made by hand: screen printing goodies

This week I went to a fantastic little get together "Sydney abcd Social" meet up at the 3 Weeds Hotel in Rozelle which is organised by lovely ladies, Steph from Bondville and Lisa from The Red Thread.

I had such a wonderful evening catching up with, and meeting other lovely creative women! It was so much fun talking and chatting about all things creative. We also got to contribute to the goodies bags, which everyone received at the end of the night! I decided to do some little fabric packs for everyone! So I got stuck into some screen printing... any excuse!!! :)

:: I just had to screen print some fuchsia seedlings!

:: folded up 28 little lovelies

:: packed them up!

I had so much fun screen printing, folding and packing up these very special little fabric packs for the goodies bags!

:: Oh My Gosh the gorgeous contents of the goodies bag!

The goodies bag is such a wonderful way for everyone to share what they do! I just love it! I was blown away with the contents of the goodies bag I received... soooo many lovely and creative things! It felt like Christmas! The delicious food treats didn't last long at all, they were very quickly gobbled up by my little boy and my partner. I have a terrible dairy allergy so I was happy to hand it all over to them! They were very happy chappies :)

It was such a lovely evening spent with so many talented, creative and inspiring women! :)

Hope you had a wonderful and creative week!

Check out what others have been up to here at "Made by Hand".

my creative space: sewing frenzy

I have been busy sewing sewing sewing this week! The warmer weather has also got me in a sewing frenzy as I realisation that I have no summer clothes! yikes! Well I do but all my skirts feel like the hem lines are too short! How does that happen, last year they are fine and this year a inch too short? Does that happen to you too? I recently purchased some gorgeous nani IRO fabric on etsy and have been itching to make a skirt!

:: nani IRO fabric from Japan

:: carefully cutting the pattern out

:: hemming... nearly finished:)

:: my new skirt :)

I made a simple A-line skirt.... It was such lovely fabric to work with too... double voile... yum! I'm so happy with it and the length is perfect... I can't wait to wear it, which I will today :)

Hope you are having a great creative week!
There are lots of creative people over at my creative space...

softies and tea bag dying

I really need to get on with my next project kris kringle swap... time is getting away from me and I hate leaving things to the last minute! I couldn't believe my luck when I saw this book sitting on the shelf at the library....hop skip jump by Fiona Dalton! It is such a gorgeous little book, with loads of softies to make, patterns and really easy construction instructions! :)

For the swap I'm going to make the sweet little "bird in the hand" and do some screen printing for it too!

:: bird in the hand

I needed to get some linen for this project but I haven't been able to find exactly what I'm looking for... but I remembered I had some heavy-ish white cotton from Ikea in my stash and thought it would be perfect if only it was more off white... then in a light bulb moment in my head... tea bag dying!  I have never done it before but thought it can't be that hard! I looked it up in the Internet and it's actually super easy!

A couple of tea bags in a pot of boiled water and let it steep for a bit and then take tea bags out. Soak the fabric in water before putting into the tea dye pot. Stir the fabric around for a few minutes or longer - depending on how dark you want it. Rinse in cold water and voila!  Apparently different teas will give you slightly different colours too! Too easy... Love it!

:: big pot of brown tea and fabric

I dyed a couple of test pieces first just to check the colour!

:: original colour on the right

I am so happy with the result, it is exactly what I wanted! Now I don't have to go traipsing around the shops! Hooray! You can't really see much of a difference but it is quite a bit more off white!  I can't wait to do some screen printing on it now!

:: the finished piece of fabric - original colour on the right

Hope you are having a great weekend... I'm off to do a spot of screen printing :)

my creative space: triangles and planes

I bought my little "M" a pair of cute red shoes which he loved for only one day, then decided he didn't like them any more!!! Don't you just hate that when it happen.... Arghh!!!

:: unloved :(

I hate the idea of a perfectly good pair of shoe just sitting on the shelf... so I decided to attack them with a sharpie permanent pen and go crazy with triangles (love)! I think they turned out great!

:: loved :)

He loves wearing them now... hooray!!

A few weeks ago at  Spoonflower  - where you can get your designs digitally printed on fabric, they had a free swatch day!! I was very excited and have been wanting to test Spoonflower out for ages, so I did a simple little paper plane design! The whole process was actually really easy!

:: paper plane design on Spoonflower

I was so excited when I received my little swatch in the mail the other day... it turned out fantastic though the colour turned out a lot more orange than red from my original design, but I actually really love the orange. I'm going to have to order some... I have loads of ideas for it :)

:: paper plane swatch

Have you every wonder how pencils were make? Here is a little video from the etsy blog (scroll down to the bottom)... it's totally fascinating!! I just love that sort of stuff!

Hope you are having a great creative week!
There are loads more creative people over at our creative spaces...