How To: DIY Advent Calendar With a Twist!

Please note: this is an advertorial and I received a fee to create a Christmas craft idea for www.tescoliving.com

The lovely people at Tesco Living got in touch a few weeks ago with a fun challenge: could I come up with a twist on their 25 Days of Handmade Christmas advent calendar tutorial?

I do love a crafty challenge!

The original project is a tutorial for making a DIY advent calendar from mini envelopes, mini pegs and a large embroidery hoop - click here for the step-by-step how to. Nice, huh?

 

And here are the materials I used for making my version - including my all time fave craft material: felt (of course!).

 

Wanna see how my advent calendar turned out?

Click here to see my twist on this DIY advent calendar project :)

How To: Simple Stripy Scrap Cards

A couple of years ago I'd been thinking about making paper flowers for my sister's wedding. She ended up going in a different direction with her decor, so the crepe paper colour swatch I'd bought went in a drawer and sat there unused... until now!

I have no plans to order more crepe paper any time soon, so when I re-discovered the swatch this week I decided to chop up the samples and use them to make some colourful, stripy cards:

Aren't those colours just gorgeous? Ah, bright colour makes me so happy.

The texture of the crepe paper is also rather wonderful.

Making your own striped cards is a quick and easy crafty project, and a great way to make use of any delicious scraps of colour in your paper stash.

Okay so you probably won't have a crepe paper colour swatch sitting in a drawer, like I did, but if your crafty stash is anything like mine you've probably got lots of colourful paper scraps which you've kept because they're too nice to just throw away.

To make the cards: 

Cut your scraps to an even width (mine are about 5.5 cm across), then cut them into sections of differing heights (I cut mine between 1-3 cm). I used a pencil and a ruler to make sure all my rectangles were straight and neat, drawing the lines on the back of the paper.

Arrange the scraps on white card blanks, with a mix of colours and sizes.

I made some tall stripy cards...

.... a stripy postcard...

... and some mini stripy cards to send with my parcels (using up some scrap bits of white card in the process, hurrah!). Add a hole and a piece of coordinating twine and these would make great gift tags.

Once you're happy with the arrangement of your scraps, stick them in place with double-sided sticky tape or a glue stick. I used tape to stick mine, it's less messy than using glue and I was also worried that pressing the glue stick along the flexible crepe paper would stretch and distort it. Whatever method you chose, line up your rectangles neatly and press them down firmly.

On the mini cards, I cut the cards to be slightly narrower than the paper scraps (5 cm wide) so the paper went up to and over the edges. If you like this look, once you've stuck the paper in place turn the cards over and trim the excess paper with scissors for a lovely neat finish.

So simple, so stripy, so good.

I can't wait to send these little stripy bursts of colour!
 
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Getting a Crafty Tattoo (the Easy Way!)

I got a crafty tattoo!

Well, sort of.

The lovely Genevieve from Floss & Mischief sent me a pack of her new sewing-themed temporary tattoos to try. They're so much fun!

I'd not used a temporary tattoo since I was a kid (I vaguely remember getting a free one in a cereal packet?) and had completely forgotten how magical they are.

They're really easy to apply - though you do need to actually follow the instructions and not be an idiot (like me) and forget to peel off the plastic backing (oops!). I applied a selection of designs to my wrists and they looked perfect for a couple of days, and still fun for a couple of days after that, and then they scrubbed off easily in the shower.

It was rather fun pretending to be cool enough (and brave enough) to have real craft-themed tattoos. I got lots of "I love your tattoos!" comments at Renegade... though I'm sure everyone thought I was a lot less cool after I excitedly blurted out "They're temporary tattoos! Aren't they awesome??!"

They do look pretty darn awesome. Here are more of the designs, as modelled by Genevieve:

I'll be saving up the rest of the designs in the pack for the next time I have a crafty day out (it seems a shame to waste them on trips to the Post Office and the supermarket, or on days spent at my laptop) but I think this might be the start of a new addiction. I will definitely be treating myself to another pack or two when I've used up this one!

Disclosure: I was sent my Floss & Mischief temporary tattoos as a gift, but I'm blogging about them because they are genuinely awesome and put a huge grin on my face :)

#Crafting365 Days 49-55: Autumn Colour & Lots of Glitter

The past week or so of my #Crafting365 project has mostly involved snatching small bits of creative, crafty time between work tasks and other things on my To Do list. I'm half sad that I've just been crafting in these little snippets, and half happy that my #Crafting365 challenge made me focus and actually use that time to make stuff instead of just letting it slip away.

I must try and schedule some proper making days this month!

On day 49 I used the felt leaves I'd cut out the day before to make an autumnal branch. I'm not 100% sure this works (it maybe looks like the branch is on fire??) but I quite like it, and it was a very fun make. Three of these displayed in a vase would look awesome!

