Christmas wreath from your garden

A very quick post from me to show you how you can make your own inexpensive Christmas wreath from your very own garden (or the local park if you don't have a garden).

I think I got this idea handed down to me from my mum who I always remember doing this every Christmas. Ever since having my own home I have just always done the same thing and never really thought about doing anything different. She even had to send me pictures of hers this year in order to make me get round to this! Baby has not really given me much time to think about anything for the last 10 days.

The only thing you really need to make this wreath is a wreath form of some sort. Now you can use an oasis wreath which will keep your foliage fresh, but I have always found that it stays fresh for long enough without, and if you use an oasis one you will need to replace every year. My alternative is to use this fake berry wreath which I bought many years ago. The advantage here is I don't have any berries in my garden so it adds some colour, but you can also use willow wreaths or anything else you find in the sales after Christmas which you can re-use year after year.

Now all you need to do is go out into your garden with a pair of snippers or scissors and find yourself some appropriate Christmas foliage. My personal favourites are conifer (like real Christmas trees), ivy (especially if you can get some white and green variegated) and holly, though of course be careful with the holly as it will be sharp, you may need gloves to handle. Essentially you are looking for anything that is still green at this time of year.

Once you have gathered lots of this luscious greenery bring it into the house and start to feed it into your wreath following a directional pattern. I find that this stays in without having to be tied at all as long as you push it into the form far enough. Keep going until your wreath looks lovely and full and there are no gaps.

If you have managed to find something with berries then great, if not you might want to think about tying a couple of baubles on by wrapping wire around the section which you hang on the tree and tying it to the wreath. If you wish, you can add some battery powered fairy lights to the wreath by wrapping them around. You will need to secure the battery pack to the back, but you can do this with wire, or tuck it behind the ribbon used for stringing.

Finally loop a piece of ribbon around your wreath and hang it from your door so everyone can marvel in your festive cheer. 

DIY Custom Baby Grow Series: Fabric Printing Part 2

Here's what I am sure you have all been waiting for! Part 2 of my DIY custom baby grow series where I am looking at fabric printing.

In the last post we looked at how to stamp patterns on to baby grows using mostly rubbers and shapes cut out of rubbers (the white and yellow versions above). Today I am going to show you how I made the lovely green and blue striped version.

This baby grow started life as a plain white sleepsuit as part of a supermarket multipack. I started off by dying a few of them green using a packet of dye and then printed the pattern on the top. I have been specifically instructed by Mr Fox that one of these sleepsuits has to stay plain green so he can have hulk baby (boys!).

How to make it:

You will need:

• Plain white baby grow
• Dylon fabric dye (I used the small packet as I only dyed 3 small suits but you can use the machine version if you wanted to dye more)/ 
• Fabric paint
• Masking tape
• Old clean sponge

Start off by carefully masking off areas of the onesie which you don't want to dye, you might want to mask off the neckline so you don't get dye on it by mistake. You will end up painting the area between the masking tape strips so you can make these as wide or as thin as you like. If you are using a button down onesie like me make sure you get your stripes across matching and you will need to undo it to get all the way to the edge of the button band.

Once you have done this get your sponge, dip it in your fabric paint and dab it onto the onesie between the masking tape. Make sure you get a good coverage and go all the way to the edges of the tape.

Once the paint has dried fully you can remove the strips of tape and seal the fabric paint as per the instructions on the packet. 

As you can see from the picture above I only did stripes on the front body, and a bit down the legs. I had intended to do the whole lot, if you want to do this make sure you allow the body to dry before masking the arms or turning to do the back so that you don't smudge your lovely perfect lines. I actually decided the stripes on the body were striking enough that I didn't need to do any more.

I am really pleased with this one as well. I thought while it was drying it was going to look a bit naff, but actually its really cool. I can definitely see our little boy in this.

I hope you enjoyed these two little posts on jazzing up some store bought plain baby grows. I hope you do give this a go, or that it inspires you to create some designs of your very own. Again I would love to see them so please leave me a link below, or just email me a piccie. Bear in mind as well these techniques can be applied to any item of clothing; t-shirts, pants, hats etc you name it. It would be a great rainy day activity for little kids as well. Let your creativity run wild.

