Another new craft book to review, thank you to my lovely friends at Penguin Australia. This time around it’s the English Translation of Happy Homemade Vol. 1 – Treasured Collection by Yoshiko Tsukiori, originally printed in Japanese for Japanese sizing, Penguin have translated the book and adapted the patterns to fit Australian sizes 6-16 whilst keeping the Japanese aesthetic that is so popular at the moment. The clothing within are all casual women’s outfits and it comes with full size [...]

Jen from A Thousand Words created this amazing duvet/doona/quilt cover for her son, Daniel, using fabric markers on a plain white duvet… the best bit about it? Those are all Daniel’s drawings! Enlarged and dutifully traced by his mum in a project that took her more than twelve hours work to complete. This is such a wonderful way to preserve and display drawings, and the finished effect is so graphic and modern it looks like the kind of kooky bedding [...]

Melbourne cup is less than a week away, only a few days left to get your craft on and create a totally unique fascinator to wow everyone at the track. Below is a round up of my favourite how-tos from around the web, using everything from the standard feathers and flowers, to zips and even a USB cable. Clockwise from top left… Laura Howard shows how to create a felt headband using recycled jumpers. Lindsey of Shrimp Salad Circus made [...]

As crafters, we love to cut stuff up, nothing is safe from the blade in my house. My favourite craft, quilting, is basically cutting up bits of fabric, into even smaller bits of fabric, and then sewing them all back together again, which seems totally logical at the time, but when you write it down like that you have to wonder if we should all really be carted away and sectioned. I’ve been getting progressively more and more fed up [...]

There’s no denying that Halloween is becoming more and more prominent each year in Australia, and I’m a firm believer in the “if you can beat them, join them!” mentality… just so long as I don’t break the bank on decorations that are only going to be up for a week or so! Which makes these spider webs from Jessica Jones, made using bin bags, absolutely perfect. Minimal layout, and when you’re ready to take the down you don’t have [...]

The Aesthetic Writer created this beautiful and super handy dry erase calendar using paint chips, cut into squares and set behind a glass frame. The glass is wipeable so your white board markers come straight off when it’s time to begin a new month. This could be a great way to use up all those left over paint chips after decorating a room, and would mean that your calendar would co-ordinate perfectly, even better, pick up the frame from an [...]

Queen of the cake pops, Bakerella has created these beautiful new eyeball cake pops, just in time for Halloween. Spooky, and delicious at the same time, I can’t believe someone hasn’t done this already as cake pops are the perfect size and shape for creating edible eyeballs! A tip I learned after creating my own cake pops (these awesome Elmo ones for my youngest’s second birthday) is to keep an eye on the size of your ball, you’d be surprised [...]

I’m attending (thanks to the fabulous Liz of Jarod And Liz Productions – seriously, go there if you want fabulous website design!) the Problogger Training Day this Friday, I only just got the all clear this afternoon from the OB after spending a couple of days in hospital whilst Hercules contemplated an early arrival so it’s all a bit last minute. I mentioned to my other half how disorganised I was feeling about it all, he just laughed and said [...]

Kara from Craftastical has created and shared her first embroidery pattern, a beautiful collection of paisley designs, perfect for adding to tea towels, pillows or as sweet embellishments on a skirt – I think they’d look awesome on some natural linen, especially in the bright yellow that Kara chose to use. I can’t wait to see what the final project is going to look like! Download the embroidery patterns here. The book that started my love for embroidered Paisley – [...]

I spotted this stitchable iPhone case whilst wondering around Pinterest a few days ago and fell in love with its simplicity and awesomeness, but at the same time, winced a little at the price (+ postage to Australia) and wondered how the stitches would hold up in my handbag, which inevitably seems to collect pencil leads (I only ever carry pens in there) and gummy sweets at the bottom, leaving pretty much everything that enters there covered in a sticky [...]