1. Matryoshka Kimono Dolls, 2. Colour palette: Green, 3. Tamarillo chutney, 4. Cutest of cute hats!, 5. West Coast adventure, 6. Hands-on dog food!, 7. Pirates treasure bag PART TWO, 8. Autumn, 9. My new crafting space, 10. Friendly cat toys, 11. Birthday pancakes, 12. Magical toadstools, 13. Bush bath bliss, 14. Coral, shell and bone, 15. Autumn Blues, 16. Big skies, 17. Garden meditation, 18. The joy of wood, 19. Gratitude, 20. Birthday bunny

1. My shop is now open!, 2. Cosy Friday evening, 3. Kimono paper tape PREVIEW!, 4. Happy weekend papercut, 5. Colour palette: Red, 6. Tin can lanterns, 7. Shop update: Tom Cats, 8. Spring love: magnolia blossoms, 9. Poultry PS, 10. …and the winner is…, 11. Display jars for treasures, 12. Pin board inspiration, 13. Monday’s inspiration: Honour, 14. Happy Equinox!, 15. Fresh start and a GIVEAWAY!, 16. Paper Fan Inspiration Cards, 17. Morocco on my mind, 18. Midwinter mandarin lanterns, 19. Rainbow eggs and a basket of flowers, 20. Vintage kimono palette

1. London by night, 2. Travelling feet, 3. Poultry Show, 4. Kimono paper tape PREVIEW!, 5. New things, 6. A new season…, 7. Hand carved stamps: lanterns and blossoms, 8. Monday’s Inspiration: Creativity, 9. Rob Ryan’s shop on Columbia Road, 10. Happy Christmas!, 11. Happy New Year!, 12. Plant skeletons, 13. Header artwork, 14. Paper Fan Inspiration Cards, 15. Earth Hour 2010, 16. Contact me, 17. Monday’s inspiration: Communication, 18. Pirate’s treasure bag, 19. More gratitude, 20. Olive Harvesting

Yay! I’m so happy to be back blogging again! Over the next few weeks (I have a lot of photos to show you!) I’ll share some of my recent adventures in the UK, Morocco and Germany, but in the meantime, here are the results of my first ever foray into hand carved stamps – printing Christmas cards and envelopes.

I’ve been wanting to try making my own stamps for a while now. I’ve been particularly inspired by Geninne’s Art Blog and her use of hand carved stamps (Geninne is crazy talented, if you don’t already follow her blog, you should!). Geninne has a great ‘hand carved stamps tutorial’ which I found really useful. Thanks, Geninne! 

I’ve also been really inspired by the stamp sets created by Yellow Owl Workshop. I want, want, want! (Do scroll sideways through all their stamp sets, I especially love the ‘landscape’ ones at the end.) What’s so clever about Yellow Owl Workshop’s sets is how, with just a few stamps, you can create detailed scenes by overlaying and repeating different elements. As you can see, that’s the same approach I’ve taken with my illustrations here: building up layers of branches and blossoms using just two very simple stamps.

The first stamps I carved where out of linolium (the branches, blossoms, moon and green/orange lantern). I then carved a second lantern out of an eraser. I found both the lino and eraser to be surprisingly easy to carve, but the eraser stamp had a couple of definite plusses going for it: It seems to take the ink better and so gives a more even print, and it’s easier to hold when you’re stamping because it’s that much thicker than the lino.

I love all the little imperfections and rough edges you get with stamping. So different from digital graphics.

If you’ve been doing any stamping yourself, do post your links in the comments sections, or if you have any particular stamping inspiration, I’d love to see it!

What you need to make the lanterns:

1. Used tin cans, cleaned thoroughly, with their labels removed
2. A hammer
3. Nails - I found that bigger nails were much easier to work with
4. A rolled up towel to hold the cans steady, or a vice or clamp
5. Tea light candles and matches

Step one: Fill the cans with cold water and place in the freezer until the water has frozen solid. (The ice stops the can from getting dented, and safely absorbs the nails as they are hammered through the metal.)

Step two: Use an erasable pen to draw your design onto the can – the pen is likely to smudge quite a bit because of condensation.  

Simple abstract and geometric designs work well, such as crosses, hearts, lines and zigzags, or you could be more ambitious and do flowers, leaves and birds. Because the cans I used were corrugated, it made it difficult to create more flowing designs and so I settled for very simple lines, crosses and hearts.

Step three: Using the rolled up towel to hold your can steady on its side, punch holes into the can using your hammer and nail. Once you have finished, place the can in a sink while the rest of the ice melts.

Step four: Light your tea light and place it in the bottom of the lantern – and you’re done! Please take all the usual safety measures with the candles – you may need to place a tile or small plate under the lantern if it’s sitting on a heat-sensitive surface, and it goes without saying that you shouldn’t ever leave a burning candle unattended.

