Janette's Crafty Goodies

Skull Lamp

My niece is a strange sort of girl,  which is great as I love making strange things for her.  I'll often see something I know that she will love and set about making it for her.

Struggling for ideas for things to buy her for christmas, I decided to craft for her instead.  This lamp is just one of the things I made.  I had picked up the base months ago at a car boot sale,  the shade frame was from an old bedside lamp I had,  and I bought new electrics for it.   I really enjoyed making this, although it took forever to hand stitch all the beads to the bottom edge.

Carnival time with Shrek & Co

Carnival season is now over, We only entered one (Silloth) this year.  It was a last minute decision as circumstances meant we had the costumes.

I was asked to make my niece a Princess Fiona Dress for her birthday,  as she is mad on Shrek and wanted to go in this to the carnival.  When the invites arrived for her party, and we discovered it was fancy dress I had to rustle up something for my youngest two.  Kieran decided he wanted to go as Gingy (the gingerbread man) and Libby (being too young to choose) got the easiest option for me, a fairy.

One of my many sisters (I only have 4 it’s not really that many) dressed as Shrek for the carnival and her youngest daughter dressed as donkey.

Libby wasn’t meant to be going in the carnival,  I decided to enter her on the day.  We managed to win the best decorated pram (by default, we were the only entry) Which I felt quite guilty about, given that the pram was decorated in a mad half hour rush that morning, with whatever I happened to have to hand. And I cheated on her costume, everything was bought,  I did sew roses to her wings, socks and wand,  and to some ribbons for her hair, also my mum knit the cardy, so I suppose some of her costume was hand made.

Nappy Cake!!

I know its very americanized, but the arrival of my new niece gave me the opportunity at last to make a "Diaper Cake".  Very popular in the US for baby showers, which we dont have.  Hidden in the nappies are loads of other goodies, soap, shampoo etc.  I try to give practical presents for new babies as they can only wear a limited number of frilly dresses, but they always seem to get through an unlimited number of nappies. 

Age Concern / Innocent Smoothies Big Knit

Innocent drinks are for the 4th year running raising money for age concern by asking people to knit hats for smoothie bottles.  The hats will be put on bottles to be sold in november.  50p from each bottle with a hat sold will go to age concern.

More info can be found on their web site along with some patterns.
www.innocentdrinks. co.uk/thebigknit/?Page=thebigknit

This year they are aiming for 400,000 hats - raising £200,000 to help age concern.

I intend to knit up quite a few of these of these, great way to use all those little balls of yarn left from other projects.    

I have got one made up,  didn't have a smoothie bottle to model this on, used a chocolate milkshake bottle instead.

Keep a check on the progress of this fundraiser by checking out the hatometer on the right of this page.  I'll update with more pics and how many hats I manage to make before the deadline.

not a craft, but had to share

Just received this from a friend and thought It needed to be shared. 

  An elderly Chinese woman had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole which she carried across her neck.     One of the pots had a crack in it while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water.  At the end of the long walks from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full.  

For a full two years this went on daily, with the woman bringing home only one and a half pots of water.   Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments.     But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it could only do half of what it had been made to do.   After two years of what it perceived to be bitter failure, it spoke to the woman one day by the stream.

"I am ashamed of myself, because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house."
The old woman smiled, "Did you notice that there are flowers on your side of the path, but not on the other pot's side?  That's because I have always known about your flaw, so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you water them."
 "For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table.    Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house."

Each of us has our own unique flaw. But it's the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding.  You've just got to take each person for what they are and look for the good in them.
SO, to all of my crackpot friends, have a great day and remember to smell the flowers on your side of the path!