bake your own buttons

When trying to find fun buttons, i always have a problem...there are little shaped buttons and little patterned buttons everywhere...but big buttons??? I can never find any fun big ones. More and more i find myself wanting to add large statement buttons to crafts and not being able to find anything different enough.So i had a go at making some of my own....o yeah...it was fun!!
This was a perfect do-in-front-of-a-movie-craft, in my case it was "Il Maresciallo Rocca" series 2. I love how when you do craft while watching/listening to something, you always remember what it was and at what stage you completed each part. That's why home-made is always the best way!!
Now...what on earth will i use them all for!!! lol!
Get baking...it's great!!

supersize sweatshirt...shrunk!

So i saw this gigantic sweatshirt on offer...i think it was £3 or something, it seems that there is noone in northern ireland who is XXL....or maybe just none of the XXL bridgade likes bargains, or orange...who knows? Anyway...it had to be mine, no way was i passing up that bargain. But what to do?...it really was ginormous...Sooo, i chopped 5" of the end of each sleeve, and reattached the cuffs...then took it in about 5" on each side of the waist reducing to about 3" at the armpit and at the bottom...and reduced the width of the arms by a half....now i have a sweatshirt dress that is cosy-tastic!!! I have been wearing it constantly since i finished it!!!
And it wasn't the only bargain sweatshirt that got the houseofspoon-treatment...this one was another XXL which had the sleeves completely removed for a more spring-summer feel!!! I made the cuffs stick out a bit so you could see them in the photo, but they usually lie flat. Another item of cosy clothing produced!
I'm bringing both of these to the gorgeous Lough Melvin for our Easter family holiday...it's gonna be GREAT!!!!!!

red hot hearts!

This time of year everything in my garden is growing but nothing is flowering just yet...and that's why i need garden decorations. I didn't want anything too twee...so just went for rustic cut wood blocks in simple heart shapes hung/stuck all around the outside.Even in the gales we've been having recently...the little ♥s have stood firm!
It balances up my shed a little with the Baracca sign on the other side.
You can see the poor workmanship on this one...SuperD cringes when he talks about it...you see, i used a 99p junior hacksaw and didn't sand the edges...no i did not (D cringing with actual pain)...hahahaha!
And it's not only SuperD who is not a fan...gill's puppy amber showed me just what she thought of my rustic woodworkwomanship...apparently they are so eye-offending that they need to be destroyed...or that they're delicious...she was a little ambiguous in her reaction.

cartoon cup club craft

so i was asked to do a craft night for my church's youth club. Think über-hyperactive early teen boys and a couple of girls as well.....yikes!!! Well i wasn't too distraught because i remembered that i brought a sewing craft to the club at christmas for the girls and it was all the boys who demanded to do it!! And a good job they made of it too!!

So it had to be Easter-y and also Spring-y...and easy to do for the non crafty peeps. So i decided on Easter baskets with a baby plant inside.

This fitted the bill because it was inexpensive (i'm thrifty, as in cheap , i should mention that) as it was made from paper cups, and it also solved my problem of the burgeoning cactus population at houseofspoon....i would hate to bin the new babies...but really i'm coming down with cactii!!
Loved these comic book style cups..they really made it!!
And here are some of the club's creations...they were at it for ages!!!

...and only had 1 stapler fight and only 3 were injured!! What a result!! (no really..that's pretty impressive, trust me!)

they really enjoyed it and that's the main thing!!!

Happy Easter!!!!

spring is sprung!

time to get rid of the plaque at my front door saying "let it snow"...i've had enough of winter....come on springtime!!

Spring is sprung,
the grass is ris'
i wonder where the birdies is...

(silly NI rhyme for kids...recited each year by my dad!)

happy st paddy's day!!

Happy St Paddy's Day!!

...from the land of love and leprechauns!

character cushions II

So poog decided that she liked my first pair of character cushions and proposed that i make a set for her and her jo....so i did!!Of course the cushion-poog had to feature yellow and ginger somewhere...and some jewellery wouldn't hurt!
Cushion-jo was to be all about the hoody, the beardy-face and the science-hair (lol!)
Gratuitous bum shot...don't they look good together?...the cushions aren't too bad a match either.

yay mamma!!!

Happy Mamma's Day!!!

I ♥ you Mamma!!

welcome waylon!

So i'm driving down the motorway on the way to work...beautiful morning about 7.30am, the sun is rising and i'm admiring the light on the water of Belfast Lough...i'm doing a fair speed about 70mph....and as the road curves onto the bridge over the River Lagan I am hit right in the eyes by the blinding light of the sun rays...and i mean BLINDING...it gets me every morning. Then (since i never remember beforehand) i am scrabbling away in my handbag for my sunglasses while driving blindly with my eyes all squinty.... and EVERY TIME my glasses come out tangled in my earphones cord...not able to extricate them i put them on with the plug and earphones dangling from my face....annoying to the max! ...ENOUGH ALREADY!!! solution please!!!!!!!

Enter waylon!! (pronounced "whale-in"...yes i am a country music fan!!) I got the pattern from here! Doesn't he look happy?!

Well that's probably because he is busy helping me at this very moment to protect my ipod earphones which will never again cause me blind-driving-red-hot-sissling-morning-stress! Show them how baby!!...show them!! ...
Waylon! I said show them...SPIT IT OUT!!

Thankyou sweetie!

gill the spill

there is someone i know who is such a disaster-area (in a nice way!...lol) that making a mess is even part of the nickname that our family has given her....that's my gill-the-spill! She is so used to pouring liquid down herself, breaking stuff and setting fire to things (yes really!) that each new incident is greeted with a quiet sigh and a reaching for the nearest cloth/glue/fire extinguisher to remedy the situation....i thought i'd make her a pretty way to carry round her wipe up cloths (aka tissues)we love you pill!!!