100 Posts!

Wow what the hell have I been writing about! Seriously though, it seems to have come round really quickly and I need to say a massive thank you to all of you who have turned up and read my posts, even if you only drop by occasionally. Its nice to know we are not alone in this big wide internet world!

So I figured that a 100 post marker deserves a few things, firstly of course is a giveaway. Then secondly we will get on to a review of what has been going on on the blog over this last 100 posts. 

The Giveaway:
The most important bit of this post right? I am going to leave the giveaway open until Sunday 16th November to give people plenty of chance to find it and be in with a chance to win!
 
What do you get?

• 2 fat quarters of cotton fabric one of which is the gorgeous circus fabric I bought in Copenhagen to make my baby blanket which I just can't find anywhere on the internets.
• A pair of Glitter Bow Shoe Clips
• A Monster Magic hanging bunny (please note this is not CE tested and is for decoration only)
• A knitted bow ring 

All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning is to leave me a comment on this post telling me what the favourite thing that you have made this year has been. If you can link a picture or a post then even better, but its not required. I look forward to hearing what you have been up to.

So, what have I achieved in this 100 posts?:
I set out to try and make sure I made a post twice weekly. I would say that about 80% of the time I have actually managed to stick to that which is pretty good going. I am however no where near a place where I am able to put up posts in advance to save myself time and as the year has gone on, and things have gotten busier I am finding sometimes I just haven't been able to find the time to make, let alone come along and write about it. So I hope you will forgive me for that. I have however learnt that sometimes I don't need to have made anything and its much better to come along as tell you about my week or post up some inspiration if I can so here's hoping I might be able to get back on track with that.

I have however:

• Created 10 tutorials
• Made 12 outfits for myself
• Crafted more items that I can count
• and  DIY'ed my own wedding! 

Most Popular Posts:
I realise you can see this from the menu on the right but I wanted to share the top most popular posts on the site with you. Mostly because actually its not always the ones that I think will be popular that are.
1.  The DIY Ombre Jar Candle Tutorial
I made these for my wedding and they were really cute sat out on the tables. I am so pleased this is a popular post because the photographs are terrible! This might be one of those posts which is worth a revisit when I run out of inspiration.

 2. DIY Panda Balloon Tutorial
I am so pleased this one is popular. I had so much fun designing this for a friends bday party that it deserves to be a hit. It is also turning out to be one of my most pinned pins on pinterest. It just goes to show that there are some manufactures out there who are really missing a treat on selling Panda balloons.

 3. Ava Sweatheart Neckline Tutorial
Again another one I am pleased to see is popular. This neckline was such a bitch to sew so I hope this has helped a few of you out there to master it.

4. The Bridesmaids Dresses
And why not, these are some sexy ladies rocking some sexy dresses so its no wonder they are popular. Thank you to the wonderful Frock Nottingham for making my bridesmaids look so spectacular.

5. Mollie Makes Felt Fox Brooches
I have only just noticed that my spelling of brooches is a bit off in this picture...oops! I think this post owes is popularity to people trying to get a hold of the pattern instructions. Sadly as its not my pattern and I don't work for Mollie Makes its not my place to provide this, but thank you to the post for bringing lots of people over to my corner of the world.




My Favourite Make:
This is quiet a hard one to choose, but I think given the scale of it it has to be The Wedding:

I know it sort of counts as lots of things and is kind of cheating but I couldn't writing this post without mentioning the fact that since starting I crafted a wedding can I. The day was so perfect, everyone helped out to make everything so special and it was such an amazing day. I wish I could go back and do it all over again!

So in summery, thank you again for being here and here's hoping that the blog will continue to grow and improve over the next 100 posts. Good luck with the comeptiyion

A Flock of Feathery Hens!

