4 craft project I’ve made recently!

2023, crafting

Hello!

The start of 2023 has been a unique one, that’s for sure – I’m still unemployed, so it’s my first year in a while that I’m not getting back into the swing of work and just a couple of weeks into the year, my husband managed to have an accident on an electric scooter going 15 mph (which doesn’t sound fast, but resulted in seven stitches in his eyebrow, a fractured elbow and a lot of bruises and swelling!).

So it’s been a much slower start to the year – I’m back in therapy and I’ve just started working with a career coach so I have no doubt that I’m giving myself the right tools to get back into the workplace in the best frame of mind. As well as making the most of the time I have at home at the moment to work on lots of crafty projects and doing some offline activities -reading, learning to play the piano again and completing a 1000 piece puzzle! I’m putting a picture in because it was incredibly satisfying.

Figuring out where all the frame pieces went is **way** harder than it looked!

But having really got into using my Cricut at the end of last year, I’ve already made a start on some exciting new projects this year! Having shared the exciting potential with friends and family, two of these projects were requests from other people and two were personal projects. They’re all really easy, as I’m definitely still a beginner, so if I can do them anyone can!

1 – Kitchen Jar Labels

My first request came from my mum, who wanted labels for the jars in her new kitchen – she sent me a photo of the jars, I asked a few questions about the kind of font she wanted and colours and together we came up with the following.

The photo doesn’t show it very well but there are two layers of vinyl – a white drop shadow with a royal blue offset on top. They’re not perfectly aligned as it was my first time trying using vinyl this way (and I had a slight mishap with the vinyl cutting that missed the top of the ‘C’ in ‘Coffee’) but I’m so pleased with how these turned out and I think they’re going to look amazing when they’re put on the jars!

I’ll probably post a picture on my Instagram next time I visit my mum and transfer the stickers to their new homes!

2 – A Lunchbox Decor

My friend uses a tin ammunition box as a lunch box, mostly because it’s funny but also conveniently practical and hardy. He messaged me around the new year asking if I could make labels for his box that said ‘L.U.N.C.H’ in a stencil font with an acronym underneath and I’m absolutely thrilled with how these turned out.

I just bought myself some new fine point blades on Amazon because mine was so blunt and I was totally invigorated by how easy these were to make now that I was working with a sharp blade! I’m so pleased with how these came out and I think they really suit the vibe – the font goes really well with the army green and they genuinely look like they’ve been spray painted on!

And considering I completely eyeballed the placement I’m honestly thrilled with how it turned out and so was my friend!

3 – A Mood Board of my 2023 Goals

I made one of these in 2021 and I really loved it – I had it on the wall in my office and I loved having a nice selection of pictures that were all aesthetic and pretty and reminded me of the things I was working towards and I was passionate about. It was the year I went back to dance classes and started my bookstagram account and I included a bunch of nice Pinterest photos from my favourite franchises – some Doctor Who, some Spider-Man some space stuff, it brought me great joy.

The beginning of 2022 was a bit chaotic so I never got round to making another one, but this year I was determined! With my newfound Cricut skills I was so read to make it pretty and artsy.

Honestly? I prefer the design of my 2021 board, but I like the little titles and I got to use some pretty patterned paper that I’ve had saved for ages so I like the general vibe, I just think it would look better if it had more pictures and less gaps. The patterned paper hurts my eyes a little bit but I’m glad I tried something new and I’ve learnt for next time

(note: I did not tear up an innocent book just to use in this project – it was a well read book that had been water damaged so I’m using it to the best of my crafty abilities)

4 – A Galaxy Rocket Jacket

I used some vouchers I’d built up through my many Hobbycraft purchases to buy my first sheets of Infusible Ink, which is essentially a step up from Iron-On Vinyl as it actually bonds with the fabric rather than sitting on top of it (if that makes any sense at all).

It won’t surprise anyone who knows me that I got the galaxy infusible ink, because I’m a basic white girl with a space aesthetic and I’m not ashamed.

I chose to add a little rocket to my denim jacket because my husband and I, at one point, were considering merging our names when we got married and becoming ‘Rockett’ – we decided against the idea but have still kept it as a little thing for us. It also goes well with my space aesthetic.

So now I have a galaxy rocket jacket!

It’s a little bit faded and hasn’t transferred very evenly, but I think it looks kind of retro and worn in and I love it!

