Just A Short Note ...

Hello my dear friends,

I just had to write this short post with something that bothers me a tiny bit but enough to write about it and post this on my blog.


I absolutely LOVE it when any you lovely people pin my creations onto Pinterest but I would appreciate it if my tutorials were not pinned almost completely picture by picture! So please in future pin the tutorial as a link back to Todolwen or by a single picture, but please do not pin all of my photographs from the tutorial.

Thank you for reading this and I hope you understand that I had to share this with you.


I hope you are well and life is treating you kind.

Have a peaceful and creative day,



Karen B.

My Valentine's 'In A Nutshell' ~ Part 4

Hello my dear friends,

first of all I would like to wish all of you a  'Happy Valentine's Day' !!

Finally I can share my fourth and final part of my 'in a nutshell' creations'. I could not do this any earlier because these were made as gifts for my two daughters for Valentines and if I were to show them to you they also would have seen them and the surprise would have been spoilt!

I just love, love, love this creation!! It took me a while to get everything the way I wanted it but it worked out in the end and I am so happy with the result! You will see I took many pictures again so you don't miss a thing!(I know I got a bit carried away).

And here it is ...  my Valentine's Day creation ...

'To put it in a nutshell ... I love you!'

I made three of these little nutshell creations and each is a little different from the other.

 

 

 

 

 

I hope  you have enjoyed my Valentine's creation. 

Have a wonderful Day filled with Love!!

 

I hope you are well and life is treating you kind.

 

Have a peaceful and creative day,

Karen B. 

And The Winner Is .....

Hello my dear friends,

finally ... it is here ... my giveaway date!!

Not to keep you waiting too long ....

... all of your names were put together in a hat tin because I didn't really have a proper hat and one was drawn ...

... and the winner of my giveaway is ...

Hope Amen!

Congratulations!!

Please drop me an e-mail with your mailing address so I can get this giveaway gift on it's way to you.

Thank you all you other lovely bloggers that took part in my giveaway and left your name and your kind words ~ you all touched my heart.


I hope you are well and life if treating you kind.

Have a peaceful and creative day,


Karen B.

Last Chance

Hello my dear friends,


this is just a very short post to remind you that today is the last chance to enter my giveaway!! At midnight tonight it will close and first thing in the morning on February 13th I will draw a winner!

This is my giveaway gift to one of you lovely bloggers!

Sooooo ... click onto the button on the right and get your name into the 'hat'!

And last but not least ...

... I will add another label page to the 'lace card' tutorial later on today ~ this time it is for ribbons. Not only can you make cards with labels with your lace now you can also make cards for your ribbons and this time I made sure I have the correct word in French!

I hope you are well and life is treating you kind.

Have a peaceful and creative day,


Karen B.

Fixing My Mistake

Hello my dear friends,

I spent a little time of  yesterday fixing the mistake I made with my lace cards and the tutorial for them. I am just glad it wasn't anything really intense that went wrong, not for myself but for you lovely bloggers. I can't tell you how happy I am  that you all liked my new tutorial  ~ it really made my day ~ thank you so much!!

It didn't take me too long to make the wrong right on my lace cards and this is the way they look now ...

 

... just as pretty as before!

I have also been very busy working on my valentine's creations for my daughters ~ it is the 4th part of my 'in a nutshell' creations which I can't share with you before February 14th. but that isn't all I have been up to. I have a few new projects on my work table right now and I am hoping I will be able to share them with you very soon. It is taking me a bit longer than I would like to because I hurt my right index finger ~ it's only a small cut right at my fingertip but it is not healing very well at all and at times when I hit it, the pain is intense. As soon as I am finished I will of course share with you.

 

And last but not least ...

... my daughter Ashleigh has redesigned her blog about her photography. Right now she is doing a thing called 'Project 365'. What it means is that you take one photo every day of the year without fail. Why not drop by her blog and check it out ~ she takes really neat photographs! I am trying to get her to share some of her crafty creations on her blog as well but so far I haven't succeeded yet.

This is a photograph my daughter took on day 22 ... 

http://peek--a--booh.blogspot.com/

 

And this is the caption to this photo ...

'... this is a picture of my Mum's necklace. She wears it all the time, every day, day in, day out, and has done since as long as I can remember. It is such a beautiful necklace and is so sentimental, not to mention beautiful. When you think of a person, you might think of a certain scent, or feeling, or their eye colour, but when I think of my Mum this necklace is one of the first things to come to mind.'

I thought that was so sweet of her and it's so true!

 

My upcoming weekend ... I am planning to spend some fair time working on new creations but also donating time to some of my bigger chores ~ like ... washing windows if the weather is good, my studio is a disaster right now again and much more.

I hope you are all well and life is treating you kind.

Have a peaceful and creative day,

Karen B.

A New Tutorial ~ Lace Cards

Hello my dear friends,

I have been so very busy this past weekend working on several  projects. After finishing one of them that is when I thought this might be something good to share in the form of a short tutorial because I think that this quick and easy project might be of help to some of you to organize your laces and ribbons and ... it looks nice too!

