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Makers Month: Adventures & Tea Parties

Hey there, well we are nearly at the end of our Makers Month and today we are chatting to the lovely Joanna from Adventures & Tea Parties about her instagram #ColourMyEveryday project she did for the first time this year. We thought you lovely lot would like to find out more too and so we had a nosey around for you.

Well, hello there! and how are you doing this week? It has been a bit of a slog over the last few weeks for us with the weather and just time! Where do the days go I want to know! I thought that all this extra daylight should help make it feel like there are extra hours in the day, not so much!

Another instalment of 'Our Favourite UK Craft Bloggers' for you today. I am writing to you today from sunny Austria, where I have been catching up on some blog reading as well as sightseeing, photography and a lot of relaxing. Don't forget to head over to these lovelies and say Hi and let us know your favourites in the comments below.

Miss Jojangles
Possibly the sweetest blogger we know. We fell in love with her whimsical life on her blog and even more so when we met her at Blogtacular earlier this year. We love her illustrations more than anything and we can't wait to see what's next for Jojo.

New Craft Society
We owe our trip to Liberty to these gorgeous girls (we are forever in their debt) and just adore their style, we can only dream of being this cool. Their attitude to crafts old and new is refreshing and their addiction to Liberty prints makes for some yummy crafty eye candy.

The Things She Makes
Jam packed with awesome tutorials, no faffy lifestyle stuff here, just pure unadulterated crafts... and we love it. Great for beginners and masters alike, great photos and easy to follow instructions make TTSM a brilliant place to visit on a rainy afternoon for a quick crafting fix.

I'm off to enjoy the last day here before we drive all the way home tomorrow (and the next day...)

Sammy xxx

Love it: UK Craft Blogs #2

Welcome to the second instalment of our favourite UK craft blogs, thank you for all your suggestions on our last post, we have made some great new discoveries and rediscovered some old favourites so thanks for all your suggestions, keep them coming. We have three more awesome blogs for you today, all based right here in the UK.

Fall for DIY

Fran is one of the bloggers we have known for the longest, one of our first ever reviews on our blog was for one of her previous businesses (she has a been a part of a few) Check My Box. We Love her gorgeous blog Fall For DIY. She has amazing style and great vision for using unusual materials for making stunning jewellery.

Knit me a Cake

Leanne is one of the sweetest bloggers we know and her blog is a place we love to visit. Her recipes are the reason we spend so much time over there, I made her Banana, toffee and pecan fudge loaf a few weeks ago, it was sooooo yummy! But we love her sewing and knitting tutorials too, head over and check out her amazing Sky Blanket project.

Lotts and Lots

Lotts hits it out of the park every time with her jewellery tutorials, you may have seen her embellished lace collar tutorial in issue 40 of Mollie Makes magazine. Her Instagram feeds is one of my all time faves.

Who are your favourites, this is the second in a series of posts about UK based craft blogs, our favourite fellow Brits doing wonders for bringing crafts out of the dark ages. Tell us in the comments about your faves so we can include them in later posts and crush on their mad DIY skills of course.

Sammy xxx

Love it: UK Craft Blogs #1

We write a crafty blog, so it is only natural that we gravitate towards other creative folk, we have a looonnnggg blog roll on Bloglovin of blogs we love and we have shared some of our faves here before. We love bloggers and blogs from all over the world, a lot of our favourites are from across the pond in the USA, A Beautiful Mess, Sugar and Cloth, Lovely Indeed, Paper and Stitch and the list goes on, but in this series we want to give a shout out to our favourites from right here, our home, the United Kingdom!

Burkatron

Caroline is a beautiful fashion/craft blogger and self confessed nail art junkie, I always love the photography styling in her posts. Her DIY's are always pretty and super chic. Our fave recent post is this one about building your own terrarium.

Buttons and Paint

These two lovelies live just down the road from us in Reading, You may remember them from their guest post for us back in March or you may have popped over from our guest post on their blog. We love this recent DIY to make yourself a trimmings folder, a must have for any haberdashery hoarder.

Claireabelle Makes

We don't know how the lovely Claire manages to run her own (super cute) etsy shop, her blog and have a job, but she does it, and beautifully too! We are crushing hard on her Bicycle Bracelets at LiLiMi HQ.

Who are your favourites? This is the first in a series of posts about UK based craft blogs, our favourite fellow Brits doing wonders for bringing crafts out of the dark ages. Tell us in the comments about your faves so we can include them in later posts and crush on their mad DIY skills of course.

