Those that have been reading here for a while will be well aware of my total ineptitude at crafting.  It's not that I don't want to do it, I do.  I really do.  I'd love to be crafty yet alas I own not that effusive craft gene. You'd have thought that I'd have learned my lesson by now, especially following my entry to Country Baskets 'Festive Face off' competition.  Apparently not for here I am again, only this time i'm heavily pregnant with even less patience than usual willingly entering the Country Baskets Accessorize Yourself competition.

Our mission was to create a wedding accessory using a selection of items sent to us from Country Baskets to celebrate the upcoming wedding season.

Sounds easy enough.  Never mind getting the fears knowing how strong the competition was from last time and how the other entrants could basically outcraft me without even lifting a little finger.  Argh.  Why oh why do I do this to myself?

Then came the sheer terror of realising my inspiration had up and left.  I had no idea what I was doing.  As usual.

So I thought a little outside the box.  My main accessory anywhere is a child (or three and a bump) so seeing as they're my accessory I decided to make them look the part.

Voila, a dress fit for a wedding fairy or a flower-girl seeing as kitsch handmade weddings are growing in popularity.

In addition to the items that were sent I utilised my own hook and yarn to crochet the 'body' part of the dress.

To make this:

* Using double crochet I made the bodice part of the dress.  Usually this would be joined as a tube top, I decided not to crochet it closed.  Instead I used some of the heart printed ribbon to give a corset effect closure to the top.

*  I cute the voile/organza into lengths and then each length was halved length ways so the strips were narrower.

* Using the no-sew method of tutu making I attached the strips to the bodice and to make the straps.

* Binding together some flowers, butterflies and organza a small corsage was made and attached to the bodice.

* A few butterflies were then added to the waist to marry the bodice and skirt in style.

This is an entry into the Country Baskets 2014 Accessorise Yourself Challenge

Festive Face Off

If you read yesterdays post you'll realise by now that I'm possibly the least crafty person on the planet.  A garden fence is far more creative than I.  So why, you may ask, did I agree to take part in a craft competition?  One of the prizes is a cash donation to a charity.  So, even though I stand not a chance of winning, I'm ridiculing myself for your amusement for the chance to donate to a charity/

The wonderful people at Country Baskets sent me this delightful hamper full of craft bits and bobs to utilise in this challenge.  It's huge.  The items are absolutely gorgeous.

It's the kind of delivery that will make you 'Ooooh!' and 'Ahhhhh!' in delight.  In short, a crafters hamper of eden.  Sure I had ideas.  I had ideas a plenty.  I always have an abundance of ideas.  Ideas aren't the problem, my complete and utter lack of ability to execute them is where the problem lies.  So after five epic fails, 12 tantrums and much exasperation I finally created something that The Toddler didn't laugh at, too much.

Rustic Christmas Wreath

I'm sure there are far more technically correct and tidier ways of doing this, but here's how I fumbled together my rustic christmas wreath.

1. Using florists wire I twined it round until it made a circle-ish shape.  I ended up twining it round a fruit bowl seeing as an upturned washing basket didn't work out so well and may have ended up kicked into a wall, hard.  At this point, I remembered I don't have any wire cutters so had the sub-genius idea of just spending a small forever twining the wire round the circlet in some vague hope it would a) strengthen it and b) eventually run out.  That was until The Husband informed me that I could actually cut wire with his pliers.  Oh.  Great,

2. Using some ivory coloured ribbon I started to wrap this around the circlet to provide a more aesthetically pleasing frame.

3.  Using a mixture of florist wire and a glue gun, I made my way around trying awfully hard to look like I knew what I was doing and started to attach the decorations.

It sounds incredibly simple and would probably take any normal person a fraction of the time it took me.  It may be slightly rustic looking.  It's far from perfect.  However, it's one of the few handmade things that I've actually completed and thanks to the quality of materials at hand manages to disguise a great portion of my clumsy ineptness.  Due to it's flexible frame it can be both a traditional circle wreath or a quirky rustic heart shaped wreath.

To view some of my epic fails along the way to creating this feel free to have a look laugh *here*.

Some tips I picked up along the way:

* Be prepared.  Plan everything first.  Ensure you have the right tools before you start.

* Hot glue on the tip of your thumb, hurts.  A lot.

* Figure out how to insert a new glue cartridge before you start, not when you only have one spare hand.

* Plastic stems are incredibly hard to cut.

