iPhone Cover in Cross Stitch - A Coffee Break Craft

I am a winner!

I won a super ‘create your own X-stitch iPhone skin’ giveaway on the Crafty Ms De Vil’s blog as part of the Craft Candy launch (I had to guess how many mini chocolate eggs there were in a jar).

Wait ... who are Craft Candy?

Crafty blogger Zoe Arch has been busy developing a brand new type of craft platform around the idea of spreading word of mouth crafty info, which serves crafters like you and me, businesses and the wider community.

Craft Candy has a website where you can find out what craft events or workshops are taking place locally but you can also download their free app which makes finding craft events neat and easy to navigate.

The app has links to social media tools like Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and FB so likeminded crafters can keep in touch. It’s a whole lotta crafting cool in your pocket.

I attended the Craft Candy launch a few weeks ago – find out how it went over at the Craft Guerilla blog where I am guest posting for a few months.

Now ... back to my iPhone skin and my love/hate relationship with cross stitch. 

When my first daughter was born I designed and stitched a sampler of our terraced house, my partner and me with new baby Tara. It was a great project and framed, it hung on our wall for years.

Along came baby number two and my ambitions had grown along with my family – I designed a second sampler with new home, garden and new babe in arms – a more elaborate and bigger work.

Needless to say looking after two kiddies and working meant less room for crafting, the second sampler rarely made it onto my knee to be worked on …

Cut to 2013 and FIFTEEN years later this cross stitched sampler is my biggest, guiltiest WIP to date. 

*sigh*

I cannot bear the thought of never finishing it - sorry Ruby, but you know it doesn’t mean I love you less than your sister. Yet I can't get to grips with this (now somewhat dated) project and summon the energy to stitch away til kingdom come.

The iPhone cover is only a few inches high so I gave it my best shot.

The skin comes with its own floss and designs for you to follow, but I had a quite a stash to choose from and I do love coffee and coffee cups – so off I went on my own merry way.

It didn't take long to complete, a coffee break sized project. The back is little messy - but I argue it gives extra cushioning to the phone (ahem).

I'm hoping that this little cross stitch detour may launch me back into a romantic clinch with the unfinished  sampler. I could invite my daughter Ruby to finish it, or is that just cruel - what do people think?

Boat Lamp Revamp

It’s amazing what people throw away. This beauty was down and out in the gutter outside my house last month. I looked around for a ripped bin bag or evidence of a discarded declutter box, but the lamp was the only thing on the kerb.

Naturally I took it in.

I’m guessing this piece of junk (see what I did there? Junk being a flat bottomed boat with sails) was thrown away not simply lost. After all there was no plug, a chunk of the wood had split, bits were missing and it looks there may have been a long 'prow' or figure head of some sort.

I wonder if the thing was lobbed out of a window in the middle of a domestic, with a yell of ... and I’m sick of your trashy kitsch boat-lamp! I’ll never know, although I suspect it probably belonged to my next door neighbour – they leave a lot of stuff on the kerb.

I glued the boat bottom splinter, then found a couple of wooden beads and toggles that could reasonably replace the missing bits – one looked a little like a barrel.

The whole thing has the feel of a ‘kit’ about it, it’s not beautifully manufactured – I wonder if it was a hobbyist’s project at one time?

Amazingly the lamp is also ... a music box!  I dug around for a spare key and managed to get a little tinkle out of it, but the music mechanism is quite bust. Ah ... I really should have replaced it before gluing her back together.

But with a new bulb and a new plug, I think she looks quite majestic. 

For those old enough to remember 'Bagpuss',  I should really place the boat in my window for the owner to reclaim it, then go back to sleep on the Mouse-organ.

I’m amassing quite a few kitsch lamps and don’t have enough surface space or electric sockets (to the relief of my family frankly). The Junk now sits on a bookcase next to my parrot, but will have to remain un-illuminated unless I rig up a complicated extension lead.

It would be great to hear about any similar lamp sightings – I reckon it’s probably circa 70’s?