I’m seriously considering doing a bigger space themed piece on the back with some stars in a silver glitter iron on vinyl I have, but I’m definitely not going to rush into it.

I’m over the moon (lol) with how this came out and can’t wait to customise literally all of my clothes now.

So considering we’re only three weeks into the year, I’m pretty pleased with everything I’ve made so far! I’m seriously tempted to open a little Etsy store for custom items, but I don’t think I’m good enough at it yet. For now I’m going to stick with my own practice projects and making things for my friends!

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx

getting started with my Cricut!

2022, crafting

Hello!

My husband (still getting used to that!) bought me my cricut for my birthday in 2021 and honestly, it sat untouched for over a year before we decided together to figure it out and use it for some crafts for our wedding.

Now, we are headfirst obsessed with it – I’m now much more confident in using it on my own (I get very easily overwhelmed by new things, so he helps me figure it all out) and I’ve got so many ideas for projects! I keep resisting the urge to buy everything cricut related (I need vinyl in all the colours).

So I thought I’d collate a few of my tips for starting out with the Cricut! Because the whole world of cricut can be incredibly overwhelming at the beginning.

I have a Cricut Explore Air 2 – I don’t know much about the machine models, I know the ‘Maker’ series can work with a lot more complex materials but I don’t know the difference between the ‘Explore’ and the ‘Explore Air’ series, but so far I’ve not had anything that my machine can’t do.

For the wedding in particular, we used the cricut to make our seating plan.

I found that starting with a drawing and cutting paper project rather than vinyl was much less intimidating, both because it wasn’t a brand new material and because the vinyls are quite expensive so I didn’t want to waste them. We started by choosing a font for writing everyone’s names, then by cutting out the white and green circles. It took us a little while to get used to Cricut Design Space, but honestly between Google and random YouTube videos, any questions we had were incredibly easy to answer. We ended up choosing a font that didn’t need ‘filling in’ (so it was just a single line, if that makes sense!) and the cuts were very basic, so it was a really good place to start.

What we ended up making the most of with the cricut, was using the precision drawing to actually draw a line on the green card so we could line up the white circles exactly in the centre when we got round to sticking them together. It was so easy to line up two circles in Design Space, set one as draw and one as cut and then off it went! It was such a tiny thing to do but having the cricut made it so easy.

The next thing we did was make the vinyl stickers for the titular wording – it was so easy to choose a font, cut it out, weed off all the excess vinyl and line it all up. Initially we thought we could just peel off the stickers and line them up but we massively underestimated how useful the transfer tape would be – being able to transfer everything in one go (especially in the words where some of the letters weren’t connected!) made it all much smoother.

Having such large font for our first vinyl project definitely made it easier, as some projects I’ve worked on since that have been much smaller have been incredibly fiddly and frustrating so starting bigger was definitely less intimidating.

The next thing we used the cricut for was stencils for our welcome sign.

We’d already been through a whole process in dismantling a couple of pallets, putting on multiple layers of wood stain and gluing it all together, that when it came to painting the lettering on I was actually really anxious of messing it all up.

At first, we used white paint that my mum had lying around but it turned out to be primer paint so it was much thinner and runnier than we needed it to be. We had some wedding themed stencils I’d picked up from Hobbycraft and the first version we did looked awful. Luckily, my husband worked through my frustration to wipe it all off (still not sure how he did it tbh) and we tried again much more carefully. It wasn’t perfect, but it would do.

Then when it got to writing our names, I didn’t feel confident enough to do it freehand so we used some of the leftover white card from the seating plan to make stencils which I then filled in with an acrylic paint we picked up in one of our numerous trips to Hobbycraft. Using a little masking tape to hold everything in place made this such a simple process, the only thing was I couldn’t figure out how to make a stencil that would work with letters with holes in (for example, the ‘o’, ‘p’ and ‘e’ in Sophie) so I had to improvise with those but I think it turned out okay in the end! I also found a love for painting in this time – I’m no artist, but give me one colour to paint over and I’m golden. It was so therapeutic!

I then used a staple gun my mum leant me (a bold move, if I do say so myself) to attach some foliage to make a border and honestly, I love how it turned out. I’d love to repurpose it to use again for any other events we may host in the future!

The last project we did for the wedding using the cricut was a much more complicated one – we took a generic white postbox (again from Hobbycraft), painted it blue with acrylic (that I was incredibly lucky it was such a good colour match!) and added the windows, the black sign and the writing of the TARDIS from Doctor Who!

