Lately, seems that some of my favourite bloggers are publishing books. Makes sense really. If I were a publisher, I would definitely publish someone who has already proven that they have the drive to create a good site, the talent to write it and the tenacity to just keep going. I was so damn happy a few days ago to read that Crazy Aunt Purl (aka Laurie) has written a book. I imagine her book reads something like an American (Southern) sort of Bridget Jones. I am really looking forward to reading it! My question is ‘has anyone optioned it yet?’

I was also excited to read that Anna Maria Horner is busily writing her very own book too! Can’t wait to see what amazing sewing projects she comes up with.

Then, of course, there is the Crafter’s Companion, where a whole stack of great creative bloggers submitted material…

Now, I wonder which blogger will be next to announce that they have just signed a book deal? Hmmm….

Mia

If you are a new visitor to our site, in “One Hour on the Net”, we provide you with enough links to keep you happy and busy for about an hour. We aim to point you to some of the best sites on the Net.

Today is all about cupcakes! How delightful are cupcakes? It must be some deep memory of being a child and getting your very own little cake, which you carefully licked all the icing off and left the cake. I don’t know – all I know is that they are just gorgeous to look at and to eat. We have found some great cupcake links both for edible and crafted cupcakes…. Enjoy!

• First stop is a droolworthy site, The Cupcake Bakeshop Blog. Have you ever heard of Green Tea Bubble Cream Filled Cupcakes with Green Tea Cream Cheese Frosting? or Chocolate Cupcakes with Berry Ganache and Cinnamon Butter? No nor had we. Check out this site for heaps more unbelievable cupcake ideas.

• Betz White makes felted wool cupcakes which look almost edible. She was recently on the Martha Stewart show in the US. What a clever lady. I am looking forward to trying my hand at making some. If you have no time for making, then buy from her. What a great present, cupcakes with no fat content. What more could a girl want? Ms White also has a lovely little blog to read.

• Feeling crafty? Try our little (and I mean tiny little cakes) cupcake tutorial to make polymer clay cupcakes. These are so fun. We had so much fun making them and they still get used in the doll house, and frequently all the stick-thin Barbie Dolls will sit around at the kitchen table and eat copious amounts of cupcakes. Oh yeah, these are fat-free too. These little cakes could be used as earrings, on necklaces, on zippers and I love the way Tutti Fruitti has used them as stitch markers for her knitting, how cute and clever!

• We have gone cupcake crazy. Check out this lip balm – Cupcake Lip Balm at SnazzyGirl. With flavours like Lemon Drop Cupcake, Buttercream Kiss and Coconut Bunny – too cute!

• We also found some great cupcake books on Amazon:

Hello hello.

Decor8’s post this week on “How Do You Feel About Your Blog?”, really found me thinking about me and my blogs, both this one and my personal blog.
From the day I started this blog, I have enjoyed it so much. I love sharing my craft tutorials, some of my crafts and showing off other great sites. It really does it for me. I love and appreciate the constant stream of encouraging comments and emails I get from all around the world. I love the inspiration and the amount of techniques and skills I have learnt from the Net. I love the tossing back and forth of ideas.

But my personal blog is another story. I have struggled to keep it going for a year and a half now. I have often thought I would love to have a blog as open, loud, witty and fearless as Crazy Aunt Purl. I would love to be able to share photos of my child and snippets of my life like the two gorgeous bloggers, Karen Cheng and Andrea Scher. I would love to put photos of our trips to art galleries, moments in the park under the Morton Bay Fig trees, running with dog, dinners we have cooked, baking chocolate chip cookies, snuggling. But I am just not comfortable with it.

There are a few reasons for my discomfort. Firstly, I feel that I want the Internet to be a very segregated part of my life. I want this to be half an hour to an hour of my day. I don’t want to spend my ‘free’ time (ha ha) indoors. I am naturally an outdoors person who loves being active and I find spending too long on a computer gives me a sore back and makes me too introspective. I prefer to be having a swim in the pool than sitting here. OHC, on the other hand is being run as part of my career, not just a hobby. But my personal blog as a hobby is really pushing it. There are twenty things that would come before it!

Another reason is that I love my privacy. I feel that a lot of who I am is shared on this site, but not too much. I don’t think I am revealing what I ate, what I do all day, what colour knickers I am wearing etc. I am aware of the unreal nature of the Internet. In a ‘real’ relationship, it takes a long time to be able to trust someone to reveal yourself to them and it is always two way. With a personal blog the relationship is not ‘real’ because it is not two way. I am not being intimate with anyone in particular, I am being intimate with everyone but actually with no-one.

