Friday 16 August 2013

Xpress Delivery!

This week saw us filming a few more episodes of Creativity TV and this time I was lucky to be joined by some lovely friends, namely Becky James, Lou Collins and Sarah Linda. Excitingly we have a lovely new studio with plenty of space to get crafty! It's even got a fun cafe downstairs for a well deserved lunch break! Here's Becky prepping for one of the shows... the eagle eyed among you might spot the focus of this episode!


Yes, we were very excited to be getting to grips with the fabulous new A4 die-cutting machine from Xcut -  the Xpress! I'm pretty lucky to be among the first to play with the awesome bit of kit, and it doesn't disappoint.


My favourite thing is its clever dial that lowers and raises the rollers so you don't need umpteen shims and plates to cut ANY die or to use any embossing folder you care to think of. It also satisfies my love of soft craft as I've not used any machine that cuts felt and other fabrics as well. It's going to be perfect for patchwork! It also looks pretty darn sleek and takes up very little room when it's all folded up - rather surprising for an A4 machine.

There's only about a month or so until it's in the shops so keep an eye out so you can get your hands on one!

Thursday 15 August 2013

An age old problem... tangled headphones.

I mentioned yesterday that I've been doing a little bit of sewing recently, and one of first things I made was this Earphone Tidy. It's one of those projects that uses the teeniest scrap of fabric but is actually a project that you'll use again and again as I bet that you share my frustration of tangled headphones!



I also made a little video that you can watch below - I'd love to hear what you think of it so please do leave me a comment here and on YouTube! If you subscribe to the docrafts channel you'll get notified when I make something new too!

Wednesday 14 August 2013

First steps - refashioning.

I've been doing a few bits of 'soft craft' recently. An iPad case here, a camera strap there but when I stumbled across the Refashionista blog I knew what my next endeavour would be. I've binge read the entire blog and while our UK charity shops seem to be nothing on a par with US thrift stores I will find time to get out there and find a few bits! In the meantime I stole this frankly hideous top out of Mother's bag of clothes that she'd earmarked to go to the charity shop and made a pledge to have a go at making SOMETHING out of it.

It looks even worse on... not flattering.


So I laid it out on the floor and set about working out what bits I needed to change to make this top a skirt... before I made much of a start, I did have a bit of a setback... Lola seemed to think It was only fit for making into a dog bed.


Once I'd booted her off, I ruthlessly sliced off the whole top part of the top, down to the bottom of the neckline.


Then simply sewed up both sides to make a skirt shape that fitted my arse. I hemmed the top voila... one skirt! 


It's not perfect, and I won't be winning any prizes for my sewing skills, but here it is! Now I just need to find somewhere to wear it!