Remember me telling you I was going to a hen do? Well do you like my sparkly feather hairpiece? Our Bride to be picked the theme 'Feathers a Corsets' for her evening out, feathers of course being a very appropriate theme for a hen do. Sadly I don't think I even noticed the pun until just now! So being as a can't wear a corset (apparently its frowned upon to squash your growing baby) I thought I should mark the occasion by making every effort to don a feathery hairpiece.

Now these are one of my current favourite things on Etsy at the moment: Feather Ear Cuffs. They are just incredible, the only problem is my favourite are the pink and orange and well they were just going to get lost in my hair.

(Excuse the terrible selfie!) 

To add to that, sadly it turns out I was quiet poor last month, or I spent too much, so I couldn't justify the pennies to buy one for myself and instead I set to trying to make something out of the things I had y'know, just lying about. Armed with a glue gun, two types of black feather, some black felt, and old hair clip and some of my favourite sparkly fabric I managed to knock this little gem up in less than half an hour. 

I started out by cutting a piece of felt and a piece of glitter fabric into a heart shape. Then using the glue gun I glue glue glued the feathers onto the felt piece and then glued the glitter piece to the top making sure the edges were all sealed. The final job was to just spot glue a clip onto the back and voila. 

I am really pleased with how it came out, its a great little fascinator and it made me feel ever so glamorous, which is hard when your pregnant and in a constant feeling of frump. I also love it when a little whimsy project comes together so well. Of course we all know it doesn't always go that way 9/10 those little spur of the moment craft projects normally end up looking like something a 5 year old made, but occasionally you can surprise yourself. 

But that is not the end of it, no. Our lovely Bride to be decided to make everyone a little feathery gift of their own to wear on the night so we could all match. Check out how gorgeous this little feather brooch is. I love the colour and its just so delicate. Simple yet perfect and a great little momento from the evening. She made some with wire and beads, some as hair pins and some as brooches. A very talented young lady she is. 

Have you ever made any feathered accessories, or would you like to tell me all about your spur of the moment successes (or failures)? Please feel free to share the love. 

Have you ever made any feathered accessories, or would you like to tell me all about your spur of the moment successes (or failures)? Please feel free to share the love.

Happy Christmas Puds for a Crafty Christmas Fair

 

The world is definitely split in two when it comes to this time of year and the Christmas stuff starts to appear in the shops. There are those that grumble and groan about it being far to early and then there are the others, like me, who start jumping up and down with excitement at the prospect. To say I LOVE Christmas is a bit of an understatement, I just find the whole countdown really exiting and I still have sleepless nights the night before because I just can't wait. I guess I'm just a big kid at heart. Having my birthday so close to Christmas though probably doesn't help, its just a whole season of celebration and now I have the birth of the little man to look forward to, who is due just just 7 days before! Bets on whether it will end up being a Christmas day baby? Who knows, we will just have to watch this space. 

For a lot of us creative types Christmas really does usually start in August when you start thinking about Christmas craft fairs, Christmas related inspiration prepared in advance etc and so I am obviously no exception to this. In addition this year we are also going to be re-running the charity craft fair we did at Easter to see if we can raise even more money for a good cause. The idea is to make handmade items out of the goodness of your heart and donate them to the fair so that others can purchase them, all funds raised going to charity. With that going on I am obviously thinking about what I can make to contribute and these little guys are perfect no? You will remember my Christmas Pudding Tutorial from last year? Well if not check it out. This is just a slight modification on that where I stitched a tiny little happy face on to the icing because we all know food should have a face!

I hope you like these little guys, and are not offended by their appearance on the blog in September! You should so have a go at making some of these yourselves with your little ones for Christmas using my tutorial I linked above.

I don't really have much to tell you about my weekend this week, we had a lovely quiet one at home for a change and I really haven't done a lot at all. I don't know why quiet weekends go so quickly, they should be slow and dull but somehow they just aren't. I also didn't do any of the jobs I intended to but I did enjoy spending time with Mr Fox so I'm not going to beat myself up about it at all. I hope you had a lovely one whatever you have been up to and I wish you a productive crafty week ahead.