In my everyday life, I don’t tell complete strangers about my personal life, so why should I do this on the Internet? On the Internet it is even more unsettling. I am sharing details about my personal life and I really have no clue who is reading them, my boss, my co-workers, my ex-boyfriends, my neighbours, my relatives, strange icky people? I can tell who my referrers are but have no idea who my actual readers are, unless they leave comments. Even the word ‘lurkers’ has dark connotations for me. On the other hand, I would happily hand out leaflets for this blog all over town (now there’s an idea?) and encourage as many people to read it. It is enough removed from my private life to not bother me one bit.

I could honestly go on all night about this topic and the unreal nature of the Internet. But I won’t, because I would rather go and make something (making an adorable tote bag).

Well, tonight I have decided once and for all to close down my personal blog, not that I have invested much time in it.
But I will, of course, be happily running One Hour Craft. More tutorials coming your way tomorrow.

Mia

PS All that said, I just couldn’t resist showing off my new hair could I? Can you believe it? Bottle Black. It feels great but maybe a little too high maintenance. We’ll see.  Half-dead look is due to the flu I have had all week.

(Photo of Mia with her handcrafted vintage glass bead and silver necklace)

Hello. I have had an idea with the April Challenge. I don’t have the inclination or time to organise a swap this time but I was thinking of having a jumble. What is a jumble? Well I am just inventing it, so stick with me.

A jumble is like a trade. When you have finished your necklace upload it to our Flickr Group. When you have uploaded a photo leave a comment on the bottom saying “Would like to be part of the Jumble”. Now, if you have done this, take a look at the other necklaces up for the Jumble and contact the person whose necklace takes your fancy and propose a swap with them. When you have made a swap can you please leave another message on the bottom of your photo, or you may have another twenty people wanting to swap with you. Ta!
This reminds me a little of the clothes swap Ms Spinach talked about (but of course, this is on-line). Could be a whole lot of fun! And it is very motivating to get my necklace/s done and up and hope that I love someone elses. A whole new era in bartering! If you are going to be involved please be kind, sincere, courteous and fun-loving!

So get your necklace made and upload a photo. If you have no intention of being involved in the jumble, that is fine too, be sure to still upload your necklaces to Flickr for us all to have a good look.

(Necklace entered into OHC April Challenge by Feli )

If you come across any more great ideas or websites, be sure to leave a link for other readers.

Enjoy!

Mia

Check out our new links page, in the right hand corner of this page!

I am so glad I finally got around to finishing this page, so you can all enjoy the lovely crafty links!

Have a great weekend!

Mia

Ok, Crafty Girrrrrrls, the challenge for this month (well until the middle of May from today) is

TO MAKE AN IMPOSSIBLY GORGEOUS NECKLACE!
Thanks for all the ideas you sent to me, they were great. I will follow up the ideas you have already given me in the next months.

How to start???

Umm a visit to your local bead or craft shop is a great way to start. For me, a trip to a bead shop is just about the most fun a girl can have.
What to use?

Gorgeous glass beads, leather strands, old plastic bags (huh), plastic beads, fimo (oooh I am going to use fimo I think), silver wire, chicken wire, knitting, crocheted balls, clay, PMC, fishing line, Tiger Tail, crimps, lace whatever you like…..

And when you are done please post a photo for all to see at our One Hour Craft Flickr Group.

Get to it ladies! Why not make a party of it? We will over here.

Some Great Links to Get Started:

• I love love love The Bead Shop. Check out this link to their ideas for necklaces. They are divine! I love this site. When I first started to make jewellery about five years ago I feel in love with this site. They have great instructions on different techniques. If you are a beginner you may find the idea of these a little bit daunting.
• Some ideas from Beadage to make different simple necklaces with tigertail and a Floating Illusion Necklace. Good for the beginner.
• You could make some felt beads (something I am going to try) with help from The Monkey Basket.
• Great tutorials to make Polymer Clay (Fimo) Beads. What a great blog!

Have fun!

Mia

Hi, We are on holidays and it is so much fun! I am sure that there are a few mums like me out there racking their brains for something to do with their children. I love my child, but I love her more outdoors! I really can’t stand tv, computer games and internet for children. Especially living in our delicious climate. I was so glad to have gone to Kate’s house yesterday for a visit and to see her mum Pauline there. Pauline showed me a great way to grow seedlings and ignite your child’s (or your own interest in gardening). Keep in mind that this is only my first week of gardening, so learn with me.

