Klaus clothespeg

So having had a little boy, i wanted to even the gender balance on the little clothes-peg people i'd been making....they're basically all girls except for the groom.  Enter my favourite style icon....the nutcracker!!

Lol...i think i love him.  I made the arms from cut up piece of a wooden kebab skewer and he even has a little blonde suede beard....seriously...i think i love him.

Lista della Spesa

So i hate going food-shopping, probably because i'm not a fan of cooking and it bores me to death buying ingredients. But i am a fan of eating, so it's pretty fortunate for me that i have a live-in italian chef...although it does mean that we are forever shopping for ingredients, and since the chef has to do a full kitchen-cupboard-audit every time before we leave for shopping...it wastes quite a bit of time. Enter.. a shopping list!SuperD rustled this one up and painted on the names of common ingredients. All the basic stuff is marked on, each with a little wooden peg to flip when we run out of something.
The aged look was achieved by dragging a lighter over the surface of the painted wood to soot-y it up a bit.
The blue paint is chalk-board paint so we can add details that aren't listed, or to specify exactly what type of stuff needs to be bought.
Then all we need to do before leaving for the shops is to take a phone-photo of the board and use it to work from while we're wandering round the supermarket! Easy peasy!!

easy earring tidy

so apparently the way i store my long dangly earrings (in a big knotted ball in the back of my drawer) was irritating SuperD's tidy sensibilities. So he jumped to the rescue with a cool invention that displays and protects the more delicate ones from being tangled and snapped in the drawer-runners...isn't he fabulous??

I love living with a crafty "neat-person" they are so useful!!

faux fireplace

I'm back - a little on the late side i know...explanations to follow later!

So i used to have this horrible big glass and silver tv stand in the corner of my sun room. Well it wasn't that horrible but it certainly wasn't my style and didn't match the room decor. It was also huge and took up loads of space blocking the view outside. So basically, it had to go. I put it on the freecycle website and someone came by and adopted it for their new modern apartment (where no doubt it felt much more comfortable and at home). But what to put in its place?? I needed somewhere to put my tv and speakers...superD to the rescue!!
He made me a beautiful rustic (faux) fireplace over my radiator - i can see the little christmas stockings hanging from it already!!!! lol!! We looked at wood in a local DIY superstore and for warped micro-thin planking it was going to be about £200+ and even then it wouldn't be solid wood - just boxed pieces. But then my dad suggested we have a look for solid wood railway sleepers in a builders yard and they turned out so cheap that we bought 3 huge ones - they even gave us more discount! Yay bargains!!
SuperD, ever a slave to the detail, put a little edging strip round the mantel so that it wasn't so plain and rustic looking. O and the mantel piece? - garden decking. Solid wood on the cheap.
I absolutely love it and it's opened up that corner of the room so much more. However, i haven't quite got used to it being here yet...i thought i'd finish the post with the view of the fireplace that i got just seconds before i stood up from getting something out of my handbag that was sitting nearby and cracked my head HARD on the corner of the mantel - OUCH!!
I don't think the boxed planking option would've hurt so much - so i guess there's something to be said for it!! lol!

in-thread-ible!

So superD had promised me a super-useful birthday pressie and finally got the time to make it for me, just a couple of months late! He made me a thread tidy for all the piles of spools of thread that litter my sewing room!! Never again will i be delayed hunting through all my sewing boxes looking for that particular colour...
It has classic superD touches in the swirly design! lol!
And all the edges are scalloped on the little shelf.
The shelf at the bottom is the perfect size for me to line up my bias binding and ribbon rolls.
And here's a particularly blurry picture of it in action! Sorry there wasn't much natural light happening this morning.
I started by themeing the colours, but i gave up after a while - i'm never going to keep them in order - who am i kidding???
ooooh it looks so great i absolutely love it!!! Thanks D!! Ti amo un casino!!

Barbie's Dreamhouse

So poog got 2 chickens a while ago and bought them the cutest little dream-hutch to live in. She decided to call one Hen-rietta and one BBQ (a big of dark humour there i think) and then it occurred to her how well the names worked together "Hen(rietta) & Barbie(Q).

It didn't really take much imagination then to decide what to call the hutch - it had to be the Dreamhouse, in memory of the many (many) days we spend playing Barbies (& Sindys) with our very own dreamhouse - it had an art deco elevator and everything!!!! *sigh*
SuperD made them a sign for their little hutch's front door. While watching him cut out the little pieces of metal from a tin can i was very confused!! I think the final result is adorable!! And i know the chickens loved it too.

loved up log

so i never did post my valentine present from superD, mainly because it involved a KISSING PICTURE (!!) which i usually completely refuse to have taken, or at the very least hide the evidence of having had it taken. But he commented on the fact that i hadn't put it up....and really, what did i expect? - i did marry an italian after all....so here goes....
He carved out an actual tree trunk...no really! Although it's a cork tree so it's actually suprisingly light!
And he set a picture frame inside and put in a photo taken last summer by my hot italian nephew Dani.
This is my favourite bit, the carved heart...and the arrow!! (oh D, you are hilarious!) - it's so 50s-kitchy-romance!
Thanks D! i ♥ it!!

snake-back rider?