Sammy xxx

Favourite Friday: Blogs

I have H joining me on Favourite Friday this week in honour of our blogging birthday, to share our favourite blogs!

Some of these guys are the reason we started blogging and some are ones we have found along the way but each of these is special to each of us in their own way.

You can see from our sidebar that we read a lot of blogs ourselves so we wanted to tell you about the ones we love the most.

H's Favourite Blogs

http://meetmeatmikes.com/

I love Meet Me at Mikes because its so fun with its American ideas for getting adults and children doing something fun. I must admit to mainly preferring UK blogs as I feel that when they talk about a product, I can actually go out and buy it rather than working out what its UK equivalent is. But this blog just makes me smile and there is nothing wrong with that.

http://onesheepishgirl.blogspot.co.uk/

I don't have the patience or talent to knit - apart from finger knitting or with a loom, but it's not quite the same. I love that this blog shows you some really fun projects to have a go at, or if your like me, just some fun projects to look at while you pretend that you are actually going to get around it learning to knit properly.

http://flossieteacakes.blogspot.co.uk/

Florence sews alot, has some great tutorials and advice on dressmaking and basically just makes me feel bad for just not getting on with that project. But that's why I love it, seeing what she gets up to and how she goes about it is the fun part, right?!

Sammy's Favourite Blogs

http://www.ohhellofriendblog.com/

One of the first blogs I ever found, blogger Danni is so cute. I Love her style and have made more than a few purchases at her on-line store. She now has bricks and mortar store in the U.S. too. In between pretty, beautifully styled photos she is honest and heartfelt. I always enjoy reading her posts.

http://www.hearthandmade.co.uk/

I literally ADORE this blog! Just the right amount of crafty goodness and inspirational spaces. Always pretty, always cute and funny. Reading Claire's blog is like having a chat with a friend. A must read blog for any UK craft enthusiast. Just beautiful.

http://sugarandcloth.com/

Ashley is a D.I.Y. genius, most of my very favourite DIY ideas are from this blog. If I am ever searching for a new project to try my hand at I always head here first to check out her latest offerings. Always beautifully photographed and with a colour scheme to die for it is a hub of inspiration.

Our Favourites

http://www.abeautifulmess.com/

Wow don't even know where to start with all the things we love about this blog. Elsie and Emma have created a Wonderblog. Elsie started 'A Beautiful Mess' in 2007 and it has grown and grown. If there is any blog we aspire to as a blogging duo this is it. Their photography is distinctive and their styling is vintage cool. Their mix of yummy food, awesome DIY's and vintage fashion is a perfect mix that makes for a beautiful blog.

http://honestlywtf.com/

Possibly THE coolest fashion/DIY blog around 'Honestly WTF' (wicked name) is a mix of high end fashion and artsy cool. Somehow Erica and Lauren manage to re-create high fashion accessories for a fraction of the price, and show us how to give it a try ourselves. If you have lusted it on the catwalk, without a doubt the WTF version isn't far behind.

http://boredandcrafty.com/

Always bored, sometimes crafty, always odd, we like how this girl rolls! Filled with inspiring tutorials for clothes and accessories. A fabric collector after our own hearts, we love seeing Meream's newest purchases and her super cute cats!

Now over to you, What are your favourites?

Where do you go to learn, read and relax around the interwebs?

We are off to finish off our blog birthday cakes.

Have a lovely weekend

H and Sammy xxx

Link for the week: Lichtenstein Exhibition at the Tate Modern

Photo courtesy of http://www.tate.org.uk

I thought with this weeks link I would share with you an exhibition which I think is a must see!

The Tate Modern has a retrospective of Roy Lichtenstein's work from now until the 27th May and it will be well worth a look.

I saw some of his work a few years ago now while at the Guggenheim Bilbao and the scale of some of his work and the colour is amazing! For all those not sure about art, it may well be just what you are looking for to get your thinking about art in a different way as its imagery is so powerful, there will always be something for you to connect to.

As the Tate website says "Lichtenstein is renowned for his works based on comic strips and advertising imagery, coloured with his signature hand-painted Benday dots. The exhibition showcases such key paintings as Look Mickey 1961 lent from the National Gallery Art, Washington and his monumental Artist’s Studio series of 1973–4. Other noteworthy highlights include Whaam! 1963 – a signature work in Tate’s collection – and Drowning Girl 1963 on loan from the Museum of Modern Art, New York."

I definately advocate that there is an art form for everyone and that people take for granted what art is and think it is not for them or there are unfortunately others who think that art should be for a specific set of people! Those people are wrong by the way.