Leather Bow Wristy Cuffs

Do you like what I did there? Like fisty cuffs but a lot less violent!

Continuing on the love of leather and bows which seems to be a bit of a theme going on around here I made this lovely pink leather wrist cuff out of some of the leftover leather from the bow belt, a glue gun and a couple of poppers. Its so pretty and very pink, it matches my hair perfectly. A bit of a girly take on the normal goth style leather studded bracelets of my youth!

I used this tutorial by 'Oh the lovely things' and honestly this couldn't have been an easier make, it took about 30 minutes max, and that included waiting for the glue gun to heat up. The tutorial uses regular sew on poppers but as I have a whole bunch of proper leather ones from the bow belt tutorial I figured I might as well use one of these. So if you have a spare bit of leather hanging about, or an old bag/jacket destined for the rubbish bin I urge you to give this a whirl, the tutorial is really great. 

I don't really have a lot planned for my weekend, Mr Fox is off to a stag do, so honestly I think I will just take the opportunity to sit on my ass for a little while and enjoy the quiet time. I am going to see my grandad this evening, which will be lovely as I don't see him all that often. The baby bump is growing quiet significantly but is all happy and well, then Sunday we are off to a Fox family get together which should be lovely. I hope whatever you are up to you enjoy it and have a lovely weekend.

Fit for a King (or Queen) Crown Tutorial

 

You will hopefully member my felt crown post here; well here is the long awaited tutorial and PDF so you can make your very own! 

You will need:

• Your pattern which can be downloaded here
• Some felt in main colour (yellow or grey are good crown colours but don't limit yourselves)
• Scrap felt pieces in either 3 or 5 colours
• Thread to match your main felt colour
• Interfacing
• Scissors
• Some Velcro, or poppers if preferred

Step 1. Cut out two pieces from the template on the fold using your main felt colour. You will also need to cut one piece in the interfacing.  On one of the felt pieces you will need to trace and cut out the holes, this will be the front piece and the one without the holes the back piece. Now attach the interfacing to the back piece. Be careful not to melt acrylic felt with the iron if using iron on interfacing. Sew in facing will work fine.

Step 2. Using I you scrap felt cut out 5 squares big enough to cover the holes and leave a bit of seam allowance. 

 

Step 3. Carefully top stitch around the edge of the circle on the front of the crown making sure to catch the scrap on the underside. You will now be able to see the colour of the scrap piece through the front of the crown like a little sparkling gem. 

 

Step 4. Place the front and back crown pieces together with the right sides facing out and the interfacing and scraps on the inside. Top stitch all the way around the outside of the crown piece to secure the front and back together.

Step 6. You might now find that your edges aren't totally aligned. Not a problem, just take a good pair of scissors and trim the edges so there are no uneven sides.

Step 7. Sew your Velcro to the tabs at the end with one piece on the inside and one on the outside so when they are out together you get a flush circle. I would recommend hand sewing these on so you can't see the stitches on the other side.

And that's it. Now you can give the crown to your little prince or princess who can happily play dress up. Please note that I have a tiny head and this doesn't fit on mine. If you need to make the crown a bit bigger my suggestion would be to increase the size of the end tab to 4 inches to allow for more head to go inside :) 

Thank you very much for visiting, show me pictures of your crowns when they are done. I would like to see the different colour combinations people go for. 

Post Wedding Round Up: Everything Else

I have been meaning to put up some more pictures from the wedding for some time now to cover all the little details that I haven't covered already. I really want to be able to make a little gallery for 'Our Handmade Wedding' page above (where you can find all the other blog posts as well) and it seems a bit silly to do this without talking you through it first. All images taken by our wonderful photographer Ed Godden

We got married in a real ale pub in Derbyshire which is an old listed coach house called The Bear Inn at Alderwasley. One of the things we felt was important on our day was to make sure us and our guests felt relaxed all day and not standing on ceremony. A pub was the perfect choice, I mean I feel right at home in the pub! It was also a real ale pub and because most of our friends and family are beer drinkers this was much better than being somewhere where everyone has to drink wine or choose from a limited selection of generic beer on offer. The staff were amazing, they were so helpful and tentative, and the work they did setting everything out and making sure we didn't have to think about it was incredible.

