Crafty Students: An Assortment of Crafty Gifts for a Crafty Lady!

The following crafty combinations are a result of two recent events in the life of Sarah! Firstly Sarah and I engaged in another of our much loved craft swaps. Then it was her birthday so a collection of little gifts was most certainly in order.

I was totally inspired by Nat's compilation of bows as seen in an earlier post: http://craftystudents.blogspot.com/2010/01/hi-everyone-below-are-some-bows-i-made.html Shopping for ribbons was such a sumptuous experience. So many different textures, widths, colours and styles to choose from. Sarah has the most amazing long dark hair which definitely helped to incite my newfound bow fetish. Nat kindly inducted me into the world of bows by sitting down and giving me a little lesson about looping, tying, sewing and sticking the swathes of organza, transforming them from vertical lines to an adorable little bow.

Sarah is an avid fan of L'Occitane's rose scented range so I had to get her another item to add to her fast-expanding collection! All I'm going to say is that I bow to L'Occitane's wrapping skills. Wow, just wow. They certainly know how to wrap a present!

The next part of the present is the shopper bag. This bag comprises my first attempts at both using a sewing machine and at cross-stitching. A little while ago I was bored and eager to embark on new adventures in craft-land so I decided to dabble in some cross-stitching. To be completely honest, I wouldn't see myself as a cross-stitch convert. I found it a little dull and repetitive but I must admit that I do love the end result. The neat little lines appeal to the OCD in me! In short, I'm not a fan of the process but I do like the finished product. My jury is still out on cross-stitching. The Machiavellian question remains... Does the end justify the means? Hmmm!

Then my crafting guru, Nat, once again imparted her wisdom onto me and introduced me to the wonder that is the sewing machine. Oh wow. I cannot believe I have lived my entire life to date not knowing how to use one of these babies. After about twenty scraps of material filled with wonky lines and appalling tension later I was sewing straight lines. It was a beautiful moment. All I can say is that Nat has the patience of every saint in the bible combined! Then we moved onto the material for the bag and I was managing grand and sewing away like a proper little seamstress until we reached the framing for the ladybird. Then things got ugly. I won't go into it. Craft stress ensued. All of you crafters will understand the horror that is craft stress. There's nothing quite as terrible as that feeling of frustration, stress and anger when crafting isn't going your way! But with Nat's fine-tuned skills and patient instruction, I managed to give my little ladybird a frame to live in. Must say that I'm very pleased with how he turned out and I was almost tempted to keep him for my own use but I knew Sarah's shopping needed some ladybird lovin' and so I parted with it!

I have to admit that my seamstress within is itching for release once again and because the weather in Dublin is currently sort of sunny I'm thinking I need to make a little sun dress to celebrate the rare lack of rain!

I felt that a craft present from Bríd wouldn't be quite right without one of my trademark roses. Sarah is quite the fan of pink so I knitted the flower in pink and then did the leaves in wool with an Eastern vibe running through which complemented the pink perfectly. Then I sewed it onto a brooch pin and thus a brooch was born! Thanks to Rosa for being my model.