New Craft Supplies in My Shop!

As I mentioned last week, I've re-opened my craft supplies shop and am busy stocking it with lots of colourful, crafty goodness.

I've been busy photographing, measuring, and listing a whole bunch of lovely new things. Wanna see?

There are felt rainbows (and pick-you-own-colour felt squares), rainbow ribbons, pretty rainbows of pins, and bargain rainbow embroidery thread bundles. So much lovely colour!

I've also got some fab ribbon that's printed to look like a measuring tape, some black elastic for mask-making, cover buttons and a super-useful button covering tool (perfect for making felt buttons), and some GORGEOUS shimmery two-tone buttons.

Then there's embroidery scissors (so useful for cutting out small felt pieces!), lovely wooden cotton reels, big card bobbins for organising your yarns and ribbons, and some white elastic.

I've also bought some cute and colourful stickers. These are great for crafty projects, gift wrapping, journalling and scrapbooking, and for sticking on your snail mail.

There are cute woodland animal stickers (I've been sticking these on my shop parcels lately, I love them!), rainbow star, dot, and heart sticker sheets, and lots of colourful dots. I think the dots would be wonderful for creating bullet-pointed lists in your journal or diary!

I've also got colourful retro vinyl stickers featuring rainbows and unicorns and other fun stuff, and I've got some bargain books of mini stickers: cute kitties and happy stars.

Pen-wise, I've listed some fun colour-changing pens and a pair of metallic markers (I love a good metallic marker!). Then I've got giant wooden pegs (because why not? Oversized stuff is so joyful!) and packs of gorgeous glitter card (sooooooo shiny).

If you'd rather have tiny pegs than giant ones, don't worry - I've got you covered. I'm also selling a fab pack of luggage tags (I just adore those bright colours), a useful pack of coloured card, and some flower press kits.

I'm particularly excited to be stocking the flower presses as I feel like they're just the kind of relaxing, nature-loving craft we all need right now! I've got three sizes in stock, ranging from a mini press to the biggest flower press I have ever seen in my LIFE (seriously, it is HUGE). The boards are blank for you to decorate with paint, decoupage, stickers, etc, so one of these kits is basically two crafty projects in one. 

Click here to visit my shop and see everything that's in stock!

Cutting Out Small Felt Shapes... With Blu Tack!

If you've ever had trouble cutting out small and fiddly pattern pieces from felt then today's blog post is for you!

ADVERTISEMENT: This tutorial is sponsored by Bostik, and is part of a series of crafty projects I'm creating to promote their range of adhesives. Click here to see all the posts in the series!

This is the third post I've shared using Bostik's products this week. On Monday I made fantastic festival hairbands using Bostik's Power Repair glue, then on Wednesday I made fun travel-themed notecards using their PVA Glue, Glu Dots and Micro Dots.

Today I'm sharing a Blu Tack Hack: a new way to use that sticky blue stuff we all love using to put up posters!

When you're using a small paper template to cut out a tiny felt shape, I always recommend cutting out a bit of felt slightly bigger than the template. This is much easier to work with than handling a large piece of felt.

When you go to cut out the shape though, how do you hold the template in place?

For larger pattern pieces you could use pins, but not for a little shape like this. You can hold the paper onto the felt with your non-dominant hand, but this takes practice and the paper can slide about a bit as you're cutting and make your finished shape much less accurate.

I've sometimes recommended using a bit of clear sticky tape to hold shapes in position but, of course, your scissors will get sticky from cutting through the tape and you can't re-use the template more than a couple of times before it'll start getting bulky from too many layers of tape.

So... why not try using a tiny piece of Blu Tack to hold the paper template in place?

Make a little ball of the Blu Tack...

... then press it as flat as possible onto the back of your pattern piece, making sure that none overlaps the edge of the shape. 

Press the template firmly onto the piece of felt...

... and the Blu Tack will hold the template in position as you cut around it!

 

I always use embroidery scissors for cutting out small felt shapes: look how much smaller and narrower the blades of the small scissors are compared with my sewing scissors! Using embroidery scissors will give you a lot more precision and control when cutting small or detailed shapes.

 

Once you've cut out the shape, peel off the template then carefully remove the Blu Tack and discard it. Easy peasy!

 
If you're worried about the Blu Tack leaving an oily mark on your felt or pulling away a few of the fibres as you remove it, simply add the Blu Tack to the front of the template so it'll be attached to what will become the back of your cut out felt shape.

DISCLOSURE: this post is sponsored by Bostik, who also provided the Blu Tack for my #BluTackHack.

P.S. Fancy some more free crafty goodness? Subscribe to my newsletter for a monthly free pattern and visit my crafty tutorial archive for lots more free projects.

August in Pictures: Colourful Craft Supplies and Summer Flowers

My August was full of colour!

I was busy working on lots of new things, choosing (then shopping for) the supplies to get crafting.

There were rainbows of thread on my worktable...

... and I stitched a couple of felt rainbows, too.

 

The rainbows and sun are pieces I've designed for the felt baby mobile class I'm teaching at the Village Haberdashery in West Hampsted, London in October.

I'll be running three classes at the Village Haberdashery this autumn - making an autumn wreath in September, a baby mobile in October and Christmas ornaments in November.

Here are the four designs you can learn to sew in the baby mobile class - clouds, rainclouds, rainbows and little smiling suns.

In early August I visited the bright and cheerful Village Haberdashery shop to chat about my classes and pick up a pile of yummy craft supplies for my projects.

The autumnal shades of that wool blend felt became an autumn wreath...

... decorated with felt leaves and toadstools. You can see more pics of the wreath (and find all the info about the wreath-making class on Saturday, September 17th) here. 