The room which we used for the ceremony was a small function room with its own bar. It is painted white and has lovely atmospheric dark beams. The venue very kindly supplied their own bunting which I am very happy about, I think I would have gone insane making all this up myself!

We did however make the large tissue paper poms. There are loads of tutorials on the net for these so you can go google it :). My Godmothers other half even made the pink and blue one a couple of pictures above. He was very proud of himself and I think he showed it to everyone he spoke to!

95% of the reason why I picked this venue was the chairs (right now you are probably thinking I'm a bit insane!). I really didn't want those sash covered plastic chairs, its just not us. Now wood, that's more like it, I love these chairs. My mum very kindly, and painstakingly, made 50 hanging hearts which we hung off the ends of the chairs whilst we walked down the isle. I love the finished look of these. Not one person left me with a leopard print one though, and I go to other peoples houses and see them hanging there and can't help but grumble in my head a bit :) It's fine though, I am glad people liked them so much that they wanted to take them away.

Me and mum grew all the flowers ourselves in my garden and in the allotment. Not all of them worked but we ended up with masses of white and various shades of pink cosmos so it looked beautiful. My mum admitted to me the day before the wedding that she thought I was crazy suggesting that we grow flowers which would still be in bloom at the end of October. HA! looky what we achieved, Win!

I couldn't do this post without showing you my hair. I had this crazy idea I wanted to make my hair into a bow at the back after seeing someone else do it at a friends wedding. I really didn't think my hair would be long enough to make this work but the hairdresser Holly did and incredible job. She even spent the night before painting bobby pins pink with nail polish so you couldn't see them! How incredible is that!

We made all the decorations for the tables (thought you can't see them all that well). There were felt hearts and plush numbers. The ombre candles, hundreds of paper stars, more flowers, flag place holders held in Ferrero Rocher, pom pom napkin rings and little chocolate hearts. I knew that making all this stuff was a huge undertaking, but I never ever imagined it would look as incredible as it all did.

So I will leave you with a small selection of images, but remember if you want to have a look at more than this you can see them all on our Photographers website: www.edgodden.co.uk

 

So why knit a jumper, or make anything else yourself for that matter?

I'm not going to lie to you, the wool alone for the jumper I am knitting cost me in excess of £50! I know it's ludicrous right. Thankfully I justified this as a Christmas crafty treat to myself, but it's certainly not something which I could afford to do on a regular basis.

It's not just this project, but a lot of the wool companies out there charge quiet a bit for a ball of wool. This is usually a result of the wool content used, where you will generally find that you pay more the higher % pure wool the ball contains. You can usually get a cheaper alternative wool, something which contains a higher acrylic %, or if you are savvy you can sometimes find a bargain on discontinued colours, or the last of a certain dye lot. It is worth doing some research on alternative options if money is an issue for you. 

Then you need to take into consideration the (wo)man hours which have to be put into a knitting project, and not to mention the sweat and tears when you make a mistake and have to undo a chunk of your hard work. 

The same can be said for a lot of projects. Things which people used to make by hand because it was cheaper, has very much switched itself on the head. I think the biggest reason for this is how 'throwaway' fashion and clothing has become. You can buy clothing for next to nothing these days, and as trends are moving on so quickly it seems to be catching on as people can move from one fashion to the next at little cost. I wonder however, what the real economical and ethical cost of this is. 

Lets start with the cons of handmade, and try to end on a positive note shall we

Cons:

• Cost - often higher than the highstreet for materials (but not always)
• Time 
• Mistakes - lets face it, sometimes things don't quiet work out as planned
• Skill - not all of us are good at everything, and you might need to learn a new skill

Pros: 

• Style - usually only limited by your imagination/ability
• Self satisfaction
• Quality - usually much higher when handmade 
• Ethos - often using locally sourced materials or patterns from independent retails, and not shipped half way across the globe
• OOAK - finished result is one of a kind and completely unique to you
• Gifts - are far more personal if hand made

So I think that whilst there are some obvious and quiet significant cons, the pros are far more positive and far out way the cons. I personally don't think I will ever go off the idea of making something for myself where I can, just because I love the sense of achievement I get from it. If you are not someone who is creative yourself there is always those talented crafters out there who sell their wonderful high quality products online for your delight. 

