Brighton Craft Guerrilla

Don't miss it!

2011-12-08T15:27:00.003Z

It's the Craftaganza Craft Market this Saturday, December 10, and we'll be there with a stall full of nice things to buy. The market's open from 11am to 5pm at Fabrica, Duke Street, Brighton.

Robins

2011-11-09T20:46:00.000Z

Well, like it or loathe it, Christmas is just around the corner and us crafty types have already been knuckling down and get our craft on for decorations and gifts. Searching for inspiration myself, I came across these lovely robin cross stitch/embroidery hoop Christmas tree decorations today on Mooncalf Makes's (aka Saffron) blog. I think they're fab:

Coming soon...

2011-11-05T17:43:00.005Z

We'll be there with lots of hand made goodies for sale!

FREE Patterns!

2011-09-29T18:51:00.000+01:00

I'm a bit obsessed with embroidery at the moment and Jenny Hart is just fueling my fire. If you head on over to Sublime Stitching, she's giving away a free pattern PDF of her new cocktail napkin designs.

Photo from Sublime Stitching.

Obv, you don't need to put them on napkins; tis the beauty of embroidery that it looks good everywhere! I quite fancy the flying skull stitched on a cardi, meself. Go forth and embroider!

Halloooowwweeeennnnnnn!!

2011-09-25T19:34:00.000+01:00

There is some fabulous spooky stitchery going on over at Feeling Stitchy at the moment. I mean, look at these:

Photo from Feeling Stitchy

Go and take a look and get your crafty spook on. There are some great links to other Halloween-themed stitching shenanigans on that post, too.

Inspiring...

2011-07-26T16:04:00.000+01:00

So, I've been thinking a lot about inspiration and what it is that inspires me. I use Pinterest as a tool for collecting all the ideas I have (I'm wuthering_alice on there if you want a nosy at my boards) and I find that I often have some kind of interesting picture or link tucked away on there.

At the moment, my sweet peas are going mad and I have a real gamut of colours- fuchsias, pale pinks, lilacs, violets and whites- which are sitting in a vase in my living room. I love bright colours and this is influencing my choices when it comes to my knitting, dyeing and beading. I think life is too short for too many pastels...!

So I don't have to go far for natural inspiration at all.

Another place I get inspiration from is from art galleries and museums. At the moment, I'm slightly obsessed by the Pre-Raphaelite and Aesthetic movements of the 19th century. Their use of colours- vivid, vibrant and bright are a real contrast from what we expect to find from Victorian art. I was lucky enough to see some examples in the great V&A exhibition 'The Cult of Beauty' and at the Tate Britain gallery. I'm hoping that I'll be able to show you some great work soon that shows you how I've used these brilliant colours! Where do you get inspiration from?

Weekend piccies!!

2011-07-09T00:33:00.004+01:00

Why hello there crafters!! it has been sometime since I have blogged for many reasond that I wont go into but instead show some awesome inspiring images that I discovered on my computer after a feverish afternoon of Google image searching!! there's some gees bend quilts some beautiful antique quilts some Binca love and machine parts pretty drawings and much more!! LOVE!!

I am a little bit obsessed with quilting at the moment and am hoping to make some awesome creations of my own but OMG how much do I want these vintage quilts in my life!! Anyway hope that these piccies wet you're creative appetite for the weekend and I will be posting again soon!!

The 365 Knitting Clock

2011-05-01T15:11:00.000+01:00

I just came across this on Poppytalk's blog, and just had to share:

So, instead of having numbers or hands, the knitting clock (created by Siren Elise Wilhelmsen) knits a stitch every half an hour, finishing one round per day. At the end of the year you get a whole scarf (or should that be enormous sock, or even Xmas stocking?!). Read all about it here.

Some Blooming Exciting News!

2011-03-28T20:34:00.001+01:00

So, we have some exciting news (two bits, actually!)

1) We have a Facebook page! Please come and visit us/like us and spread the word.
2) We have an upcoming event!

Craft Fair, 5th March

2011-03-03T18:36:00.000Z

Well hello, hello!

The BCG Massive will again be at the Cornerstone Community Centre craft fair this coming Saturday 5th March. If you're around and about in Hove that day, please come along and support us at the Cornerstone Community Centre/St. John's Church on Church Road and just off Palmeira Square, between 11am and 3pm.

Better get cracking getting all my stuff together!

Why, hello!

2011-02-23T12:38:00.001Z

Hi there!

