Button Art and a Bumble Bee!

Well the Sun is still shining! This Summer is certainly making up for the complete lack of sunshine South Wales had last year. My lovely hubby did the unenviable job or sorting out the garden shed and getting out all the garden furniture. I did help clean them off though. I know, where would he be without me huh?
So an afternoon of crafting in the garden was called for, under the protection of a large parasol and very high factor sunscreen. As I had my latest acquisition of charity shop buttons to sort, it was a perfect excuse to do some button related crafting. I had a few box frames to hand so I decided to create a heart shaped picture using buttons to go inside one of the frames and, even though was no rain in sight, I chose to use the colours of the rainbow- the brighter the better!

I covered a piece of board in plain white fabric using double-sided sticky tape. After taking the time to arrange the buttons into a design I was happy with and then just glued them on with regular PVC glue. I used tweezers to individually pick up each button so not to disturb the lay-out and applied a generous blob of glue to each button before returning it to it's picture. Once it was dry I tentatively turned it over to see if I had missed any, which I did- three in fact (I was distracted by carrot cake part way through). Once they were fully attached I popped the finished article into the frame. So simple but I really like the finished result.

We went to a Food Festival in Cardiff Bay on Sunday and ate lots of scrummy food. Delicious ice cream was almost a medical necessity as it was so hot. We bought "pick and mix" brownies to enjoy at home. My sister and I decided on the way back to stop off en-route and buy a paddling pool!! We sat in it for the rest of the afternoon, eating our delectable brownies (it was a tie between double chocolate and peanut butter) and sipping chilled drinks- it was heavenly!
I did have to save this little beauty at one point! I used one of the acrylic sheets from my Sizzix Machine- crafting items can be very versatile ;-) It was very wet but once I had scooped it out and left it to dry off, it flew away, thankfully seemingly none the worse for the experience.

Keeping crafting in earnest, Craftin' Ernest xx

Springtime Artwork

How unpredictable is the weather in the UK at the moment? It's almost June and I'm sat here wrapped up in two blankets! After a beautiful Bank Holiday Weekend, where my husband burnt the back of his neck because he forgot to apply sunscreen there (silly billy), it's turned most chilly and hasn't stopped raining. This Spring has certainly been a mixed bag. I am eagerly awaiting my alliums to burst into flower to add some colour to the garden. I'm by no means at all green fingered but I loved them so much I planted some bulbs a few years ago and they were certainly worth the effort - not that is was all that difficult. They are just starting to open and each day I look forward to seeing how they are progressing. In the mean time I'll have to settle for a picture from the Royal Horticultural Society (here's a link to their advice on growing alliums- trust me it's not hard if I can do it http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/Profile.aspx?PID=316)

With the alliums comes the butterflies. I truly love butterflies, they were the theme at my wedding and I now have them dotted round the house.

Here's a wonderful, little webpage  about which flowers are great to attract butterflies and includes all three of my favourites- alliums, chives and cosmos- there's a variety of cosmos called "Chocolate Cosmos", it's a beautiful dark browny red and yep, you guessed it, smells of chocolate- what's not to love?!

http://urbanext.illinois.edu/gardenerscorner/issue_02/spring_04_06.cfm

To get a little taste of Spring on the dull days like today I have sewn a little canvas. Using freehand machine embroidery and some fabric with a large flower print, I "drew" round an individual flower motif with stitches and in a contrasting colour wrote "flutter by Butterfly". Then using some transfer paper, the kind used with your home printer and a iron to transfer the image to fabric, I transferred a picture of a butterfly to some plain white cotton and cut it out. The great thing is the transfer process gives the fabric a bit of structure. I added a few beads and stitched the body of the butterfly to the picture, allowing the wings to stand out.

It's a little bit of Springtime when the outside thinks otherwise! Though the photo makes the colours seem more muted than they really are

I hope you like it?

Until next time, craft in earnest, Craftin' Ernest x