Anyway, I was looking at the 'What Katie Does' blog, as I have been reading on and off and saw that the lovely Katie had managed to get into a press night for the Lichtenstein exhibition (exciting!) and so was able to take photos - this never happens in real life! So I thought it only fair to share with you the blog and the post about it so that you can see what is on display and, like me, begin to really really want to go and see it for yourself!

http://www.whatkatiedoes.net/2013/02/lichtenstein-a-retrospective-at-the-tate-modern.html

Its on my list of things to do this week for when I am pottering about on my days off, well needed after last week's half term!

Link for the week: Business Bites from Rock and Roll Bride

With it being the new year we are looking forward to creating lots of lovely new content to throw at you! I thought this week's link should also help you with your creative process too.

Here is a little collection of business advice that our fave wedding come business chick Rock n Roll Bride has put together, it seemed rude not to share. Check out her business bites you may well see some of the tips in action on here, so do comment if you see something you like!

We are on it like a car bonnet!

Friday Favourite: A New Year

I know you have all been loving H's Link for the week feature, so I am taking on a feature of my own, Sammy's Friday Favourites. This week, It being 2013 (ahhh scary!) it's my top five things I love about 'A New Year'

1. New Diary - I love a new diary, the whole year laid out in front of you like a blank canvas, so many choices, week to a page, day to a page, pocket size, functional, pretty and all those weeks to fill with exciting new things to do.

2. New Goals - The New Year makes me think of all the things I want to achieve, I can set my self a whole new set of goals, for my personal life and for my businesses and look back on all the things I did last year; some of them may carry over, some of them change and there are some brand new ones. Making a list of everything helps me to keep focused.

3. New Life - this one is quite specific to me this year, my new Niece is is arriving any day now! I have a Nephew on Steve's side, who is 9, who I love. But I wasn't with Steve when he was a baby, so I can't wait to have a little one in the family!

4. New Toys - I was lucky enough to get the Silhouette Cameo paper cutting machine that I wanted from my Husband for Christmas and I have been playing around with it. I cant wait to come up with some projects that I can use it for.

5. New Ideas - The New Year always brings new ideas, once all the Christmas decorations are out of the way, new colours, clothes and crafts come to the top of the pile. I always love the ideas that come to me in January, they are the ones most likely to get done.

Hope you are all enjoying the start of the year.

Sammy xxx

Our New Years Resolutions 2013

photo courtesy of: http://blogs.agu.org/martianchronicles/2012/01/04/science-resolutions-or-grad-school-lessons-learned/

It's that day isn't it, you know the one where we have a think about what the New Year will bring and hope that last year will be forgotten quickly enough! So every year I am sure half of us have thoughts of resolutions for the New Year and the other half run away from us screaming that we are fools and they never get done anyway so what's the point!

Here at Live it. Love it. Make it HQ we thought that a few resolutions might keep us on the straight and narrow and help us to work on the blog and on our own lives! Having it down in print, might make us keep them in our mind also, so fingers crossed.

H's Resolutions

1. Take Photos of everything I make - this one is blog specific as I make so many things for friends and then forget to take pictures of how I do it. They would be great to have as tutorials on the blog and yet I forget until its too late! So this one will help you guys too, so you need to remind me of this one throughout the year I think.

2. More Confidence in my work - this one is probably the hardest one to do as I am notoriously shy (I bet Sam will disagree!) and not confident in my own abilities. I am not sure how to go about this one just yet, but definitely taking the lovely compliments I get from my friends when I make them things would be a good start!

photo courtesy of: http://www.j-p-a.com/where_hong_kong.html

3. Visit Hong Kong - this is hopefully in the pipeline! A friend of mine moved there this year from Singapore and I have always wanted to visit and so having not been on holiday for 2 years I feel that this should be my holiday! I just have to continue saving now!

4. Get out of my comfort zone (occasionally) - this one should also help with number 2. I have a tendency to stay with safe and stick to what I know and so I think I should step out of that zone occasionally to see what else can happen. I do shock myself sometimes and have done some amazing things and so I have never been dull but a few more of those moments would be good.

5. Make more, Spend Less - I have patterns, fabric and a sewing machine, along with the skills to use it and so I don't really know why I don't make more of my own clothes or even alter them when they hopefully get too big! This year will be all about baking more as well, I do love it, but don't seem to do it that much!

