I Joined the Christmas Jumper Parade

So its all gone a bit mad on the old Christmas Jumper front, and you can't turn round in the shops without seeing one either for sale, or one already on the shoulders of the person stood next to you. Now I am not saying this is a bad thing, I love a scandi jumper and wish I could knit one myself, however there are some truly tacky versions out there as well.

 

Anyway, being as Save the Children, Costa, as well as many other places have been naming 'Christmas Jumper Day', and work are almost insisting on it as a uniform as part of the last week of work, it only seemed polite to join in. Of course I was not just going to nip to primark for a cheap one was I, not when the opportunity to applique one presents itself.

So here we have my Christmas reindeer jumper styled on my own Christmas tree decoration design, complete with woolly pom pom nose. It is just machine sewn on to an old jumper using fleece fabric so anyone could give this a go.

Are you styling a Christmas jumper this year? If so, what have you gone for, traditional knitwear, large prints, or are you donning your own DIY version? I would love to know.

Quick Edit: How well timed was this post after Patrick's applique reindeer on GBSB! 

I Blinged My Jumper!

Yes that's right, look at the pretties! I thought it might feel a little more festive to have a sparkly jumper, and lets face it, this is much more fun than a plain old black one don't you think?

I originally wanted to pom pom it, but I couldn't make small enough pom poms which would be secure enough to go through the machine. That might be a job for another day if I purchase some multi coloured manufactured poms. I was also going to bling the whole jumper but decided after a small section that I really just liked the chevron pattern in it so left it there.

The jewels have a little hole in the top and bottom so they are sewn on rather than glued as I thought this would be more secure option. They key to this is to buy a cheap jumper, and mark out where you want to place the jewels before sewing them on. I used tailors chalk and a ruler and marked out a diagonal pattern before I started sewing and this made them pretty even.

I will try to get a picture of me in the jumper, but Mr Fox is not the best photographer and so it may take many attempts, especially as I won't see him in daylight now for another week.

Fit for a Queen (or King) Crown

I love it when you get a little idea for something whimsical and it turns into such a great little successful project. This one was really quick and I am so pleased with the outcome. Isn't it a spectacular crown, I am sure any little future King or Queen would be happy to receive this. 

I have made this one for a friends daughter (hence the 'Queen') as a little Christmas gift, so I am really hoping she likes it. I can see me making more of these in my future.

 

These are made using two layers of felt fabric, with a layer of iron on interfacing in the middle. You could make it without, but it make it much sturdier. 

The pattern idea basically came from combining the following two tutorials:

Dress up Crown by The Long Thread

and Royal Felt Crown by Long Things

I hope you like my felt crown, and I urge you to have a go at one of these yourself for any young Kings and Queens (or in fact yourself) in your life. 

Post Wedding Round Up: The Bouquets

I purposefully didn't want to purchase real flower bouquets for my wedding. The idea was to hand craft as much as possible. I started off, like I usually do, collecting images from the internet with ideas and popping them on (yep you guessed it) pinterest. There were actually tons of ways to DIY flowers out there I was surprised at the amount of different ideas I got from it.

So after a couple of evenings with my bridesmaids trying out different techniques, with some attempts more successful than others, we finally settled on these. It was actually something which I didn't find an image or tutorial for but just happened to cobble together from the collective ideas I got. I think it worked perfectly and the colours really complimented the dresses. I think the finishing touch of the ribbon which my mum did really helped as well.

I am not planning on writing up a tutorial on these as there is some vague twinkle in my eye about making them for sale. But should that not happen I will of course show you how to. In the meantime, check out the board (sorry it's on my old account) and hopefully find some fabulous ideas for yourself. It's actually really easy to make your own wedding bouquets and the best thing about them is that they will keep forever as a souvenir of that special day.

A little sneaky peak there at the dresses! but look at how well they work with the colour scheme.

I plan to run the wedding bits as a series of Friday posts, so watch out for next weeks installment!

Photos by Ed Godden

Some Midweek Inspiration: DIY Craft Kits

Naturally, being a crafty person myself, I have a lot of friends who enjoy making things themselves in one form or another. There are knitters, sewers, professional jewellery makers to name a few. Because of this I always try to find gifts for them which are either handmade or kits for them to make things for themselves. I really like to do my bit to support UK hand crafters/artists, especially at this time of year.

There are so many good quality kits out there, and I had a wonderful time over the weekend scouring Folksy and Not on the High Street for Christmas gifts for them. Because of my obsession with Pinterest I obviously made a board of them so I could gather ideas and then go back to it later to make my purchasing decisions. 

