Tag Archives: craft

Seriously, Spring, I can’t wait to see you again…

Posted by ohnicolajoy in Craftings and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

bunny

Illness, getting up when its dark and arriving home in the dark, being cold, rain, snow, rain and snow together, lethargy…these are just some of the things I despise about Winter.

This week gave us both Pancake Day and Valentines Day. We all know that both of these events mark the imminent arrival of spring.  Gone is the post Christmas depression that so many seem to suffer from after western societies most loud and garish festival of tat. They are a gentle lead into the festival of chocolate eggs, bunnies and daffodils, otherwise known as Easter (or Eostre). Bring on the Spring Equinox and that strange two weeks of sunshine we get in the UK before a “Summer” filled with floods, freak hail storms and relentless grey skies.

I compiled a lovely treasury on Etsy that is filled with items that remind me of Spring. Expect lots of flowers, bright colours and the odd cute animal…

http://www.etsy.com/treasury/MjIzNjg2NzJ8MjcyMTQyMTAyOQ/spring-is-coming?ref=pr_treasury

bird

Beautiful Print of Blackbird’s Nest by BusyBlackbird on Etsy

http://www.etsy.com/listing/121405341/beautiful-print-of-blackbirds-nest?ref=tre-2721421029-14

 

flower

Handmade bright pink wool mix felt flower by ColourSplshbyCath on Etsy

http://www.etsy.com/listing/116127540/handmade-bright-pink-wool-mix-felt?ref=tre-2721421029-1

 

PS

I actually did not make any pancakes this year. They make a mess, you have to cook one at a time and layer them up with foil. I don’t like getting sticky fingers and I hate the way that standing over hot fat in a frying pan makes my hair smell.

 

 

 

Gone Viral!

Posted by ohnicolajoy in Craftings and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

No, not me, or anything I have done…YET…but my body. For over two weeks now I have felt like somebody has snook into my bedroom whilst I’m sleeping, drilled a whole in my head, sucked my brains out and replaced it with cotton wool.

The last thing I’m going to do when this contagious is create handmade items to send off to lovely customers. Special Offer for February 2013: free snotty nose and lethargy with all purchases!

Luckily I have lots of pre-made and photographed items ready to list…from hair grips and earrings made by recycling old denim and beads to my made to order embroidered portraits. Take a look:

Recycled Denim hairgrips

 

Recycled Fabric Earrings

 

Embroidered Portrait 1

 

momandgedited

 

 

All items are available here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/ohnicolajoy

Now, back to my self pity…I can possibly link my demise to either of two events:

1) In the staff room waiting to wash my mug from a tea break, I noticed a colleague swilling their used mug out in some brown, cold, murky water, patting it dry with a towel of unknown cleanliness and placing said mug back in the cupboard. I had been taking mugs out of this cupboard and making my own drinks in them, trusting that all other adults held the same basic hygiene standards as me. I made a mental note to wash all items before use from then on, but fear it may have been too late for my weak and feeble immune system.

2) Whilst trying some soup at a friends house, made by herself and her child, I suddenly remembered half way through my mental note to kindly decline the chance to eat some after witnessing the kid pick his nose and eat the bogies several times before resuming his job of peeling the veg and stirring.

Oh well, too late now.

 

2013, Lucky For Some?

Posted by ohnicolajoy in Craftings and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

Lets hope so…a lot has changed since I last posted. Ruby the cat is no longer with us, I am a full time student nurse and I have finally set up my Etsy shop http://www.etsy.com/shop/ohnicolajoy .

Although not terribly superstitious, I plan on creating lots of things that feature two magpies, you know, from the old saying “one for sorrow, two for joy”. Purely because I love birds and my name is Nicola Joy.

Its hard to organise it all sometimes, but its getting there and soon I plan to have some give -aways, competitions and discount codes.

With a double purpose of spurring me on to keep making and feeding my love of looking at other people’s creations (cue jealousy!), I will be regularly posting  a “Something I made and Something I wish I’d Made” posts, along the lines of this:

Something I have made.

Something I have made.

My “Sew Some Love” basil seed bombs, created out of hand made, recycled paper. The back of the label tells of the basil herbs long association with love in magical folklore.

Something I wish I'd Made

Something I wish I’d Made

This beautiful papercut art was made by http://www.etsy.com/shop/rosieplustheboys, a shop that is full of English delights to adorn your walls.

Jewellery Experiments- Earrings #1

Posted by ohnicolajoy in Craftings and tagged with , , , , ,

 

 

I’ve made a lot of earrings lately. Most of them are totally rubbish and not worthy of a mention, but some of my experiments have paid off and I’ve ended up with quite a few pretty pieces. Above, you see the feathers I made using bits of fake leather that I took from a terribly unstylish jacket the smelly lodger left behind. I washed it first of course! Then I added lengths of chain and beads from my stash.

 

 

I’ve got lots of jars containing buttons and beads so made some earrings with them using silver plated wire. Later my boyfriend noted that the larger buttons were in fact his, sterling silver and ordered for use on a vintage jacket. How come they have been in my button jar forever then?

