This is me, trying to do some art and have some fun! AHOY THERE ME H-ARTY'S.

Friday 31 October 2014

Is it really nearly November?

I feel like I closed my eyes in may and now it's nearly November!! I'm really not sure where the time has gone! They say time flies when you're having fun so maybe this is a good sign?!?  As usual I have lots of things to squuuuuuueeeeeezzzzzeeee in to one post :-P If I don't do them now I won't remember them later!!

First up i have an announcement for my little shop Snow Bunnys knits! For the whole of November you can get 20% off any order over £5 by using the code WINTER14 you can also email me directly (snowbunnysknits@gmail.com) for the same discount if you don't have an Etsy account! I've been adding quite a few new things in time for winter, my fave so far is a bobble hat I've done which you can also get in any colours you like!


This is me in said bobble hat.

Anyway i will probably mention this a million more times but please do feel free to have a nose around my store and let me know if there is anything you would like :-)

Next up is some more Happy Mail! I love getting happy mail in the post.  The only letter I've really received for the last few years have been bills and various other official things whilst dealing with my mum and dads estate.  So I would like to say a HUGE thank you to Darnell (you can visit her Blog here) for sending me the sweetest little card.


Isn't it lovely? It sits on my shelf with all my other cards people have made/sent me.  I've actually had to start a new shelf but that sol because I just love it!! I'm in the process of trying to make her something equally as nice to send back!!

I STILL haven't got round to finishing my mermaid :-( This is hugely disappointing to me as i REALLY want to get it done! I've been getting my arty fix by painting vinyl toys at the moment!! I don't know how many of you have seen the huge array of painted vinyl toys you can get these days! My obsession with them started when I got a really cool Swatch Watch one Christmas.  It came with a collectible vinyl toy that an artist had painted to match the watch (it might have been the other way round :-P) either way each watch was by a different artist in a different style (I now have two of those watches). Since them I have been collecting them like mad! 



These ones are called Dunnys, they are by Kid Robot but each design is from a series and each series has a different theme and different artists painting them.....I feel like I'm not explaining this very well :-P Anyway I do have other toys by other companies but these are the main ones! They come in 'Blind' boxes too which means you don't know which one you will get...it also means you might beta  repeat! I've only had one repeat so far though :-P

I soon discovered you can get DIY ones that you paint yourself.....well i had to try that didn't I!! The kid robot ones are called munnys and come in different sizes and styles, I pretty much have all of them i think! Again you can get different ones from different companies! I also have a little android, a monkey type figure, a little girl with bunches and a boy.  They are plain white and you can just go crazy! For my first attempts I used sharpies but now I use Posca paint pens! I'm still learning the best way to go about things but its just so much fun!





These are my sharpie attempts! I'm actually pretty pleased with them.  Sharpies don't give great coverage but it does the job if you are just playing around a bit! The top one is inspired by Gaudi and the bottom one I just though lets use as many colours as is humanly possible haha.



These last two are my first attempt with the Posca pens! If you look at the bottom one you can see where the paint has chipped off...i think i need to prime them before i go in with the pens! Or maybe it was just a faulty pen as the other colours seem ok! I must investigate.  The top one isn't varnished and the bottom one is super glossy!! I do like shiny things!! I'm in the middle of painting 3 more..i can't just stick to one thing! I shall post photos when I am done!

Wow this post is long, I do apologise! I shall leave now before I bore you all to death with vinyl toy talk! If you have some spare minutes though, google munnys and have a look at what people can come up with using the DIY blank toys!! Amazing!!

Thursday 16 October 2014

An illuminating day.

Ah, I think I'm doing OK at blogging about once a week! I think I have become obsessed with the amount of times I Blog...have to let it go Carol :-P

Anyways, a few months a go I went to a lamp shade making class with the lovely IndigoStitch.  If you haven't seen her lovely stuff you are really missing out! She uses beautiful fabrics to make jewellery and other stuff that is just so lovely!!  One of the things she offers is lampshade making classes! Its a two hour class and you get to bring a lampshade home at the end of it.  Because you get to choose the fabric you use you get a really unique lamp shade!  I had so much fun last time I decided to go again and to bring a friend of mine who I knew would love it too!

So off we went to make lamp shades :-) There was me, my friend and two other really lovely ladies there.  They were super friendly and chatty which is good because I'm so shy sometimes its painful....I hide it quite well but inside I just want the ground to swallow me up :-P  There was also Whisper biscuits there! yum yum yuuuuuummmm!

First of all you choose your fabrics!  I am not a very decisive person, neither is my friend it turns out! The last fabric i chose was bright and lime green so this time i went for a more muted paler to match the bedroom!  Gayle (my friend) chose a lovely flowered one in the end!



Tracey who runs the classes is such a lovely friendly lady!! She helps out when you get terribly stuck like I do! Working with fabric is clearly not my strong point!!  You get to chat whilst doing it and we were all talking away about ourselves and stuff we liked to do craft wise! It's always fun to set like minded people.  The process itself is quite easy, but fiddly.  I think it is something you would get better at with practise :-P



Gayle was pretty good at this!  She is very good at sewing and using textiles!  She showed me some photos of some bunting she had made.  I am truly jealous of her skills!  I have a sewing machine I've not even turned on in about 3 years!  I can sew but nothing complicated and I'm always drawn to knitting as I find it so much easier.  I'd like to get in to sewing more though, i just need someone to give me a push :-P




Here are our finished lamp shades!! They all came out so well and look completely different.  You can do a couple of sizes but we all wanted them to hang down from a light fixture.  Tracey sells the kits to so you can do it at home......this is not a viable option for me though as I need about 10 hands just to deal with it :-P  It was a really nice fun day and I'm glad we went!!  The lamp shade is now up in my bedroom :-)

I haven't really done much else exciting this week! I've just been knitting away oh and buying Christmas presents :-P I got it in my head to be organised but then somehow I felt like I had to buy all the presents right now.  This has resulted in me being nearly done already and it's not even November.  Sometimes I do worry about myself!