This was surprisingly challenging on two fronts – the text on ‘POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX’ was incredibly fiddly so making sure I weeded all the excess vinyl away correctly and didn’t move anything was tricky, but then the windows (which were just six boxes!) were more difficult to transfer from the vinyl sheet to the box because making sure they had properly stuck to the transfer tape was more challenging than anticipated!

But we are actually ridiculously proud of how this one turned out – to know we made this basically from scratch ourselves was so satisfying and it’s now sat in pride of place in our living room as a wedding memory box with all our cards and some other bits and bobs from the day.

It’s mad how what is essentially a few stickers can really bring a project together!

And now, we’re full on obsessed with all the things we can make with the Cricut – we attempted making some confetti out of old book pages, I attempted to make some stickers for a wedding scrapbook (though the transfer tape stuck too much to the cover!) and I made these Christmas tree decorations that I’m so, so proud of.

As a joint Christmas present to ourselves, we’ve just invested in the Cricut Heat Press, so now we’re experimenting in the world of heat transfer vinyl to make t-shirts, tote bags and anything else we could possibly iron some vinyl on to so watch this space for any more creations! I’m seriously considering starting an Etsy store, but I definitely don’t think I’m at the level yet where what we’re making is good enough for people to pay real money for. Maybe one day!

If you have any questions about starting out with a cricut or have any tips for someone who’s still figuring it all out, please let me know! I’m spending a lot of time on cricut tiktok at the moment!

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx

craft ideas for the casual crafter

2021, crafting

Hello!

Let me set the scene: you love crafting – you get lost in all the how-to videos on Facebook and TikTok, you have a Pinterest full of ideas saved for ‘one day’ and you could quite easily blow your entire pay check in one go completely by accident in Hobbycraft because of all these brilliant ideas you’re going to do ‘on a rainy day’ but never get round to.

Hi there, you feel exactly how I feel!

It’s almost like I love the idea of crafting more than actually doing it, because however much I want to spend time doing all these brilliant things, the precious time I have between work, exercise and occasional socialising I’m not spending on crafting – I’m spending it watching Grey’s Anatomy or getting another ‘early night’ in the vague hope I won’t be tired anymore.

(always live in hope)

But us closet-crafters do sometimes get time so I thought I’d collate a list of my top 3 easy crafts that don’t require too much commitment, skill or dedication, because if you’re anything like me, I don’t have the energy to spend time honing a talent – I just want to make things that aren’t going to look rubbish!

1 – Cross Stitch Kits

I feel like I talk about cross stitch all the time but I love the little kits – whether they’re from Hobbycraft, the Range or even a charity shop (I have bought kids at all three!), the patterns are often really cute, because of the nature of the aida material, it’s really easy to make the final product look exactly like the picture on the front and it’s a nice one to either dip in and out of or sit for a couple of hours and finish in an afternoon.

If you want to step it up, you can buy your own cloth and threads and find patterns either online or on Etsy, or even design something yourself! But there are so many kits and patterns out there, it’s an easy craft to keep low maintenance.

2 – Journalling / Scrapbooking

I’ve had a bullet journal since 2017 and with each passing week and month that I use it, I still find ways to adapt my scheduling and design to better serve me, whether that’s aesthetically or functionally.

Whilst my weekly spreads are more function than craft, set up with a few coloured pens and some drawn boxes, I like to break each month with a header page where I like to print pictures, glue paper patterns, decorate with stickers and note key dates and my monthly goals.

What I love about bullet journalling is that it’s totally adaptable – it can be as creative or as simple as the user wants, but whether it’s a bullet journal, a craft journal or a scrapbook of memories, papercraft can be so much fun.

3 – Knitting

Okay, this one depends heavily on what you’re working on but I have two suggestions that aren’t so intimidating or complicated (because trust me; I’m not good at knitting at all).

I call it ‘knitting a scarf’, but if you just want something repetitive to do with your hands while you’re watching TV that doesn’t take as much thinking (or counting) as cross stitch, a ball of wool and two knitting needles are all you need to do a standard stitch up and down for as long as you like. Will it make a scarf one day? Maybe! But even if it’s a hobby that cuts down your screen time, that’s all that matters right?
Make ear savers – everyone with a sewing machine was making face masks last year in the height of the pandemic (not that it’s over now) but something my Mum told me about was making ear savers – little strips of knitting with buttons on the end to hook the mask straps onto to protect the wearers ears a little bit! Especially for healthcare workers and those who do really long shifts and have to wear them at all times. I found the pattern here and I learned all the stitches from YouTube videos! If I can do it, you definitely can.

