Christmas eve (final gift rapping)

If you're anything like me you always leave rapping until the very last minute. I have done that again this year :)  and so while I was at it wanted to wish you all a very merry Christmas. And finally I will leave you with a Christmas duck.

 Once again I hope you have a very merry Christmas!

Count down to christmas (week 3)- Really last minute pressents

If you still haven't got a present yet (then you've left it very late this year :) ) but still want to make something personal for your friend, family member or anyone who you want to give a gift to, then I have the perfect video for you, which I found on YouTube!

I thought this may be useful for you, even though some of the ideas are not as crafty as I usually do for Christmas as I believe they are very easy to do as last minute gifts.

I hope this has inspired you!

Count down to christmas (week 2)- Pot of Love

This one is a very simple but time consuming present all you need is:

• Paper
• Jam jar
• Ribbon
• Scrap piece of square fabric

How to make your pot of love:

1. First write 52 (one for every week of the year) loving, inspiring or just simply nice and cute  massages on your paper and cut them up.
2. Now fold your messages in your jam jar.
3. Next screw on the lid and place your piece of fabric on the top of the jam jar.
4. Finally secure your fabric in place by tying the ribbon around the bottom of the lid. 

I hope this has inspired you!

Count down to christmas (week 1)- home made soap

There's nothing more personal than giving a home made item. My first home made item of my christmas pressies is soap. You may remember that I blogged about making my first ever bar of soap here. I made them using this video tutorial.

From there I started to come up with designs as shown bellow. These are great as a centre piece of a present or as a present on it's own. However I should warn you that it takes 3-4 weeks to be ready for giving, so if you want to make them as pressies get making now!

 I hope this has inspired you!

Count down to christmas

Hello fellow crafters, it's that time again... IT'S CHRISTMAS! Well almost. over the next four blog post I'll share with you what I'm making for my friends as presents. My hope is to give you some last minute ideas before Christmas, so stay tuned.

Elf shorts

A while ago for my school textile project I had to make a pair of pyjama bottoms. I made mine for my little sister. I used a thin green and whit polka dot cotton material and lined the hem with red ribbon, as I finished quicker than expected. My final decoration was the green and red bows.
Once I had finished my classmate commented that they looked like elf shorts, which was kind of cute as I finished them a couple of weeks before Christmas.

This was also the first project I had done using an over locker.

Sadly these shorts no longer fir my sister but I'm keeping them anyway because of the memories they hold and how cute they are.

I hope this has inspired you!

A sewing holiday!

A couple of weeks ago I went on holiday with my extended family to what can only be described as the middle of no where. We stayed on a very large farm meaning there was lots to do... when it came to walking! Don't get me wrong I enjoy walking but I can't do it 7 days in a row. So for some entertainment I decided to take my sewing machine with me.

This was a first for me but it got me wondering do you ever take your sewing machine with you on holiday or have you ever sewn in a bizarre place? Please leave a comment bellow :)

I hope this has inspired you!

september high waisted denim skirt

It's sad to say but autum will be here soon (as you can tell I adore summer, from my other post, and all it's bright colours) but it's not all doom and gloom because autum brings its own set of colours and gives me an opportunity to work with darker more subtle colours.

This can best be seen in the skirt bellow. I got the top half of this skirt (the orange bit) pattern from a pattern online, which sadly I can't find at the moment but if I find it again I will update this post.

The bottom part of this skirt was improvised making sure that I calculated in space from the widest part of my hips and added in seam allowence. The final result is a simple but autumery skirt that can be teamed with many diffrent styles.

 P.S. I'm so sorry that I haven't been blogging regularly because things are a bit hectic at the moment but as soon as they calm down I will hopefully be able to blog more regularly. 

I hope this has inspired you!

My first ever bars of soap

Hello again my fellow crafters! Recently I say a heap of videos on YouTube on how to make soap. I assumed for these videos that you could use ordinary shop bought bars of soap as many of the didn't explain that you required special craft soap, know as melt an pour. So silly me went and put a shop bought bar of soap in the microwave, BIG mistake. Anyway 1 melted measuring jug and two bars of soap later, I finally made my first ever bar of soap. Yay!

 The method that I used is called the cold process, although it takes a lot longer than the melt and pour method I think it is a much safer. It also makes 1 bar of soap into many more bars (I got 4 homemade bars out of 1 shop bought bar). I followed the YouTube video bellow. be warned this process takes 4 weeks to be ready.