My name is Steph and I'm the newest member of the Guerrilla here by the sea. I thought I'd introduce myself and just let you know what kind of thing I get up to.

I am primarily a knitter- my favourite things to knit involve shawls (no shaping! no sewing!) and socks. I've just started to knit colourwork, which I'm really enjoying.

I am a colour junkie- I love playing with different colours and I like to play with beads... so I often make bracelets. I tend to use glass beads (I love the feeling of glass and gemstones in my hand and I love a good bracelet to play with!)

This is one of my all time favourite bracelets- I think that the beads are sort of 1920's-ish.

I'm also a tea addict and occasional writer- I've written for Knitting magazine in the past and I sometimes contribute to various newsletters. When I'm not being crafty or writing, I'm a teacher.

Oh, and I'm terrified of my sewing machine.

Stitchery To Make Your Eyes Happy

2011-01-10T20:39:00.000Z

Hello there! A Happy New Year to you all! I thought I'd kick off this coming year of craftiness with a quick look at some lovelies that have been inspiring me lately. Take a gander at this little lot:

This bunch of awesomeness was created by Wendi Gratz. Check out her wonderful work on her Flickr photostream here, or on her extremely edutaining blog here. Fab stuff.

And these lovely, lovely, lovely embroideries are by Corinne, aka septemberhouse. Check her Flickr here and her blog here.

Aren't they all just great? They're inspiring me no end right now. I must pick up my needle and get stitching!

Christmas garland

2010-12-23T22:18:00.008Z

6 x 12-packs of tiny shatterproof baubles, some Anchor Artiste Metallic yarn in white, 2.75mm crochet hook. It's basically a long crochet chain with a bauble added every 4 chains by working a dc (US sc) through its hanging loop.

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-20T13:59:00.002Z

Last night Husband and I made this simple, yet effective, paper star/snowflake to hang on our front door:

It's really quick and easy to make. We used this tutorial here but there are plenty of others out on t'interwebs. Try experimenting with the number of cuts in each section. This one here is three cuts per section, but we made another to hang on an inside door with five. Go crazy!

A very Merry Christmas to all our readers!

Bigger On The Inside?

2010-12-03T13:57:00.002Z

Husband came across this awesome quilt on the Geek Art Gallery blog and sent the link on over to me:

It's not patchwork as such in the traditional sense - if you read the description on the blog below the photo which explains how it was made - but I think it totally rocks as a quilt, anyway. Husband has now challenged me to make one myself! Only if David Tennant is included, I think.

BCG's craft fair stall

2010-11-08T14:00:00.006Z

Things to come...

2010-11-07T20:43:00.008Z

Knitting!!
Autumn leaves and handmade socks = LOVE!!

Patchwork madness, the most fun you can have in an afternoon!!

Things coming this month, knitting galore, patchwork madness and much much more!! its autumn time and a perfect time to get crafty!! Ive been getting all my bits and bobs out for the winter for cozy evenings in with my sewing machine and some beautiful fabric...its going to be ace!

I will endeavour to do another blog post about awesome sewing machine feet and maybe a tutorial or two!!

Happy crafting!

Sam!!

Craft fair tomorrow!!

2010-11-05T22:39:00.003Z

Hey everybody just a quick reminder that the Brighton Craft Guerrilla will be at the Cornerstone Community Centre in Hove tomorrow selling lots of beautiful things Emma will be there and so will Jan I will be absent as I have to conduct a class on making rockets tomorrow :( But some of my button stash will be there :D Hope to see you guys there come and introduce yourselves and maybe do a spot of Christmas shopping too!

Have a rockin weekend!

Sam x

Craft Fair, 6th November

2010-10-31T18:47:00.001Z

That's right, the BCG are taking part in a craft fair this coming Saturday. If you're around and about in Hove on the 6th November, please come along and support us at the Cornerstone Community Centre, on Church Road and just off Palmeira Square, between 11am and 3pm. We're all selling little crafty things we've been busy making. Hopefully this is the beginning of greater things!

Yarn dyeing in a large jar

2010-10-12T10:25:00.016+01:00

Fill a 3 litre preserving jar two-thirds full with cold water, add the lightest colour of dye, a skein of wet yarn and stir to give an even colour. Yarn used here is a 100g skein of undyed Trekking sock yarn, 75% wool and 25% nylon, tied in several places with figure-of-eight ties. The yarn was pre-soaked for several hours in a solution of 250ml vinegar/5 litres water/squeeze of washing-up liquid. Dyes* are Jacquard Acid Dyes; colours Bright Yellow, Cherry Red, Fire Red, Vermillion (solution of half teaspoon of dye to 350ml water).

