If you haven’t yet decided on a colour scheme for your Christmas decorations then you’re in luck. Over the summer I attended a couple of press previews and today I’m going to tell you a little about the products I saw at Paperchase. Next week I will be sharing some fun ideas I picked up at the Hobbycraft Christmas press show. I’m aware that as the parent of young children my attempts to even have a colour theme have so far been thwarted. They bring home their gorgeous handmade decorations from nursery and school, they help put the decorations up…
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Every month I challenge myself to make the Mollie Makes magazine cover gift. I’ve subscribed since it first came out and have a drawer full of unopened kits. The latest issue included a free calendar which was nice, but I missed my little crafty project. Luckily I picked up a copy of Prima Makes which had a cute little kit to make two festive finger puppet. Today I am bringing you Jenny Makes Prima Makes! Jenny Makes Prima Makes issue 9 Christmas 2015 The kit contained pieces of felt in light brown, light grey, white, dark brown and black. I…
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A couple of weeks ago I went on a workshop run by Jessie Chorley. She is a designer/maker with a shop and workshop on Columbia Road. I’ve visited her shop a few times and was pretty excited to discover she runs workshops too. I signed up for a Christmas workshop. On arrival I was handed a little pack of paper items from which I could make three items: Stitched and collaged Christmas cards Collaged and stitched postcard decorations to be placed in your home once complete Decorating pre cut Christmas decorations that will then hang from a string in your…
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Right now I’m sitting on my sofa surrounded by Christmas magazines and craft books. I love Christmas and am happy planning handmade gifts, home made crackers and personalised Christmas cards. This year we all have our Christmas jumpers ready and we’re even planning a little festive shoot this weekend to try out some ideas for our own cards and gift tags. Despite the rise of email and text messaging I *have* to send out Christmas cards. I try to get ours printed on recycled, sustainable paper and often find myself recycling the Christmas cards we receive. The only thing I’m…
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I love this time of year so much. I got an early start of my festive making with a sew your own Advent Calendar fabric panel from elephant in my handbag. It’s always lovely to make your own decorations and gifts (time permitting!) and I really enjoyed putting my Advent Calendar together over a couple of evenings. I chose the Winter Wonderland panel, designed by Bethan Janine for Dashwood Studio. The panel is 100% cotton and the instructions are cleverly printed at the top of the panel. Once you have the fabric panel you need to buy wadding and some…
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November means I can officially start my Christmas preparations. I’ve started writing lists and am feeling pretty on top of everything at the moment. I know there will be lots of Christmas crafting and last week we made our first Christmas craft – gingerbread play dough hearts. Have you seen the decorated gingerbread hearts hanging up in Christmas markets? They always look so pretty, decorated with coloured icing, and wrapped in pretty cellophane bags. I thought it would be fun to make our own version so today I’m sharing a tutorial for them. Read on because I’m also taking part in…
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It’s that time of week again when I write my favourite post – my Monday Happy Things! On Friday I spent the day at London Zoo as a Keeper for a Day. I had an amazing experience and helped clean out cages, prepared food, fed the giraffes and got a great look behind the scenes at ZSL. Hopefully I will have time to write a full post about my day soon. I’m a huge fan of Orla Kiely so was pleased to hear of a new collaboration with Boots. She’s created two new toiletry scents; energising orange & caraway and…
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July and August were pretty busy months with my children on their break from nursery and school so I didn’t have much free time to make many things. They are both happily back at school now though and I have had some grown up crafting time. My Monthly makes for September First up is this cool felt gingerbread house from a pattern in this years’ Mollie Makes Christmas. I was a little disappointed with the magazine as it contained a lot less patterns than last year and many of the projects were taken from the free cover gifts or previous…
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Christmas is my favourite time of year so you probably won’t be surprised to hear I’ve started planning where we’re going to be, the presents an how we’ll decorate the house. I was excited to review a copy of The New Christmas Tree: 24 Dazzling Trees and Over 100 Handcrafted Projects for an Inspired Holiday by Carrie Brown, published by Artisan Books on 6th October 2015. The New Christmas Tree by Carrie Brown is a beautiful book. I love the concept and the photography and am completely inspired for the holiday season. This Christmas, consider everyday objects from a new…