Tutorial Tuesday- some favourite websites

Hi
Tutorial tuesday again.
Although I love sharing a tutorial each week, I also want this tuesday post to be a spring box to other tutorials. Therefore today I thought I would share some of my favourite sites for craft DIY's.

A Beautiful Mess

Elsie loves vintage and showcases a lot of beautiful vintage inspired DIY's. I love her idea for printing on a dress.

Honestly WTF

This site has a new DIY each week. Inspiration is normally taken from current fashion trends.

Sincerely Kinsey

As well as blogging about her day to day life, Kinsey tries to post a DIY at least once a week- commitment!

Whit and Whistle

A beautiful shop who ocassionaly share beautiful DIY's.

One pretty thing

A collection of DIY's each day sorted into topic. Very easy to search and great for those little extra things you want to make.

I am always on the look out for more DIY sites so if you know any good ones, please send them my way.

I hope this has been helpful to some of you in terms of inspiration. Isn't the web a wonderful thing!

xx

Right now

We haven't had a right now for a while so here is what is happening in the land of Miss Beach...

Right now,

-I am embracing and loving curly hair. My hair is naturally curly. I have fought it for most of my teenage years. At the age of nearly twenty I have decided that the hair will win and I will embrace the curls instead. I am loving them.

-I am amazed how quickly this term has flown by. It is nearly easter. Amazing.

-I have been seeing so many beautiful crochet projects on pinterest and am regretting the fact that I never learnt to crochet. I want to try soon. Does anyone know a good tutorial for an absolute beginner?

-I am excited for spring and spring fashion. I am ready to ditch the coat and embrace the layering, in particular florals and lace. Love this combination. (Incidently if anyone sees a link to the lace top, please send it my way, I am trying and failing to find one similar!)

                                                                            Source

-I am feeling very settled work wise and know that teaching is something I want to persue.

-I am enjoying embroidery again. I saw a similar project on pinterest and decided to take up my needle and thread. To me embroidery is a step towards spring- getting away from the bulky knitting to the softer canvas.

-I am planning ideas for my room at home one of which includes this...

source

-I want to make a new skirt. I will make a new skirt.

-I am enjoying finding pictures on my camera I had forgotten I had taken. Anyone else do that? No. It's just me then!

 What is happening with you right now?

Wordless

Each week. One picture. One captured moment. No words

Tutorial Tuesday: Studio Calico notions

Hi all

Another tuesday and another tutorial. This is a tutorial I found a while back when searching for this product.

I love studio calico products but struggle to find them in the UK. One of my favourite products of theirs is the notion. I think these are too beautiful to put on a layout and had designs to string them around my room!

I figured they couldn't be too hard to make so had a go and failed dismally- the shape just wouldn't hold. So..after a bit of searching I came across this tutorial.

Very simple and very quick and voila I have my own string of notions below.

The tutorial can be adapted in any way. Change the size, change the paper you use, use newsprint rather than card, the ideas are endless! I think these would look lovely strung up in the trees in the summer!

Thanks for stopping by

An old bag

No, I am not being rude. This really was an old thrifted bag that I was given by someone who was intending to throw it away.

After some thought I figured that it could be made respectable again.

Thankfully it was quite soft leather so there wasn't too much complaining from my sewing machine. I started by cutting out the old lining and making a new one with some pretty fabric.

I sewed this into the bag and then had the issue of unsightly stitching along the top of the leather. Next step then, adding new edging and handsewing this in place on the inside.

I also added edging to the top of one pocket where the handle had been ripped out. The edging covers the rip and holds the handle in place again.

Result- one pretty, big, second hand, basically free bag. I see more projects of this kind coming on! I am thinking possibly accents in lace?

Thanks for stopping by

Stepping back in time.

Near my Grandma's house there is an old steam railway. The trains still run on it, their shrill whistles echoing over to where she lives. Since I was little I have visited it. It is like stepping back in time to a scene from the railway children.

All pictures taken with a Nikon D40 and a 50mm lens. F.stop 1.9. Edited in Picnik.

Thanks for stopping by

Wordless

Each week. One picture. One captured moment. No words

A little love story

This story starts a few years back. Back in 2008, back when she was 15 and young and very happy go lucky.

They went to the same school and each day she would wave goodbye to him as he sat on the wall waiting to be picked up to go home. Each day she saw him with his purple head phones plugged in, she figured he liked his music, she didn't realise for several months just how much.

She went through a succession of different crushes as only a fifteen year old can. He was pretty shy. Until you got to know him.
She got to know him. She realised that he had a rad sense of humour, that he was thoughtful and mature beyond his years.
They became friends and she tried to sort out things for him in her chatty, laughing, exuberant way. (I don't think it helped much!)

