Saturday afternoon I went leaf collecting on  my own. Well ok I did have Pixie with me for company ......

My roses were a bit of an amalgamation of bits and pieces of the various tutorials, so I thought I'd write up my own tutorial, not so very different from any of the others really, but I'll know where to find it!

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Maple Rose Tutorial

You will need:

• Maple leaves (about 6 -7 per rose)
• Craft wire
• Scissors
• Florists wire (optional)

Directions:

1. Choose a nice red leaf for the centre of your rose.

2. Lay out your leaf upside-down and fold over the tips

3. Start rolling your leaf very tightly at an angle pivoting around where the stalk joins. This forms the centre rose-bud part of your rose.

You want to roll it as tightly as you can. If the leaf tears or crinkles a bit, don't worry.

4. Repeat with another leaf or two until you think your rosebud is big enough.

Don't be afraid to get stuck in with the scissors if you want to neaten things up a bit.

5. You now want to start making the outer petals which aren't as tight. So lay out another leaf, but this time don't fold it, just place your bud onto it, and roll it, a little more loosely. At this point it will start to look a bit rubbish but stick with it and it will get better, I promise!

 

 6. Repeat with another few leaves. Play about with the placement a little bit, and suddenly it will look really rose-like :)

7. Grab a bit of craft wire - I just used some random stuff I've had for ages, no idea where it came from or what it actually is. Each rose needed about 5 inches. Wrap the wire round the base of the flower, tightly.

8. I wanted to display my roses in a vase so I used a piece of florist's wire as a stem - I used this stuff from Hobbycraft. I simply pushed it up through the base of the rose, it didn't need any glue or anything to hold it in place. At this point I clipped the stalks off too (after I took the photo lol!)

9. Finally, display your beautiful roses!

They look great displayed with some other autumn beauties ....

Or with some greenery ....

And of course you could use them without the florist-wire-stem in a centrepiece or on a wreath.

And they look even more beautiful the next day when the leaves start to curl.

Til next time,

Jillxxxx

Easter and Giveaway Winners

I bet you thought I'd given up blogging at the 1 year mark .... well of course not :) Sorry about a slightly longer absence than usual but we've been busy having a really marvellous Easter holidays, I mean really tippity top. It's been one of those holidays where we've found the perfect balance of going out .... staying in .... doing lots .... and relaxing ..... There really has been much to be thankful for.

.... sweetheart roses - sweet indeed

.... spring greenery from the garden

.... little chocolate eggs from my lovely hubby

.... fun day out at Basildon Park

.... doing their Easter quiz-trail 

... and admiring the beautiful blooms

.... enjoying first crochet in the garden this year

The weather has been fabulous here, I hope it's been as good wherever you are. We've really made the most of it with trips to the park, lots of time in the garden, Little Man and his friends have been out on their bikes and playing nerf-gun wars on the field, and the girls have been trampolining, playing hopscotch, making assault courses, skipping, ..... oh the list of outdoor pursuits goes on and on, its been so lovely to see them having all this wholesome fun :)

Just before Easter I had spotted these little chick beanbags on Pinterest. (http://www.petalstopicots.com/2014/03/crochet-chicken-pattern-little-chick-bean-bag-pattern) I decided to make a whole bunch so we could play beanbag games with them. And of course they had to be rainbow coloured.

I tell you, this is a fab stash-busting project. Each chick is just a rectangle, twice as long as it is wide, then you sew it up at a strange angle, add on some of those red wobbly bits on their heads (should they only be for roosters ??) and some beaks and ta-daaaah ..... little beanbag chickens .....

If you think they are looking rather menacing, you should have seen the first one I made with pointy eyes. Very Angry Birds.

In the absence of a suitable Easter bucket, we stuffed them all in a Halloween pail and took them outside for some beanbag fun.

The homemade beanbag tossy stand thingy was another Pinterest find. Got to love Pinterest, eh ?

Now. After all that jolliness, get our tissues ready for I have a sad little tale to tell you. Little Man and his friend were out on their bikes yesterday and found this little chap at the roadside. They very carfeully carried him home in one of their bike helmets (so proud of them both :) The doorbell rang. "We found a tortoise" they said. "A tortoise?" I said. "Er.....". And so we phoned the vet. And took the tortoise, in a shoebox balanced very carefully on Little Man's lap in the car, to said vet - me, my 3 Little Peeps plus Little Man's friend. Quite an expedition. And so the vet took a look at the tortoise. Which turned out to be a turtle.

"He's very poorly...." said the vet "... very skinny and dehydrated..." he continued. Turns out he is a type of Asian Box Turtle. Aquatic, not native to the UK, difficult to look after, and of high monetry value. Often used for breeding, illegally. And really not in great shape at all. The vet said he would monitor it overnight and call us today with an update. In the meantime we called at a few houses to see if anyone had an escapee turtle (how does that even happen) but in reality I was rather hoping we wouldn't find anyone as I have a suspicion that the poor little turtle was, at best, not being looked after properly, and at worst, had been abandoned.

So the vet called this morning, poor little turtle didn't do well overnight, isn't feeding himself so needs tube-feeding which would need an anaesthetic which would add more stress and trauma....... aaaah bless him :( Vet is going to monitor again tonight but between us we agreed it would be best, if there's no improvement overnight, to put him to sleep :( We, hubby and I, considered giving poor little turtle a home, but we don't think we'd be able to care for him properly. Poor little turtle :(

Phew. Sorry. Bit of a sad ending there. I am supremely proud of my boy and his friend so being so caring, they were so worried and so gentle with poor little turtle.