I love this tutorial because whether you live in a little flat in London or on a station outside of Meekatharra or are a teacher in a classroom, this is really easy and uses materials which you may already have.
The first thing to do to grow a garden is to turn those little seeds that you buy into seedlings. I am inspired to use seedlings because they are cheap and also I think it is great for kids to see how a plant grows from a tiny seed… On with the tutorial…

You will need:

• A 2 or 2L Coke or Soft Drink Plastic Bottle. Leave the lid on.
• A pair of tough scissors or secateurs
• Some seeds to plant. We are planting edibles. We planted strawberries in this bottle. Make sure you read the back of the seed packet to see what time of year your plants will grow in your part of the country.
• Some potting mix or seedling mix. Available at any nursery.
• A little water
• Sunshine and a whole lot of love.

Step 1

Make sure that the adult does this part.

Take the bottle and holding it on its side cut it in half with the secateurs. It should now look like the photo below.

Step 2

Take the bottom half of the bottle and with the secateurs, cut about four slits about an inch and a half long towards the bottom of the bottle. Oh I know, I change from measurements, that’s what you get from parents who took you to the US to school when you were learning about measurement.

Step 3

You should now be able to fit the top part of the bottle easily onto the bottom. It is easy because of the slits, without them you will really struggle.

Step 4

Take the bottom part of the bottle and cut holes in the little mounds with the secateurs. This is for excess water to drain out of them.

Step 5

(This is really where the kids can get involved). Fill the bottom of the bottle with potting mix or seedling mix, just until the place where the slits begin. Then dampen the soil with a cup of water. The kids will love getting their hands dirty putting the mix in bottle.

Step 6

Sprinkle the seeds onto the dampened mix.

Step 7

Replace the lid on to the top of the bottle. Place the bottle outdoors or on a window sill. Seedlings love a warm, moist environment.

And voila….

You now have your little strawberry seedling incubator, which is apparently self watering. (Also, don’t you just love Photoshop?). The condensation builds and rewater the seeds. Even Luciano thought the whole thing was pretty interesting. We can’t wait for them to sprout into seedlings. Now, I will have to get back to Pauline and find out, ‘what next?’.

I took the packet from the seeds and my beloved hot glue gun (I still can’t believe I read one blogger dissing the hot glue gun), and glued the label along the top and stuck it to the bottle. This looks quite cute and lets me know what there is in the bottle.

I have placed an old plate under the bottle and it is on our kitchen bay window, waiting for the sunshine to do her thing…

Enjoy!

Mia

G’day! I hope you all had a wonderful Easter. I am sorry I wasn’t able to post before now.

Well, I love getting feedback from the creatives who read this site. It is so inspiring.

So, I have two questions – What was the last thing you created? And what are you creating at this moment?

Could you please answer these question in the comments. Can you leave your name and where you live. If you have a blog can you please leave a link to your last creation and if you don’t can you please leave an explanation.

Thanks, I can’t wait to see what you are all up to.

Mia

PS The last thing I created was tiny pinata eggs for Easter *not too successful but more on that later* and at the moment I am creating a garden *more on that too*. You can read more about my gardening efforts here.

PPS The April Onehourcraft challenge will be up by tomorrow night, I promise.

Hello.  Here is a list of some very groovy FREE sewing patterns found on the Net.   I am continually amazed at how many things are free on the Net.

Enjoy!

I found the amazing patterns for the skirt, cape and bag above at Burda, via Ismoyo.  There are a load of other patterns on this page also.  I can’t wait to have a go at making the bag.  i think these patterns are updated regularly.  Make sure you read the downloading instructions carefully.  This could all get a bit tricky.

Looking for some very Hip patterns to sew?  You can’t go past Fitz Patterns.  Check out their free patterns.   You gotta love the old Aussie favourite ‘Stubby shorts‘.

Nesting?  I have been dying to make some of Amy Butler’s Hourglass pillows for the longest time.   Go to the site and find ‘free patterns’ at the bottom of the menu.  I also love her quilt patterns.

And of course, Craftster has a pattern and a tutorial to make just about anything.  I loved this tutorial and pattern layout (really only for experienced sewers or nuts like me who think that nothing is beyond them!) to make a Babydoll dress.

Are there any other great free patterns I should know about?  Let me know how you go with any of these patterns.
Have a good one.

Maria Susannah