 

 

 

These crochet and wire ones are my favourite. I need to improve my photography, I know. I do my best with a cheap camera, props, lighting and GIMP – The GNU Image Manipulation Program.

 

 

 

Another use for the lodger’s jacket…

 

 

Bitchin’ Stitchin’

Posted by ohnicolajoy in Craftings and tagged with , , ,

My love affair with contemporary illustrative embroidery has yet to fade. It satisfies both my inner granny and my young(ish) stylish(ish), artistic(ish) self.

Feast your eyes…

I found this piece, titled Loud Mouth on

Cut Out + Keep | Make and share step-by-step craft tutorials.

Loud Mouth Embroidery | Creation | Cut Out + Keep.

I discovered the following and other beauties, plus an artist interview via

feeling stitchy.

After Hours

Artist Love: Bec Groves Interview.

Ten Reasons To Be Happy Its January

Posted by ohnicolajoy in Uncategorized and tagged with , , , , , , ,

 

1: You can enter shops, restaurants, workplaces and your own home safe in the knowledge that you will NOT hear any Christmas music. The old songs are the best are they Wizard? Not when you’ve heard them five thousand times and are only approximately a third of the way through your life they’re not.

 

2: Everything is half price. Yes, most of it is tat and you would be foolish to start buying it all up in a frenzy on the basis that it used to be twice as expensive…but if you need it or really want it (and can afford it ) then I say go for it.

 

3: You can relax and basically do nothing for a while after all the cramming in of friends/family/colleagues/shopping/baking hits an eerie yet welcome standstill.

 

4: You can be a penny pinching cheapskate without anybody pressuring you to spend money that you don’t have. Everybody else is cutting back now too after their OTT December ways.

 

 

5: It might snow soon. It usually does in January or February and as we all know, snow equals nationwide skiving off work and comedy snowmen/snowpenises everywhere.

 

6: January is a good month for socialising, pressure free. Your friends are all of a sudden available and quite possibly on a bit of a downer after all of the forced cheer of the previous month. A warning, however: they will probably be skint, as mentioned earlier. The more I read point 6, the more I’m not so sure about it…

 

 

7: We have passed the Winter Solstice, so its all longer days and shorter nights from now on.

 

8: Charity shops are full of shiny new books and other brand new unwanted gifts. I love shopping for books in charity shops as much for the random aspect of what you may find as the 50p-£2.00 price range.

 

9: If you are creative, you can incorporate your relaxation with some self indulgent crafting. No more gifts or cards or decorations to be finished. Choose a project to make just for you…I am considering making a crocheted ear warmer from this tutorial: Cute Ear Warmer | Creation | Cut Out + Keep.

 

 

10: You probably still have lots of chocolates and, if you are very lucky, booze left. If this is the case then you can sit back, relax, watch some crap January telly and scoff your face without even having to go out in the cold to get supplies from the shop. Heaven…

New Years Eve Party Prep

Posted by ohnicolajoy in Christmas and tagged with , , , ,

Yet again another party at my house is fast approaching (tomorrow) and I am seriously under prepared.  This is only in comparison to my own initial OTT vision of having numerous hand prepared sweet and savoury foods and cocktails. I am quite lazy and only started preparing today ( I am working tomorrow day) but I assure you there will NEVER be an Iceland buffet on my watch.

I prepared a few things using leftover foods from the Christmas week such as Barney’s roly-poly mince pies recipe – Recipes – BBC Good Food and got in some cheeses and cured meats. Nobody cares if your spread does not look like some unachievable photograph and they always appreciate your homemade efforts. They come, they eat, they drink, they’re happy.

I also wanted to make my own crackers and fill them with mini drink bottles, bypassing the crap joke and plastic moustache. I studied numerous how to’s and even started saving toilet rolls but simply ran out of time. I did manage to buy some mini shot drinks a couple of weeks back however and also had the foresight to order some silver cracker boards and cracker snaps from Fred Aldous.        (http://www.fredaldous.co.uk)

 

To decorate, I cut out some random pictures from old magazines

 

and quickly stuck them on with 3D foam pads.  All done, now where’s the wine?

 

How did it come to this?

Posted by ohnicolajoy in Uncategorized and tagged with , , , , , ,

I was after all, the kid who was never bored…often to be found at my desk or the dining table making candles, cards, jewellery, pictures, cakes…or whatever I was into that week. Needless to say I was not the child with the most friends, though I wasn’t entirely friendless.

I discovered partying and there was a noticeable decline in my creative offerings…

I went to Art College but couldn’t be arsed with explaining every creative action in terms of its reference and relevance. That is to say when I actually attended as I seem to remember spending most of it working/drinking in the pub.

There was the time when I actually made a meagre living selling crappy prints and portraits on ebay, having found myself almost jobless and living in a bedsit in Leicester. A highlight of that era was the week when I survived on discount (stale) bread and homemade dhal, rushing to complete yet another watercolour of some ugly cat I’d been given a shit picture of.

Somehow I managed to pick myself up, avoid starvation and cultivate a sort of normal and happy life for myself. And here I am…with a relinquished lust for creating things with my own fair hands, be it edible or ornamental, fashionable or practical. The journey starts (again) here.