My little shop on Etsy (Snow Bunnys Knits) is getting nice and full now!  I've added some hand warmers, brooches and hats to the listings!  When you add the listing you have to to it in $ which makes for some very odd prices in £...I'm trying really hard to get things to be £12.50 instead of £12.83 but its proving somewhat difficult!!  If any of you lovely lot see anything you would like and don't have an Etsy account please feel free to get in touch with me directly (snowbunnysknits@gmail.com).  I am always happy to help and I'll be doing a little discount code for November too!!

Anyway that's me signing off for now!! I have things to knit :-P

Tuesday 7 October 2014

Watercolour paper....my new nemesis!

Hello all :-)

Ah I'm blogging again.....go me! So first things first, those of you who have seen previous posts will know I've been working on a Geisha cross stitch for a little while now! I've managed to make some real progress in the last week or so...I'm pretty pleased!



I say real progress....I guess it's not that much rurally but it feels like it to me haha! I've actually done a little bit more since this photo was taken. It will be finished one day.....one day!

I've also managed to get some time on the mermaid that I've also been working on for an age! She's just been sitting there on my desk for weeks and weeks! Well it was finally time to start the colouring....


This was the first stage.....this was the point that i realised i didn't actually have all the colours it was suggested that you use...damn :-P I had to improvise slightly which is why my Mermaid has been on holiday and now has a lovely tan (ooopppssss). The first stage was to put a thin layer of water soluble wax crayon down and then go over it in watered down acrylic.  I must admit i don't think I've ever used a water soluble crayon in my life and I think it showed! I had no idea how much water was too much or not enough, I basically just jabbed at the page with the brush and hoped for the best!


Then we had to add shading and colour.....yeah it was at this point that I wanted to cry! I didn't have the right colour for the cheeks and when I first put the pink i had on she looked like a clown! I ended up having to add more white and more water which lead to the paper starting to warp......there is such a thing as too much water then!  I was using water colour paper but the last time I used this stuff was about 12 years ago when i was doing A Level (that made me feel incredibly old).  I didn't give up though, I shaded some more and just thought screw it I'll use my own colours.  This was in no way a reflection on the class, I had just got to the point where it was so completely different than the mermaid on the screen I had to wing it haha!!


It's a little better! I still think the cheeks are a little dark and the edges not soft enough and I'm not sure of the browny red colour around her hairline but it really could have been worse! I'm quite proud of the eyes, eyes have never been my thing.  If you click on the image I think it will go bigger so you will be able to see the detail a little more.

So the things I learnt from this are.....water colour paper is not my friend, I am not very good with water soluble crayons and I really need to check what colours I'll need to use in future :-P

Just before i go here is a picture of a zebra I knitted (Zooey to be precise) for my friends little girl.  She made it safe and sound and is now taking selfie's with her new friends :-)


You can see all my knitted things in my shop Snow Bunny's Knits.  I don't have any toys on there at the moment but you can always email me or leave a comment on here as I'm happy to help wherever I can!!

Well anyway that's it for now! See you all again soon!

Thursday 2 October 2014

Knitting, cross stitching, knitting, cycling, knitting..........

Ha so my plan to even post once a week has gone right out of the window!! I received a request for my biggest commission to date.  Hats, scarves, gloves x2.  I wanted to make it super cute so i decided to add bows....little did I know those bows would become the bane of my life for the next few weeks!! I'm happy to say I'm almost done now (will post pictures once they have been received) and can move on to the next couple of commissions I have!!

I have done some nice things since you last saw me! I went to the Museum in Manchester to see some Mummies.  I love anything to do with Ancient Egypt.  I watch every documentary that comes on TV and Netflix! The exhibition there didn't have much but it was a nice trip anyway! We went to pizza express (mmmm) then did a bit of shopping.



I'm pretty sure I look demented on these photos! Especially the second one :-P My ultimate dream is to go on a Nile Cruise then I can be like Poirot which would incorporate a second of my loves! They are so expensive though that I may never make it.  I guess I'll just have to visit all the museums to see all the Mummies!!

Oh I also got a new bike.  It is my new pride and joy.  It's a mountain bike but its the most girlie mountain bike you can imagine :-p It's been fun cycling around the local parks and waterfront.  It's a good few km if you go there an back.  Hopefully we can fit some more in before the ice appears! I suppose autumn is not the best time to buy a bike!!



The bike is a little sparkly if you look closely! I had to try and find a helmet that didn't make my head look massive, this was the best one I could find although not as cute as my bike haha!

I haven't had a chance to work on my mermaid for ages :-( I've been waiting for my dylusions inks to arrive (which they finally have) then I had to get some flesh coloured paint which I finally got yesterday! Hopefully this weekend will be a weekend of painting!! I need to make more time to do arty things but I always end up knitting until 10/11 in the night!! Must knit faster!!


And finally here is a picture of my precious cross stitch that I have been working on since August.  It's taking me a looonngggg time to do but I'm looking forward to seeing what it looks like in the end.  I am determined to actually finish a cross stitch before I start a new one!

Well that's all for now folks :-) I'm off to get my breakfast and start my knitting jobs for today!!