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Wednesday 26 November 2014
missed me?
Heh...what a month November's been..
I had family over from the Rock.
I've also been super super busy putting together a few beauties which make ideal gifts for Christmas....have you started your Christmas shopping yet...??
I had family over from the Rock.
I've also been super super busy putting together a few beauties which make ideal gifts for Christmas....have you started your Christmas shopping yet...??
Wednesday 5 November 2014
Tuesday 4 November 2014
new wording...need feedback pls
Just need a little feedback... Am seriously thinking of using this in one of my designs...
What do you think???
Feedback please....
Saturday 1 November 2014
New month, new work..
Soooo.... Last weekend was a lot of hard work cutting..
Now ... The fun bit.. Seeing the disparate bits of material come together to form a whole is still a bit magical to me, no matter how many times I do it.
The whole is truly more than the sum of the parts..
Cute stockings to hang as a decoration.... Or to fill with goodies!
Embroidery hoops with a twist...
Now ... The fun bit.. Seeing the disparate bits of material come together to form a whole is still a bit magical to me, no matter how many times I do it.
The whole is truly more than the sum of the parts..
Cute stockings to hang as a decoration.... Or to fill with goodies!
Christmas tree garland, made from a combination of felt and recycled denim.
Embroidery hoops with a twist...
I showed you this in a previous post, but I'm so chuffed with it that I couldn't resist reposting it. I definitely will be making another for our home... This is a piece to keep, or to give only to a very special friend...
Halloween for Beginners...
This was officially my first Halloween.. As a child, Halloween was not the big thing it is today. I never went trick or treating myself, and while Malta is no stranger to trick or treating or to Halloween parties, I never really felt the need to celebrate Halloween myself.
Here, there is a big thing for it...much bigger than I ever imagined or anticipated.. So, we threw ourselves into it ...with gusto, I must add.
Halloween for Beginners, in Nine Easy Steps
Step three....prepare your decorations. Carve your pumpkins, hang up your spiders.
Step four .. FIREWORKS!!!! WooHoo!! Almost feels like home!!!
Really !!! Nothing quite beats the magic of fireworks..
Step five.. Prepare "Spooky Tea"
Step six.. Set spooky atmosphere.
Spooky yet welcoming, inviting knocks on your door.
Perfect!!!
Step seven ...get two, highly excitable kids into their costumes.
ahoy there!! Me hearties!!
Step eight...out to trick or-treat...
Step nine... Two tired kids come home to examine their haul...
Mr. jack is emptied and put aside for next year...
Here, there is a big thing for it...much bigger than I ever imagined or anticipated.. So, we threw ourselves into it ...with gusto, I must add.
Halloween for Beginners, in Nine Easy Steps
Step one... Buy the pumpkins..
Step two.....seeing that the children are on half term book them into Halloween themed craft session.
Icing cookies, decorating a bag, making bat-planes ...they were just some of the lovely activities at this brilliant session held at Bracknell
Step three....prepare your decorations. Carve your pumpkins, hang up your spiders.
Step four .. FIREWORKS!!!! WooHoo!! Almost feels like home!!!
Really !!! Nothing quite beats the magic of fireworks..
Step five.. Prepare "Spooky Tea"
Step six.. Set spooky atmosphere.
Spooky yet welcoming, inviting knocks on your door.Perfect!!!
Step seven ...get two, highly excitable kids into their costumes.
ahoy there!! Me hearties!!Step eight...out to trick or-treat...
Step nine... Two tired kids come home to examine their haul...
Mr. jack is emptied and put aside for next year...
And just as an antidote to all the negative talk about Halloween and the devil and all that... I found this prayer after we carved our pumpkins, but I will be keeping it to say with my kids in future Halloweens
Monday 27 October 2014
new work...
Feeling super-excited to show you my new stuff.. I'm not sure what to call it exactly, but I sure like it...and I hope you do too.