Some of my favourites however can be found directly linked from here:

Home Sweet Home Knitting Kit on Folksy - knit your own tiny little house keyring
Screenprinted Fabric Pouch Kit on Folksy - sew a little bag with hand screen printed fabric
Leather Keyring Design Kit on Not on the High Street - sew your own little leather keyring (bird/cupcake)
Triangle hat knitting kit on Not on the High Street - hat knitting kit, the colour scheme on this is great
And Finally
Animal Hats on Amazon - I purchased this for a friend, and its so good its gone straight on my own Christmas list!

There are so many good kits to be found as you will see, these were just ones of my personal taste. I really would advise, if you are stuck for present ideas, to check out these two sites and support UK made craft because there really is some incredible talent out there. As mentioned above, there are a couple of these which made it on to my Christmas list, and some which I will probably purchase afterwards.

Please do feel free to share any craft kits you have found and fallen in love with, or ones which you sell yourself. I would love to see them.

Christmas Gift DIY

I am full of festive cheer at the moment. Any excuse to put on a christmas tune and have a sing a long. So naturally we are all thinking about the decorations and the gifts. 

My mum has always had a fascination with wrapping anything and everything for under the tree, something which has rubbed off on the rest of us. So I wanted to hand make a couple of the stocking fillers this year. 

All my family are huge gardeners, from my grandad to my younger sister, so naturally all enjoy relaxing outdoors enjoying the fruits of their labour. So I decided to adapt my DIY ombré candle tutorial and make these cute little terracotta plant pot candles.

They are scented using citronella which it perfect for these as it is known to be an excellent insect repellant, so great for lighting outdoors in the evening. 

I also had an excellent brainwave for the wicks, instead of tying them around, if you pull them over and then tape them to the outside using duct tape then you get a much better wick placement. 

A word if note as well if you are thinking of starting the is to plug the hole with either a bit of duct tape or cover it with a penny. 

I hope you, and they, like them. I would love to know what wonderful/quirky Christmas traditions your family have passed down, or what DIY stocking fillers you are planning to make this year.

The Velvet Acorn Knitted Hat

Are you feeling the cold as much as I am? There is a chill in the air now, and we have even had a few frosty mornings here in the UK, so its definitely time to get the hats, scarves and gloves out.

I recently purchased a PDF pattern from The Velvet Acorn on Etsy for a chunky knitted woolly hat. You should check out her shop though, there are some amazing patterns in there, not least a knitted fox cowl pattern which is incredible (I just don't think I would wear it myself, maybe I should think about it as a Christmas gift for nephew Fox) Can you think of anyone this would be suited to? Anyway, here is the hat I knitted for myself:

What do you think, did I make the pom pom big enough? 

I had to knit it in toddler size, because I have such a stupidly small head, but my guess would be the sizes are true as it was too small for Chris's head. It was a very simple knit, and pretty quick because of how chunky the wool is. The instructions on the pattern were also very straight forward and easy to follow. The pattern includes some Mitts so I may knit these up quickly at some point with the leftover wool.

Has anyone else gone straight for the knitting needles now its cold outside? I would love to hear what you have been knitting. 

Felt Garlands Inspiration

I am in love with using felt at the moment, and really want to make some garlands after not making any for the wedding. So with this in mind I have started looking at some tutorials on Pinterest, you all know you get lost in there as much as I do. I have created a board which you can take a look at below. As always these are a work in progress but I wanted to showcase some of the gorgeous work made by talented artists out there:

In doing so I came across a beauty of a quick tutorial from Betz White for a Felt 'Ogee' which is a kind of paper snowflake. Honestly, check out Betz's site she explains it much better than I can. This is a perfect showcase of how something can be so simple in concept, yet so effective, so I just had to give it a go.

The tutorial was really clear and easy to follow and it really only takes around 10 - 15 minutes. I used a glue gun instead of thread, just because I was being lazy I think, and the glue gun was at hand. I really would recommend anyone giving this one a go. 

I hope this post brings you a bit of inspiration and early festive cheer, after all T'is the Season to be Jolly.

I would like to get some feedback on the use of pinterest boards to showcase things which I hope give you inspiration as well as myself. I find it such a useful tool. Hopefully you can click straight through to the owner of the work/tutorials, so I will not be stealing information/images which are not mine. However if anyone thinks this is a particular problem do let me know.

The DIY Fox
xx

DIY Pink Ombre Jar Candle Tutorial

I have been making these pink ombre candles in jars as part of the centre pieces for my wedding and wanted to share the tutorial with you. I hope I don't end up bombarding this place with tutorials, but hey who doesn't want to know how to make stuff right? I will try and keep the text brief and the pictures easy to follow.

Supplies:

You will need: 

Candle wax (mine came from the Norfolk Candle Company)

Candle wick (this normally come as a sort of 'string' which you cut to length)

Candle wick supports (little metal discs to hold the wick down)

Clean Jars

An old glass bowl/container

An old pan

An old plastic handles spoon

Wax crayons

Optional: Candle fragrance

Put your glass dish in a pan of hot water over the stove top. Be wary not to 'boil' the water you just want it to be simmering. Add some wax to your glass container and heat until all the solid wax has melted.

