Craft projects

I'm spinning several plates in the air at the moment craftwise, all new projects and techniques. I've started decorating the letters for my beautiful niece Isla, (photos soon) and also making various things for my Mums birthday which is very soon.

I have been putting my bead collection to use on a project to decorate a small papier mache (I think) box. Just the plain brown boxes found in craft shops, I am hand sewing beads to fabric for a lid which will be padded with wadding. I'm not the greatest hand sewer and I've found the process to be very fiddly indeed. I found it hard to find fabric with a small enough pattern on to suit, despite having a huge fabric mountain! It's typical how no matter how much stuff we crafters accumulate, we always need more. I bought more beads, the wadding and thread actually, so only had the box initially!

In the end for fabric I used a tea towel (new of course) that's very pretty and more to the point has a small flower pattern on it. I am totally new to this so my first efforts may not win any prizes but I'm pleased so far. I realise I can get far more complex with regard to the beading, put beads on top of one enough etc but to be honest I didn't think I could do this at all so I'm amazed I've managed this.

I still have to finish painting the boxes with acrylic paint and then attach the fabric, wadding etc to the lid and complete, so basically still plenty of time to mess this all up. Fingers crossed I will not ruin it all and it'll be a pretty and personal gift.

By the way, I'm not ruining the suprise by mentioning this as she doesn't look at my blog, so it's Ok to preview it all.

I've an ear infection at the moment and achilies tendons that are agony so crafting isn't easy to say the least. Time is running out though so I'm trying to do what I can. The letters have had a coat of white gesso on each side, not to decide on decoration. I can't go too fancy as they're for a little one and I don't want to distract from the letters too much. Hard to decide what to do to be honest..all baby pink or different colours? Stripes? Polka dots?? Whatever I decide I just want them to turn out beautifully and be something adorable Isla will learn to treasure.