In a separate container, mix Bright Yellow with a splash of Cherry Red and Fire Red to make orange. Holding the yarn away from the side of the jar with a bamboo skewer or knitting needle, carefully pour orange dye into the liquid in the jar. Leave for a few minutes so the dye spreads naturally through the liquid, avoiding the temptation to stir!

Add the remaining colours in the same way, working from the lightest to the darkest and allowing each colour to settle before adding the next one.

When you're happy with the effect, carefully remove the skein from the jar, gently squeezing out excess water and dye as you go.

To fix the dye, place the skein in a lidded microwaveable container (a Pyrex flan dish covered with cling film works well) and cook on full power for 2 minutes, rest for 2 minutes and repeat for a total cooking time of 6 minutes. Allow to cool, then rinse the yarn in cold water until the water runs clear and hang to dry.

*Acid dyes are safe to use at home with care; work in a well-ventilated room and never use containers and other utensils for cooking once you've dyed in them.

Its National Knitting Week!!

2010-10-11T14:43:00.005+01:00

Oh yes it is!!! What's on your needles? Im currently knitting some Nancy Bush bedsocks and have been scouring my vintage patterns for a new sweater project so much fun!!

My fave needles are my vintage DPNs i have some lovely bendy plastic ones in teal and mustard yellow that are just GORGEOUS!!

Not great photos but they were taken in a hurry!! So have an awesome knitting week everyone!!!

Sam!!

Beautiful images!!

2010-10-05T22:20:00.007+01:00

Just thought I would share some images that I have been finding super inspiring recently and have been inspiring future projects too!! I have always loved this picture of Frida Kahlo the colours are amazing I just love it!!! I am also loving Tilleke Schwarz A dutch artist that embroiders the most gorgeous pieces and I have spent ages looking at her site! And as a passionate button lover I have regularly been looking at Button Candy so much gorgeous stuff and inspiring projects I just LOVE IT!!

So what been inspiring you recently?

Happy Crafting!

Sam

The wonderful world of sewing machine feet!!

2010-10-05T21:40:00.006+01:00

There are loads of feet that you can get for sewing machines and I thought I would highlight a couple of my faves that I find fun and useful for all kinds of projects!!

First of all there is the free motion foot or the free machine embroidery foot, they are terrific all you have to do is attach one of these babies to your machine and drop the feed teeth and there is so much you can do!! You can move the fabric under the foot in any direction, and with a bit of control you can create all sorts of your own designs. This one has been done on cotton and been inked and I think it looks great!!

Free machine embroidery is great on soluble fabrics too and can create beautiful lace effects which I will go into another time!! :D

Next is my most recent favourite: the walking foot. It has little feed teeth as part of the foot that move up and down in time with the needle - it's AMAZING for quilting, thicker fabrics and slippery fabrics too. I loved using mine to make my first big quilt because it comes with a metal guide, so you can make sure your stitched lines are evenly spaced when your quilting. It's loads of fun and despite the fact it looks terrifying I found it surprisingly easy to use :D

I'm not an expert and I'm learning new things about these feet and my sewing machine every day, but they are a lot of fun and if you want to try something new when sewing I really recommend them!!

If you have any free machine embroidery pieces or quilted pieces that you have done and want to share then please email them to us and we will pop them on the blog!!

Happy crafting

Sam!!

brightoncraftguerrilla@gmail.com

both photos of feet from this blog

Zappa free machine embroidery from this blog

2010-10-01T21:25:00.005+01:00

Theres been a lot of making over the past few weeks I put up some pretty poor phone photos of some stuff Ive been working on but a lot has been happening!! I just thought I would share some of the things that have been getting me excited over the past few weeks!!

Amy Butler yarn!! Very lush!
Thought this blog post was super inspiring on Jaybird quilts
Love this site so much youve got to check out Skine art

Happy Crafting!!

Upcoming knitting event

2010-09-07T15:45:00.004+01:00

Totoro

2010-09-04T20:05:00.001+01:00

Came across this AMAZING piece of stitchery on Feeling Stitchy today. It's by the uber-talented three critters crafts. LOVE it.