So when SuperD wants to take a break from his hard-core biker lifestyle - he tears up the track on this! (...ahem...who is that laughing in the back?) Yes it is a mini-moto, and about a foot high. These bikers are fussy about their racing comfort and apparently the hard plastic seat just wasn't doing it for SuperD's hard-core biker bum.
No padding at all as you can see....
well not anymore...oh yes he made himself a wooden base, padded it up nice and tight and wrapped it in the ever-classically-stylish faux snakeskin....lol!
One million staples hold this baby together.
O doesn't it look so inviting? lol
You're gonna make all the other boys jealous! haha!

I'f only he had a mini harley...now that would be fun to customise!! I'd put in a bulk order for metal studs and leather fringing and just go nuts!

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!!

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!!

Santa's little helper

I'm not sure what this dolly peg was going to be...i was just going with my instincts (hence she is head to toe rainbow!) But once i made the little hat for her...
i knew she had to be an elf!! I'm going to set her out beside my mini reindeer like a little shepherdess kindof thing....or maybe put her on the tree...o i've just given myself an idea for another dolly-peg...an angel....and i need something for the top of my tree!!! perfect!

la bella coppia

Haha i just had to! Don't they make a beautiful couple?! The wedding dress has a sweetheart neckline and a halter back with a deep "V". She is also wearing jewelled stockings!!! This is just because i wish i had worn them!The groom's hat is a bit fluffy...i might need to give it a haircut. Do you like the bride's bun? I also cut out one of the flowers from the lace to go in her hair.
And a gust of wind arrives just in time to lift the veil so you can see the little bow at the back of her wedding dress.
Congratulations peg-people...a mini-peg to come??!!

Clodagh Clothespeg

I wanted to do a nationality clothespeg dolly so this is my attempt at a traditional irish dancer outfit. It's hard to see in the picture but there is a kindof-apron piece at the front of the skirt and of course the lace underskirt. To make this perfectly realistic she really should have tight ringlets instead of straight hair...i tried and it wasn't happening!!
Embroidery thread is a pain to work with!!...but dolly-pegs are super-fun!!

autumn leaves are falling

Yep it's finally here...Autunno...la mia stagione preferita!!
We had a little autumn dinner party to celebrate.
I got to use the little wooden leaves that i'd bought on holiday as table confetti...which i think i love!
I made a little line of acorns down the centre and stamped up some napkins with an autumn-y leafy stamp.
Not strictly a craft...but i loved doing the theming, and i thought i really should break up all the clothing posts!!

molly molletta

Molletta is the italian word for clothes-peg so it seemed like an obvious name choice!! These little dolly pegs are such fun to dress up! A little disc of fabric trimmed with ric-rac makes up the skirt and then some lengths of embroidery thread knotted on the head and glued neatly in place...and there you have her!!
She's so fancy...i wish i had an outfit like that....lol

hi helga!!

Well i had a little bit of the tirolean trim left over and i couldn't resist dressing up one of the little wooden dolly-pegs i found in a newsagent shop a couple of weeks ago...i saw them and just squealed with delight at the possibilities!!

This is Helga the little german girl (named in honour of my fabulous german Grandma)
I painted the peg and made a simple little gathered skirt with the ribbon. Then plaited up some little blond coils of embroidery thread for her head and she was really to rock and yodel!

"YOooooOOOOOoooodellaaaEEEEEEHOOOOOOOO!" (see...i told you!)

belated blue-board

Yay!! At long last SuperD's hand was healed sufficiently to complete the little task that i've been nagging (every waking moment) about!!! My garden blue-board is ready!! So now i can write happy messages and let the rain wash them away.
I used chalkboard paint and was initially going for the standard black but there was none left...so settled for cobalt blue (SuperD's favourite colour) to make it a bit more personal and also a bit more obvious what you are supposed to do with it...i stencilled our little faces and dashed line around the edge.
Now i'm all set for my big birthday BBQ extravaganza at the weekend, when this will be used for the cocktail menu and birthday wishes of course!!

a shed-shelf!

So i had run out of space for window boxes and plant pots on the patio and windowsills out the back of my house...enter Super D with saw in hand. "D quick i've a little mini window-box that i want to put on the shed...between all the spiderwebs!!"

I need a shelf...stat! Nice!...I like it! Fits perfectly!