what we wore.

Hi!

Today was such a nice day... Once again, I was able to get away without wearing a jumper or cardigan (but I did wear a scarf and a thermal undershirt hehe)

So after church today (and yep, we go to church on Saturday :) I decided, outfit pictures taking time! And today, Mr Peck joined in (I'm not sure he realised he was gunna feature, but shhhhhhh!)

awkward twirling pose.... I need to work on my poses....!!  

Skirt - Cue (it has pockets... awesome :), shirt (it's actually blue with a fine pin stripe) - jeans west, scarf - David Jones, shoes - Wittner

Not sure my shoes worked.. but I tried my black boots.. they were ok, but the skirt is a dark chocolate brown and it kind of clashed. These shoes are actually my wedding shoes :) Aaand, my hair is at such an awkward length :( It was so nice when it was first done but now I can't decide if I want to grow it or keep it short... so it's in between and highly annoying ... . . .. . .

See Mr Peck's awesome hair do? I did that hehe .. hehe. .e.he.eh. .. yup. He used to have a mohawk, which I also did. It got a little bit long and fluffy (he has curly hair which is a little annoying) so I made it into this slightly wog looking do.. fun! I think I should be a hair dresser... yup ... 

Felted Ladybug

Yesterday Mexymoo (AKA Marianne) and I had a heeelloooo day....( yeah, I just made that up ) Not the bit about us hanging out... just that phrase.. uh. erm. yup...

So, we chatted and caught up on all the particulars and then we tried out some felting from this super cute book she has. It's a nice picture of Marianne.. not me.. hehe

We made a ladybug... which we were a little unsure of at first but eventually decided he is cute :) Especially next to his knitted ladyfriend (I just decided it was a he and the other a girl...)

Instructions as I understood them - 

Step 1: Take fluffy stuff (wool) and make a pile, folding in top and sides until you get a ball like shape.

Step 2: Poke it lots of times with a barbed needle (probably called a felting needle)

Step 3: Avoid fingers, needle sharp

Step 4: Take felted ball and roll it between palms to make it round ... then flatten so it's got a flat bottom. At this stage you will probably work out that you didn't do the first 2 steps that well, and ignored step 3 and need to stab the ball a lot more times.

Step 5: Follow steps 1 through 4 to a smaller black pile of wool. Make sure you get less than the red amount or you will have an out of proportion lady bug.... Then stab it some more to attach it to the body

Step 6: Take small amounts of black stuff and add in a line on the middle of red body, then add some dots. These can be placed where ever you like... probably on top of the body and not on the head.

Step 7: Figure out something for the eyes and test it with pins before sewing. Or you can leave this pins as they make a lovely alien version of the ladybug... Pair with smaller ladybug... then wait for little baby ladybugs.

Step 8: Sew on eyes if you think the pins are a little dangerous and you want a regular ladybug rather than the alien variety.

Step 9: Look at all the other cute projects you can attempt (but probably won't because you don't own the book, or any of the stuff to do it with!)

Please note, this tutorial is not really to be taken seriously... ok? But you could buy the book coz there are a lot of cute things in it! Just watch your fingers...... and don't give up, the felting process takes time.

limitless sunshine

Today was nice. It was one of those winter days, after a week of rain, where the sun comes out and it feels so good. It was warm enough to wear short sleeves! So I took the opportunity to snap some shots on the jetty about 5 houses down from ours... Gunna miss this place.

We are moving in about a week to be closer to college. It's great for a lot of reasons, but also sucky for others. But, mostly awesome. 

So this week is gunna be hectic. Packing. Moving. Editing. Designing. Masters. Weddings. ... Just a whole heap of work really! 

jeans - jeans west, t-shirt - roxy, beanie - super dry, shoes - converse

Photoshoots and yellow cardigans

Hi!

Today was busy... We did two shoots, which is more than we have done in a while :) So good to get back into it!

And here's my yellow cardigan, paired with some stunning red socks and white thongs (aka flip flops for you Americans). What..,.,? It was coold ok! hehe... And yes, I did wear them to our second shoot.

And, here's a sneaky peak of both shoots ....



Shoot #1 -  9:00am, The Kranz family

Shoot #2 - 1:30pm

character development

Hi,

Today I was sketching and developed some characters I want you to meet.

Not sure what I'll do with them... but they were fun to create and illustrate. maybe they'll go into a children's book if I ever get that far or come up with inspiration for a story line. 

follow me

Hi!

I just wanted to share that I finally made it to 50 followers hehe have been sitting in the 40s for a while and am slowly creeping up. So that's exciting...

Thanks for following everyone :)

You can also follow me on facebook and pinterest. I highly recommend it!

Do you think I should do a giveaway? What would you love to get?

An easy way to make cute notebooks!

Better late than never I guess.... I am finally getting around to making the rest of my 30 Days of Creativity things before I do the giveaway.

Today I didn't feel like doing anything but I gave myself a kick in the proverbial and made a little notebook. Very simple and a lot of fun. You can get pretty creative with what papers you use but I wanted mine to be fairly minimalistic. (Let's not talk about the mess I made in the spare room while making this little number shall we? Really, I don't know how I do it... this is not a messy thing to do and yet I make it that way... >.< )

Click below for the how to.