Printable Vintage Hankies

2010-09-02T23:51:00.001+01:00

I came across this fab idea on Eat Drink Chic, a lovely blog described in the blurb as: "Style inspiration, D.I.Y & free stationery printables for parties, entertaining, weddings, the home, gifts, food, fashion & more, created by Amy Moss". It's a VERY nice blog; beautiful photography. Amy suggests printing these hankies out and hanging them up at a wedding for the guests to leave good luck messages for the bride or groom, but I think they could be used as notecards or invitations or birthday cards or for any purpose you fancy, really. You can download them for free from Amy's blog here.

Fab Blog!

2010-08-18T11:36:00.001+01:00

I've just come across a fantastic blog and just had to share it with y'all. "Male Pattern Boldness" is the sewing blog of New Yorker Peter Lappin. Holistic Health Counselor by day, sewing fiend by night, Peter's blog is captioned: "MPB is proud to be the world's most popular mens sewing blog until informed otherwise".

And it's great stuff. Just check out his Burda muslin!:

Such an Awesome Idea

2010-08-08T20:06:00.003+01:00

Hideee-hi, crafter peeps. Just thought I'd drop in to share this fantastic crafty- and green - idea I came across on the old internetz:

Anna Garforth's "Head Gardeners" are planters upcycled from empty milk containers. They've been spotted going up over London as a kind of green guerrilla art. Aren't they fab? I can see them working so well in Brighton. Read all about them and get inspired here.

Creative goings on tomorrow...

2010-07-31T22:50:00.002+01:00

...I dont know which Im more excited about the creative workshops or the bouncy castle!!
Have a great weekend!
Sam xxx

Good golly...

2010-07-28T18:39:00.003+01:00

...Where does the time go, first of all and apology I have neglected the blog due to moving and various crazy weeks of flitting between flats organising bills and getting some order into my craft stash which has been sitting quite happily as a roundabout in the lounge of the new flat, It is all now however sorted out and looking beautiful, I have a brand new craft space to be crafting in!!

There has been crafting while I have been away there has been embroidery, cross stitch, sewing, patchwork and quilting!! I will do a post of photos soon I have also rediscovered my love of all things felt in the past few weeks and I spent a saturday teaching too classes of 8 year olds how to wet felt and another class on how to needle felt and it went down super well spreading the crafting love through felt!!

while away I have found some awesome sites and things that I have been up to to share first of all is The Tiny Modernist I have been working on one of her Eames chair cross stitches and I love it its so simple yet super stylish and I love that eara of design!!

Something else I have had my eye on is Colette patterns on Etsy awesome for ladies with curves they look super flattering and I have ordered one of these dresses to keep me looking awesome over the summer!!

We also got this book in at work an I am so in love with all of the projects its super inspiring!!

Anyway Ive got to go and get some more patchwork going on!!
Happy crafting everyone
Jenny Leggings!!

Hairband Bow Tutorial

2010-06-21T13:08:00.000+01:00

Hello all. This is a really easy-peasy guide to making your own bow that you can add to a hairband for instant glamour, or attach to a clip or a pin to give any outfit a little bit of va-va-voom. What makes it so easy is there are no real measurements involved, other than you need about 1.5m of ribbon, and no sewing. All you need is:

- 1.5m-ish of ribbon. I used a 22mm wide grosgrain ribbon, which I think works better than normal, silky ribbon as it is stiffer and has more weight to it.
- Scissors.
- Glue. I use Guterman HT2 Textile Glue. This stuff is a real craft-box staple as, not only is it super-strong, it will stick absolutely anything. I use it for gluing clip frames onto purses and it's just fab.
- A hairband of your choice. The selection at Claire's Accessories is pretty wide and has the bonus of being inexpensive.

What You Do:

Step 1: Decide how many loops you would like to your bow. I went for four, with an extra piece to wrap around the middle. Cut your ribbon - as many loops as you want, plus one extra – into strips, each one slightly smaller than the one before it; check out my photo:

Step 2: Glue the ends of each strip, bar the smallest, together so you have a collection of gradually decreasing loops.

Step 3: Squish the centre of each loop into itself and secure with a blob of glue on the inside.

Step 4: Layer your squashed loops up on top of each other with largest at the bottom up to smallest on the top, and secure together with a dab of glue between the flat area of each one. It's best to leave it to dry for 15 minutes or so before you continue.

Step 5: After you've let the glue dry for a bit, take your remaining piece of ribbon and glue it at a right angle to the bow on the bottom side of the largest loop.

Step 6: Wrap the ribbon around the centre of the bow once. Then grab your hairband and position the bow on top. Now wrap the ribbon around both the bow and the hairband. This will create a slight loop on the bottom which is what makes your bow so flexible in its style. You may not need the whole length of the ribbon, but wrap it around at least twice to make it nice and secure.