* Don't try and work with whole coils of wire, you will trip up, get tangled up and swear.  A lot.  Measure and cut what you need first.

* Have fun.  Accept it doesn't have to be perfect.  The beauty of making something yourself is that it can reflect you.  This obviously reflects my eclectic, random and somewhat messy nature.
* You don't have to be crafty to craft.
* If you're not a naturally intricate and neat type of person, refer to your creation as 'rustic' and 'charming' these labels hide a multitude of sins.

This is an entry into Country Baskets Festive Face Off competition.

Craft Off.

I'm high from spray paint fumes and I can no longer feel my fingers.  Part of my garden looks like a drag queens handbag has vomited.  Panic has set in.  & my F key keeps failing, terribly irritating when your favourite word is uck.

For some reason totally unbeknownst to me I agreed to take part in a craft competition.  Yes, me.  The Craft inept. I can't sew, draw, knit, crochet, paper cut, paper fold or anything else remotely creative.  I wish I could, I dream of it yet I appear to not possess the craft gene.  Worse still, there are only thirty entrants, 29 of which will be craft orientated, possibly with extra craft chromosomes.  Where was my better judgement and sanity when I needed it?  What is it we were told when children 'Just say no' (unless you're asked to tidy your room.  Saying no to that is detrimental to your health)  I have an abundance of ideas, it's the execution that fails me.  My attempts at anything remotely craft like would even be ridiculed by preschoolers.

Woe and behold, a huge hamper of craft delights was delivered to my door, then it hit me.  I have to make something out of all this.  Arse.

I brain stormed.  I Googled.  I entered  into a Pinterest delirium. I attempted three things, threw six tantrums and failed dismally.

Tick Tock Tick Tock.

Time is a ticking.

Hence why I can no longer feel my fingers and I'm slightly squiffy from fumes.

Worry not, all shall be revealed.  Not long now and i'll post it up on the blog and you can ridicule me at your own leisure whilst I run a bath of Gin and go under.

Bargain hunting (retail therapy on a budget)

There is sometimes an element of snobbery when it comes to pound shops with a certain stigma attached to them yet what can I say? I'm a commoner, a mere peasant if you like and quite frankly you can't beat the feeling of coming out of a shop with a bag full of goodies having spent less than a tenner. I know, I know I have somewhat exaggerated using bloggers license as I'm sure other things could rather beat that feeling (why hello Mr Northman.....) yet the fact remains, to many of us shopping is a good temporary boost for the blue and surely we all love a bargain.

There are variations in pound shops such as those that lure you in under the assumption everything is a pound when actually they're not then there are the ones where actually, everything is a pound.  The latter can be further split into two groups, do keep up I absolutely understand the sheer marvel you are experiencing whilst learning about the technicalities of pound shops. There are those that are cramped squalid places where it's every bugger for themselves as you navigate around aisle hoggers and general numpties with a death grip on your spawn so as not to lose them in the sea of fuckmuppets all scrabbling at cramped shelves knocking the unsuspecting workfare victims flying as they literally devour the shop from the inside out. These places are usually dimly lit in some unsavoury piss colour lighting adding to the general sense of claustrophobia.  By the time you exit you feel like a suffocated Ninja.  Now don't get me wrong all these places sell their fair share of utter tat and to be frightfully honest absolute junk yet often if you persevere you'll find some gems.  Yet the other group of pound shops realise that just because their stock is cheap, the shop doesn't have to look like the exploded contents of a whores handbag.  These places are brighter lit, slightly airier, easier to navigate and for some unfathomable reason, not as busy.  Bloody marvellous!

I visited one such place last week and as you can see from the picture came out with a 45 piece jigsaw, glider planes, lacing animal cards and a rather retro noisy stick thing for The Toddler, two packs of grow your own cat grass for The Felines, a make your own fairy home and fairies for Thing Two and a (not pictured) giant glider plane for Thing One for the tremendously grand total of eight pounds.  Even better is that the jigsaw is actually rather good, we should know as we do after-all own about eight of these ones and they sell on eBay for nearly a fiver.  Ditto with the lacing cards, lovely, vibrant and quite decent quality.  In fact we also procured our bargain bird houses to paint from here too previously (not to mention oodles of paper, colouring books, a toy telescope, pens, felt tips, cat toys, hair clips and slides etc)

In an unaffordable world, it's sometimes terribly refreshing to get some actual value for our money.

Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow

By heck it's been frightfully cold here, cold as in the heating is on 24/7 (sorry Dad) yet as much as the cold, quite literally, pains me I perversely much prefer the cold to the hot, I always have been somewhat of a Winter Girl at heart.  However, there is one condition to me tolerating the cold and that would be snow.  Yes i'm one of those people that rather then flail in mad hysterical panic at the mere thought of it, I actually revel in it.  There's a serenity in snow, it is quite simply beautiful. The mere thought of it is uplifting. So imagine my recent disgust where the cold brought with it nipples like bullets, blue toes and visible breaths that make everyone from behind look like smokers yet no bloody snow.  In the recent words of The Toddler 'Not Fair.'  However, Mother Nature has indeed redeemed herself as The Gods have indeed let it snow! The Met Office predicted rubbish old sleet yet outside the window is a flurry of precious white flakes of snow.  Hoorah!  I must confess I did a little dance and some shrieks of utter glee because IT'S SNOWING!. However, I am without doubt that it won't last and within an hour or two it will resort to mere sleet.  Pissflaps.

Yet despite the brain freezing weather I'm still afflicted with shoeitis and am longfully fawning over pretty shoes that I can neither afford nor walk in and are most absurdly impractical for winter anyway, yet one can't help but sigh and perve over the shininess.  At least I appear to have finally broken in the boots of doom that fingers crossed appear to no longer be yapping and snapping at my heels like an irate intoxicated Yorkshire Terrier.

For once i'm feeling uncharacteristically smug to some extent as my usually unheard of planning has indeed beaten the weather with The Toddler possessing a winter coat, a polar fleece all in one and fluffy lined snow boots.  Blimey how about that for prepared?  I'm rather naively hoping that Thing Two's waterproof dungas will serve us yet another year and indeed Thing One's water proof trousers whilst I ignore the ridiculously obvious fact that the little blighters have grown, again. I may have down a shot of something wicked to numb that little voice in my head that squeals like a  girl with sheer petrification at the thought of kitting The Spawn out for Winter (poor Thing Two must have shit blood like me for she too is terribly sensitive to the cold) and have an internal argument with myself in order to justify some spending.  Thankfully in true MamaUndone fashion, I can remain slatternly and do it from the uncomfort of my own decrepid  sofa where it's at least warm and fire up ye old browser to E-Outdoor and try dreadfully hard to silence my own 'But what about me? I want a nifty North Face Coat tooooooo!' (yes I absolutely am that whiney) As it is, what with Christmas, winter clothing and you know that whole food thing i'll end up having to sneakily  liberate the pocket hand warmers bought as an intended gift for The Mother which are fabulously and disgustingly kitsch.  One day i'll learn to knit or crochet and finally own a pair of those gorgeous wrist warmers (with fold over mits) in a delicious autumnal rainbow (think Girasol Earthy Rainbow for fellow babywearing geeks) You know the kind, all those dastardly crafty people who seem to make, not that the people are dastardly they're rather lovely, i'm just a jealous old twunt who is craft inept.

Speaking of craft,  I still need to make a matching tutu for Thing Two's doll in time for christmas.

Oh no.  Who stole the snow?  It's stopped.  My smile has drooped all the way into my tomato soup.

The craft gene?

It would appear that some people are naturally predisposed to certain talents with the old adage of it 'running in the family' such as art, music or sport (the latter partly to do with the 'ace gene' no, really. Google it. ) things that many people can learn to do yet there are lucky gits are born with a natural talent for it and simply excel. Unfortunately other then my rapier wit and bad looks the only talent I have inherited is sarcasm and a filthy sense of humour seeing as I can't sing, draw or play an instrument for toffee and I'm allergic to sport.

So it got of thinking that perhaps there is a craft gene, no stay with me here, I'm actually being serious! Some people just seem naturally adept at crafting being able to fathom and charm their hand at a multitude of crafts adding them to their armory of talents.

Then there are cack handed craft inepts like myself who spectacularly balls up anything they touch. I have an immense capacity for creative ideas yet zero talent. The first time I tried to crochet I had a tantrum and threw my yarn and hook in absolute frustration when I couldn't even fathom the knot never mind attempt a stitch. I have serious lack of patience and precision and an excess of petulance.  I simply lack any ability whatsoever. I just can't craft. At all. It's the equivalent of of trying to lip read someone who is speaking fluent Japanese. My brain just can't process nor understand the process.

In conclusion, I'm a talentless bint really but It's okay, I inherited my talentless. It's a gene thing. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.