I'd actually painted this branch aaaaages ago - I painted a few twigs when working on this bird mobile, as featured in docrafts Creativity magazine, then chose my favourites to use as the base for the mobile. It seemed a shame to just throw away the leftover branch, so I kept it... waiting for just the right project to come along.

If you want to make your own autumnal branch, it's very easy. Collect a fallen branch/twig and (if needed) let it dry. Paint it white (I used two coats of white acrylic paint from docrafts' Artiste range). Cut out a selection of leaves in autumnal colours - I used felt but you could use coloured paper or card instead. Then when the paint has completely dried, use a glue gun to attach the leaves to the branch.

Day 50 was a very busy deadline day, so I just did some a bit of colouring in to help me relax and wind down in the evening. Have you caught the colouring in bug yet? I am well and truly hooked, and delighted that there are so many great "adult" colouring books to choose from these days.

Day 52 involved lots of glitter! I needed sparkly silver baubles but couldn't find them in the size I wanted, so I used some glue and lots and lots of glitter to turn plain white baubles into super sparkly ones. Messy but lots of fun!

I also did some more simple knitting in the evening, which was also my craft of choice the evening of day 52. Knitting these simple garter stitch squares is such a great way to switch off my brain after a hectic day of rushing around ticking things off To Do lists.

I couldn't resist taking a snap of my knitting with some leaves in the background. Such yummy autumn colours!

The knitting continued on day 53...

I finished the orange squares and started knitting with the next colour: yellow. My mum was slightly concerned that I had started a crazily bright orange blanket (she is not a fan of orange) but I explained that these squares are just for the orange and yellow section of my happy rainbow blanket. With just a few colours still to add, I am getting quite excited about seeing this blanket come together!

The next day (Saturday) was supposed to be day 54 of my #Crafting365 project, but I took a Nice Day Out and went to Bath and spent a long and lovely day exploring the city, visiting lots of museums and exhibitions and generally enjoying the glorious autumn sunshine... then when I got home I just crashed on the sofa and forgot to do any crafting! Oops.

One of the exhibitions I visited - Nahoki Kojima's amazing Honey Bee paper cut sculpture, at the Holburne Museum - was kind of crafty? But that really doesn't count, does it?

So, instead, I am counting Sunday's craftiness as day 54. I've skipped two days of this daily project in about 50 days, which isn't too bad, right??

On Sunday I took a break from all that knitting and added the final rows of squares to my Christmas Quilt (I'm making this as a gift for my sister - you can read all about it here). 

I'd hoped to get them all stitched by the end of the evening, but with a few inches left to sew I started getting tired and thought I'd better put the project down before I stitched the wrong thing or stabbed myself with a needle! Just a few more stitches then I can start on the actual quilting! (exciting!! scary!!!)

Then I was back on my knitting obsession on day 55, but not loving knitting with the yellow yarn as much as the orange. So, I decided to mix things up a bit and alternate between knitting squares in three of the remaining colours: green, pink and yellow. These shades look so great together - so bright and zingy, like yummy boiled sweets (hard candies).

P.S. Here's a bonus photo from last week: a smart-looking pencil I was using in some step-by-step tutorial photos, with the actual (short, scruffy) pencil I'd actually used to make the project :)

#Crafting365 Days 36-48: The Joys of Embroidery, and of Orange

Time for another #Crafting365 catch up! Time flies when you're having lots of crafty fun...

On day 36, I cut my hair. I'm not sure if DIY haircuts really count as a creative task, but I am counting this one anyway! A bit messy, but not too bad and my hair has been looooooong for ages, it's a nice change to have it shorter again.

Day 37 was all about embroidery. You know that feeling when all of a sudden you just have to work on a particular project RIGHT NOW? I just could not resist the urge to work on some embroidery... so I sketched a whole bunch of new patterns and started stitching up this one which has been on my To Stitch list for, like, ever.

On day 38 I dug some pretty fabric out of my stash to plan something new. I adore these colours together.

The embroidery obsession continued on day 39. I thought I didn't have the right sized hoop to stitch up the patterns I'd sketched earlier (I think I used to own the size I needed but used the hoop to make a mobile? and then forgot to buy a new hoop to replace the one I'd cannibalized for my project? That seems like something I would do, anyway) ... but it turned out I had a bigger hoop that worked okay, hurrah hurrah.

On day 40 I started a new shade of yarn for my happy rainbow blanket: a lovely zingy orange. I am loving orange at the moment, and was actually wearing my orange cardigan (pictured at the top of the post) while knitting these squares :)

The orange-square-knitting continued slowly over the next few days, but I squeezed in some other crafty things too. I spent the afternoon of day 41 sticking lots of things into my "things that are too beautiful or interesting to throw away" scrapbooks. It's been such an age since I've added to my scrapbooks, I used up a whole glue stick adding all the new clippings!