Even just writing this has made me feel creative! I want to work on my cross stitch and peacefully knit whilst binge watching more medical shows on any streaming service (just found out The Good Doctor is on Amazon Prime!).

With Christmas right around the corner, there’s loads of fun Christmas crafts that are easy and cute and suitable for children (if you have some to entertain) and I wrote a post with some ideas last year if you’re interested!

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx

easy crafts for beginners (who want to spend more time offline)

2021, crafting

Hello!

After a year of lockdown after lockdown (after lockdown), everyone’s coped in their own way – whether it’s fitness, writing quizzes or a new hobby.

I’ve seen more people learning to craft than I ever would have expected – I’ve found a collection of people who love cross stitch, I’ve seen so many Instagram profiles for new Etsy candle businesses and air dry clay earrings have become surprisingly popular (let’s not talk about the banana bread or the sour dough, okay?).

Crafting is a popular activity for a reason – it’s so broad, it’s so relaxing and it’s a relatively easy way to start a side hustle too. Whether it’s sewing face masks or digital drawings, I’d love to see the statistics on new Etsy shops that have been set up in the last year. I’ve really gotten into crafting myself – cross stitch, knitting, sewing, paper craft, anything I could get my hands on over Christmas! So I thought I’d write a ‘beginner’s guide’ of sorts (as I am still very much a beginner myself) to some of the easiest and cheapest ways to get into different crafting skills and spend less time scrolling twitter.

cross stitch

The entire reason I got into cross stitch was due to the little kits available to buy on Hobbycraft – I messed the first one up big time but I found it so therapeutic. Knowing how precise it all is without even trying due to the aida cloth (the one with holes in it!) and how it looks so cute and pretty but really homely – and such a thoughtful gift that shows how much you care!

I also realised cross stitch is like sewing in 8-bit which was really fun.

To start off with, I recommend these little kits from Hobbycraft – they’re really easy to follow and come with really clear instructions (if the link doesn’t work, look for the ‘mini’ cross stitch kits, less than 10cm). I then stepped up to a larger cross stitch kit from Etsy – you can pick any design you like, buying a kit means it comes with all the materials and generally very well laid out instructions, but a bigger project feels more advanced. Then, if you really fancy it you can buy your own aida cloth, a selection of embroidery threads and you can even make your own design on websites like stitchfiddle!

knitting

Knitting feels intimidating – the big needles and all the different kinds of stitches – but if you want a soothing, repetitive activity to do while you’re watching some background telly (that doesn’t count as screen time, does it?), then knitting can be just the ticket.

I started by knitting ear savers – my mum sent me the pattern and it was a small little project to get me into knitting. I was watching a new Youtube video for every kind of stitch in the pattern but there are so many brilliant tutorials that I could comfortably knit one ear saver from start to finish in about half an hour (not including sewing on the buttons).

From there, I tried to advance the skill but I found it was just a little bit too stressful and that’s not what I wanted! So I took my needles and a ball of wool (I like to call it a loaf) and just sat and knitted row after row. I find the repetitive motion very soothing and a great relaxing activity for me. If you did want to advance this skill, there are loads of patterns available online and buying wool is definitely something I can see becoming very addictive!

sewing

After making the ear savers, I figured it would make sense to try and make the masks to go with them! I lovingly cut up an old duvet into small squares (r.i.p space cats sheets) and found a pattern and I was off! The first pattern wasn’t ideal – it was too big to be an effective face mask and it was a lot of work to sew it by hand. I then bought a kit from Hobbycraft (don’t ask me how much money and time I’ve spent in Hobbycraft in the last year) and I found that pattern was better to use and included the metal nose strips that help your glasses not to fog up (in theory).

I have since found another pattern that uses a rounded shape which is easier to sew and looks better. I was very lucky to get a sewing machine for Christmas (thank you mummy <3) and it’s made the face mask sewing process both quicker and slower – quicker to sew, but slower because I’m learning how to use a sewing machine too! I’m absolutely adoring my sewing machine – I’ve taken in a skirt that was too big for me and I’m hoping to learn to make bunting this month! One day I’ll brave making my own clothes but for now that feels intimidating and fabric is expensive.

paper crafts

It sounds silly to include paper crafts on the list, but I made a cotton wool ball snowman at Christmas, a 2021 vision board and some spreads in my bullet journal and rediscovered a primary school-level love for cutting and sticking. It sounds silly, but it brings me joy, so I will talk about it!