Step 7: Cut the end of the ribbon off at an angle to prevent fraying, and glue to the underside of the bow.

Step 8: Ta-da! A fabulous hairband. Leave it to dry for about half an hour (or over night would be ideal, just to be on the safe side) and away you go.

You'll see that looping the ribbon around the band means it's not fixed to it in any way, so you can move it up and down the band as you wish for different looks, or slide it off completely and attach to a pin for a fantastic brooch that would look amazing pinned at the neck of a buttoned cardi. Experiment with different ribbon thicknesses and lengths and the number of loops for whole new looks.

Go out and impress!

Blogs of note...

2010-06-08T22:00:00.004+01:00

Would you look at these shoes!! they're handmade!! Found on Makeshifts blog!!

As a lover of hammer pants this blog post on A New Dress a Day sparked my interest, I'm not sure which I prefer the most before or after...

Just thought I would post about a couple of blogs that have really inspired me over the past few months first of all is MakeShift its terrific a lady has endeavoured to only wear clothes that she has made for 1 year, it started off in sept 2009 but it includes everything clothes, underwear socks and shoes, its absolutely fascinating and incredibly inspiring you must check it out!!

and secondly is another fashion based blog that includes my love of all things thrifty and charity shops and that is A New Dress a Day the idea is simple 365 days 365 items of clothing 365 dollars and the results are amazing and theres little photo step by steps on how she does it! Both truly inspiring blogs that you've just gotta check out!!

Now off to do some making!!
Happy crafting everybody!!!
Sam
xx

Embroidery...it officially rocks my world!!

2010-06-02T21:01:00.004+01:00

Emmas beautiful work, loving that red!!

Let me tell you all about one of the big new loves in my life it started a few months ago its easy and looks stunning and I am constantly inspired whenever I see some, its embroidery!! everytime I look online theres a new site or blog to look at with more inspiration its awesome and here are some of my favourites

Feeling Stitchy
Jenny Hart
Mr X Stitch

Everyone should give it a go, if you dont want to try anything too fancy and complex check out the embroidery patterns that you can buy some of my favourites are the sublime stitching patterns and the ones that Emma previously blogged about a few days ago are wicked too (Loving the robots too much!!) and then theres always coming up with your own designs you could sketch onto a piece of Kalico with a pencil or onto some linen with a embroidery pen and stitch away, the possibilites are endless!!

If you do try your hand at embroidery then please send us a message or comment with a link to your work, we would love to see!!

Happy crafting everybody!!
Sam

Check These Out!

2010-05-24T12:36:00.000+01:00

My fabulously talented friend Deb has been working with Mr X Stitch to produce some PDF embroidery patterns of her work! I am SO excited about these. How bizarre that I've been rabbiting on about stitching and Deb's been secretly working on these! I love it when things like that happen. I've bought the gardening Robotingtons one and can't wait to give them a go; they'll go with my very own Robotington who I bought from Deb at a craft fair in Manchester a couple of years ago:

You can get the patterns on Mr X Stitch's etsy shop here for the bargain price of $6. Go!

Fab Crafty Goings On at the Open Houses

2010-05-19T21:04:00.001+01:00

I'm sure that you've all been going around the Artists' Open Houses that are running on the first four weekends of May in our fair city. I was in the Fiveways/Preston Park area this weekend, and I just wanted to share one of the fab OHs I came across.

37 Cleveland Road (fw21) is next to the lovely Blaker's Park (which is well worth a visit on a sunny day for an alfresco knit in itself) and is showing work form Clair Letton, Katie Weiner, Kate Pritchard, Woodchild, Fiona Edwards and Simon Featherstone. Boyfriend and I went to this house last year, so I, in particular, was keen to go again (plus it's a great excuse to be nosy in other peoples' houses).

Just take a look at these gorgeous cupcakes:

And these wonderful teacup candles: (Someone else in another OH nearby had done something similar, but scented them with bergamot. Genius.)

Plus what an awesome use of old plates, I'd love to have a go at making something like these:

There were also the most fantastic handbags, zip purses and cushion cover kits for sale at rock bottom prices. I couldn't help thinking that she was seriously under-pricing herself; they were so well made.

This weekend is the last for the Open Houses until Christmas. Try and get up to Cleveland Road if you can, or any of the OHs. They're great and such a source of inspiration.