These festive colours were destined to become vintage-inspired felt ornaments for my November class (I'll be sharing pics of the ornaments soon!).

 

In August I blogged about the Brunel Museum and it's charming garden, the Green Way path between Maidenhead and Bray, lots of lovely London things, Leeds Corn Exchange, and a morning in Kensington. It might be weird of me, but I find it quite fun working out which photo from each of my "Nice Day Out" blog posts to share on Instagram.

 

I finally finished up my Take to the Sea embroidery (such a fun project - though a very time-consuming one!)...

... and I added some more colours to my scrappy patchwork cross stitch.The back of the work is somewhat messy, but who cares?

 

I had relaxing evenings in with beloved DVDs and comics and assorted crafty projects... (this mitten is from a kit by Alicia Paulson)...

... lazy days spent sewing on the sofa watching the Olympics and hanging out with this fluffy fella...

... and gorgeously sunny afternoons in the garden on some blazing hot days (I got this lovely bit of summer reading in Annie Spratt's awesome Indie Magazine Swap!).

There were plenty of busy days working at home with the tools of my trade: pinking shears, fabric scissors, paper scissors, embroidery scissors (great for cutting out small felt pieces) and my go-to selection of needles and pins.

 

But I also managed to squeeze in a couple of wonderful days in London, with long walks through parks and visits to museums.

I spotted these gorgeous wildflowers in Hyde Park at what felt like the height of summer...

... and just a few weeks later autumn is already creeping in!

Bright summer sunshine is all well and good, but I adore the soft light you get in autumn and all the colours of the leaves as they turn and fall. Mmm... autumn...

I took this photo of the gorgeous heather in our garden. I've spent lots of my recent tea breaks watching the bees buzz round this heather, they love it almost as much as I do. I love how the autumn colours are lurking behind the heather like "hello! it's me! I'm back!"

I'll share another Instagram round-up next month. Spoiler alert: there are probably going to be some autumn leaves!

I'm lauralupinhoward on Instagram - click here to visit my page and follow me.

Something New: Cards!

Do you remember back in the summer I posted a quick snap of something new I was working on?

Well, it turned into a design for the first ever batch of  "Lupin Handmade" Christmas cards...

 

What do you think?

I'm really pleased with how the design turned out (I can't wait to send some of these to my friends this Christmas!) and the "taking a photo of my work and getting it printed on cards" process went okay for a first try.

When I got the cards back from the printers I unfortunately spotted a small bit of fluff that was sitting on the design when I photographed it (oops!). It's pretty small but still, I'd never want to sell anything at full price that wasn't 100% perfect so I'm listing this first batch of cards in my shops at bargain prices.

Single cards are available over in my Big Cartel shop for £1.50 each, and sets of 4 cards are available from my Big Cartel shop and my Etsy shop for £4.50. 

While I was ordering the 'Winter Robins' cards, I thought it would be a good opportunity to finally get round to something that's been on my "to do at some point" list for simply ages - get some cards printed with some snaps of some of the gorgeous haberdashery bits and bobs from my grandmother's sewing box (inspired by this photo).

One card features some gorgeous vintage spools of thread...

 

... and the other features an assortment of scissors & shears:

As with the Christmas cards, the first batch of these unfortunately aren't 100% perfect. In this case, the images printed out a bit darker than I'd expected (the background is more grey than white). I'll be tinkering with the images and getting them reprinted, but in the meantime these prototypes can be found in my shops at the same bargain prices as the Christmas cards.

Single scissors and threads cards can be found in my Big Cartel shop, and mixed sets of 4 cards (2 scissors, 2 threads) can be found in my Big Cartel shop and my Etsy shop.

How To Cut out Small Felt Shapes

One of the questions I get asked most often is "do you have any tips for cutting out small and fiddly felt shapes?"... I've written about it before in my guide to designing and making your own felt brooches, but I thought it would be helpful to have a separate post about it.

I always recommend buying a pair of embroidery scissors for felt crafting. The small, sharp blades make it much easier to cut out small or intricate shapes.

These are the scissors I use in my work - you can see how much smaller the blades are on the two pairs of embroidery scissors compared to the standard sewing scissors.

I sell a smaller pair of stork embroidery scissors in my shop. If you're going to be doing a large amount of cutting, you might want to invest in a pair with comfy handles (I bought mine from John Lewis).

I always roughly trim any excess felt around the paper pattern piece before I start cutting the shape - I find a small piece of felt is much easier to manoeuvre.

Hold the pattern piece in place against the felt between your thumb and fingers while you cut around the pattern.

Cutting out small or fiddly shapes can be tricky, so go slowly, turning the felt & pattern piece in your hand as you cut.

If the shape is really fiddly and/or if you're using a nice colour or some lovely felt you don't want to waste, you might want to practice on some unwanted scraps to get the hang of it before you cut out the shape for real.

Please do share any of your own tips in the comments :)

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Big Rainbows and Small Birds

The weather may be gloomy today, but my flat is full of colour as I've been sorting out lots of rainbows of felt squares...


Want a giant rainbow of your own? They're available HERE.

As well as taking slightly blurry snaps of delicious felt rainbows, I've been taking a few new product pics as there's a brand new item over in the craft supplies section of my website:


Stork embroidery scissors! Hurrah!

Small embroidery scissors are super practical for snipping threads and cutting out small or intricate felt shapes... and the classic bird-shaped design is pretty darn cute.


P.S. rather excitingly, copies of my book Super-Cute Felt are now in stock on Amazon UK several weeks early (the first copies shipped last week!) If you're after a signed copy, please keep your eye on the blog as I'll be sure to announce when they're available in my shops :)