This one isn’t quite as much of an offline activity, as for me it started on Pinterest – making a digital board of all the things I wanted to include; the aesthetics, the quotes, whatever you like! I then copy and pasted them into Word (which is probably more hassle than it was worth, but I couldn’t think of an easier way!) and, simple as, cut and stuck them! I have a little collection of scrapbooking bits and bobs that I could use to embellish the pictures – a bit of washi tape, some string and some patterned card to use as backgrounds (though I intend to up my sticker game when the shops reopen). But it’s such a therapeutic activity! Literally just cutting and sticking pictures.

There’s not much of a purpose to it – my 2021 mood board is going to go up in my new office when we move house (I’m getting an office!) and I make little collages at the beginning of each month in my bullet journal but I thoroughly recommend it if you’re feeling a bit fed up – find some pretty pictures, maybe line them up with any goals or resolutions or ambitions you have for yourself and give yourself an afternoon with a cosy movie!

This post is already far too long, but I thoroughly enjoy talking about crafts – I can definitely do more specific posts about cross stitch patterns, learning to use a sewing machine as an absolute beginners and recycling household items in craft projects (water bottles and cereal boxes etc!).

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx

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my recent craft projects

2021, crafting, creativity

Hello!

I’ve been very vocal about how much I’ve been loving crafts since all of this started with the initial lockdown last March, but cross stitch, knitting, sewing and paper craft have become part of my routine where I try to get away from screens. It’s been lovely for spending more time offline and learning a new skill in the process!

So I thought I’d share with you some of my most recent projects as a nice little diary of what I’m doing, maybe something sweet to look back on!

monthly bullet journal collages

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2020 was the year of discovering that I still love cutting and sticking things like a primary school art project – call it a mood board, a mind map, whatever! I very much enjoy finding pictures on Pinterest that represent my intentions, my goals and generally a nerdy picture of something Marvel or Harry Potter related, sticking them all together and using it as a monthly divider in my bullet journal.

My next step is to invest in more washi tape and stickers. Maybe some stamps!

face mask sewing

My mum very kindly bought me a sewing machine for Christmas and although it took me a couple of months to find the time (and the courage) to actually start using it, I’m actually getting better at it! Usually if I’m not perfect at something straight away I find it very difficult to want to put the time in to build the skills to get better but already I’ve seen progress.

I’m getting to know the machine by sewing face masks – I’ve been sewing face masks by hand for about six months now, I’ve tried a few different patterns and I got a kit from Hobbycraft that I really liked and I have a few leftover material patterns to practice with.

Now I’ve found a different pattern that I prefer, my mum has sent me a bunch of material samples that I can practice with and I can already see that I’m getting to know my machine better and how it works! I’m going to keep practicing face masks, I’m considering starting an Etsy story but that will be a little while down the line for sure.

taking in a skirt

Another thing I wanted to use my sewing machine for was adapting some of the clothes in my wardrobe rather than ‘giving up’ on them and passing them on. I bought this green circle skirt from a charity shop before the first lockdown – it’s from ASOS curve and it’s lovely but I was optimistic that ‘a couple of sizes wouldn’t make a difference’… they did.

I had to wear it rolled up like I was in secondary school trying to make my skirt shorter or wear it with a belt that was very uncomfortably gathered.

But I took it in! It’s not the most professional job and it definitely doesn’t hang quite the same as the rest of the skirt but it now fits me! I’m still figuring out how to style it though.

knitting a ‘scarf’

I really like knitting – it’s a really relaxing, repetitive task that I can sit and do whilst I’m watching TV to occupy my hands.

But it turns out I just like doing the one basic stitch that I know how to do over and over again rather than following a pattern and actually making something functional…

So I’m calling it a scarf, but it’s just rows and rows of the same stitch because I find that kind of repetitive knitting very calming and a perfect thing to do just before bed with some evening telly. (and having both my hands occupied makes it harder to snack)

Next month I want to:

Start a new cross stitch project
Finish my knitting project
Sew something other than face masks

I’ll no doubt be sharing what I’m working on over on Instagram because I get overexcited and proud when I finish something, so if you’re interested that’s the best place to get the latest updates!

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx

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Christmas Craft Ideas!

2020, crafting

Hello!

