Gift Wrapping with Old Photo Negatives

Do you have a box of old photo negatives from the days before digital cameras?

Strips of negatives from family Christmases, summers holidays and other special memories make quirky and nostalgic gift toppers.

For these pictures I used a gift that was just the right size for the photo negatives, but of course your negatives probably won't perfectly fit your parcel like this! You can trim them to fit smaller gifts, or add several negatives (with thread either side) to larger parcels.

It's really easy to attach the negatives to your gifts. Cut two long pieces of embroidery thread or yarn (one for each side of the negative strip) then use a large sewing needle to thread them through the holes along the edges of the strip.

If you want, you can then add a second thread colour for extra detail. Once your thread is nice and neat, use the excess thread at each end to tie the negatives to your parcel, knotting them securely then trimming any loose threads. You could attach one or two strips, or a whole row for a striped look.

Once the parcel is opened, you can all have fun holding the film up to the light to see the images and explaining to any kids or teens in the vicinity what these strange little dark pictures are and how you all used to take your family snaps with this thing called "film" back in the day.


Don't have any old film negatives, but love the retro photo look? Click here for a how-to on making Polaroid-inspired cards and gift tags featuring your old family photos.

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Gift Wrapping Idea for Christmas: Wrap Your Gifts in Giant Boxes!

Last year we had a very fun family Christmas.

My mum and I hatched a plan to make everyone's gifts a surprise: we put each present in a HUGE box.

My dad and my sister were very surprised to see such a giant pile of gifts by the tree!

Each parcel was an exciting mystery package: no guessing what it could be by the shape or the size. Was it going to be the book you asked for? A DVD? Those earrings you saw on Etsy? A chocolate orange?

Some large rolls of cute wrapping paper cost us just a few quid (we bought ours from Wilko), and we saved up boxes from online deliveries and got some appliance boxes down from the loft (the box for the printer, etc). You could also use shoe boxes, office storage boxes or even buy a pack of moving boxes. 

I scrunched up newspaper to fill each box, and nestled the gifts in the centre so they wouldn't rattle about and there would be the extra fun of hunting through the newspaper to find the present. I used the biggest box for the smallest present, of course! For added sneakiness, you could put ordinary household objects in the boxes as well to disguise their weight.

The trickiest part of the plan was wrapping all those big boxes in secret on Christmas Eve and sneaking them into the lounge that afternoon when no-one was looking but luckily I managed it.

Just a few boxes was all it took for an extra fun and memorable Christmas - I highly recommend trying it with your family! This might not be the best idea to try with young children who may be disappointed that a big box doesn't mean a big gift, but as we're all grown up we loved it.

My Grandmother's Sewing Box

I was a guest blogger over at &Stitches yesterday - writing about the treasure that is my grandmother's sewing box.

Click here to read the post!

32! Woohoo!

I turned 32 this week which feels a bit weird because I'd kind of forgotten that I wasn't 32 already. It's been such a busy year it feels like it can't possibly just be 12 months since I turned 31.

In the past year...

...  My new book, Super-Cute Felt Animals was published (yay!).

...  I decided to stop selling handmade things to focus on designing and writing and blogging, and since then I've worked on a whole bunch of exciting, interesting, fun and challenging freelance projects for books, magazines and websites (lots of which I am still dying to tell you guys about as soon as I'm allowed to). This has been a bit stressful at times (deadlines, aargh) and has made blogging more of a challenge as I'm often working on things I'm not allowed to share, but overall it's been hugely enjoyable and a very welcome change after years of repetetive "production-line" sewing.

...  I went on my first solo holiday ever (awesome) and my first trip abroad since my mid-teens (also awesome - remind me to actually blog about it sometime!)

... I made what may be one of my best decisions ever and started getting out of my studio for Nice Days Out, having cuppas with fellow crafters and bloggers, meeting up with old friends, and visiting parks, museums, art galleries, exhibitions, historic buildings, craft fairs, and more.

... Oh, and my sister got married! (It was lovely. I cried.)

30 was a hard year for me, it's great to look back at 31 and think "yup, that was a good one". Fingers crossed I'll be able to say the same this time next year.

I'm continuing to add to my photo-a-year collage, and have picked this (slightly-blurry-but-who-cares) photo to represent me at 31: a pre-wedding selfie.

 And here's all 32 years :)

 

Goodbye 30, Hello 31

Crikey, I can't believe it's almost been a whole year since I turned 30! (My birthday is in early June) Where does the time go, huh?

Turning 30 last year inspired me to dig out a whole bunch of photos to make a collage with one photo for each of my 30 years...

It was so much fun, I thought it'd be nice to keep on adding to it as the years go by. So I sorted through my recent photos last week, and picked a fun picture from Christmas...

... me playing board games with my sister. The game being played? Jungle Ludo! This was a much beloved game in our house when we were growing up, we even developed our own version of the rules :)

It's the perfect photo to represent this past year, I think, as this past year has been all about spending time with my family. I moved back in with my parents unexpectedly but have decided to stay for a bit to save up some money, and I've been very much enjoying stuff like kitty cuddles, home cooked meals (yum!), getting to see my sisters more often and helping my youngest sister plan her wedding.

Work-wise there have been some ups (a new book) and some downs (closing my supplies shop) this year. Mostly though I have been working fewer hours - keeping things ticking over and putting bigger plans on hold - so I could spend more time with my mum, who was diagnosed with breast cancer early last spring. If you read my blog regularly you may remember how I was a bit absent from my blog this time last year because of "family stuff" - well, this is what that was about!

We were very lucky that the cancer was caught early, but as anyone who has experienced cancer in their family will know, it's been a scary and stressful time. My mum (who is a very tough cookie) has gone through surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy and come out the other side smiling, and with as close to an "all clear" as I think it's possible to get at this point. Best birthday present ever.