Wednesday, 5 April 2017

March in Pictures: Spring Crafts & Flowers

Time for my monthly Instagram update! My March was full of the joys of spring: spring crafting, spring colours, spring flowers, spring walks. All excellent stuff.

I got crafty with this gorgeous bundle of wool felt from Cloud Craft...

http://bugsandfishes.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/felt-easter-egg-ornaments-tutorial.html

 ... using it to make these felt Easter egg ornaments, decorated with spring flowers. Click here for the tutorial!

http://bugsandfishes.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/felt-easter-egg-ornaments-tutorial.html

March's addition to my A Year of Wreaths project also involved spring flowers: lots of bright daffodils and narcissi.

http://bugsandfishes.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/a-year-of-wreaths-march-daffodil-wreath.html

I couldn't resist having some photo fun with the flowers before adding them to the wreath!

http://bugsandfishes.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/a-year-of-wreaths-march-daffodil-wreath.html

I went for lots of walks in March, talking advantage of the milder weather to get out and explore my new neighbourhood a bit more. It's been wonderful seeing everything come to life with the arrival of spring and I'm getting slightly addicted to taking long walks on the beach. I'm continuing to share lots of photos from my walks over on my second Instagram account; it's very different to my main account but I love it.


Here on my blog I shared the final project in my felt fruit tutorial series (click here for all the tutorials) and was delighted when a gorgeous Instagram account (candyminimal) shared my felt kiwi photo.


I also blogged about the joys of decluttering (and how important it is to listen to your feelings), a London photowalk, a trip to Birmingham, lots of Instagram hashtags for colour lovers, and the new book Mom Crafts which features three of my projects.


Behind the scenes, I've been working on some colourful new things - and getting distracted playing with embroidery threads. I posted this thread photo the day after sharing the photo below (an old snap of the gorgeous flower shop at Liberty) and it's spooky how similar the colours are!

 

I've also spent some cosy, quiet evenings knitting squares for my random mini squares blanket. I've still got lots of squares to knit but I'm making progress...


Want more colourful, crafty updates? I'm lauralupinhoward on Instagram - click here to visit my page and follow me. You'll also find me on Facebook and Twitter.

Monday, 3 April 2017

The 100 Day Project 2017

Have you heard of #The100DayProject?


It's a global art project which anyone, anywhere can take part in.

You choose a creative action, do it every day for 100 days and share the results online. You can read more about the project and how to take part here. This year's project starts tomorrow (April 4th) and I'm joining in for the first time.

It took me a while to choose what I wanted to do for my action: something quick and simple? or something more complicated? Trying something new? or developing existing skills?


In the end I decided to opt for something challenging but flexible: I've decided to do #100DaysOfFeltStuff - recreating one "real world" object in felt each day.

Choosing "stuff" rather than something more specific means I'll have lots of creative freedom and can choose something small and quick on busy days (and bigger, more challenging things on my days off!).

I'm really looking forward to this project: flexing my creative muscles, solving a whole bunch of design problems, and making a daily space for creativity in my schedule. I also can't wait to see everyone else's projects and follow along with the project hashtag on Instagram.

I'll be sharing daily photos on my Instagram Stories, and posting updates in my main Instagram feed - as well as on Facebook, Twitter and here on my blog. So if you're keen to see what I'm making but don't use Instagram don't worry, you won't be out of the loop.

Here's to 100 days of felt-y goodness!