Happy Birthday ...

... to my friend and colleague Jane. She had birthday a few days ago but I could not really share her birthday goodies with you before she had seen them (lol). Jane is such a vivid and talented crafter. It is always a pleasure to pick bits and pieces which she might be able to use in her crafting. Amongst the bits and bobs like patterend paper doilies, little buttons, ... I crocheted some 'Mary Go Round' ornaments from the relatively new Mollie Makes magazine using bangles and cashmere wool
I put all goodies in a paper bag and added quite a big birthday tag with candles because ... what would be a birthday without candles?
The basic layer of the tag is cut from plain white paper and layered with Echo Park paper. The candles are actually paper candles (also Echo Park paper) rolled in the same way as I previously made some paperbeads - except that I rolled the paper around a cotton string as candlewick. The sentiment is from Lily of the Valley and the little butterfly punched with a Martha Stewart punch. Happy Birthday, Jane! Petra.

Experimental Plastic Crochet

Quite a while ago I saw some interesting pieces of art made of plastic bags on the web ... unfortunately I cannot remember which website or which blog, sorry for this. One of the projects used recycled plastic bags cut in stripes and crocheted. This afternoon I went to see Lucy which is always very enjoyable, and because I had no time to prepare anything for this little crafting session, I just took a plastic bag, a scissor and a crochet hook ready to do a little experiment with a plastic bag. Although I kept the crochet extremely simple and small, I am quite impressed with the result

I can see endless possibilities. Lucy suggested to use them as Christmas Tree ornaments .. a really lovely idea. There is only one small problem now ... I normally don't have plastic bags (this one came from a friend) as I always use fabric bags for shopping ... maybe I could start a collection (lol) Petra.