Creating with Polymer Clay, Best Teacher Cushion and Tackling our Garden Part 1

Crafting is taking over in the Wilson household.  Victoria is starting out with polymer clay to make things to sell to her friends.  Its certainly busy in my kitchen at the minute where she has set up 'base camp' and has been busy making a pen, a rainbow cake, a candy wrapper and small pieces of chocolate that do look edible.  Already she has been taking orders off her friends at school.

I did start last week being able to sit outside in the sunshine and start stitching Teacher Cushions to sell for the end of the school year.  I decided on doing crayons and designed 2 templates.  I tend to use Jane Greenoff's cross stitch designer and find its easy to use once I have drawn a rough piece on graph paper.  It could be seen as long winded but I find using the programme helps me to find the centre for stitching and I can then keep it on my laptop and change things about once I have designed any pictures.  

After a week off and on, hence the late post I finally completed my 'prototype' to advertise for sale along with advertising for cushion orders. I think it's something different from chocolates and flowers etc. 

The main reason this was so long in the making, usually I can get a cushion, even a large one made up within 4 days was that the weather here in Lowestoft has been so lovely and warm I started stitching outside......the same time as my husband started doing a radical garden makeover.  When I say radical.....I mean radical.  He started, I assisted and together we have seen our new garden start to evolve.

This was our garden, however minus the shed which our next door neighbour purchased off us.

Where my husband is standing all the slabs were dug up and a new path laid....on day one and two.

Day 3 and 4 found us purchasing rolls of turf for £0.50 per roll and some great animal stepping stones.

Our animal stepping stones

And lay a new step at the gate and make a little area with some miniature trees with a solar powered water feature.  Our son was roped into tidying up the fence.

Before

After

Now at the end of the garden

With our solar powered fairy water feature

The garden so far, the grass is beginning to improve and its looking fresher, brighter, larger and a lot better.

 

Today Steve tackled the new bbq area, and where the slabs are some planters are arriving to add a bit of colour into the garden.  It is beginning to look a lot better but we still have some more bits to do and items to get....but its a BIG improvement.  We've managed to get some bargains and reuse some of the things that were already in the garden. such as the bricks.  But I may be able to get some more stitching done.  

After this big blog showing our hard work so far combining it with stitching, thanks for looking and any comments are really appreciated.