Cross stitch is something I have discovered over the past three months. To be honest, I never imagined I had it in me to patiently cross-stitch designs.. But I gave it a whirl with very small designs, and I got hooked, I guess...
This snowflake design, follows the clean symmetrical forms of Scandi decor... Scandi design and decor is another of my big, favourite things at the moment.. For Christmas, our first here in the Uk, I shall be decorating our living room with sprigs of dark green foliage from the garden, and dotting red and white tea light candle holders around the room for random splashes of colour.
I can already see it....!
I first came across this combination of sewing and embroidery hoops in a magazine... And it was love at first sight...
The winter landscape looks lovely, just my opinion of course, but I love how the stitches create the meandering lines of the horizon.
I am also a very big fan of graphic printing, so of course the Noel hoop was inevitable...
Cross stitch is something I have discovered over the past three months. To be honest, I never imagined I had it in me to patiently cross-stitch designs.. But I gave it a whirl with very small designs, and I got hooked, I guess...
This snowflake design, follows the clean symmetrical forms of Scandi decor... Scandi design and decor is another of my big, favourite things at the moment.. For Christmas, our first here in the Uk, I shall be decorating our living room with sprigs of dark green foliage from the garden, and dotting red and white tea light candle holders around the room for random splashes of colour.
I can already see it....!
I first came across this combination of sewing and embroidery hoops in a magazine... And it was love at first sight...
The winter landscape looks lovely, just my opinion of course, but I love how the stitches create the meandering lines of the horizon.
I am also a very big fan of graphic printing, so of course the Noel hoop was inevitable...
Sunday 26 October 2014
Down Syndrome Awareness
Okay, this is not strictly a crafts post...but it is something very, very close to my heart.
Recently, there has been an ugly spate of posts, supposedly by parents of children with learning disabilities. The circumstances of each poster varied, but the gist of the posts was generally, monotonously and sadly, the same.. If these parents had known that their children were going to have disabilities, they would have terminated their pregnancies..
And, while some of theses posts were couched in terms of the child's quality of life, some went so far as to say that actually having and raising a child with learning disabilities was a bummer for parents since their lives changed completely... I know, my jaw hit the floor while reading these posts too... At least, they were honest! They did not hide their ego behind a cloak of pity!
I make no secret that I am pro-life, and that for me the notion of terminating a pregnancy is just not on...
But these kind of posts, I find particularly hard to stomach... Is this what we are becoming??? So obsessed with our need for perfection that if deemed defective, even humans need to be ejected from the assembly line???
Worse, this past two weeks the UK news have been dominated by the despicable statements of the social welfare reform minister, Lord Freud.. For those not in the know, he claimed that disabled people are not "worth" the minimum wage.
And Lord Freud's perceptions are backed up by his actions...in his reform, this man has imposed spending cuts on services offered to people with a disability, causing incredible hardship to people who have difficulty opening a bottle of water or turning on a tap, things we do effortlessly, things we take for granted.
What I fail to understand is why this person is still in office, why no one seems to consider what these spending cuts actually mean to people with disabilities, why do we still talk of numbers when we are effectively talking about people? Is it that we are ashamed to come out and say to people with disabilities "Yes, I know that this will make your life more difficult than it is already, but tbh, I don't give a sh*t !"
David Cameron has some experience of what life with disability is like...Is he ok with of this? Is this what he really wants??
In all honesty, the mind boggles!
The word "inclusion" went through many stages.. It went from being a mere buzzword, to a dirty word, to a more concrete reality, and now it seems to be moving towards becoming an empty word devoid of any meaning.. We talk of inclusion, but we annihilate budgets that would ensure that inclusion. We have inclusion within the education environment (which is a good thing, when it really happens) but we somehow fail to extend the inclusion to the rest of life.
People with learning disabilities have a life outside and beyond school...inclusion cannot be limited to school.
I spent around fifteen years working with children and young adults with learning disabilities. I consider myself lucky to have been able to do what was at the time, pioneering work in my country. It was, hands down, the biggest and best learning experience of my life.