And onto brighter things. Little Miss helped me to pick the Blog Birthday Giveaway Winners :) 

We wrote out the names, folded them up and plonked them in my button tin. If you're wondering where the buttons are, they are now in jars and sorted according to colour (wee bit OCD ??).

And the lucky winners are ..... Niki Murray - hurray!!! And HouseWithHearts - yippee!!!

I'll be in touch tomorrow ladies to get your contact details :) And then you can await an exciting parcel in the post :)

Enjoy the rest of your Easter hols people - mwah!

xxxxx

This week

This week I've been mostly ....

.... loving that my Mother's Day flowers still look gorgeous

.... snuggling under blankets with various under-the-weather Little People

.... enjoying daffodils in my new-to-me 50p bargain charity shop vase

.... crocheting things with my Gillymakes win of Sugar n Cream cotton yarn

.... admiring the pieces I made on my fused glass workshop

.... flicking through my new-to-me craft books - another charity shop find, all 4 for £12 :)

.... loving the latest McDonalds Shawn the Sheep Happy Meal toys (yes I know its unhealthy)

.... ironing Hama bead creations

.... packaging up (finally) my blog giveaway prizes

.... playing with colours for a new blanket :)

What have you been doing this week ?

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ps rubbish photos, sorry - all taken on my iPad, just couldn't be bothered faffing about with memory cards etc!

Crochet in Colour

Autumn is well and truly here. Actually it might even be winter. Suddenly it feels cold all day, the greyness doesn't lift and the drizzley mizzley rain just keeps coming. Yes, yes, I know I shouldn't complain, and I don't really mind the rain or the cold, it's the grey dreariness that I Do Not Like. At. All.

I spend a lot of my time being a Mum-Taxi so when the Little People are at school, and it's grey and rainy out, I choose to stay in and surround myself with colour to counteract the blah-ness outside.

I've been working on a few scarves this week, Christmas presents for various teachers, helpers and friends. I'm using a pattern called Blue Velvet, it's from issue 18 of Simply Crochet from this summer I think. The pattern is brilliantly simple and yet gives a really lovely effect that looks far more impressive than it actually is. If you see what I mean.

The blue one - I'm calling it Midnight Velvet - is for our Brownies leader, Brown Owl. "Why isn't it brown then ?" I hear you cry. Well, I've been noticing, Brown Owl's leader-y outfit is largely Girl Guides blue, so I decided on blue. Plus I like blue better than brown. Coincidentally, Little Tomboy accompanied her big sister to Brownies for the first time this evening. And she enjoyed it. Even though it was only girls. Bless her cotton (boys') socks. 

Anyway back to the crochet. Do you like the bluey-greeny yarn below ? Do you think it's gorgeous ? Well, looks can be deceptive, it's good old James C Brett Marble Chunky. Easy as it is on the eye, I don't find it as easy on the hook. I bought it ages ago to make a cushion cover with because easy to hook with or not, the colours are divine. But I need to psych myself up for it first. And I'm not ready yet.

The red version of the Blue Velvet scarf - I'm calling it Cranberry Velvet - is for my friend's birthday. I'm using King Cole Bonus DK, 100% acrylic, and a bargainous £2.99 for 100g, which is just the right amount for a scarf. It's divine to crochet with, glides off the hook, is soooo soft, and a gorgeous colour to boot.

I Adore that colour :) Just like a red carpet on my kitchen table. Heavenly :)

And the colour doesn't stop there, the red squares for the Poppy Pixel Art are all done, ends darned, and I delivered them to the assembly team today. Can't wait to see them all joined up, it's going to be amazing!

Meanwhile, in other news, Little Miss has been doing some French knitting on her knitting dolly. Initially she was making some sort of hair braid thingies for her Halloween costume (some kind of pink girl vampire I believe), but judging by what's lying on the table, I'd say she got bored and turned it into a bracelet :) Going with the creative flow, adapting as she goes, that's my girl :)

I love love love my crochet, but I do flirt a bit with other crafts too. I seem to have a gazillions things I'd like to do, but somehow crochet always comes to the fore. However I was reading through my bloglist last night and I visited the lovely Kate at Just Pootling who has made some really sweet table arrangements. You can read about them, and see some great photos, here.

I had some rather scraggy looking wine-coloured chrysanths which I thought I could eke out for another couple of days, but only if they were in a jar that took one's attention away from the slightly wilty petals. And so I totally shamelessly pinched Kate's idea. Thank you Kate!

I fancied trimming my jar with red gingham ribbon. Had a rummage in my stash and found 5m of ribbon I'd bought last year, wrapped on a piece of card. Really Really Annoyingly the ribbon had been folded end to end and then wound onto the card, so that both ends ended up under the rest of the ribbon! Argh! So I had to unravel the whole lot! (Does that make sense ?) But never mind, it makes a pretty picture :)

It's a really simple idea. Gather a few nice dry autumn leaves. Either go out on a dry day a-gathering your leaves, or go to your porch which you haven't swept for ages so there's a big pile of dry leaves which is lucky because it's pouring with rain outside beyond said porch. Make some holes in the top of the leaves, thread onto thread or string, and tie around jar, then tie ribbon around jar overlapping thread and top of leaves.  Stuff in Arrange, some half-dead flowers that you're too stingey to chuck out just yet. Add some foliage from your garden unless it's raining in which case I'll let you off. And Ta-dah! You have a pretty and rustic table arrangement:) And thank you Kate for the inspiration :)

(ps it was only when I revisited Kate's page to link to it tonight that I realised we have used very similar flowers - except Kate's are in a slightly more healthy state :)

And somehow this has brought me back to Brownies again - Little Miss came home with a letter saying next week she is going for her Hostess Badge (blast from the past! I had that one) .... and she has to make a table decoration .... so Kate you are inspiring her as well :)

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