Boxoftrix Studio 4 yrs ! Post 200

It's 4 years since I moved into my little studio

 I though it was time the windows got some attention.

 I have been making little lengths of paper bunting.
I liked Dotty Angels similar creations which she made with book pages and fabric hearts.
I wanted to use my sheet music and also got out one of my boxs of greeting cards,

did I say I never throw any greeting cards away......

rather than cut the paper I tore out the rectangle shapes,

 I cut out some of the pretty pictures from my greeting cards and glued these onto both sides.

I stitched the rectangles onto a lengths of  twine.

this is one of the side windows

you can see them a bit better with the blind down.
I bought the ceramic mushroom mobile a few years ago from a craft show at the border country fair I had a stall there too selling my jewellery and couldn't resist, I love the tinkling noise of the ceramic, I think actually it might be porcelain, I wish also I could remember the name of the maker.

This is a heart hanging I made from an old wire coat hanger and some dance wear fabric scraps that a friend gave me, they are stretchy and shiny and bright on one side. Ideal for this project.
 I got the idea for the heart style from pinterest but I will give credit and the link to the tutorial and lovely blog from where it came Sarah @ Red Gingham

I hung a glass bauble I have had for a few years now, another a craft show purchase this time in Dun's, I cant remember who made it either (sorry)

My daughter April bought me this cute caravan bird box for Christmas.
After 4 years, my little studio now has pretty windows,  I don't know why I waited so long
so happy 4th birthday Boxoftrix Studio
and happy 200 post Boxoftrix Blog :)
Thanks for taking the time to follow my ramblings, stop by and read occasionally and comment when you get the time, every comment really is valued and appreciated.

Yvonne x

Garden Upgrade

Changes afoot in the garden .....

This is how it used to look.
 The wet weather we are sometimes plagued with made little puddles at the door all the time when it was all gravel, so around April last Kevin decided to put paving stones down for a more solid walkway,

 very cleverly slightly sloped to divert the water to the left side and onto the grass,

and the more paving stones that went down, the more it pushed the water way from the studio in both directions

You can see in these pictures taken in August, the end of the paving stones.
Bad weather and other commitments have made it difficult for him to get it finished

 but last weekend we had some nice weather,
My Son David was visiting with us and the boys worked hard to get this project on track again

the last of the paving stones spaced out and the old gravel shipped to the back of the garden
beside the raised beds.

they did a great job.
They removed the small amount of flint gravel we had up there and put it down at the corner
 ready to add to the new load we have ordered.

The new gravel arrived on Wednesday
and on Saturday

more progress

No more muddy footprints on the kitchen floor :)

Charlotte has only been able to play out here if she wears her wellies.

To the right of the step a little bed has been set up

it's so nice to see it all coming together :)

the flat stone on the left under the tap is for the watering can to rest on :)

The weather this week has been wonderful, bright , sunny and warm

and we have all been enjoying our lovely new space

and when the sun went down
we even lit the new fire basket I bought for Kevin for Valentines Day :)

I cant believe it's still March

Kevin played some tunes on the guitar and we sang songs until Charlotte needed to sleep

It was lovely, I foresee many more evenings like this
weather permitting of course :)

Arp~egg~io

The theme at Tag Tuesday this week is 'Eggs'

I enjoyed working with the sheet music on the eggs last week so much ,

 I decided to keep the theme the same for my egg tag

I cut an egg shape from some sheet music and stitched it onto a black card background which I had printed and embossed on cut it into a tag shape and punched a hole at the top.

 I was quite pleased with the result and proceeded to put the ribbon through, at this point the top of the tag ripped off... the ribbon was too thick.

I was talking with Kevin at this point and he remarked at how calmly I had taken this setback.

It was all replaceable, but sometimes these things can be happy accidents and meant to be.

So rather than start again, I cut round the torn black tag, giving the egg a second border which highlighted the black stitching.

I then stitched this onto one of my pink spotty tags

which had thin ivory lace wrapped round it.

I added a shiny large black sequin and on top of that a white iridescent sequin

then topped these with a diamante stone.

I added more lace round the egg and punched black flowers with tiny pearl glass seed beads.

The ribbon is from a lovely box of handmade chocolates that Kevin bought me a couple of years ago.

Tag: Recycled greeting card

Embellishments: Sheet music, embossed black card, punched paper flowers, seed beads, 

lace, sequins, diamante set stone recycled from an old necklace

Tie: Recycled ribbon from a 'Cocoadance' chocolate box.

xYx

A Little Red Dress

My mum brought this pretty little red dress for Charlotte's Christmas 2 years ago

 It has lovely red and cerise embroidered roses

highlighted with silver stars

and pretty soft feel fine red net underskirt.

Mum forgot about it and it hung in the wardrobe until the following October

Luckily it did still fit and she wore it for a photography sitting and also on Christmas day,

she got away with it as she is very tiny and slim for her age

It seemed a shame that it was still as new and I didn't really want to part with it so I decided that she would wear it again.

But first a little alteration was needed.

I stitched along under the arms all the way around to keep the lining and outer fabric together

and then cut off the upper part

I trimmed around the pretty embroidery below the neckline and set this aside

there wasn't really much fabric wasted (indeed it wont be wasted at all)

I also set aside the pretty little flower buttons.

I used my little over locking foot along the stitched edge

next added a strip of 'Steam a Seam'

 I bought this at the show when I couldn't get any bondaweb

the advantage of the 'Steam a Seam' I was told is that it has a sheet of paper either side

 (not sure why that would be an advantage)

and also that it is slightly adhesive before ironing,

which I thought might be good.

I have to say I'm not impressed it wasn't very good at sticking to the fabric and it took several attempts of steam pressing before it would keep the folded fabric together.

I decided to machine stitch along the top pin tuck to make it more permanent

and hand stitched along the inside

.

added a sparkly red button and a loop made from red elastic thread which

 I pleated to thicken it up a bit.

back view

front view

Not a lot of work really, and Charlotte has a pretty new red skirt

Thanks for stopping by

Yvonne x

Dundee Botanic Garden

Some pictures of our visit to Dundee's Botanic Garden

This was my favourite garden

I like the clever openings

wavy lines 

and patterns 

like this flower

little spaces

this was a lovely carved wooden picnic table with flower seats

'C' liked the monkey puzzle tree

I love the shape of these trees

this house overlooks the garden and is having some work done on it at the moment, what a beautiful view they must have

this lovely white tree was at the bottom of the hill

signs of spring

frogs  

a lovely little stepped stream

with a tiny bridge at the top

Charlotte didn't want to leave this bit

We stopped off for lunch at their lovely coffee shop, where we enjoyed freshly made sandwiches and tea. Charlotte and I browsed the gift shop which had a nice selection on offer.

After lunch we went to visit the glasshouse

This is the only picture I took inside there

my attention was somewhat distracted when Charlotte decided to step off the path and run through some bushes, only the carpet of greenery was in fact a pond and gave us quite a fright when her little boot disappeared, luckily I was able to grab her before her balance shifted, which would have had her face down in the water .... the camera was forgotten.

We collected some little bits and pieces along the way to put on a little nature tray which Charlotte has enjoyed looking at and playing with.

It was a lovely day weather wise, perfect for walking around and enjoying the different colours and textures, there is so much I didn't manage to capture, I imagine we will visit  again in the summer for a very different view.

Hope you enjoyed the tour

Yvonne