Fab Spoonflower Find

2010-05-10T21:44:00.000+01:00

I've just come across Heidi Kenney's (aka MyPaperCrane) wonderful mushroom fabrics on Spoonflower:

Isn't this just fab? And check out the amazing tissue box cosy she made with the green colourway:

In love! I've added them to my Spoonflower faves. You can read Heidi's blog here (she has written a great post about her latest Crafternoon), check out her Flickr page here, and see her other Spoonflower fabric designs by clicking the link at the top.

We have a venue!!

2010-04-29T21:21:00.002+01:00

Just to let you know that we are in the process of organising a meeting spot for all us crafters to meet and get super crafty, well the hot news is we have a venue and are organising ourselves for our first ever meet up later on in May I will post more details soon and when we have a definite date, I will give you some clues though its somewhere crafty and in Brighton, its going to be on a Friday evening and I may even bake a cake or cookies for the occassion... ooooh exciting!!! If you would possibly like to come to our meet ups please send us an email on brightoncraftguerrilla@gmail.com so we can get an idea about numbers!!

Will post again soon with details of dates times and reveal where the venue is so watch this space...
Happy crafting
Sam

The Eternal Maker, Chichester

2010-04-26T20:05:00.000+01:00

Last Friday I took a mere 45 minute train ride to The Best Place On Earth TM. No kidding, it really is.
Take a look for yourself:

What did I tell you, huh? This lovely place is The Eternal Maker in Chichester, and is well worth a visit if you like a) Fabric, b) Buttons, c) Ribbons, d) All of the above. Look at these lovelies!:

As well as lots and lots of lovely fabrics, there's a haberdashery section filled with all the usual gubbins, plus beautiful ribbons and threads:

And an area for classes. These ladies were learning how to make a log cabin patchwork square:

And I just love these Hemingworth cottons in their little plastic cases. All the colours together like this just make me happy, gaddammit.

And it was particularly nice to see fabrics IRL that I've only ever seen available on the internet before, especially those made by Kokka:

As you may have guessed, I came home with pockets considerably lighter and fabric stash considerably fatter. The Eternal Maker has a website here and a blog here where you can find out all about them, what classes they are running and buy their lovelies online. Go visit in person, though, it's well worth it. If you need any more persuading, Chichester is a lovely little city with a cathedral, plenty of tea shops for the all-important Cake Break, and a nice selection of charity shops for all your thrifty/crafty shopping. Go now!

Button jewellery

2010-04-20T11:41:00.015+01:00

On Monday, Emma let Sam and I into the secrets of the lovely jewellery she makes out of buttons. Each of us has a fair amount of button stash squirrelled away and there was much Oooohing and Aaaahing as we delved through boxes and boxes of the addictive little things.

We made layered brooches and stretchy bracelets, drank tea, nibbled on nuts and olives, talked incessantly and had a thoroughly lovely crafternoon.

Origami paper cranes

2010-04-15T22:33:00.004+01:00

Emma Jan and I got together to practice making paper cranes on Monday so armed with some instructions and over 200 pieces of paper we got practising and this is what we came up with...

We were really pleased with it and by the end of the day we were making cranes like billy-o! they look amazing stringed together on some twine or fishing line is what we used they are currently residing at Emmas flat and Ive been making some of my own to put in my window, they are seriously addictive and so effective when you have lots of them!!(check out this little bit of info about the japanese tradition of making 1000 paper cranes I found it so interesting!!) I bought my paper from Ebay for a tiny sum of money for 200 double-sided pieces of paper in 20 colours!! and there are lots of tutorials online that you can use to make your own we had some instructions from the ever lovely Jo (Thanks Jo!!) and I have used this in the past and also this all you need is a square piece of paper and some patience and then you too can have some amazing cranes!!

In other news we are organising a place where we can all meet and chat about craft we're trying to sort something out so we can start meeting pretty soon it will be so good to meet people and share crafting knowledge and know how! So watch this space and we will post when we have a venue confirmed!!

Happy crafting everybody!
Sam!!

Mug-a-doodle doo!

2010-04-05T21:20:00.007+01:00

Wowee!!! What a bank holiday Ive been crafting my socks off! Its been great seeing friends and sharing craft we had a little get togaether at my flat today decorating mugs with our own designs with Pebeo porceline 150 pens http://www.pebeo.com/us/index.htm we only had 3 colours to choose from but the designs we all came out with were amazing everyones mugs looked spectacular.