Christmas Pudding Decoration Tutorial

Today I am going to show you how to make your own awesome Christmas Pudding tree decoration.

I came up with this design for a little stuffed pudding a couple of years ago when making stuff for my Monster Magic stalls at Christmas. Its very quick and easy to make and looks lovely when all finished up on your tree. Its a great little project to make as its quick so you could have a whole ton of these made up in time for that special day.

You will need:

Brown Fabric (anything will do, I used Fleece)
White Felt
Sewing Machine and or Sewing Needle and thread
Stuffing
Pins
Paper
Skissors
Pen/Pencil
Small piece of ribbon
Green Felt
1 Button (preferable red, pink, orange or purple)

Step 1:

Using an upside down mug or glass draw round the edge on to a piece of paper, make two circles this way. Once you have your two circles draw a wiggly line across the center of one circle, as above (this is to look like icing/cream/brandy sauce yum!). Cut out the full circle and the top half of the wiggly line semi-circle.

Step 2:

Get yourself some brown fabric (I used fleece but you can use whatever fabric you have lying around) and some white felt. You can use brown felt for the main body, but I find that it doesn't have much give in it to make a nice plump pudding. Fold both fabrics in half, pin the full circle to the brown and cut round it. Pin the half circle on to the white felt and cut out. You should end up with two brown pieces and two white pieces.

Step 3:

Pin one of the white piece on to the right side of the brown fabric (good side of the fabric facing outwards) and top stitch along the wavy line. Do the same on the other piece of fabric.

Step 4:

Fold your small piece of ribbon in half and pin it onto the front of one of your circles, try to get it as central as possible. You want to try and have the raw ends poking a bit over the edge of the circle as above to be sure that you are going to catch with with the seam. Be careful where you place the pin as you are going to be sewing around it. 

You then want to put your two circles on top of each other, with right sides facing each other. Make sure that you line up the white sections as neatly as possible. 

Step 5:

Pin all the way around the circle, but you are going to need to make sure that you leave a gap for turning the seam the right way out. I like to mark this section with two pins so I know where to start and stop. You also need to make sure that the ribbon is not going to get caught in the seam. The best way to do this is by making sure it sits inbetween these two pins. You can see mine just poking out above.

Step 6:

Machine stitch (you can hand sew it) around the edge of the circle. It is a good idea to do some back stitching over the ribbon to make sure it is secure. Once you have done trim and snip along the seam so you get a nice circle.

Step 7:

Turn your pudding the right way out and stuff with soft toy stuffing. If you don't have any stuffing you can just use some old fabric scraps. 

Step 8:

Hand sew the opening closed using ladder stitch (here is a YouTube video) You should use matching thread but I was fighting sunset so I am using the wrong thread for speed!

Step 9:

Finally, cut two tiny holly shapes out of green felt and hand stitch these on to the top of your pudding along with a shiny red button. 

Voila! you have yourself an awesome looking Christmas pudding to hang on your tree. You could make these for your tree or as last minute stocking fillers for your friends. Its a great little project which is really quick, and you could have a go with your kids, either learning to use a sewing machine, or if they are a bit younger helping to pick out the buttons.

If you make one of these up I would love to see it.

Its my birthday tomorrow so I am not going to be wishing you Merry Christmas just yet. I have been baking my little socks off since finishing work for Christmas on Friday in preparation for some family and friends coming over. I made my first ever Christmas cake, many batches of mince pies (using my Aunties home made mincemeat! Yum!), and I have some dough rising for pitta's and bread sticks. I hope tomorrow brings me lots of lovely crafty things to share with you all.