12yr old designs-his-own!

So i have a 12 yr old nephew who loves punky clothes and rock music. He put both of these interests together recently and designed a jacket that he asked me to make. Here is the pattern that his sister (who loves drawing manga and comics) drew out for me to follow...
The only executive change i made to the design was to veto the skull on the centre chest....his parents aren't keen on having their kids dressed too goth-y. But the initials are there and so are the studded flames!!
The studs on the shoulders and wrists, and the metallica patches on each arm i just made myself using the image found on google and just piecing and sewing the letters on.
Not content with only one rock band name-checked...he also wanted gunsNroses on the back. The easiest way to get this was to buy a tshirt and cannibalise it....so i did!
Interestingly, he wanted metallica written as mirror image on the right arm...original right??
I can't wait to see how he likes the final version of his design!!

spikey rubber stamp

ooops! i had totally forgotten about stamping my napkins and so when i remembered on christmas eve night, i realised that i had no new stamps to use. So i packed some supplies and spent 5mins or so at poog's christmas party sitting in the corner carving out these stamps.
Great..i love rubber stamps they are so quick and forgiving!!

shuttered view

[sorry about the dodgy photos in this post..the light was very poor!!]
so superD made another of his shuttered frames for a gift for a family member in italy....this time it was tiny!! The whole frame was about 6-7" wide.
This time we choose a different view...somewhere a little closer to home..
yep...whitehead from the headland in springtime.
He made all the cutesy little details for the shutters so that they can close and lock and everything...cool!!
so now they can look out the window and see where we are!!

fishtail frills

so lil'pill wanted a skirt, which was great...but she asked for fish-tail....um....ok....yikes, how do i do that?? Well after a long time spent darting, draping and gathering ruffles, i finally settled for this. Please excuse the picture, as usual, i didn't iron it before photoing and the seams are a bit puckered looking!! naughty naughty!
She's also not such a big fan of highband waistlines so i halfed my usual height of waist piece to bring it down to her typical style. I made it to fit me tightly, but i've heard a rumour that she reckons it's too tight for decency...uh-oh, time for some amendments to make it fit the customer's preferences

alice in giftcard wonderland

So when superD said he was getting me a useful present and then handed me this box...i was a little confused. It looks like something that Alice would have found in the Queen of Heart's palace...
...and then when she opened it there would be a bottle with "drink me" written on it....
instead when i opened it, there were 3 fat giftcards for material and craft shops with "spend me" written all over them!!!! lol
I can't wait to do just that!! I think i'll have to use the box for some mad craft supplies that i purchase with my new-found wealth!!! yippeee!!

neeeeigh!! lol

I couldn't resist customising a t-shirt for superD this christmas!

I copied the font from the free website dafont, and just got the ferrari horse image from google. I used waxed freezer paper to make a stencil and then sponged with white fabric paint. Iron to cure the ink and you've got a permanent stencil!
He looks so good in it..yay!!

mamma's jj

So another thing my mum asked for was a blouse (she's a big blouse fan...not a big blouse fan...but like a big fan of blouses....i'm going to get myself in trouble here! lol)

She never wears black so i thought for a wee change i'd make her a black JJ blouse (free pattern found here). This material was perfect because it is covered in little white polkadots and has the lovely white embroidery over it so it doesn't look so severe.
The material was quite light and had quite a bit of give in it so it made the little cap sleeves a bit awkward to get right. In the end i got them to be the same (even though the pic below looks a bit funny....Note to self - iron them properly before taking photos!
The back is gathered with ties from the side seams just to give it a bit more detail and flexible shape around the waist.

tidy tablets

So my mamma asked me for a solution to the messy pile of tablets that she and dad keep on the windowsill...some way of keeping them neat and separating them so they know whose is whose!!
This was just a simple partitioned box with a stiff carboard frame inside and coordinated for flowery section for mamma and blue gingham for uber-macho-dad (lol!)

tiny table trees

I was again looking for place markers that would be festive and having done trees before in 2008 that were made of paper...i decided this time to go for the real thing! These were "harvested" (read: "pinched") from a tree in the centre of our village and poked into corks.
I gave the needles a little trim around the top so that they had a more tree-like shape and would look less like bottle brushes. Little stars with names were added and they were planted on the table at each setting.

suzi's secret weapon

So for the poog i made a festive petticoat for all those fabulous adventures that she goes on. Again the tutorial from Sugardale was used.
I haven't yet made her a skirt/dress to go over the petticoat, but in the meantime i suggest she wears it with my gorgeous christmas tree necklace...that'd create quite an impact i think!!! lol!