Then on day 42 I was doing some filing and rediscovered a vintage pattern that had been "lost" for ages (because I'd put it in my filing pile along with accounts paperwork, etc, instead of a place where you'd think to look for an embroidery pattern - oops!). I'm delighted to have found this again and am really looking forward to stitching it. The pattern is designed for tapestry wools, but I'm probably just going to stitch it up with standard embroidery thread/floss. I'm also quite tempted to adapt the pattern to make a felt applique of some kind? Decisions, decisions.

By day 43, I was building up a nice pile of the orange blanket squares...

... and was finishing up the orange yarn on day 44. I'm knitting large garter stitch squares from each ball of yarn, and using the leftovers to knit mini moss stitch squares for my random patchwork blanket. Sticking with my orange obsession, my next chosen colour = a bright satsuma orange. So cheerful!

Day 45 saw more blanket square knitting, and more embroidery. My handwriting can be a little illegible at times, even when I write "neatly". My mum thought this pattern said "Poe the PEST..." and, well, she has a point, doesn't she? (It actually reads Be the BEST version of YOU). Terrible handwriting aside, I do love stitching handwritten text - though it does involve lots of teeny stitches to get round all those curves.

I finished my trio of embroidered designs on day 46 (I'll blog about the finished pieces soon, I promise!). The fabric I'm stitching on is so pale, I've taken care to keep the back of my work neat and to not carry any threads between sections.

 

I was feeling a bit sleepy on day 47 so I opted for something super simple: adding some more blocks of stitching to my scrappy cross stitch project.

When I do some cross stitch or embroidery and end up with a bit of thread/floss left over that's too short to really be worth keeping but long enough that it could be used to stitch a few stitches, I set it aside. Then when I've collected a few threads I use them to add some more blocks of colour to my patchwork project. I am so pleased with how this is turning out, and I adore how it's growing organically over time depending on the other makes I've been working on and what threads happened to be left over.

Then yesterday (day 48) I was gripped by the sudden urge to make something leafy and autumnal, so I grabbed some felt and got snipping! Fingers crossed this turns out how I'm picturing it in my head...

#Crafting365 Days 13-15: Flowers, Squares & One of my Favourite Stitches

Work-wise, the past few days have not been very exciting. I had a couple of days off thanks to a bug that's been doing the rounds, then spent yesterday mostly doing boring computer things which, frankly, are much too boring to blog about!

Thank goodness for #Crafting365!

While I was curled up on the sofa under a blanket, taking it easy, I had lots of time to (slowly, sleepily) work on my floral cushion. It's a big cushion, and there are lots of felt flowers to sew on... and lots and lots of stitching to do to make that happen!

For #Crafting365 day 13, I took a photo of the colourful threads I've been using to stitch the flowers:

 

Sewing loads of flowers was the perfect project for my half-asleep weekend: nice and simple stitching, no real decisions to make (just picking the next flower to sew), and lots of happy colour to cheer me up while I was feeling a bit ugh (v technical medical term that, "a bit ugh").

It was slightly surreal at times though as I was binge-watching Hannibal as I stitched, which is excellent telly but pretty darn gruesome! Sitting sewing a pretty project covered with flowers while watching something so dark and filled with blood and gore = very strange. It may have been a bit of an odd combination but it kept me very well entertained!

By the end of day 14, this is how the cushion was looking:

Lots of colour, but still lots of space to fill.

Someone asked in the comments of my last post what stitch I was using to stitch the felt shapes. I'm hand stitching them, using whip stitch. Whip stitch is my favourite stitch for sewing felt shapes to a background, it's so easy (though it's a bit more fiddly when you have to reach inside a cushion like I am for this project, instead of just sewing a shape to a flat piece of felt or fabric).

Wendi from Shiny Happy World has a fantastic video tutorial for using whip stitch to applique felt shapes - click here to watch it.

In her video Wendi uses two strands of embroidery thread (floss) but I'm sewing my shapes using sewing thread. She also sews from the outside of the shape in, while I sew from the inside out, but the basic technique is the same.

At the weekend, I also finished this teeny bit of lime-on-neon-pink embroidery (started on day 12).

I was a bit nervous tearing away the tissue paper to see how the stitching had turned out. Stitching through tissue paper is a great way to stitch from a pattern onto felt but the paper can obscure exactly where you're stitching, so removing the paper can be a bit nerve-wracking! Luckily this time my stitching turned out okay (hurrah!).

The neon pink felt continues to be a total pain to photograph, but you can see a photo of how the stitching turned out here. Please note: the quote I stitched includes the F word. It's a bit ironic that I'm worried about offending people by sharing a photo of a quote about not caring what people think, but I know that cursing is not everyone's cup of tea and it's not something I normally include in my blog so I thought it was best to give you guys a heads up :)

(Impossible to photograph neon felt and a curse word you're worried about putting on your blog? What an excellent choice of project to share online, Laura, you really thought that one through! Haha.)