I still can’t quite believe it’s December and Christmas is less than two weeks away, but whilst life is as busy as ever for many with work, pandemic-safe-socialising and figuring out present shopping when you’re not seeing everyone at the same time and what to buy when and from where but there’s always time for Christmas crafts, right?

Personally, handmade crafts have been a wonder for my mental health this year and it makes me feel really creative and accomplished! So I thought I’d share some of the things I’ve been making (or intend to make) that can be a couple of hours of offline festive fun.

cotton wool ball snowman

My beloved Frank who now hangs on my porch door!

6 sheets of A4 paper taped together, 3 bags of cotton wool balls, probably too much PVA glue, a Poundland hat and some pipe cleaners is a recipe for a few hours of wondering why you thought sticking that many cotton wool balls was a good idea, but then you get to the fun decorating bit and he looks amazing!

I’ve made a little Frank (can’t decide whether to call them Franklin or Franklette) that I might put up with him and it brings back that ‘Primary school art project’ feeling of doing something not because it needs to be skilled or perfect or challenging but making something just because it’s fun!

I’m going to get one of those big art folders so I can store him safely for next year and not waste all those cotton wool balls, but I really hope next year I can visit my godmothers children around Christmas and we can all do this together because I think it would be so much fun!

paper crafts – like paper chains and paper snowflakes!

Seems simple, sticking strips of paper and cutting out shapes but it can be a really great activity to do with younger children and is a really easy way to make the house feel more festive in a homely, unprofessional way (though no shade to anyone who’s home looks like a homeware catalogue).

Although you can buy paper chains at most shops around Christmas, making your own and having fun drawing Christmas designs with coloured pens can make it a much more involved festive activity.

Paper snowflakes are really simple to make, just folding paper, cutting sections out and opening up again but it’s a really effective window decoration and can even be fun to hang from the paper chains if you’re feeling fancy!

cardboard Christmas tree piñata

If I make this, it’s definitely not for piñata purposes, but my friend send me this link for a cardboard, tissue paper tree and whilst I haven’t got round to it yet, I have lots of festive pom-poms and pipe cleaners and I think it would look really cute!

Spending an afternoon not thinking too hard about my responsibilities and getting my hands into something creative, festive and cute always helps calm me down (assuming I’m not ignoring all of my other responsibilities to do it!).

Maybe it’s just some tissue paper on a cardboard box that’ll go in the recycling in the new year, but it’s worth it for the impact it has on my mental health and it’s much cheaper than therapy.

baking!

Perhaps should be counted separately to crafts, but snowman shaped cookies, cupcakes with chocolate fingers as reindeer antlers or a full on Yule log (which I am very proud of, biggest of thanks to Mary Berry for her recipe that I followed), it’s the time of year for sweet treats.

Whether you’d making your own buttercream or using a box cake mix, eating something you’ve made yourself is always satisfying at this time of year.

My mum bought a gingerbread house making kit for my fiancé and I and had initiated a little competition within my family, so I need to find some time to make a pretty gingerbread house (and find some ideas on Pinterest, I’m a bit stumped at the moment!)

card making!

My Nan used to be really into making cards, always sending personalised cards with pictures and 3D stickers and those fancy inserts on the inside that essentially make it a small book and I always treasured them.

But whether you’re buying Hobbycraft out of stickers and fancy blank card sets or folding a piece of paper in half and drawing with some crayons that you have no recollection of buying, the personal touch will certainly be appreciated by your loved ones!

Plus points if you let your children write a little message on the inside. I asked my fiancé to write some messages for his family in our Christmas cards (which I didn’t make, I must admit) and he wrote the card for his dad entirely with his left hand like an actual child. Pretty sure last year he did a drawing for my godmothers kids and even though they were 3, 7 and 8 I’m pretty sure they all did nicer drawings for us!

It feels like this entire year has been months of saying ‘I can’t believe it’s already X month’ and it’s whizzed by but felt really slow simultaneously. Only 10 days till Christmas!

I can’t wait for this year to be over, but I’m definitely tentative about putting too much hope on 2021, but I have to be optimistic about things getting better and seeing friends and family again soon because I don’t know how I’d cope if I wasn’t.

Thank you for reading – I hope you and your loved ones are happy, healthy and staying safe!

Sophie xx

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December Goals

2020, crafting, goals, mental health

Hello!