The pens themselves are super easy to use just take a porcelain mug and draw your design on with the pen, (you can pre draw your design with a soft pencil or a china marker) leave the design to dry and then bake in the oven for 30 minutes and viola once cooled you have an awesome mug of your own!

So thank you to all that came and crafted with us this weekend, a lot of truly rocking stuff was made!!
Happy Crafting,
Sam!

Button It

2010-04-05T20:02:00.001+01:00

Well, it's been one craftastic holiday weekend over at BCG Towers. We started off with badge making on Good Friday with a bit of a get-together round at mine. I've had a 25mm badge machine for about five years now, and it's always great fun to get it out and have a play. (Not so great was making over 500 badges for a show at the Edinburgh Festival a couple of years back. Ow. I don't recommend it.) What you quickly realise, though, is that EVERYTHING just looks amazing as a badge. It must be the protective mylar that covers each one; it looks so profesh! We had a selection of maps, comics, origami paper, books, magazines, sweet wrappers, etc, etc, and just cut out and used anything that looked interesting. Here's us having a go and a few of our finished products:

If you want to get your hands on a badge machine, ebay is pretty much your best bet. You could get one direct from Button Factory or Badgematic, but they're pretty pricey, and, as they come over from Germany, the postage is not going to be cheap, either. Keep your eyes peeled for a second hand one!

I also have an older post on my own blog about how to use the badge machine here.

Yarn to DYE for!!

2010-04-02T20:55:00.005+01:00

Hello again! we are having a craftalicious week this week of fun and excitement, on Monday Emma and I went round the wonderful Jans and dyed our own yarn it was my first time and I have been super excited about it and knew straight away what colours I wanted to do!!

We used Wilton food dyes and the colours we got were really intense we used pippets to add the colour to the dye and squished it around to spread the colour out it was so much fun!! you have to be quite instinctive when applying your colours you have to know when youve done enough because it can all go wrong quite quickly I stopped when I noticed that my pinks were mixing with the greens too much and starting to turn muddy!!

The end result is AWESOME!!! Emma yarn is the brilliant yellow and mine is the pink and green the yarn itself is perfect sock yarn so I think a snazzy pair of socks might be on the cards soon!

Happy crafting!
Sam!!

Thanks to Jan for the awesome yarn photo!!!

Soap Making!

2010-03-30T11:50:00.000+01:00

Last Monday, we had an awesome time having a go at making soap. We got the Basic Soap Making Kit from the fantastic www.bath-bomb.com (which also has loads of other kits if you fancy trying your hand at making lip balms or bath bombs or scrubs), which came with 500g of soap base, two fragrances (we went for vanilla and blackcurrant), three colours, three bags of petals, cellophane wrappers, stickers and full instructions. We didn't fancy the moulds that came with the kit, so we got a set of mini jelly moulds.

I have to say, it was incredibly easy and loads of fun! You just melt down the soap base in an old pan over a low-ish heat, add your scent and colour, give it a good stir and pour into your moulds. You can then add your petals etc if you want to use them. They take about an hour to set, then just pop them out! And there's loads of ways you can vary each one - try half-filling the mould with one colour, leave to set, then pour another colour on top. Stripy soap! Or add oats or poppy seeds for an exfoliating soap. The bath-bomb.com website has all their instruction leaflets available for download, so you can see what each craft involves and what you can do with it before you buy.

Have it a go! It's easy and fun and they make great gifts. We're going to try to have another soap-making session soon. I'd love to try embedding random things, like toy soldiers, in them!

The set up

Adding the fragrance

Check these babies out! We put petals in two of them.

Must remember it's soap, not jelly. Probably will taste a bit minging.

Silk paper tutorial!!

2010-03-25T19:29:00.012Z

Here's a little tute on making silk paper the Sam way!! I love silk paper, there is something so beautiful about it. Its lovely to draw on paint on with dyes (it soaks up dye and looks amazing!!) and my personal favourite thing to do with silk paper is to embroider onto it its great and looks like old illustrations from a book, I did have some examples of work to do but I gave most of them to work as samples I will post again with what I do with mine, but I thought it would be cool to show how to make your own!!

First of all you will need some silk cocoon strippings or noils that is good for paper making I get mine here http://www.texere-yarns.co.uk/texereshop/Silk_fibres.html they have a good selection and aren't too expensive either (try and get unbleached silk as the bleach takes out all the natural gummyness that holds your paper together!) an iron, some baking paper and a mister full of water oh and an ironing board too :D

Okay you've got everything now tease the fibres apart gently and make a bundle of fibre on top of your baking paper as pictured. (an A3 size of baking paper approx) the thicker you make your bundle the thicker the paper will be, I like mine a medium thickness so make a fluffy bundle about an inch high there abouts!