I think these would look really beautiful outside on warm Summer evenings. You could even make the lanterns with wire handles and hang them in trees.

I got the idea for these lanterns for a lovely book I borrowed from the library called Homemade: Gorgeous things to make with love by Ros Badger and Elspeth Thompson (who very sadly died earlier this year – rest in peace, Elspeth).

Hope you all have a great weekend
Lucy x

I’ve been quietly celebrating a few things this week: Monday, of course, was the Winter solstice; on Tuesday my man returned home to me after several weeks away visiting his family on the other side of the world; and on Wednesday my lovely friend Amy had her birthday… So this mandarin lantern is a warm, glowing, citrus-scented kiss sent out to cosy winter nights in front of the fire, to loving and being loved, and to dear women friends.

Here’s what you need for making a mandarin lantern:

1. Mandarins – the loose-skinned variety are the easiest to work with 
2. A sharp knife
3. Cooking oil – I used sunflower oil, but I’m sure you could use whatever oil you have in your kitchen
4. Matches
5. And a husky dog with a penchant for fruit (although if you don’t have one of these to hand, you could simply eat the fruit yourself, or perhaps find a willing child to help you)

Start by cutting the mandarin horizontally around the middle about a third to a half of the way down. Try not to cut into the fruit too much, although if you do, it’s not the end of the world (just a little bit messier later on!).

Gently ease your fingers under the rim of the top part of the skin and remove it, being careful not to split the edges (this took me two attempts).

You now want to lift all the segments out from the bottom half of the fruit. I found the knack to doing this is to hold onto the inner corner of each segment and pull outwards. Again, be careful not to tear the peel (and again this took me two attempts!). Note: The internal pithy “stalk” will become your lamp’s wick, so try to leave at least a little stub inside the base of the lamp.

This last step is where your husky-dog-with-a-penchant-for-fruit comes in handy. Our magical, David Bowie-eyed husky-cross dog, Silver loves most fruit and was a devoted helper during this part of the project.

Cut a chimney hole in the top of the lantern as shown. Your lantern is now finished and ready to be filled with oil and lit!

Trim and pinch the central pith bit in the bottom of the lantern so that it resembles a candle wick. Pour a little vegetable oil in and light the wick. It may take a few moments for the oil to be absorbed into the wick so don’t worry if it doesn’t light immediately.

Put the lid on the lantern, place on a plate (I used a vintage Art Deco plate with Chinese lantern fruit on it), and enjoy! As the lantern heats up it releases a delicious, citrus aroma – perfect for dark, wintery nights. I love how each individual skin cell glows. Isn’t it beautiful?

Did you celebrate Midwinter in a special way? Or Midsummer of course, if you’re reading this from the Northern Hemisphere! If you posted about it on your blog, please do put a link in the comments. I loved reading Maya Donenfeld’s Summer solstice post on her blog maya*made.

The tape is perfect for all sorts of creative projects – scrapbooking, gift wrapping, collages etc. Here are some little ideas I’ve been experimenting with today, using some of just one set of the hot colours to complete all the projects.

The first thing I made with the tape was mini bunting. I got the idea from a great tutorial that Lisa Tilse gave over on her blog the red thread.

I made my bunting by sticking pieces of tape at even intervals along the edge of a sheet of paper, leaving a little bit of each piece of tape sticking up at the edge. I then placed thin string (you could use embroidery thread, cotton, dental floss etc) along the edge of the paper and folded down all the ends of the tape over the string to hold it in place. Finally, I simply trimmed each piece of tape into a little flag (being careful not to cut through the string).

Isn’t the finished result so pretty? It makes me happy every time I look at it! The card in the background is one of a set of kimono cards I’ve designed which will also be for sale in my shop.

Other uses for the kimono tape I played around with today: collage artworks made from cutting out shapes and letters. My sweetheart’s on the other side of the world at the moment, so this is a little shout out to him. Hey, baby!

…and of course gift wrapping. Simple brown paper, ribbon off-cuts, a cute little Japanese decoration… The cards in the background are two more of my kimono postcards.

More fun with kimono paper tape coming soon! …and of course it will be available to buy online very shortly.

Hope you’ve been having a good weekend.

I don’t know about you, but I’m always bringing home shells and pebbles and bits of polished glass or broken pottery, beads and vintage buttons, a patterned feather… and then I never quite know what to do with them.

Well, my lovely friend Amy has come up with a great solution.

On the windowsill of her bathroom she has a collection of large, vintage jars filled with found treasures. Once the jars are full, the lids are screwed back on, the jars turned upside down, and voila! simple, beautiful glass display cases. 

There are shells and bits of coral, a smooth pebble, mint coloured kina shell (sea urchin), and the wings of a monarch butterfly. 