Somehow we’re on the last month of the year, even though many of us are still mentally stuck in March! This year really has been a whirlwind hasn’t it? If you’d told anyone last year we’d spend half the year cancelling plans, wearing face masks to the shops and constantly being told to ‘think of the NHS’ while the government chronically under funds them and doesn’t value the true key workers in this pandemic, they’d laugh in your face! No way would we believe anything that drastic.

But here we are! The last month of the year; the home stretch!

Personally, I’m still taking things slow – this year has put a massive strain on everyone’s mental health and I need to take things slow for my own sake right now. I’m applying for jobs since finishing my masters and having had the worst luck after my undergrad in 2018 (hundreds of jobs, rejection emails basically every day for months, not a good time) I’m taking a much more gentle approach this time around. Rather than going all out putting lots of pressure on myself to ‘achieve’ by the end of the year, I’m going to try and achieve a better relationship with myself instead!

But as always, I’m setting five mini goals to focus on in December!

Vlogmas! – I started my YouTube channel on December 1st 2013 doing Vlogmas – the challenge of making a video every single day of advent. Many YouTubers make daily vlogs, some do 24 days of content but either way I decided to give it another go this year – this is where it all began for me and I’ve not been making a lot of YouTube videos recently, so I thought a challenge like this will help me figure out what I want the content on my channel to be and can try to redirect some of my creativity into video making. I just published the first video – a little life update – if you’d like to have a look!
Plan New Year’s Resolutions – I love goals and I’ve learnt a lot this year about being flexible with my goals (looking at 1. travel, 2. putting pressure on myself to save money with no income and 3. developing skills I wanted to make myself have, rather than what I’m actually interested in) and I’ve been trying to make much more realistic goals. An acronym I heard a lot from careers departments is setting SMART goals – specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound – to help set goals that are actually a step in the right direction, and not a mountain that seems impossible to climb.
Read gardening books and prepare for next year’s garden – I really enjoyed growing my own flowers this year and my dad bought me some gardening books in the summer that I said I would learn from in the winter ahead of next year’s gardening season! I want to figure out the best vegetables to grow when you can’t plant anything in the ground and go into it with more of a sense of what I’m doing. I might even start a brand new gardening notebook! I’m actually unironically really enthusiastic about gardening!
Christmas crafts! – and from one granny activity to the next, I’ve loved my chilled afternoons cross stitching, knitting and crafting in the last few weeks – from making Christmas presents to fixing some clothes, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed making crafting part of my daily routine to make more of an effort to switch off and relax. I want to get some paper chains, I want to sew some festive things and I’ve got a stack of cardboard boxes I saved with intent to craft so I better use them!
Read one book – in the first 8 months of the year I couldn’t stop reading, when my mental health declined I didn’t have the energy and I got out of the habit. Sleeping and my bedtime routine has been something I struggle with recently, so I don’t want to put any pressure on myself to get back to reading every night straight away again, but if I can finish one book this month that would be amazing.

And my other monthly goal is to have a date night with my fiancé at some point! He’s really busy with work at the moment, but hopefully we’ll find some time to get take out and watch a movie or something!

I was really excited about Christmas in November and now December’s here I think I’m more intimidated by the end of the year than I thought I would be. But I’m making the most of not working right now to try and look after myself, any tips are more than welcome!

Thank you for reading – I hope you and your loved ones are happy, healthy and staying safe!

Sophie xx

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my craft projects!

2020, crafting, creativity

Hello!

Since finishing my masters degree, my to do lists have been a lot shorter – I am applying for jobs, but in a pandemic there’s not a whole lot going on, so rather than beating myself up about it, I’ve started making my to do lists in a slightly different way (I’m going to write a post about it next week!) and it helps me keep a sense of structure and purpose in my day without being overwhelming.

A bit part of this has been making time for crafts – in the first lockdown, I fell in love with cross stitching and learning more about knitting and sewing and I’ve found that doing these offline crafts have been really therapeutic for me and have helped me slow down out of that ‘productivity mindset’ in a way I never have before.

