My first ever home-sewn bag !

I say 'first' because I've already started cutting out the material for my second one of these fab bags!

I've always wanted to try my hand at sewing a bag, so when I saw the cute Tohoku Tote by the beautiful Cheri over at I Am Momma Hear Me Roar I just HAD to give it a go!

I had a fairly steep learning curve from not being able to even thread the sewing machine to being able to thread it with two hands tied behind my back blindfolded !

Seven hours later, after poking myself in the face with the scissors about 10 times (I kid you not!), breaking TWO needles in the sewing machine.....
Taaa Daaaa!!!!
My first ever home sewn bag ...

I'm pretty chuffed with myself! Ive decied to call this the 'Niamh Bag' as i will be gifting it to my lovely sister in lieu of the birthday card she never recieved !!

The top and handles were made from a lovely red brushed cotton remnant and the body of the bag is an upholstery fabric remnant.

I lined the inside with some 'snowflake' patterned material (another remnant) and I can't wait to make some more of these lovely bags ... hopefully the next one wont take me seven hours!!

Ther is such a great sense of achievement when you finish a project ! Have you ever made a bag ?
If so, I'd love to hear about it !

Siubhán x x x

Mothers Day is on the way....

Ah ! Mothers Day is nearly here ! I'm looking forward to breakfast in bed, lots of chocolates, cuddles and attention from all the family in the CraftLee house!
I had a busy weekend last week, getting ready for my first ever market and setting up my CraftLee Facebook page (now all I've to do is figure out how to link it to the Blog!)

Here are some of the cards I made for the market stall (and I even sold a few!)

I bought the paper flower in Cork Art Supplies and spent many happy hours on Saturday putting them all together.

I love to get a handmade card, especially from one of my children, don't you ?

To all you mothers out there - Have a wonderfull and happy Mothers Day - put your feet up !
You deserve it !

Papercraft and the Post...

I didn't want to post another crochet project straight away
so I thought I would share a few little papercraft projects with you.
Its a ball made from Kusudama flowers, I found the tutorial online at Folding Trees.com .
The tutorial comes in two parts, the first part is how to fold and glue the individual kusudama flowers.

It was quite a fiddly task making all the individual kusudama flowers...

They require lots of patience, careful cutting, plenty of fiddling with glue & many, many clothes pegs!
But I really liked the look of the finished ball featured in part two so I had to keep going..........

until finally TAAA DAH!!
I had THIS !

Glueing a combination of the 3 different coloured flowers all together, I made this pretty hanging decoration.

Its currently hanging on the guest bedroom door , maybe I should make some more in springtime colours to decorate the house for easter ? What do you think?

The next papery project concludes with a bit of a mystery...
Well it started off happily enough, my beautiful sister and her equally beautiful (but much sassier!) daughter celebrate their birthdays this week.
I made two cards; one for my sister.....

featuring watercolours, pen and the recycling of a bunny from her  last years birthday card to me!

And one for my niece....

featuring some lovely little felt bunnies I picked up in Paperchase last year.

Having found the card stock, the glue, the pens, the paints, the water jar, the brushes, the scissors, the bunnies and the beads; it was totally beyond me to put my hand on an envelope,
so I popped the cards in my handbag and headed off to the post office to but two envelopes ...
got to the post office...
hand in bag.......NO CARDS !
Decided I had left them at home (could even picture them , back home on the kitchen counter!)
Went home .... NO CARDS !

So SOMEWHERE in this sprawling metropolis
SOMEONE is in posession of these two handmade cards
and I am hoping that when my lovely sister sees that I DID make her a card
she'll forgive me for not having had one from me to open on her birthday !

I have a crafty plan to make it up to her that I might just share with you next time ...

Thanks for visiting,

Siubhan x

Committing to my craft

Hi there,
I am going to be blogging to myself for a while (I can tell!) but you've got to start somewhere & today...
yes! TODAY
is REALLY the start of my blogging career !

I'm going to post a few of the crafty projects I've been working on recently in the hopes that it will inspire me to do some more & maybe even start working towards getting an etsy shop up and running.

I've just finished this scarf/shawl with some purple kid mohair I found in a bargain bucket in Hickeys  in Cork.

My modelling career kicks off in ernest ...

Not too happy about her mothers new fame as a model - the photograher (& camera owner!)  struts her funky stuff

I've wanted to crochet s shawl for a long time - I have a mad notion about a complex pattern for a red shawl that I saw somewhere online but I dont know where it was !

This pattern is called fantasm by Cheri McEwan and was a free ravelry download.
It wasn't too difficult when you got into the pattern and at 2 Euros a ball it was a billy-bargain - costing only 6 Euros in total !  & now ALL I have to do is find something to do with the other 8 balls I couldn't leave behind me in the shop !
The colour fits in so nicely with my bedroom scheme I felt I had to take a photo of it on my bed too..
which I think came out pretty nice....

Oh! I love my bed! Spurred on withe the overwhelming success of my 'home styling' project above I decided to fling my other two larger crochet projects over some other furniture throughout the house.......



Zig-Zag baby blanket pattern from Nicki Trench's book  'Cute and easy Crochet' 




This pattern is also from the book above but sadly I ran out of wool so its more a useless strip than a blanket ! 


So the shawl being ticked off my to-do list I've moved onto bigger things though I've a feeling I'm going to get mightily distracted along the way ...