Using this process you can also up-cycle some of your old bars of soap and if you package them up nicely you could also give them as gifts. What can say "I really thought about this gift" than something homemade? If you want ideas on how to package your soap to make it look more professional then I suggest using the method shown bellow as that is what I did for one of my bars of soap (although I did that stage after I had taken the photo) after I had raped it in Clingfilm and then raped it in tissue paper. I found that that method of rapping soap turned out the best.  

 

I hope this has inspired you!

Mans shirt to cute skirt

FREE PATTERN
There will always be room in fashion for cute skirts and what's better than having the satisfaction of saying you made one yourself. Well here's a quick (30 minutes) skirt that you can make from an old mans shirt. I made my skirt out of an old stripy shirt of my Dads.

You will need:

• An old, mans, shirt (the larger the shirt the more volume there will be in your skirt)
• a sewing machine (although this can be done by hand if you are ok with sewing with jersey)
• plain black, or any colour that matches that of your shirt, jersey.
• thread that matches your skirts base colour.

Instructions:

1. First cut the shirt to just bellow the arms
2. Then sew down the button fastenings so that the skirt won't be able to be opened by the buttons.
3. Next measure your hips (or waist depending on where you want the skirt to sit) and cut out a length of jersey material that is your hip measurement in width and is about 11cm (4 inches) in height.
4. Finally attach your strip of jersey to your skirt/ cut up shirt. This yoga styled waist band is better explained in my active skirt pattern.

I hope this has inspired you!

Simple Crochet hook holder

Some of you may know that recently I've been getting into crocheting (since my mum taught me back in November). And once I got some more hooks I realised that I needed some where to hold them so I made a hook holder from left over denim, which I have from making these.

So here's how I made it:

You will need:

• 2 larger rectangles
• 1 smaller rectangle
• some left over wool
• matching thread
• sewing machine

Instructions

• First sew the 2 larger rectangles together, right sides facing. Leave a gap to turn them inside out.
• Next turn them inside out.
• Now get your smaller rectangle, turn over all the raw edges and sew down three of the four edges. The edge that you have not sewn down is the top of your holder.
• Now sew (leaving a space large enough to fit your crochet hooks) from the top of your smaller rectangle to the bottom. Sew four lines from top to bottom that are evenly spaced out along your smaller rectangle, to create the individual holders as shown bellow.

• Now roll up your holder and sew on the button equal to where your gap is.
• Then get your wool and chain as many as you need to reach your button.
• Finally fold your chain in half and place the beginning an end parts of your chain inside the gap, you used to turn the rectangles inside out, and sew it down.
• Now you should have you hook holder.

you could jazz it up with cross stitch designs, applique or a crocheted border.

Quick ribbon headband

 You know those days when you really want to sew something but just don't have the time or patience to make something a little more complicated? Well for me today was one of those days. I had some cheap ribbon strips (which where only 17p) and some left over elastic from my high-low skirt. This was my solution a bow headband.

To start with I folded over the first strap of ribbon meaning that I had two layers and attached them to a small length of elastic, as shown bellow.

To finish I simply tied a bow and sewed it in place on the head band. Quick and simple!

I hope this has inspired you!

summer bunting

Every summer party, whether a gathering or a barbeque, is made complete with some funky, bright bunting, well it is in my mind. :) So I thought I'd share with you my summer party decorations.

I made this cute pink bunting last year in spring from 2 similar materials (although you could use more). I know the triangular shaped bunting is a lot more iconic but I find semi- circle bunting a lot more unique and in many ways a lot easier to make.

To make this I sewed two semi-circles, which were 28cm (11") in diameter, together. I made quite a few of them and then attached them onto the pink and white ribbon. Simple and quick.

This bunting is brilliant for summer party decorations, as I said before, but also for bedroom decorations and as a small gift (I gave one like this to a my old English teacher as a "thank you for teaching me" present).

I hope this has inspired you!

Hogwarts acceptance letter

My little sister has been a massive harry potter fan since she picked up the first book off my self two years ago. Whilst aimlessly searching the internet I came across this blog post about how to make Hogwarts acceptance letters and with my sisters 11th birthday being this year, it was the perfect little gift.

I made my sisters letter using tea bagged paper which I just placed in the printer as I printed off the letter. I also included a platform 9 and 3/4 ticket as a way to get to Hogwarts.

I know the seal is a bit big but I had proportion issues whilst printing it off. Oh well, it's the thought that counts right?

I hope this has inspired you!

I Know it's not sewing related but I had to share this with you because it's such a great gift idea for Harry Potter fans.