Things you will need (and a running commentary on what I used) :

• 1 x cereal box (or similar weight card)
• A selection of paper for the inside (you can do whatever you want)
• 1 x sharp craft knife (sharp is good.. dull knives are the worst!)
• Some strongish glue (I used Elmer's School Glue - it's pretty strong but can also be pretty wet, so I used a paintbrush to paint on thin layers... which reminds me, better go wash that baby out!)
• 1 x ruler (I like my metal ruler because I can't accidentally shave some off ;) It has been known to happen...)
• 1 x Shipping Tag (Optional - I used it as a decorative way to close my book)
• 1 x Mini Bulldog Clip (Optional - I used it as a decorative way to close my book)

Step 1:

Flatten out cereal box (skip this step if you have flat card)

Step 2:

Measure and mark the size you want your notebook to be. My finished notebook is 13cm by 8cm so I measured 13cm by 16cm (so you can fold it in half to get final size)

Step 3:

Glue something nice on the printed side of the cereal cardboard (unless you want the cereal box look). You can make the brown the inside or outside of the cover, your choice.

Step 4:

Cut the inside pieces to size. As you can see, I chose a range of papers, including some images and lined paper for variety. 

Step 5:

Score the middle of the cover with a bone folder (if you don't have one, use the back of a butter knife like me), and inside papers if you want. I didn't do this but had to go through and fold the papers to make them lay flat after I bound it.

(make sure you score as close to the middle as you can - don't worry too much, you can trim uneven edges off later)

Step 6:

Sew along the score line. I used a lovely yellow thread to go with the yellow I used inside. Get creative, red would be nice, or brown to keep it natural looking.

NB: I didn't use the pedal to sew, instead used the hand sewing wheel option (what is that thing called?!), that way I had more control and less chance of breaking the needle 

(I have broken needles sewing card a few times.. always scary, especially when you are super close to the needle trying to get a good look at what you are doing!)

Step 7:

Once you fold the book in half you may have some of the inside papers sticking out past the cover - never fear, this is where trusty sharp knife comes in! Get your ruler, line it up against the edge of your cover, press down firmly and trim off the edges. 

Please don't cut your fingers off on this step. I didn't take any pictures of this step, I  thought that unwise! (and I don't mean the cutting off fingers step, I mean the other one... the non cutting off fingers one :)

Step 8: Optional Decoration

Take your shipping tag and score two lines wide enough to fold around your notebook - this will vary depending on how much paper you used.

Step 9:

Glue one side to the back of your notebook, somewhere close to the middle. (it's not too important - wherever looks good to you)
You could even sew the tag on if you wanted more sewing detail.

Step 10:

Secure with mini bulldog clip 

(I tried to use magnets but didn't have any strong enough. This would be a nice touch if you don't like the bulldog clip)

Step 11:

And you're done! Fill it with whatever your heart desires.. Don't be scared, just do it!

Hope you enjoyed my little tutorial! Ask away if you have any questions and feel free to share this tutorial around, I just ask that you credit my little blog :)

All photos ©FIKS*D

Cool news bloggeroonies

I got featured on the DailyCraft Facebook page which I find a little bit exciting because, really... my blog is not huge! So there's that!

Which brings me to my next point. I'm a little bit sad I missed out on the last days on my 30 Days of Creativity challenge because of being away and I did say I was going to have a giveaway of the things I created... So I think I will try and get some more creations done to make up for what I missed and then put them up for grabs!

I have found that my crafty posts have been quite popular, especially my friendship bracelet! Also, putting my creations up on Craftgawker has brought a lot of viewers, the first time I have ever seen my page views up in the 1000s.. so if you're looking for some more viewers - definitely give that a try!

So, over the next few days keep a look out for my newest creations (I'm thinking handmade journals, paper cutouts, handmade stamps and some photography) and then a giveaway (probably next week some time!)

I was here.

I am home.
It's a little bit sad really! Coming home to cold weather makes it that much harder too...

I'm just editing some pictures, so thought I'd share a few from Chicago.. I didn't take that many pictures actually but I guess we were only in Chicago for 3 days so there wasn't time for much. I wish we had longer there. I really liked the city - very pretty.

I'll share some of NY when I've edited them...

NY

Hi!
Still alive.
Thanks for the suggestions from a few of you :)

Not much to report. Been busy visiting art galleries and museums and walking around a lot, catching the subway, shopping, walking some more, and eating a lot.

Some things I have realised about this place - cheap clothes and cheap food... and lots and lots of tourists.

I have to say I like Chicago a lot more than NY. Nothing terrible about NY, just a lot of people and noise and horn tooting hehe... But Chicago has some amazing architecture, feels a lot cleaner, the lakefront is very pretty and overall seems like a more livable city.

Also, I understand how all you American girls get away with having so many cool clothes - the clothes are cheap here compared to Australia! And the food is cheap too. Something you get here for $10 you would get for $15-20 in Aus. So.. it's interesting. And also means that I've bought quite a few clothes here :)

Another thing, I don't know if this is everywhere in USA or just here, but the shops are crazzzy big! Seriously unheard of to have a multilevel shop in Aus unless it's a department store, but here it seems very common!

Overall, I quite like the bits of USA that I've seen and would love to see more, especially different states and less touristy places.

Still no photos... :( Have to wait til I get back to edit them all!