Christmas Wrapping

This year I thought I would make a bit more effort with my gift wrap, with the added bonus that everyone's present comes with a personalised tree decoration.

So I made clips with wooden laundry pegs, painted and glittered, and stuck on Christmas cake toppers - which again I painted and glittered to make the trees look a little more snowy.

Then I made everyone a gift tag, using birch plywood tags, and then stamped, painted and sanded them, and added rhinestones and a snowflake charm.

 

Then clipped them onto my presents using the pegs - ta dah!

 

And there is it, on the tree

 

 

I even made a tag for Jimmy, that was slightly less sparkly

 

 

 

 

 

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....

Ok so not something I made, but I couldn't resist putting up some pictures of my Christmas decorations...

 

Hand Warmers

I made pairs of microwavable hand warmers in different covers for my Dad, my Nan and my Grandad. They're made with rice bags inside that go in the microwave for about a minute to heat up.

Apron

This year I made aprons for my Mum and my Gran for Christmas, unfortunately I was slightly useless at taking photos of my makes this year, so I will have to add a picture of my Gran's apron at a later date.

There's even a pocket on there, but you can't see it because I matched it up so perfectly in a bit of an OCD moment.

It also has a little "hand made" label inside, which again, I forgot to take a picture of.... but made with my embroidery machine from the "made with love" pack of designs at Urban Threads.

Christmas Cards

This year's Christmas cards, made with a couple of new paper punches - I'm loving the reindeer - even more so for the fact that I got it for just £1!

Unfortunately I don't own an old type writer, I downloaded the font free from the internet.

 

 

Christmas Cakes

Ok so I didn't quite make a proper Christmas cake, I made cupcakes and a sponge cake... but fruit cake fans are somewhat outnumbered by the Victoria sponge fans in my house anyway. So here they are...

 

Yes, there is a cake missing in the bottom left corner. Yes, I ate it, before I even took a photo.

Little Retro Reindeer

Everyone loves a retro reindeer. I think I may end up having to make a few more of these before Christmas comes around!

 

I have to admit this isn't my pattern - this one came from Patchlins on Etsy, but I thought it was rather cute and I definitely wouldn't be able to come up with a pattern in time for Christmas!

Guess what everyone will be getting for Christmas this year?!

 

I have been busy making a few other things, but I will have to wait until after Christmas to post them up...

Pin Cushions

A couple of pin cushions I made while having a crafting day with a friend.

The bucket one was super simple but I think it's pretty cute, and useful seeing as somehow despite the years I have been sewing I've never had a pin cushion.

The bucket comes from HobbyCraft, and then just a circle of fabric with running stitch round the edge to pull into a ball, stuffed and put into the bucket. Ta dah!

 

 

 

Baby-grow toys

This was a fun but slightly nerve wracking project!

Charlotte's Molly (who I made the advent calendar for) has finally grown out of her first baby grows, and Charlotte asked me if we could make some things out of them.

We started off  with these mini cushions for Molly's cot made out of a couple of tops that had applique patterns on.

Here is the scrummy Molly modelling one of the tops...

 

 

And here they are as mini cushions. They have her name and date of birth embroidered on the back but I don't have a photo of that.

Charlotte was rather proud of her efforts :-)

 

 

Then she left me with a bag full of clothes and a wish list. She wanted a special toy of some sort made from her favourite new born baby grows.

 

Now I'm not usually worried about cutting stuff up, it doesn't bother me to cut up old books and sheet music (despite my housemate's attempts to stop me), but my friend's FAVOURITE new born baby clothes...? Even I was nervous...

Here goes....

 

 

I chose a pattern from MyFunnyBuddy on Etsy to make things a little easier.

 

 

And here he is - finished! Charlotte definitely liked him, and if dribbling all over your face and biting your ears is a sign of affection, then Molly liked him too :-)

 

 

And I still have a bag of clothes to make some more stuff from - watch this space...



Rosette Cake

Oops... looks like I forgot to post anything for like 3 months... and now when I think about it I don't know that I've made much, despite it being the summer holidays. Best get on it! After all there's only 4 months until Christmas!