Anyway... the embroidered quote is going to become a little felt bracelet, once I've worked out exactly how I want to put that together. I enjoyed stitching this so much I'm now thinking of some other (less swear-y! non-neon!) things I could embroider. Hmm...

In the meantime, yesterday (day 15) I did some knitting while working on lots of boring-but-necessary computer stuff. There was lots of hanging around as things installed and loaded and saved and transferred and so on, so being able to pick up my knitting and knit a row or two here and there throughout the day saved me from some intense computer-related boredom.

I'm continuing to (slowly) re-knit a whole bunch of squares which I (foolishly) knitted at the wrong size earlier. Seven squares re-knitted, sixteen still to go! Woohoo!

P.S. Like making cute stuff? Mollie at Wild Olive is running a fab series where lots of different makers/designers are sharing their tips adding cuteness to your designs. I was delighted when Mollie asked me to contribute a tip to the series! You can read my tip here and you'll find the whole series here.  

Show & Tell #14

One of the best bits of my job is seeing what people have been making from my books and free tutorials. I love seeing the photos of finished projects that people share with me, and I love sharing them with you guys too as part of my ongoing (though somewhat infrequent) Show & Tell series.

It's been a while since my last Show & Tell post, so I've got lots of crafty goodness to show you...

Holly stitched a fab cassette phone case using my pattern from Mollie Makes #41.

Lisa shared this in-progress photo of an angel bear she was sewing from my first book, Super-Cute Felt. Her daughter helped trace the pattern and was "very insistent that the colours are as close as possible" to the ones in the photos.

Kate bought a big bundle of felt from my shop and used it to create two colourful patchwork projects, which she shared as tutorials on her blog.

Felt patchwork table mats...

... and a rather fabulous felt patchwork blanket.

 

Louise emailed me these photos of a cute woodland garland she'd sewn using patterns from my second book, Super-Cute Felt Animals. It looks like lots of happy hours of sewing went into this!

 

Liz used my vintage felt baubles tutorial to decorate her Christmas cards last year. Look at all those baubles!

Liz said she made the ornaments "then attached them to cards using a brad, so the recipients can take the ornaments off and keep them when they are done with the card" She "made the cards from a very heavy cardstock so they wouldn't tip over" and "sewed on the coordinating borders with my machine". Such a great idea.

Linda wrote a lovely review of Super-Cute Felt Animals. "The day the book arrived in the mail our granddaughter was here and we had a wonderful time looking through the book and picking out animals I would make for her. She chose a cat and a dog"

Instead of stitching eyes (which can be quite fiddly at this scale) Linda added cute googly eyes instead.

She also stitched a pair of blackbirds using my free pattern.

The delightfully named "A Foolish Twit" tweeted photos of a whole bunch of things she's been making from my books. She said "Without your patterns I would never have got back in to crafting, now I love it!" which makes me very happy.

She combined two projects in Super-Cute Felt to make this bee needlecase...

 

... stitched lots of safari animals from Super-Cute Felt Animals...

... and made a whole army of mice finger puppets (I wonder what the collective noun would be for finger puppets?). You can also spot one of my floral projects in the bottom pic - patterns for the mice and the flowers can both be found in Super-Cute Felt.
 

My previous Show & Tell post was all about the sky blankets other people have been making, inspired by my sky blanket.

Here's Leanne's finished blanket - congrats, Leanne!

 

Amy is making a fab crochet version of the sky blanket, crocheting a granny square a day and using cheerful yellow yarn for sunny days instead of sticking with shades of blue.

She's blogging about the blanket as it grows. It's looking great, and has a surprising amount of yellow in it.

Amy wrote "I can't actually say just how much I love this project - it is great seeing how it grows, as I have no idea what colour the squares are going to be from one day to the next" ... "this blanket is bringing me nothing but pleasure" - which sounds a lot like how I felt when making my sky blanket. Such fun!

And last but by no means least, Polly stitched a tree stump pincushion using this guest tutorial shared on my blog by the talented Manuela.

Polly adapted the pattern slightly, using French knots to add the white spots on the toadstools which look great. She says "I'm really pleased I made this! I like having practical items which are also visually pleasing, and this makes me happy every time I use it." What more can you ask for from a crafty project?

You can see see all the previous show and tell posts here. My archive of free patterns and tutorials can be found here and you can read more about my books here.   

If you want to share what you've been making from my patterns (or from supplies you bought from me back when I still sold them, or when I've done a destash sale) please do get in touch. If you just want to share your work privately and don't want to be included in a future Show & Tell post that's totally okay! :)

You can leave a comment and link here on this post, send me an message via my contact form or share a photo over on my Facebook page.

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