I was a home tutor, but I learnt so much myself.. I got so much.
How can we even think that people with Down Syndrome have nothing to offer to their families or to society? How can we perceive them solely as a burden?? How are we meant to evolve into an inclusive society if we feel like we cannot include people with disabilities inside our own families, presumably because of the disruption they would cause???
Having a child, any child, disrupts your life.. It does not have to a child with learning disability.. So should we stop having children, then?
I will finish this post with this ..this is currently my cover photo on fb..it has replaced my photo of Malala Yousafzai. Like Malala, people with learning disabilities are also fighting a battle for equality.. And like Malala they face tough opposition ..
(dedicated to all the beautiful people with learning disabilities who I ever worked with..thank you)
Recently, there has been an ugly spate of posts, supposedly by parents of children with learning disabilities. The circumstances of each poster varied, but the gist of the posts was generally, monotonously and sadly, the same.. If these parents had known that their children were going to have disabilities, they would have terminated their pregnancies..
And, while some of theses posts were couched in terms of the child's quality of life, some went so far as to say that actually having and raising a child with learning disabilities was a bummer for parents since their lives changed completely... I know, my jaw hit the floor while reading these posts too... At least, they were honest! They did not hide their ego behind a cloak of pity!
I make no secret that I am pro-life, and that for me the notion of terminating a pregnancy is just not on...
But these kind of posts, I find particularly hard to stomach... Is this what we are becoming??? So obsessed with our need for perfection that if deemed defective, even humans need to be ejected from the assembly line???
Worse, this past two weeks the UK news have been dominated by the despicable statements of the social welfare reform minister, Lord Freud.. For those not in the know, he claimed that disabled people are not "worth" the minimum wage.
And Lord Freud's perceptions are backed up by his actions...in his reform, this man has imposed spending cuts on services offered to people with a disability, causing incredible hardship to people who have difficulty opening a bottle of water or turning on a tap, things we do effortlessly, things we take for granted.
What I fail to understand is why this person is still in office, why no one seems to consider what these spending cuts actually mean to people with disabilities, why do we still talk of numbers when we are effectively talking about people? Is it that we are ashamed to come out and say to people with disabilities "Yes, I know that this will make your life more difficult than it is already, but tbh, I don't give a sh*t !"
David Cameron has some experience of what life with disability is like...Is he ok with of this? Is this what he really wants??
In all honesty, the mind boggles!
The word "inclusion" went through many stages.. It went from being a mere buzzword, to a dirty word, to a more concrete reality, and now it seems to be moving towards becoming an empty word devoid of any meaning.. We talk of inclusion, but we annihilate budgets that would ensure that inclusion. We have inclusion within the education environment (which is a good thing, when it really happens) but we somehow fail to extend the inclusion to the rest of life.
People with learning disabilities have a life outside and beyond school...inclusion cannot be limited to school.
I spent around fifteen years working with children and young adults with learning disabilities. I consider myself lucky to have been able to do what was at the time, pioneering work in my country. It was, hands down, the biggest and best learning experience of my life.
I was a home tutor, but I learnt so much myself.. I got so much.
How can we even think that people with Down Syndrome have nothing to offer to their families or to society? How can we perceive them solely as a burden?? How are we meant to evolve into an inclusive society if we feel like we cannot include people with disabilities inside our own families, presumably because of the disruption they would cause???
Having a child, any child, disrupts your life.. It does not have to a child with learning disability.. So should we stop having children, then?
I will finish this post with this ..this is currently my cover photo on fb..it has replaced my photo of Malala Yousafzai. Like Malala, people with learning disabilities are also fighting a battle for equality.. And like Malala they face tough opposition ..
Friday 17 October 2014
Price List - Christmas tree decs
Here it is..the finalised price list.. Am so happy. And so excited.
Please get in touch, place your orders, tell me what you think, and if you've been inspired, show me your creations.
I hope you like it. Thank you.
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