Whilst the wax is melting you can prepare your wicks. Wicks come in two forms, you can either buy them pre-cut with a metal disc on the bottom which can just be put straight inside the jars. These normally come dipped in wax so are pretty stiff and so no more support is required. The other format is wick which comes as a long string. With this type you will need to cut it to length, but make sure it is about 2cm longer than the height of the jar. Add the metal disc to the bottom and attach to the bottom of the jar. You can do this by dipping it in a bit of your melting wax. Then tie a not around a cocktail stick/pencil etc and lay across the top of the jar. This helps to keep the wick straight and centred until the wax dries. 

Once the wax has fully melted you can add your colour. You can see here I have two shades of pink crayon and a white one. Break a bit of the darkest crayon off and add it to the melted wax. You can also now add a small amount of fragrance if required. I used vanilla. Stir the crayon until fully melted. You should now have pretty pink wax.

Being careful and remembering this is hot wax sitting in hot water, lift the glass container out of the water and pour a layer of wax into each jar. How much you use it up to you and it does not need to be exact. 

Repeat these stages using lighter colours of crayon each batch (you can mix some with white to get pastel shades) until you have lovely ombre candles. Each layer should have dried sufficiently to add another by the time the next batch of wax has melted. 

HAZAA! You are left with a beautiful set of ombre candles. I can't wait to show off these bad boys at my wedding, they look so pretty with the light coming through them as well. 

You can of course do this in any colour, it doesn't have to be pink. You could also go for rainbow themed, or how about black and orange for a Halloween theme? If anyone has a go at this I would love to see a link to yours, please post a comment below and let me have a look. 

Little Fox Jumper

Foxy Make number 1:

I had lots of fun making this little number for my nephew as it is his 2nd birthday in a couple of days. 

I can't take any credit for the design idea, I found the inspiration for this on pinterest and it is 100% credited to Elise Hooper Designs on Etsy. So if you want one, I would advise you head over there and purchase one of her excellent hoodies. But this was a super fun project to fill a Sunday morning whilst Chris was sleeping and feeling snotty. 

Shoes and Glitter, What more does a girl need?

So in 4 weeks I will be Mrs Fox, Exciting! I have been trying for a number of years to find the best way to publicise my crafting obsession, and have always been stumbled by the fact that I can't EVER stick to just one craft, and so specialising for me is really hard. However, one thing I have learnt about myself on the journey to crafting my wedding is why try! There are so many wonderful ideas out there, craft tutorials, pinterest boards, blog posts, everything. So the DIY Fox is born. My vision is to show you what I have been up to, with tutorials as often as possible, links to tutorials I have found this week, favourite sites, and reviews or 'try it myself' anecdotes from tutorials from all the other talented visionaries already out there. I will try to, from time to time, have a Fox related theme, but for now GLITTER!

I so want glitter shoes for my wedding, but I have been struggling to find the 'perfect' pair in the style and colour I wanted for a reasonable price. So I decided why not D.I.Y. There are so many tutorials and videos out there for how to do this, but I wanted to quickly run through mine with you. Firstly, because most of the tutorials I found were American (Modge Podge to us is just simply PVA, or School glue), and secondly to show you how pretty they are.

So here we go:

1: First you will need a pair of heels: new, old, borrowed (probably best not!) just make sure they are clean, and its probably not going to work so well on anything suede/fabric. Patent or leather are likely going to work best.

2. Gather all your supplies. You will need:

Shoes

PVA Glue (or Modge Podge if you are reading this from over the waters)

Some kind of brush or sponge

Glitter

Newspaper

(optional: tissue paper for stuffing inside the shoe to stop glitter getting inside, masking tape)

3. Using your glue and brush, cover an area of the shoe in the glue. You will likely want to work in smaller sections to make sure the glue doesn't dry out, but you can put the glue over the glitter so there will be no gaps. If there are any areas you specifically don't want to get glitter on you might want to masking tape these areas.

4. Carefully sprinkle your glitter over the area covered in glue, making sure that any spare glitter lands on the newspaper. Repeat the last two stages until you have covered the desired areas in glitter and leave to dry completely. You may find you need to tip some of the glitter from the newspaper back into a tub to re-use. This is easily done by just folding the paper in half and tipping down the crease. 

5. The final stage is to cover all the glittered areas with a clear sealer. This is a picture of the one I used which I was able to buy from the internet. It is a clear Acrylic spray which dries with a gloss finish. Spray this over all the glitter and leave shoes to dry. This will stop your glue from chipping, your glitter from getting everywhere and also helps to waterproof them. 

And finally - TA DA!!! prance around in your super glittery shoes whilst trying to find as many items around the house that you can also cover in glitter! 

I hope you enjoyed the first instalment of The DIY Fox. I hope to see you soon.