High-low skirt tutorial

I first saw these skirts in South Korea, whilst on holiday. Once home I couldn't find any I liked the look of so I decided to make my own. I took pictures along the way to show you how I made it.

• I started out with a dress that was a few sizes to large for me.

• From here I cut off the top of the dress (the part where the arm holes finished).

• Next I folded over the top of the skirt to make a waist band to insert elastic. For my elastic I measure around the part of my hips I wanted the skirt to sit and cut off that length of elastic. I didn't add any seam allowance, so as to make the elastic stretch when I'm wearing the skirt. This gives it a nice fit.

• Once the elastic was inserted I pinned on an s shaped line and cut along it. ( Just a little tip, the pins can then be moved until you have the shape you want before taking the scissors to your garment)

• Then simply hem and your high low skirt is completed.

This skirt is great for both formal occasions and informal occasions.

I hope this has inspired you!

Our modest swimming dresses!

It finally feels like summer. Yay! So my sister and I where able to wear the swimming costumes I made for us back in early spring. The basic pattern is one that I made myself but I adapted it and added in extra detail to make them look a bit more interesting and different. It was hard to work out how wide our skirts need to  allow for movement but also for them not to be to clingy when wet. In the end I got the balance right and the end results can be seen bellow.

(if you're wondering what's going on in this picture, my sister and I came up with this crazy invention, involving a skipping rope, because we don't have any slopes in our back garden and so for the water slide to work we pulled each other along with a skipping rope)

For my dress I added a little black belt, for the waist, and embellished it with a little blue flower. I felt that the material was already very bold and so didn't require any more decoration.

For my sisters costume I used a pale purple, which gave me loads of options when it came to decorating it. I used a pink pokadot material for the sash, which was sewn on when attaching the upper half to the lower half, and I used the same material for the slits at the side, to allow movement.

We both wore our black swimming costumes beneath, as I didn't make any matching bikini to go underneath the dresses. It also created an extra bit of security in case the materials became see through when wet; luckily neither did.

(As you may have noticed I don't put my face or my sisters face on the internet, hence the hearts)

I hope this inspired you!

Grey v-neck top

I had a completely free day last Thursday and so made this figure hugging grey V-neck top.

To make it I basically free styled, using my pale blue tank top as a guide for the back and front parts of the main top but for the front I copied the V-neck off one of my T-shirts. The first part was simple but the arms where more complicated. I used a pattern from my stash but it didn't quick fit so I had to adjust the pattern and for the length I pull out yet another top and used that as a guide. The sleeves are longer but I prefer rolling them up. Finally I didn't hem the garment as it was jersey and so wouldn't fray.

Making a top like this is great if like me you struggle finding clothes that fit (because the fashion industry doesn't think you can be tall and thin). This method allows you to adjust the top to be a blend of your favourite tops, so as to make it exactly right for you.

I hope this has inspired you!

comfy evening skirt

I may have mentioned before that I went with my family to South Korea but what I didn't mention is that Gwangjang market by day is a sewers heaven. I could have quite easily spent an entire day there but knew that it wouldn't be fair on my family if I did. While there I found a beautiful red fabric with black flowers on which I knew would be brilliant for a dramatic piece of clothing. When we returned home I searched the internet for an idea for what I could do with the material. I eventually decided to make a maxi evening skirt. My inspiration came from this post on my favourite sewing blog.

To create this skirt I basically followed what the original blog post suggested and used this pattern, which I had already from making this skirt, and the bottom half of my maxi dress.

I love the denim skirt pattern because it allows you to make custom fitting skirts. Also this proves that it can be used to make other styles of skirts.

Finally I added a yoga style waist band, hemmed the skirt and I was done. Unlike other evening skirts this one is super comfy due to it being made from jersey.

I hope this has inspired you!

Shout out to Dan! (You know why)

Gnome Hat

For sports day at school we had a form mascot competition. My Form decided on a Gnome theme, so that evening I set about making this "high fashion" hat. I basically crocheted a semi-circle, folded it in half and sewed down the straight side.

The rest of my team where amazing at looking around their homes for possible gnome related clothing, which all helped us to win the competition. The end result can be seen below.

Marissa did an amazing job of being our form gnome and Amy, Bronnen, Holly, Lucy and Nicole did a great job in persuading the allotment club to let us "borrow" their wheelbarrow. You can't see it in the photo but our form tutor also made a last minute contribution in the form of a makeshift fishing rod. 

I hope this has inspired you!