Don’t you love how the lettering on the jar looks against the shells inside? She’s also used a jar to create a terrarium with a succulent plant inside.

Simple, beautiful ideas using recycled jars to preserve found objects. Perfect!

Thanks to Amy and Tipsy for the feedback on my original post and for their helpful suggestions of ways to do the skull’s face.

I followed Amy’s suggestion of embroidering the teeth with one long horizontal line and then several vertical lines, and I did Tipsy’s suggestion of doing the skull’s eyes in reverse applique: sewing an outline around the eyes and then cutting the felt away within the outline (very carefully, while not breathing!), so that the fabric underneath shows through. I have to admit I was a bit nervous about doing this. What if I cut a hole right through the bag?! But it was actually much easier than I thought – using very fine and pointy scissors – and I’m really happy with the result. Thanks, girls!

Now onto the treasures inside the bag!

I cut out a square from some Japanese-Hawai’ian rayon print fabric that I have, and hemmed it to make a headscarf. To that I added a bought eye patch and clip-on pirate’s earring. Arrr!

I then made two little pouches out of the same fabric as the headscarf, sewed simple ties on the sides, and filled them with “pieces of eight.” In one of the pouches I put a collection of cool foreign coins (picked up on the pirate’s various voyages, of course!), and in the other pouch I put a few chocolate coins. Once the chocolate’s been eaten, the empty pouch can be filled with whatever treasures the little boy finds to put in there himself.

Time for a sea shanty, me pretties!

This afternoon I grabbed some time to make a present for a little boy whose 5th birthday party we’re going to tomorrow. Mum had the idea of making him some kind of treasure bag that he could put small, precious things into. I developed the idea further into a pirate’s treasure bag. We’ll put some old, foreign coins into it -”pieces of eight” if you like – and he can add his own treasures after that.

I started by creating a skull and crossbones pattern from a piece of scrap paper, which I then cut out of dark blue felt. I then gathered together various fabric scraps: denim, vintage kimono silk, indigo Japanese print, some red and white linen upholstery fabric… The idea was for the bag to look like it was made out of various bits of old flags. I then sorted through my metal buttons and mother of pearl buttons for added embellishments.

I wanted it all to look like it had been roughly patched together so I sewed everything a bit wonkily with stitches showing in contrasting colours. I sewed a little hidden patch pocket inside. The skull and crossbones I sewed on by hand with small red backstitches. I then added little brass beads from India, vintage mother of pearl buttons, and three old metal buttons. The bag closes with a blue zip, and has a long strap so he can wear in slung diagonally across his body.

Here’s the (almost) finished bag, front and back. The strap is actually only held on by pins but the light was fading and I wanted to photograph it in natural light! I’m still undecided whether the skull needs eyes or not. I’m thinking of maybe embroidering them on in red. What do you think?

I made a very simple pattern from scrap paper (uneven peanut shape for the body and long ovals for the ears), and chose two different green polka dot fabrics. 

While I cut the fabrics out and sewed the ears, Mum embroidered some green felt with a. bunny to go on the front. Then, while she turned the ears right way out, I zigzag stitched the felt onto the bunny’s tummy.

I then sewed the front and back together (with the ears pinned inside), turned everything right way out and pressed it all.

The ears somehow ended up a little wide and just needed a couple of stitches to give them more shape and reposition them.

Then stuffing and sewing closed, button eyes, embroidered mouth and a jaunty little rick rack scarf… 

…and voila! One cute little bunny.

A bunny for A. Bunny! Happy birthday, little man.

We found two slightly different recipes and combined them.

One of the recipes said to scoop the flesh out with a spoon, the other said to blanch and peel the fruit. Mum thought the blanching method sounded like “too much fiddle faddle” but we soon discovered that it worked a treat, and the scooping method was actually the “fiddly faddly” one!

To blanch, you simply make a small slit in the end of the fruit, put in boiling water for two minutes, then straight into cold water, and the skin peels off easily. Beautiful Autumny colours!

We then combined the cut up tamarillo with the chopped apples and onions, raisins and spices. Mum remembered that the secret ingredient in some amazing chutney she had made some 30 years ago, was cardamom, so we added that to our recipe.

All scraps went to Alice the kunekune pig who thinks chutney making is a great idea!

We added the vinegar and cooked for a while and then added the sugar and cooked for a total of 2 hours, stirring often and filling the house with delicious spicy vinegary smells. (We had to borrow a big cooking pot from our neighbour because we didn’t have one big enough. We’ve now made a deal with her that we can borrow it whenever we are making jam or chutney, and in exchange she’ll get a jar of the finished product!)

And at the end of it all, we have 23 jars of the first tamarillo chutney we’ve ever cooked. Yum! As you can see, I haven’t even had time to make labels yet.