Shabby Fabric Collage Notebook/Journal

Hi everyone, just wanted to show you my latest creation. I had to take a little break from the fabric book in Nancy's Parisien Dreams workshop, as I wanted to make a gift for my Sister for her birthday. I found an old photo of her when she was a little girl, maybe 4 or 5, transferred it onto some fabric and added it to this notebook cover that I made.Here is the photo I used.

We couldn't help commenting she was wearing lace-up school shoes and Mum reminded us that back then we only had the one pair of shoes and we had to wear those every day. My sister (Sue) and I were also very fortunate to have a mother who sewed. She sewed all our clothes, we had a dress for each day of the week. She also made our underwear too and knitted all our cardigans and jumpers. She also made her own clothes and knitted jumpers for my Dad and sometimes made him shirts also.

How times have changed.   Makes me feel guilty now when I complain of being too busy. Especially when we have so many modern appliances to make our life easier than it was for our Mum back in those days.

Anyway, back to the Journal cover. This was a fairly quick project to make and I enjoyed every bit of it. I just made a cover out of fabric to fit the size of the journal and just built up layers of texture using pieces of fabric, bits of old doilies, laces, cheesecloth, seam binding ribbon, vintage mop buttons and some embroidery stitches. I also printed a quote from one of Robert Browning's poems "grow old along with me the best is yet to be".

 I also made a card to match, which I forgot to take a photo of, but you probably get the idea now.

 Anyway my sister was thrilled, she rang me as soon as she received it in the mail and said she loved it. So I felt pleased I'd made it for her.

 Anyway, do hope you like my little creation. Now I need to get back to my fabric book so I can show you the finished result before too much longer.

Winter has really set in in my part of the world downunder. Lots and lots of cold rainy days here, just perfect for creating. 

 Wishing you all a happy week, wherever you may be right now,

Robyn.

Some thoughts worth pondering

Many of us whose lives have been changed through having to face or live with serious or chronic illness, are often forced into a tough reality check and a new assessment of how we are living and what our priorities really are. 

For many of us this is reason enough to give up forever what wears us down emotionally or physically. Better still, it's a reason to do much more of whatever will most effectively lift our spirits.

My own personal experience of going through this, some years ago now, taught me to do much less of the things that I "ought" to be doing and far more of what I enjoy and find pleasureable to me. It's funny really how it can take something like this to happen in your life to "give you permission" to be kinder to yourself..at last!!

The same rule applies to people. Spending time with people who overwhelm or upset us will send our spirits plummeting. Crucual to taking better care of ourselves is to spend as much time as possible with people who are good to be around.

Most importantly we need to learn gently and in so many different ways how to be good to ourselves. 

As we find increasing ways to choose wisely and well on our own behalf, we might discover how easy it is to say an unapologetic "no" to things we don't want to do. We might also find a quiet delight in saying an enthusuastic "yes" to anything we have been putting off because we thought we wouldn't do it well enough, or that we had no time for it, or because we believed that other people's needs and wants should always come first.

Becoming our own advocate or best friend doesn't turn us into a selfish monster. My observation is that the opposite is true. It makes us far easier to be around.

So take that time out for you today, whether it be a treat for yourself, or doing that special something you've always wanted to do. You deserve it!!! 
Have a happy week!!
Robyn xx

Taken from the writings of Stephanie Dowrick with some of my own thoughts added.

My Work in Progress...Gorgeous Fabric Book

Hello again, well I've spent the best part of the last couple of rainy days absorbed in making Nancy's Fabric Book. I'm enjoying this so much it's like "painting with fabric and thread". For this you're given a basic guide to follow and then you use your own creativity selecting images, fabrics, laces threads and embellishments to create this little artwork. Eventually the pages are all stitched together to make a fabric book. Here are some pics of the work in progress. 
Lots more work to do on it yet, so will keep you posted with pics of the finished work.
Whatever the time in your part of the world hope your day has been wonderful.

Until next time, Happy creating!!

Robyn.

Shabby Fabric Cone

Hi everyone, well it has been a long while between posts. Have had our daughter and her boyfriend visiting for six weeks, was just like a breath of fresh air for us, being empty nesters now. Sadly, they have now returned to the U.K. to continue on their work/travel adventures. Oooh to be young again!!!

I've been working on another of Nancy's projects from her Parisien Dreams online class. I love her classes as the projects are always sooo beautiful and the instructions and friendly online help make it all such fun. I hope you like these pics, this is a fabric cone, with vintage lace, buttons, seam binding ribbon, lace an old image from Paper Whimsy (they have such beautiful images). Katharine (our daughter) gave us a beautiful thankyou card, before she left and it had this quote on it from Oscar Wilde, which I really loved, so I decided to add it to the front of the cone just to make it extra special. Hope you like it too.
You can view Nancy's beautiful work on her blog http://sugarlumpstudios.blogspot.com/

Have a wonderful evening everyone, be back soon, Robyn xxx

Just love altering bottles!!

  Have soo enjoyed working on the altered bottles project in Nancy's Smitten http://sugarlumpstudios.blogspot.com/  . I was unable to find old vintage bottles, but came across these old coffee jars at my local op shop. I was pleased with how they turned out, so am on the look out now for some really old bottles.

Hope you like these

Hope you've all had a happy week-end

Robyn