Now spray your fibres with the water get it nice and damp not too wet though I find that the water spills out onto your feet when you get the iron onto it if you get it too wet!!

Now fold over the paper so the fibres are covered and iron on max for about 30 seconds and then peel the paper back to check and if its still looking like the fibres are coming apart give it another session with a spray off water and an iron.

Now peel back the paper and when your silk paper has cooled take it off the baking paper and put it somewhere to dry!!

Voila you have made silk paper admire when dry and enjoy!!

Hope this helps and inspires you to make some silk paper of your own I will post again soon with some pieces I have worked on, and maybe you could share some links to projects of your own Id love to see!!

Sam!!

Purses A-Go-Go

2010-03-19T21:13:00.004Z

Hey Y'all. Just thought I'd share some of the crafty goodness I've been up to recently. At the moment, one of my obsessions is making clip frame purses. I've made four of the lovelies now, and I have to say I think I'm getting the hang of it!

Not bad, eh? If you want to have a go yourself, I followed this great tutorial on U-Handblog. In fact, there are loads of excellent tutes on that site; really easy to follow and not at all patronising. You can also buy all the gubbins you need to make them on the U-Handbag site, or take look through Ebay and Etsy.

Also, just to remind you, we have a Twitter feed now (just over on the right hand side there) which you can follow by searching for "CraftasticBton" on good, old Twitter itself. Just let us know if there's any craftastic awesomeness going down that you would like us to share. Thanks!

Patchwork crazy!!

2010-03-19T14:20:00.006Z

Hello there, I thought Id share my craftastic goings on this week so far, I'm a bit obsessed with doing patchwork at the moment and Ive been collecting vintage fabrics for ages but I found 2 that looked great together and have been super inspired to make a quilted blanket so so far Ive been piecing it all together making it fit and it looks quite good, I'm hoping to get the wadding in next week and start quilting it on my sewing machine I shall be blogging how that goes too! I love how fast patchwork develops into something awesome, I love it!! I found this tutorial on making miniature patchwork pin cushions that look amazing experiment with patchwork goodness and check these outhttp://www.purlbee.com/miniature-patchwork-pincushion/

Ive also this week been coming up with ideas with Emma for crafternoons/evenings that we could do and I think we have got some good ones coming up I'm really excited about some of them but we shall keep everyone posted on upcoming events!!

This week has been a week of making ceramic goodies I'm really inspired by birds at the moment and my ceramics tutor Wendy makes some beautiful birds which have just added to my love check them out on her websitehttp://www.wendycaules.co.uk/index_files/Wendy_Caules_Commission_Work.htm

anyway Ive come up with this little owl Ive made him out of two little pinch pots gentle patted into shape and scratched into, I want to Raku fire this little fella at some point I think he will look great with a copper glaze and lots of naked clay exposed to turn black (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raku_ware check this out for a little history on Raku)

Hope everyone has had a great week!

Introducing...

2010-03-11T21:19:00.000Z

Hello thought you would all like to know a little something about Emma and I and the things that we like to do, first lets introduce the lovely Emma:

'Basically Im an Illustrator by day but knitter, crocheter, cake baker,screen printer, seamstress, photographer, badge maker and button lover by night!! my illustartion website is http://www.emmamccann.co.uk/ or my blog at http://www.emmamccann.blogspot.com/ '

And a little intro by me...

My name is Sam, I am a wannabe ceramicist who knits, crochets, dress-makes, felts, embroiders, prints and paints. I too am a button lover and collector! Basically I like to do a bit of everything, I love learning something new and craft whenever I can (if I could do it all the time I would!).

You can see some of the things that I'm working on in my blog which you can find here http://jennyleggings.blogspot.com/

Together we are the new Brighton Craft Guerilla - we are looking forward to carrying on The Brighton Craft Guerrilla's good work and meeting inspiring fellow crafters!! Will blog soon with more info so watch this space...

2010-03-02T19:18:00.000Z

a farewell post from yannik and angela

come say hello when we're open! we're handing over to sam and emma, and we wish them best wishes, look forward to seeing what they have in store!

2010-02-13T12:38:00.001Z

due to new projects, and various difficulties, we are calling it quits on the Brighton Craft Guerrilla. we would like to hear from any of you who are still interested. until then, we will be filling our time instead with a new project. big thanks to craft guerrilla x.