The end of the summer term approached and they headed off for army camp.
Admist the mud and the weapons and the camping and the boots that hurt, they grew closer and she realised that this was a boy who was really rather special.
She got home from army camp and wondered what to do next. As any fifteen year old would she texted him.
He texted her back.
They agreed to meet up.
He took her to a movie and they realised that the feelings were mutual.
He said goodbye on the longest street in Bath as he picked up her hand and kissed it.

And from then on in their love story properly began.

circa: 2009

Since then we have dealt with long distances, with serious exams and uni applications. We have bridged the gap between teenagers and adults. In just four short years a lot has changed yet we still laugh like we did, he is still the mature, kind and funny boy I knew at fifteen and there is still a whole lot of love. I love the beginning of our love story. I love that we were young and that we have grown up as a couple and as people.

2011

Happy valentines day T, here's to another four years!

 xxx

Wordless

Each week. One picture. One captured moment. No words.

Tutorial Tuesday- Knitted patchwork quilt

Hi


So week two of tutorial tuesday. This tutorial is a bit of a mix because it is something I am working on at the moment. The first place I found it was, you guessed it, on pinterest...

Source

The colours are beautiful yes!
But, the pin didn't come with a tutorial.


At the same time I saw that Elise on her blog was making a very similar quilt in a lovely checkerboard design.

I put two and two together and decided that it couldn't be too hard. I picked five lovely colours and am knitting away as we speak-well not literally!

Rather than cleverly knit the squares together (a feat that I feel is beyond me) I am simply going to sew them together much as I'd make a fabric quilt.


I wanted my knitted squares to lie flat therefore I made up this pattern to achieve that. For those knitters out there it is basically 1 by 1 rib.

To make your knitted square: 4mm needles
                                                DK wool

cast on: 36 stitches.
Row 1: K2*K1 P1* repeat from the star until you reach the end of the row.
Row 2: Slip first stitch over *K1 P1* repeat from star

Repeat the pattern in row 2 until the square measures the same on each side. Cast off and start the next one!

This quilt can be large or small as can the individual squares. So simple but so many variations and I promise my finished article will be posted, hopefully soon!

Thanks for stopping by

Storytelling Sunday- The story of the royal nits

This story is in conjunction with Sian's storytelling Sunday monthly series.

Part of my job as a "gappy" is to help in the boarding house. Most of the time I love spending my evenings in there, helping put the girls to bed, listening to their funny stories and doing prayers before the lights are turned out.

One of the not so nice aspects of the job though is the joy of the head check. Yes, you guessed it. Each week when the girls wash their hair a teacher has to comb through it afterwards to check for nits; a pretty important job in a houseful of girls .

So, as usual I am standing in a bathroom with the steam rising around us and a small girl of ten in her dressing gown standing at the sink as I run a nit Comb through her hair. The conversation went like this...

Me: "It doesn't look like you have any nits, thank goodness!"

Her: perusing her own train of thought "Miss Beach, do you think the queen gets nits?"

Me trying hard not to laugh: "I don't really know, I suppose she must have done at some point."

"does she have a nit check each week? Who would do it for her?"

fighting back the smiles: "I would guess her lady in waiting. But you know that nits come from being close to people and I think the queen doesn't get close enough for nits to jump onto her hair, she justs shakes hands, she doesn't give lots of hugs like we may do."

"but what if her husband has nits. They are close together?"

"I'm not really sure how much hair prince phillip has!"

"oh, but what about Kate middleton, she has lots of hair. Could the queen get nits from her?"

Needless to be said the head check was finished swiftly so I could go outside and roar with laughter at the idea of having "royal nits!"

Oh the joys of small children and their inquisitve minds!

Lessons learnt from a week in a reception class

(For those not in the know, reception children are four years old, in their first year of school.)

• Getting changed is a major operation. Getting undressed takes at least ten minutes and don’t even talk about the socks!

• Small children are incredibly tactile. They are what we may call “Leg strokers.” I have had innumerable hugs, kisses and squeezes.

• A reception class in February is dominated by red cheeks and snotty noses.

• Small children cannot sit/stand/walk sensibly. Everything is done with a bounce and a leap.

• Lunch time is an occasion in itself. I never realised that a child could contemplate a plate of rice and curry and choose to eat it with his fingers.

• Laces should not be issued under any circumstances to a boy who is four years old.

• Reception teachers must have backs of steel because the amount of leaning over is incredible.

• However many times you repeat a letter, there will always be one who does not get it.

• Play-dough is an amazing tool for making words.

• If in doubt, sing.

• A child may come to school with a hat glove and scarf but will leave with two hats, one glove stuffed up a sleeve and no scarf to be seen.

• Never except a hug from a child with a cold and runny nose unless you want the evidence of said cold to be on your jumper.

• One look can quell a child of four. Power!

• “Mrs Beeeaccch” According to reception I am married…news to me.

The biggest lesson I have learnt though is that however bad the day can seem, twenty or so bright, shining and happy faces really do make it all worth it.

Thanks for stopping by x

Each week. One picture. One captured moment. No words.