So I thought today I’d talk you through some of the projects I’ve got going on at the moment! Obviously there’s a few I’m not going to mention with Christmas coming up but between kits from Hobbycraft, a Disney cross stitch magazine and personal projects, I’m doing something different every few days and I love it.

wooden cross stitch

I bought a small wooden cross stitch stand from Hobbycraft with a voucher I got for my birthday. Granted, I did think it was a proper kit that would come with the thread and a needle and it didn’t, but it did have a beautiful pattern for a mountain sunset and I’ve nearly finished it! It’s a little more challenging than I thought to get the needle through all the little holes (I’ve actually broken a needle doing this!) but I think it’s going to look so cute and it’s quite small so it’s a nice little project.

face mask kit

I love a kit that comes with all the materials and equipment – it’s probably why I’m super tempted by Hello Fresh and those other expensive food services! But I bought this mask kit, again from Hobbycraft, a few months ago and I was initially intimidated by the fact the pattern had pleats in it and I thought there was no way I could sew it by hand. It took probably 5x as long because I don’t have a sewing machine but it was actually surprisingly simple! I’ve done one of the three materials that came in the kit so I’ve got two more and I can use the pattern on any other material I have lying around too! I’m going to have to set up an Etsy store or something at this rate!

knitting ear savers

This is something I did a lot of at the beginning of lockdown – ear savers are little pieces of fabric with buttons that can hook face masks on to, so it takes the pressure off the back off the ears. A lot of volunteer groups were knitting them for medical staff and key workers that have to wear masks for extended periods of time – my fiancé loves his so much that he’s stretched it out, but he works broadcasting live sport so he’s wearing his mask for 12-13 hours a day and says it’s really helpful. Another item for my potential Etsy store!

learning to crochet

I’m yet to actually make anything, because I’m still learning the basics, but I picked up some reasonably priced crochet hooks in Wilko, back in the days when we could go to shops, and I’m trying to teach myself crochet. I’m not very good at learning new things because if I’m not good at it straight away I get cross, but I’m trying to be patient with myself and give myself permission to be bad at something, regardless of how melodramatic that sounds!

cardboard crafts

At the beginning of the first lockdown, I started saving every cardboard box that we had because I was sending parcels to my family and they were useful containers. But now I have a pile of cardboard in the corner of my kitchen with no use and I feel like a craft project is calling to me, I just haven’t figured out what yet! I recently picked up a Christmas themed paper pad from Hobbycraft (my new favourite shop, apparently) so I think I’m going to make some festive decorations – things I can stick in our window, maybe some decorations for the tree! I need to have a proper browse on Pinterest and see if I can find any inspiration.

3D cross stitch kit

Really random but my fiancé found it on offer in a Lidl I think while he was away on work – it’s a little beach hut that you cross stitch the design onto and then sew it together and stuff it. I think that might be a project for that weird week between Christmas and New Year where no one knows what day it is and there’s loads of comfort TV on.

t-shirt blanket sewing

I feel like I’ve mentioned this approximately three billion times, but when I was a teenager I had an extensive t-shirt collection and because I’m sentimental af but became very aware that I was wasting all of these clothes, I decide to cut out the design feature and sew them all onto a blanket. I finished the first side earlier this year but decided to use fabric glue in the end because the blanket is quite big and my house is quite small so I don’t actually have anywhere I can lay it out flat but my intentions are that one day when I have a sewing machine I’m going to go over all the designs and make sure they’re properly secure before I continue sewing the other side but the remaining t-shirts I have I am sewing to each other so there’s still progress on the project. I don’t know if I’ve described this very well, but it’s a big ongoing project that will make more progress when I live in a space I can lay the blanket out flat!

adapting/fixing my own clothes

I did a moderate clear out of my wardrobe in September, being brutal about the clothes I don’t wear, the clothes I don’t like, any that might be adaptable to enjoy wearing again and I have a little pile of clothes I want to try and work on – a high neck jumper I want to try and take the high neck off of, a shirt with massively wide shoulders that I want to try and take up and a denim jacket that is too big for me but I want to experiment with acrylic painting on clothes (as inspired by @lucid.seams.shop on instagram). I’m also going to try and use some of my clothes as material for other projects, so maybe I’ll learn more about sewing!

I know not everyone finds crafting relaxing or fulfilling, but I think having an activity that can pull you away from your screens for a bit is so good for mental health. My fiancé and I had an afternoon building a Lego Hedwig kit recently and we spent two hours on something we really enjoyed! Whether it’s going for a walk in some fresh air, colouring, doing a jigsaw or making something crafty, spending time offline doing something for no reason other than enjoyment is important to prioritise. I’m still learning how to.

My mum also sent me a festive colouring book so I think a movie night and some colouring is on the cards! I’m thinking a Harry Potter or a Marvel movie marathon!

Thank you for reading – I hope you and your loved ones are happy, healthy and staying safe!

Sophie xx

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