cold days + tutorial

This is my variation of the hot water bottle cover made from a sweater. I wanted the hottie to be completely covered in woolly goodness but easily filled and emptied - without having to take off the cover every time. So, inspired by those fingerless gloves that convert to mittens, I came up with the idea of the flip top. If you'd like to keep your toes warm, read how I made it here.

The top photo was taken in July last year driving from Christchurch to Dunedin via Lake Tekapo.

Treasures from the library book sale

Our library has a book sale twice a year and there are indeed treasures to be found. With Xmas coming up, I was looking specifically for books with images I could use to make cards and gift tags.

The cards I made are quite small (11.5 cm x 7 cm) but I had some old tracing paper see-through envelopes that were the perfect size to match. Once I decided how I wanted the cards to look, they were quite easy to make - cut out picture, glue onto card, trim and round the corners.

• I recently bought a corner punch so the cards had to have rounded corners.

• I also used aerosol spray glue for the first time and it is the best thing ever.

I think I'll keep some of the cards for myself and gift some as notecard sets.


These pages are from 'Wild flowers of Britain' - also from the library book sale - but I can't bring myself to cut the pages. The photographs are just too fascinating and too beautiful.

Not that 'Looking after cage birds' isn't also a nice book ...