Sammy's Resolutions

1. To be more organised - As many of my friends and family will tell you Organisation is not my strong point! My Mum is an avid list writer, seriously this woman has lists of what clothes she took on holiday dating back to 1974. I have always been more of a 'lets see what happens' kind of girl, which is OK don't get me wrong, but I need to grow up, with all the things going on in my life I need to be more efficient, make more lists and plan ahead more, I feel I could get so much more out of my life if I could get more done day to day.

My Grandpa and My Husband on our Wedding Day in 2008

2. Spending more time with My husband, Family and friends - this is a resolution I make every year, and this year is no exception. I am an only child and have always been happy in my own company, so I need to push my self to spend time with people I care about. My Grandpa will be turning 92 this year, I love him dearly and want to spend some quality time with him whilst I can. I was so busy doing things last year I know my Hubby felt a little neglected, so we are introducing Date night, once a month we are going out together, just the two of us, no phones, i-pads etc. to get some quality time.

3. Spend less, save more - along with organisation, saving is not one of my strong points, I need to learn to budget my money and plan larger purchases. A friend of mine is getting married in 2014 and wants us to go to Vegas for the hen party, so I am setting up a savings jar, to help me see how much I can save to have a really good time over there.

4. P.M.A. Positive mental attitude - I am a pretty positive person but I still think I can work on it, I want to try and find one good thing about every day. working in retail that can be hard, but even if it is spending the evening watching a movie with the Hubs that will be good enough. I am also going to work on being so defencive, and learn to take criticism, I have never been good at that!

5. Getting closer to my weight loss goals - this is a personal goal but one I'm sure will be at the top of most peoples lists in January. I have been on my weight loss journey for 4 years. I had lost 4 stone and got half way to my goal, I have put some of it back on and need to get motivated again to get closer to my goal in 2013. Steve and I are joining our local gym and are going to go together, so we can motivate each other. Our basic diet is filled with healthy choices, however treats, cakes, takeaways and sweets are a regular occurrence, so we are working together to come up with some alternate 'treats' to help our weight loss be a healthy one.

There is always the resolutions that you should always break though isn't there, you know the ones! The ones where you have absolutely no intention of keeping them, but you feel that you should to keep others happy or make yourself feel better after a week of excess from Christmas, but let's forget about them and aim for the good ones!

H & Sammy

Live it. Love it. Make it

Live t. Love it. Make it. 1 year old today Birthday Giveaway (CLOSED)

So as the title suggests our blog is 1 today! Happy Birthday us.

We actually started thinking about and procrastinating over the Blog a while before we finally did it, but our first post was on the 21st June 2011! My has it gone quickly!

We have learnt alot and met some fantastic people though this time and hope that we will continue to do so. Being part of a craft community whether online or dare I say 'in the real world' has been an amazing experience for us both and long may it continue. We want to explore this world of ours so much more and hope to get some more trips in the diary so that we can tell you all about what we are up to - any excuse hey!

What started off a year ago with talking about what we were up to and things we made at home has turned into; being part of a local group 'The Craft Coop'; taking on the planning of our first ever 'Live it Vintage' event - thanks to H's event experience and Sam's enthusiasm and love of her town Maidenhead, along with some great Maidonians also; running workshops from Bunting and mobile phone cases, to hand puppets with Little Pickles; and finally by no means least, letting all you lovely people learn how to make things yourself with online tutorials or our ready to go kits!

So to celebrate, we have a little Competition for you, the prizes are

1st Prize - All 5 kits from our collection

2nd Prize - 2 Kits of your choice from our collection

3rd Prize - 1 Kit of your choice from our collection

(Kits include: Sewing Machine Cover, Mobile Phone Case, Personalised Bunting, Rosette, Shopper Bag)

All you have to do is tell us what you would love to learn how to make, so just finish the sentence below:

I would like to learn how to make ...

Send in your answers to liveit.loveit.makeit@gmail.com by Friday 13th July 2012.

We will then pick the best 3 to win the prizes, simple hey.

The best part is that we will then make the top three into tutorials for the blog and hey if we get loads of lovely ones, we may just keep on putting them up.

What's next for us includes finally getting our acts in gear to get some of our handmade items online and then hopefully - with the help of some talented friends - getting our own website up and running.

So please do keep reading, and chatting to us. We love to hear about your projects, get your responses to things we have written or be nosey into your lives - look out for a craft space series of posts soon!

and if you want to get in touch or would love to write us a post, please do get in touch through the blog, on our facebook page or even on our email: liveit.loveit.makeit@gmail.com.

Bye for now, we are off to eat our body weight in cake! Well what are birthday's for??!!

Sammy & H