Guilty.

I seem to have lost my Makery Mojo somewhat recently. Just lacking in inspiration, and creativity. I think I’ve probably contracted some rare tropical disease because I’ve been focusing on cleanery and laundery(!) rather than makery. For people that know me, this is serious… I’ve never met a duster I liked.

So my house is sparkly but my sewing machine is gathering dust. Along with the dust, once nebulous feelings of craft guilt are starting to coagulate in a thick patina on the inside of my skull. And this post is a shameless attempt to break through. So here is the list of things I’m feeling guilty about right now.

– Not posting about the Mystery Makery that is going on world wide. It’s taken off well. I just haven’t been keeping up with it.

-Not completing my own Mystery Makes from the Seek Speak (who is doing a very cool giveaway at the moment!) and Modern Vintage Cupcakes (go and see how cute she is with her baby bump, it will make your day.)

-The incomplete cardigan I started at Christmas for Moon Munkie. Just one sleeve left. Why can’t I pick it up?

-The large bag of dress making fabric bought at a whim and stroked lovingly many times. But as of yet uncut.

-Map bunting for my classroom

-Final hemming of the hallway curtains.

-Blackout curtains for Moon Munkie’s new bedroom

-I haven’t written in Moon Munkie’s journal for a couple of months either. Which isn’t officially makery, but it comes from the same bit of me that isn’t working at the moment. Wish I could locate that spot and give it a prod.

I could go on, but it’s not really helping. I’m just feeling worse. So I’m going to post a picture of the only makery I’ve been up to in a fortnight. Some small eco-systems for my classroom. The little growing plants make me happy.  I hope that Year 8 are happy too when they make theirs. I’m especially fond of the tall one which has a pond eco sytem at the bottom linked to a soil eco system at the top. I found the idea here.  I love it but I couldn’t bring myself to introduce live animals and insects to such a small environment. No point in starting my own version of the Hunger Games.  

Moon Munkie has planted a whole trough of her own plants too. She came running inan hour later to see if they’d grown and her little sad face broke my heart. A hard life lesson to learn there.

Moon Munkie Mystery Make Update.

Oh, look! The MoonMunkie Mystery Make!

JMdayis super talented all round. Is there anything she can’t turn a hand to? I doubt it. And inspite of not loving the colour combinations I’d sent, she still managed to produce a fabulous book cover. It’s gorgeous. Look at the way she cut the fabric and restitched it to turn straight lines to zigzags! I want to make one just the same for my Bible, with a little pocket to put my notice sheets in. 

 And Seek Speak is working on several smaller projects using Moon Munkie Mystery Make materials. She’s designing pretty things for a baby shower in May. I love both of her projects so far. These little sweetpea blossoms are amazing. What an imagination that lady has. I’m also loving the twisted vine lettering. Lucky mummy-to-be!

And now a confession. I haven’t started my own mystery make project which I reveived from SeekSpeak. And even worse – I received surprise packet from Modern Vintage Cupcakes. I really wasn’t expecting it at all. It was full of awesome stuff. And I haven’t even had time to photograph it all yet, let alone begin making anything. I’m so sorry. Maybe this week…. maybe next week.

And I should also confess now, while I’m on a roll, that the pretty booties I made for the babies last week ARE TOO SMALL!! For both babies! I have no idea what happened. Perhaps the babies of Cardiff have anomolously large feet, although they both looked perfectly proportioned all over to me. More likely my tension was bad and chopped necessary milimetres off the length of the booties. Better try harder next time.

Complete Surprise

I received an complete surprise in the mail yesterday.  I had 100% forgotten that I was one of 5 winners of Seek Speak’s  Moon Munkie Mystery Make. And yesteday a wonderful packet arrived. It was HUGE! And crammed full of goodies, all wrapped in a gorgeous brown scarf. I don’t think I’m going to be able to cut that. It might just have to be worn as it is.

Here’s what was inside.

• A beautiful blue vest top with a beaded top.
• A length of the softest pink gingham with a floral motif
• A length of white lace curtain
• A piece of batik in browns
• A suns and stars fabric in blue and bright yellow
• 5 gorgeous origami papers and a heart cut out of a similar design
• A metre or more of 1 inch elastic in pwder blue
• A metre or more of a dainty lace trim n yellow and white
• And my favourite item: a dress pattern. It’s a lovely long dress and even better, it has the words EASY across the top. So I might even be able to make something I can wear.
• A white plastic grid thingy (bottom left of the photo). I have no idea what this is. It’s divided into small squares and they are sectioned off in larger squares. It’s very flexible. Maybe for a tapestry? If you know what it is, do let me know!

Oh, how exciting. I have 420 ideas just now, but I don’t know where I’ll eventually go. Do please give me your ideas in the comments

Mystery Make Goes Global!

Gosh, I’m so excited at this news that I can’t wait to tell you all  about it. Two otherMoon Munkie Mystery Makes are underway! I hadn’t realised, but 2 of the winners of the competition I ran are doing their giveaways straightaway! So why not head on over and take part… that way if you missed out on the Moon Munkie packages, you still have 2 more chances to win. And while you’re at it, why not run a Moon Munkie Mystery Make of your own? (Be sure to drop me a line so I can enter!)

So, drop what you’re doing and pop over right away to visit Sica at The Seek Speak and Kat at Modern Vintage Cupcakes  and you could pick up a package of goodies.

If you decide to run your own Moon Munkie Mystery Make, help yourself to my button and drop me a line at moonmunkiemakery-blog@yahoo.co.uk  and I’ll post about it too!

Moon Munkie Mystery Make Giveaway Experiment

*This competition is now closed. Winners will be announced soon.*

I so enjoyed taking part in Sew Thankful last week. It was great to be talking with people from all over the place who sew all kinds of things. It’s given me confidence to attempt an experiment which I’ve been wanting to try for a while. And here it is: the Moon Munkie Mystery Make. I have 4 mystery parcels. They are bursting at the seams with beautiful bits and pieces from my stash. The packages are almost identical in content: more than 20 items in each. Some vintage some more modern, with a colour theme running through. I want to give them away. Would you like one?

If you do, then read on and see the guidelines for the giveaway.

1) They need to go to people with sewing or crafting type blogs which are updated at least weekly. Regularly. Weekly is too hard when we’re all busy making.

2) From the date you receive the parcel, you have 4 weeks to create something inspired by the items in the parcel.

3) You may use all or some of the items in the parcel and you may add from your own stash or buy additional items.

5) At the end of the 4 weeks (or before if you’re quick!) you agree to blog about the item you made (with a link to Moon Munkie) and the processes you went through – with pictures of course!  You can also blog as you go along if you like.  A tutorial for making your item is not essential, but would be appreciated!

6) I will also blog about the challenge. I’ll link to your blog from mine and from my facebook page. So hopefully your blog will get lots of extra visits, too.

 7) Optional You could then do the same sort of thing. Offer 4 packages from your stash to other crafters. I wonder how far it would spread?  I hope you will do this, but I don’t want to make it mandatory in case it puts people off joining in. [Edit: I didn’t mean for people to do this until they’re ready. It’s not a condition for entering.]

So, if you think this would be fun grab the Moon Munkie Mystery Make button and show it on your blog, so other people can hear and take part. Then leave a comment below to tell me a bit about you. Put a link to your blog. I’ll leave the competition open until Tuesday 21st February and then I’ll use a random number generator to pick four people.

I do hope that lots of people want to take part. I’m thinking of making it a regular feature if it’s popular.