Paper Cutting Fun

Ooh oooh oooh! I'm like a child with a new toy. It's called a scalpel and I've been putting mine to good use this week. For ages I've been more than a little enamoured with paper cut designs. There are a few people I know from the crafting community who make the most stunning cuts which I am so impressed with. Anyway, this week I thought I'd have a go at making a paper cut myself.

As it's Valentine's Day next month I thought I'd make some love hearts. Here are some of my first attempts. What do you think?

I'm actually really pleased with how these turned out. I still have a lot to learn about the art of paper cutting but for a first few attempts, I think I've done OK. This week I'm going to work a little bit more of the design aspect - I'm generally more of a blocks of colour type of girl as opposed to a delicate design person, but you never know, I might suddenly discover a new talent... Wish me luck!

Some new pieces

It's been quite busy here at Trouble HQ recently, which may go some way to explain why I've been so quiet blogging recently. My super-amazing mum offered to help me with some sewing, so last week I took advantage of it and went home on Saturday evening. Arriving fairly late (as I'd had a craft fair) I immediately set to work printing some new designs that I had cut from lino so that we'd be ready to start on Sunday morning. Well, we actually started on Sunday afternoon as I did some more printing on Sunday morning and then some ironing, pinning etc. In the end, my mum and I managed to make quite a few new tote bags with French seams. What do you think of the designs? They will all be in my online store and Etsy shop over the next few days.

I think I might make some ice-blue snowflakes to go with the red snowflakes and I'm wondering about making hearts and lovehearts in other colours too. What colours do you think? And you haven't seen the last of the 'Oranges and Lemons' yet... the design is about to feature in some other items soon, so look out for them!

On another note - I've just noticed that my 'shop' section hasn't been working. I had a huge issue with the design of my blog a week or so ago and I'm assuming that the link must have broken then. I think I've fixed it now so hopefully it's working - but if you notice it isn't, please let me know!

That Friday Feeling...26/08/11

It's Friday again and that means one thing here on Creating Trouble - Etsy shout out time! This week I'm being a bit lazy - mainly because I am sleep deprived after our recent trip, so have gone for a fairly easy theme: hearts. There are LOADS of them on Etsy but here are a few from members of the British Sellers on Etsy team.

sequinned wedding ornaments by AndiaCreations - cute.

Everyone loves cake - shout it out with a necklace from UrbanCookie

Love this patchwork cushion from TheCandyTree

Did you know...

• Women's hearts beat faster than mens - but are significantly smaller.
• Your heart beats about 70 times a minute, 100,000 times a day and on average 2.5 billion times in a lifetime. 
• The reason we associate hearts with love and emotion is because the Ancient Egyptians believed that intelligence and emotion stemmed from the heart. The Chinese also believed that the heart was the source of happiness.
• Another interesting Ancient Egyptian belief: when a person died their heart would be weighed on a balance with the feather of truth of the goddess Ma'at: if it was successful, then the person's soul would pass into the Underworld although rather oddly, no one ever said whether the heart had to be equally balanced, heavier or lighter than the feather...
• Where the symbol we commonly use for hearts comes from is quite open to discussion - one of the more interesting ones I came across was that it resembles the seed of the Silphium plant, which used to be used as a herbal contraceptive in medieval times.