I am sure you all agree that storing lace in different objects like old tins or jars looks amazing but ... when it comes to finding the right lace or ribbon to work with ... how many of you ~ just as I have been ~ were confronted with this hug ball of tangled lace? And this is what had happened to me over the weekend. I was working on my ballet slippers and I needed some lace which is stored in an old box and I ended up with almost all of it as one big ball in my hand and that is why I made this little tutorial. I didn't have to go out especially to buy anythingfor this project and I am sure many of you have everything you need right there at home already. It's a really good way to recycle as well because you can use almost any cardboard and container. I have also made two sizes of the lace cards so if you have less or more of a lace/ribbon you will have the right size card.

My lace before ...

 

 

... all tangled up in a box!

This is how I solved my problem ...

 

 

These are the pattern sheets ~ please print (template sheet onto paper, label sheet onto stock card)

 

Here is the new lable sheet for your ribbon!!

NOTE:

To all you lovely bloggers that have printed this off before 11am eastern time on Feb.9th.

 Unfortunatly I made a mistake when I looked up the French word for 'lace', because there is more than one of them (which I didn't know). I have corrected the label sheet now with the right wording. Lacet means lace when you are talking about shoe laces which I was told by a sweet blogger named Christa. So, it is up to you now, you can either replace the word 'lacet' with the word 'dentelle' or you can leave it if you like. If any of you have already started with the 'wrong' word ~ I am so sorry!! I always check my work over and over but I think I was just so excited to share my new tutorial on my blog and I didn't check it good enough. I will try to make sure that this will not happen again in the future. 

You will need the following:

 

 

~ A box to store your lace cards in

   (if you would like to do so ~ mine is a photo box from Michaels,

    you could  use an old tin or anything you like)

~ Cardboard (I used all sorts, from frozen pizza boxes to cereal boxes)

~ Printed out patterns (provided above)

~ Scissors

~ Scalpel or paper knife

~ Pencil/pen

~ Ruler

~ Glue (I used Liquitex but you can also use Modge Podge if you prefer)

~ Paper to cover your lace cards with (music sheets, scrap booking paper, old book pages etc.)

~ Distress Ink/small cloth (if you wish to ink your edges for an aged look)

And this is how it's done ...

1. Print out the pattern and make a template by gluing the pattern onto a piece of card and cutting it out.

 

 

2. Place your template onto your cardboard and draw around it (a pizza box will give you two large, and two small cards)

 

 

3. Cut your cards out now ~ a scalpel and ruler will come in useful when cutting the card on the inside of the pattern.

 

 

4. Now glue your card to a decorative piece of paper of your choice and then place it on the side to dry for a little while. If you lay a heavy book on top of it, the card won't bend too much whilst drying. I used double sided scrap booking paper that I got on sale at Michaels. Until now I didn't have much use for it so it was perfect (and pretty!!!) for me to use on this project. You could use book pages or old music sheets too. Once dry, cut off the excess paper.

5. ~ Turn you card over and repeat step 4 again.

 

 

6. The next step was using my Distress Ink pad and I inked the edges of the lace card. If you wish to do so make sure your ink is dry before winding your lace onto it!

 

 

7. The last thing I did was to make small labels with the word 'lace' printed on it in. Cut the label out, age the edges with your ink pad and glue it to the top of your card. I thought it would be nice to use different languages for the word 'lace' ~ I chose English, French and German ~ you could always find more or you could skip this step altogether. And that's how it's done!

And this is my lace now ...

 

 

 

 

 All you have to do now is to wind all your lovely lace or ribbon onto your cards and to hold it in place you could make a few of my 'neat pins' and use them! Now just place your cards into your box (or other storage container) and there, you have a useful and pretty addition to your studio/craft room!!!

 

 

 

 If you like you could even make them as a gift for someone and personalize them with their name ~ that would be rather nice! 

I know this was a very easy tutorial and a simple idea but I do hope you have enjoyed it and that it will prove to be useful for you one day.

I hope you are all well and life is treating you kind.

Have a peaceful and creative day,

Karen B.

A Challenge To Myself ~ Part 2

Hello my dear friends,

thank you for stopping by to check out what I have been up to here at Todolwen. Today I would like share the second part of the 'challenge to myself '. I am sure I am in need of glasses after completing this challenge ~ sewing super tiny stitches by hand isn't good for my eyes anymore but I did it.  I have had so much fun creating these tiny beings and I am sure there will be more wee mice living in my home in the future. I have not only made another tiny mouse and this one is the smallest so far but I have also given the first two their final look including whiskers, homes and names.

My first wee mouse was this one ...

... her name is Peasblossom ...

... and her home is a little lace bed in an a small vintage sieve.

Then came my second little critter ...

~ Mr. Jingles ~

And finally there is my smallest little creature (so far) ...

... this one ~ it is such a tiny wee mouse!!

This is the little fellow before he was completed ...

... and this is him in all his tininess and his name is ... Pea~Wee!

... and this is his tiny home. He loves to sleep in his wee walnut bed all cuddly and soft!

Here are all my little critters together ...

... I think they are the most cutest wee mice ever!!!

I hope you have enjoyed the challenge I gave myself as much as I have because I truly have had so much fun pushing myself to keep creating something smaller than I have ever created before.

It is good to challenge yourself at times ~ it could be the smallest thing ever ~ it is just good to be able to prove to yourself that you can do it!!!

I hope you are well and life is treating you kind.

Have a peaceful and creative day,

Karen B.