Giveaway: Stash Happy Felt

As I mentioned last week, the lovely folks at Lark Crafts sent me an extra copy of Stash Happy: Felt to offer as a giveaway prize - hurrah!


Stash Happy: Felt contains 30 felt projects... including one project designed by me (the autumn leaves coffee cosy on the cover).

For your chance to win, just leave a comment on this blog post recommending a crafty book, magazine or blog you've enjoyed recently. It'll be lovely to hear what crafty things you've been reading and enjoying lately!


I'm happy to ship internationally, so anyone can enter.Leave your comment before 10pm on Sunday 16th October (UK time) and I'll pick a winner at random on Monday 17th October.

Please leave a name or pseudonym - no anonymous comments please! - and include a blog link, Twitter or Etsy username or email address so I can contact you (if I'm unable to contact the winner within two weeks, I will have to pick someone else so please make sure you leave a way for me to get in touch).

UPDATE: this giveaway is now closed.

Guest Post: A Peek at Crafteroo Magazine

Today's post comes from Kerry of PennyDog and trufflepiglet chocolates. As an avid member of the Crafteroo forum, she has co-ordinated their latest project- a light-hearted but informative quarterly magazine filled with projects, competitions and tips for improving the way you sell your crafts.


Earlier this year the Crafteroo forum was getting a bit tired. At 3 years old, we had seen many different crafters pass through our doors, get successful and then not have the time to come and hang out any more. Also with all of the other forums out there- whether international and long established, or newbie forums to coincide magazine launches- it was becoming a challenge to let people know that, hey, we’re out there too and we’re really great!

We needed something we could plug away at, and so we decided to create a magazine on a quarterly basis. This really got everyone’s creative juices flowing and it was great seeing everyone so enthusiastic! It’s been a lot of fun putting it together. The work is all done voluntarily, from writing the articles, to proof reading to physically putting the items on the page and creating the interactive document.


There is a cover charge of £1.50 but this means that we can use the money to pay for the forum hosting, for any upgrades to keep it fresh and exciting and also for any promotion for the magazine that might cost money. Anything left over can then be used to fund craft challenges, which we hope will keep you coming back for more and really grow our internet presence, because we're a friendly place and everyone should know about us!


The first ever issue is out now. You will get instant access to it via the forum for 3 months- that’s only 50p a month!- and it has 17 projects as well as some new ideas for improving your craft business.

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CLICK HERE to check out the list of contents for issue 1 of Crafteroo Magazine and view a stitchy extract, and CLICK HERE if you'd like to buy the full magazine.

Guest Post: Ribbon Hairband Tutorial

Thanks to lots of my lovely blog readers, I've got lots of fun guest posts scheduled for the upcoming weeks - hurrah :)

(I still owe a few people an email, but hopefully I will have got back to everyone by the end of the weekend - please bear with me!)

First up: a fab no-sew hairband tutorial, from Emma McCann who originally designed it for the Brighton Craft Guerilla blog.
Emma says.... "I'm a freelance illustrator, but a crazy-keen crafter, too. I'll try my hand at anything, but I particularly love screenprinting, knitting, crochet, embroidery, sewing and baking. I try to blog as often as I can about illustration, crafting, eating large amounts of tea and cake and many other random things! For just over a year, two friends and I have been running Brighton Craft Guerrilla which is part of the larger Craft Guerrilla group. We use the Brighton Craft Guerrilla blog to document our crafty shenanigans and post up anything interesting we find on our travels."

Hello all. This is a really easy-peasy guide to making your own bow that you can add to a hairband for instant glamour, or attach to a clip or a pin to give any outfit a little bit of va-va-voom. What makes it so easy is there are no real measurements involved, other than you need about 1.5m of ribbon, and no sewing. All you need is:

- 1.5m-ish of ribbon. I used a 22mm wide grosgrain ribbon, which I think works better than normal, silky ribbon as it is stiffer and has more weight to it.
- Scissors.
- Glue. I use Guterman HT2 Textile Glue. This stuff is a real craft-box staple as, not only is it super-strong, it will stick absolutely anything. I use it for gluing clip frames onto purses and it's just fab.
- A hairband of your choice. The selection at Claire's Accessories is pretty wide and has the bonus of being inexpensive.

What You Do:

Step 1: Decide how many loops you would like to your bow. I went for four, with an extra piece to wrap around the middle. Cut your ribbon - as many loops as you want, plus one extra – into strips, each one slightly smaller than the one before it; check out my photo:

Step 2: Glue the ends of each strip, bar the smallest, together so you have a collection of gradually decreasing loops.

Step 3: Squish the centre of each loop into itself and secure with a blob of glue on the inside.

Step 4: Layer your squashed loops up on top of each other with largest at the bottom up to smallest on the top, and secure together with a dab of glue between the flat area of each one. It's best to leave it to dry for 15 minutes or so before you continue.

Step 5: After you've let the glue dry for a bit, take your remaining piece of ribbon and glue it at a right angle to the bow on the bottom side of the largest loop.

Step 6: Wrap the ribbon around the centre of the bow once. Then grab your hairband and position the bow on top. Now wrap the ribbon around both the bow and the hairband. This will create a slight loop on the bottom which is what makes your bow so flexible in its style. You may not need the whole length of the ribbon, but wrap it around at least twice to make it nice and secure.

Step 7: Cut the end of the ribbon off at an angle to prevent fraying, and glue to the underside of the bow.

Step 8: Ta-da! A fabulous hairband. Leave it to dry for about half an hour (or over night would be ideal, just to be on the safe side) and away you go.

You'll see that looping the ribbon around the band means it's not fixed to it in any way, so you can move it up and down the band as you wish for different looks, or slide it off completely and attach to a pin for a fantastic brooch that would look amazing pinned at the neck of a buttoned cardi. Experiment with different ribbon thicknesses and lengths and the number of loops for whole new looks.
Go out and impress!

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You can follow Emma's adventures in illustration and crafting over on her blog, Illustration, The Universe and Everything
 
Subscribe to my newsletter for a monthly free pattern and visit my crafty tutorial archive for lots more free projects.

Stash Happy Felt - Giveaway and Bonus Projects

First up, a huge and heartfelt thankyou to everyone for all the kind words sent my way yesterday, and to all the people who have volunteered their services for guest posts over the next few weeks. You are all awesome xxx

In other news... the lovely folks over at Lark Crafts are running a giveaway this week for two copies of their new book Stash Happy: Felt, plus two bundles of wool felt in autumnal shades so you can make the coffee cosy on the front cover (designed by me!).

Click HERE to visit Lark Crafts and enter the giveaway. You have to be in the USA to be eligible, but if you're not, don't be sad! I'll be giving one away right here on this blog later this month.

UPDATE: this giveaway has now closed!

Lark Crafts are also giving away two downloadable free bonus projects from Stash Happy: Felt...

... the Pretty Purple Gift Tag designed by Cathy Ziegele and the Fascinator Headband designed by me.

(All images in this post are from the Lark Crafts blog)