 

So for Father's day I made this rosette cake for my dad, as he is getting a rather large collection on the rosette display board, in fact it's completely full up!

 

I think it turned out pretty well in the end, although perhaps I ought to work on my handwriting skills for next year... I hear it tasted alright too :-)

Upcycling Part II: The discovery of Mod Podge

What a busy weekend! As well as being a domestic goddess, feeding 3 boys for 12 hours (a bigger job than it sounds) a bit of gardening, a visit from a friend and lovely baby cuddles, I have also been on fire in my craft room.

So yesterday I made a new needle book. I also made a lycra body sock. As you do. Thankfully not for me, for my lovely class at school to play in. Honestly it's a real thing! Here's one on ebay for £35! Mine comes in at £20 for materials, bargain. Lycra however, is not my favourite fabric. A few tantrums happened.

 

This morning I sewed all the badges onto our Guide camp blanket.

And then I started on my next upcycling project. Boy oh boy - what a difference a day makes!

I am super chuffed with this one!

I had an old cabinet that my Nan and Grandad had given me a few years ago, that I keep some of my craft stuff in.

This morning it looked like this...

 Definitely in need of some attention!

I had already bought a new handle for it, but that wasn't quite enough.

I had looked into painting it, but it seemed pretty difficult and expensive to find paint suitable for veneer.

So I settled on the idea of decoupage, which basically is just a posh way of saying "sticking something to something else".

And this is where Mod Podge appeared (the name just makes me laugh). Universally recognised as THE glue for decoupage. Now I was pretty dubious about Mod Podge, as I thought it was pretty expensive for glue, but after reading a few reviews and looking at some recipes to make your own I decided I was just going to have to pay out for Mod Podge if I wanted something that would work properly and last without going discoloured or drying out. It's actually a glue, sealer and finish all in one.

And what do I think now, after my first attempt using Mod Podge?

I will never look back.

Nothing will ever take the place of a Pritt Stick in my heart, but this stuff is good.

 

This project called for quite a lot of planning and measuring. Not something I often do. But for those people who know me and don't believe I did it - here's the evidence:

 

I chose to decoupage with fabric, which works really nicely but can be tricky to get neat edges in places. Thankfully the bits that weren't so neat can't be seen from the outside.

I used a patterned fabric for the door and top, and plain calico for everywhere else. I also put a rose from the patterned fabric onto both sides.

 

And here it is, finished:

So all in all, £5.95 for a new handle, probably less than £2 in fabric, and about £9 for a pot of glue (of which I used about half - including a rather monumental spillage - oops) and the cabinet is better than new!



A new needle book

I decided it was about time for a new needle book.

Here is the needle book I made with my Gran when I was about 8!

High time for a new one!

This time I used a machine embroidery design from Urban Threads - possibly my new favourite website!

The photo isn't great but you get the idea, embroidery on denim.

 

I used bondaweb to stick the big and little polka dot fabrics together before cutting and sewing them into the centre of the denim to make the book.

Yet another display board

Hurrah for another display board. This one is for a friend's birthday.

I decided to incorporate some machine embroidery on this one.

 

 

Some cards

I make quite a few cards, but I thought I'd put a couple on here.

These ones were made using a new foot for my sewing machine for free motion embroidery, so it's a bit like writing or drawing but with a sewing machine. I'm not very good yet, but not too bad for a first attempt.

I also made a couple of cards for a friend at work to send.

This one has all the ribbon stitched onto the card, again using free motion embroidery.

 

Some very pink cakes...

Someone I used to work with at my previous job asked me if I could make her an iced cake and some cupcakes for her daughters 18th Birthday a couple of weeks back.

The result : lots of very pink sparkly cakes!

Mini wooden storage box

I found this little wooden storage box in the works a couple of weeks back, and thought it would be nice to decorate, after all the fun I had upcycling the spice rack.

Pretty boring... how about a bit of paint?

A bit better... how about some pretty paper?

Lovely. All varnished and ready to go. I haven't got a clue what I'm going to store in it to be honest... but I'm sure I'll find something nice.