January's decoration: Maroushka dolls

Even though 2012 is still very young I'm already thinking and planning about what I want to have made as presents for Christmas. I'm going to try and make all my Christmas presents again this year and after the rush I had when I tried it for Christmas 2010 I think starting as early as possible can only be a good thing.

These lovely ladies are from "Fa la la Felt" (a fantastic book full of wonderful felty Christmas inspiration) and apart from some fiddily cutting out were simple and quick to make. I love their sleepy eyes and I'm extra pleased with how the simple embroidery I did on the flower centres turned out. More decorations out of Fa la la Felt will definitely be making an appearance during the year, the hard thing is going to be resisting making everything in the book!

Oops - I only just managed to get this post in at the very last minute, I'll try to be better organised for February's decoration.

January's craft: Cross stitch

January seems to have flown by incredibly quickly - so I'm finding it a little tight to get the first of my monthly craft posts in. This year I'm going to try and complete a project using a different craft each month and to start me off I've been working on a little cross stitch project.

This little cross stitch kit is was the free gift that comes with the Cath Kidstone "Stitch" that I got for Christmas. The kit is to make up a simple little purse on some pre-printed canvas fabric. To help keep your stitches lovely and even you are also provided with a little piece of dissolvable cross stitch cloth. Once I had finished working the cross stitch design on the front of the purse I got to rinse the canvas in water and see the dissolvable stuff magically disappear. Before finishing up the purse I also added a piece of white felt to the back of the design which will hopefully help prevent any of the thread at the back of the work getting pulled.

Pretty and quick - my favourite type of project! Now I wonder what I shall do for February?

A new venture?

My regular followers are possibly getting tired of seeing photos of baby booties - I seem to make them a lot. In fact I make them so much I even designed my own pattern for them (which is currently available through the CrochetMe website but hopefully will be moved over to Raverly later this year as the CrochetMe page is getting heavily spammed).

Last year I was finding myself very frustrated at not having any of my own earnings coming in and I wanted to try and find some sort of flexible/part time money making venture. I did a basic "how to start your own business" course and after that registered as a Phoenix trader and started selling their beautiful cards.

I also started crocheting booties - lots and lots of booties. I've simplified and fine tuned my crochet bootie design, sampled a number of different yarns as well as stocking up on some of the lovely hand dyed buttons that paper-and-string sells. So now I have quite a pile of booties made up and after I've worked out how to set up an Etsy shop as well as draw up a logo I'll be able to start selling these too!

Real life angry birds

Remember the red angry bird I made for my husband recently (the geeky crochet post is here)? Well I also managed to make the green pig to go with it and I'm very happy with them both.

After a bit of a play with some of my 3 year old's building blocks we managed to get this action photo of a real life game of angry birds. I love these - if you do too then you should be able to get hold of the free patterns through Ravelry (red bird, green pig)

Wishes for the New Year

Happy New Year fellow crafters! I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and a fantastic New Year.

We've spent the last few days here at Tea Towers tidying away Christmas decorations and getting a few odd jobs done round the house. Our son's room is finally how we want it with pictures up on the wall and all his toys unpacked and currently arranged neatly about the room. We have also been trying to get more of our family photos printed out and framed so our new house is finally feeling like home.

With the extra kick of starting the New Year well I also want to do some tidying around my blog. This year I would love to be able to make more use of my free time and do a lot more crafting so hopefully I'll have more to share with you all. These are a few of my blog related New Years resolutions:

• Make at least one Christmas tree decoration each month (so that I'll have a good stash of them in time for Christmas 2012)
• Try and write about a different craft each month 
• Do more book reviews - I have lots that I want to write reviews for... just trying to find the time to test projects from each of them
• Dust off the sewing machine and start using it regularly.

That list should keep me out of mischeif for this year - what are all of your craft resolutions?