Hamish, hearts and happy times

I forgot to mention in my last post, but it has been a whole year since I started writing my blog!

The 12 months since that very first post written in Malaysian Borneo has been a whirlwind. Finishing our travels, starting new jobs, moving house twice, meeting new people and of course a whole lot of creative bits and bobs in between have made this year fly past at 100 miles an hour. I've enjoyed every minute and am so glad to have this blog as reminder of all the good things which have happened.

Now I have a lovely group of followers on Facebook and Twitter, some great online 'blogger' friends and commissions to keep me busy in my spare time! Thank you to all who've been there from the beginning and those who've joined me along the way. :)

Now, on to this week's projects!

This is my latest paper cut heart, a (slightly belated) housewarming present for some friends. I asked for a list of what they would like included and drew out the design by hand before I started to cut. Can you spot a kite surfer, cupcakes, butterfly, teapot and teacups, poppies, hearts, Dartmoor, wine, stars, bees, 'love' and a bike?

Copyright Clare Willcocks

Here are a couple of close-ups. The kite surfer is about as small as my fingernail. I think I'll replace this background colour with a dark olive green to frame it.

This bank holiday weekend has been quite a productive one as I also managed to get started on another lovely piece. The 'Hamish' in today's post title was a very special Scottie dog of whom very few photos were taken, so this paper cut is to remember him by.

It's designed in a similar style to the cat paper cut which I did recently, although this time I've decided to feature the dogs and doggy bits and pieces as negative space.

It still has a little way to go but it's a lovely one to cut. As always, it started out as a hand-drawn design in reverse, rubbed out and tweaked until I was happy!

In fact, I've done quite a bit of drawing this weekend. This is a biro sketch I did while watching Sam fishing in Shaldon, South Devon.

Finally, I'll leave you with these photos taken on our walk today from Mortehoe, just a little further up the coast from Woolacombe in North Devon. We took a picnic and followed a circular route up and down along the cliffs and then back around to the village, finishing with a cup of tea in Town Farmhouse café.

Woolacombe beach looked very busy, it's clear that summer's on its way!

The bottom right photo below is a thumb-sized caterpillar which we came across on the path.

A nosy little lamb watched us from a precarious position where it was munching grass.

I ended up with loads of photos of these little pink flowers!

And that's all for today! I would love for you to pop by my Facebook page with a like if you haven't already.

Also, don't forget that if you'd like to have a go at paper cutting yourself, my free template and tutorial can be found on Hope and Chances Creativity. :)

Today I'm sharing this post on the following blogs: Handmade Harbour, Manon Popje's Illustrations, Be Different Act Normal and Beyond the Picket Fence.

Cute Easter egg decorating ideas and creative highlights of my week

As schools have broken up for Easter now, it seems like a good time to begin getting stuck into a few Easter crafts. A while ago I blew out some eggs, leaving the shells to decorate. This little bunny was inspired by a sheep I saw on Pinterest. It's so simple to do so it makes a great Easter craft for children. The hardest part is blowing the egg out - it takes a lot of puff! There's a printable worksheet here if you'd like to try it yourself.

I like him because he stands up on his own. He's now taken pride of place on my desk at work.

Here's the little sheep that inspired me, the Pinterest link takes you to this webpage, but I'm not sure who to credit the design or photo to.


I think I'll attempt something a little more elaborate with the remaining eggs - I'd like to try cutting sections out but I'm not sure how easy that will be. Does anyone have some other Easter egg decorating ideas they could recommend?

It was Sam's birthday in the week so we went out for meal to East the Water, West the Orient, an oriental restaurant just down the road. It serves a variety of different style food - Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Thai - and everything we tried was delicious. I ended up taking some home in a doggy bag which made a very yummy lunch the next day!

I baked Sam a birthday cake, but as you can see, cake decorating is not my strong point.

Luckily the taste was its redeeming feature!

I spent Saturday with my Mum at Trago Mills. For those of you who don't know it, it's a huge shop selling everything you could possibly need and a lot more. They've got a well-stocked haberdashery section where Mum helped me pick out some fabric to sew some more bags.

After a lot of deliberation and several laps of the fabric aisles, we settled on these.

The spotty fabric is to be lined with the red cotton and I'll applique the canvas on the right and line it with the dainty little hearts.

I can't wait to get started, but before I do, I'm trying out a few more bag designs in some left over fabric I already had. The pieces are all cut out ready to go and I've begun cutting out fabric scraps for the applique.

I'm using the free 'Phoebe' bag pattern by Rebeka Lambert. I just love the curved top and fastening, and the neat look of the finished bag.

Mum and I visited my auntie yesterday who makes beautiful fabric pieces, from bags and brooches to wall hangings and textured quilts. Any visit to her house always leaves me feeling very inspired, even more so when I walk out with a huge stash of scraps that she's given me! Her website, Lime Green Lizzie, showcases some of her work, but photos on the screen really don't do it justice.

Yesterday she showed us some beautiful stitched flower brooches she made which have provided the inspiration for the appliqué for this latest bag. Fingers crossed mine turn out as well as my auntie's!

I'll leave you with this biro sketch I've been working on. It's been a while since I've done some drawing, but this has reminded me how relaxing it is.

I chose buttons as my subject matter as I just love them! I'll have to start scouring charity shops to build up a stash as I don't own any at the moment and it would be great to have a good variety to dip into when embellishing projects.

This was drawn using an ordinary black biro and gently hatching to build up layers of depth.

Perhaps I'll finish it, perhaps not.

Today I'm linking up on the following blogs: Handmade Harbour, Lamb Around, Manon Popje's Illustrations, Tatertots and Jello and Be Different Act Normal.