Christmas madness

Here are all the Christmas gifts I made for the ladies over here in Italy. It's been a long process but I'm done! I've had a little last minute madness making more things will blog those soon but the majority of the work is done. Some scarves are wool and linen fabrics sewn together and then appliqued and embroidered, some are lovely cut velvets I found and made into scarves, some were woollen chinese jacket/cardigans which I cut up and made into scarves. All very different. Now I can sit back and enjoy seeing people open their pressies. Merry Christmas to all and thanks for all your support.

Embroidered Notebook

Yet another Christmas present finished, more are coming. I made this for my friend Mery who loves to write down her thoughts and feelings. She also loves orange!!! It has been embroidered and some cut lace has also been applied.

Dolls House

I finally finished Lucy's dolls house. It's been a bit of a rush job because Lucy has been home sick a lot from school. As it is part of her Christmas present I couldn't work on it whilst she was home. The idea came from mum she wanted to buy her a Le Toy van house but they are very expensive. I happened to find a little wooden cupboard at my art supply shop for 18 euro. can't beat that price!!! My husband's uncle is a cabinet maker so he cut the windows for me and put on the pitched roof. As it turns out it is almost the exact same measurements as the Le Toy Van house mum wanted to buy. I painted the house, glued papers on the wall (not very well in too much of a hurry), made flower boxes, shutters and curtains and then decorated the roof. All in all the overall effect is great we have bought some of the Le Toy van furniture and dolls to go inside. I made the felt could the dolly's sitting on! I am also making some little embroidered felt rugs to put inside. Anyway it's finally wrapped and next to the tree, I tucked it away as best I can. Of course Lucy came home yesterday and said 'what's that mummy a house??'. I mean really how cluey are these kids she's only three years old and already figuring out her presents based on shape!! Scarey! Few more images on flickr

Crocodile Painting

I found this great painting in a little bookshop on Clovelly Road, Sydney and bought it for my son for Christmas. Unfortunately he found it early so it's already up on his wall.

Brooch

This little brooch is for my mother in law to say thank you for all the help she gave us on Saturday. We invited our friends over for dinner and had decided to cook fish. Being the queen of fish she did the shopping for us and then prepared it all so all we had to do was cook it. I must say the meal was delicious and we made a very good impression on our friends. Anyway back to the brooch, the reason I decided to make her one was becasue she had been admiring a flower on one of mum's wreaths and said what a lovely brooch that would make. Well mine is not exactly the same but definitely inspired by mum so I hope my mother in law likes it!

Christmas Tags

I made these Christmas tags to accompany the ones I bought from Tsktsk on Etsy, which by the way are stunning. You should check her out. My inspiration for these tags came from my embroidery class, particularly the floral ones. Most of the designs for the embroidered ones came from my various Japanese embroidery books (blogged in previous posts). I used lovely wool (and some wool cashmere) fabrics for the base. More tags are on flickr.