Cross-Stitch Brooches in Homespun Magazine

I got a lovely bit of post this week - all the way from Australia!

The September issue of Australian Homespun magazine features one of my crafty tutorials: stitching cute little cross-stitch sampler brooches.

Click here to find the free cross-stitch patterns and step by step tutorial.

It's always so nice to see my work in print, and especially exciting seeing it in a magazine being sold so very many miles away from here! Many thanks to the team at Homespun for featuring my project, and for sending me a copy of the magazine.

Childhood Sewing: A Funny, Fantasy Creature

We got some more boxes down from the attic recently. There were lots of long-forgotten childhood treasures inside, including this weird little doll/puppet/creature I made in primary school about 25 years ago:

I think we had a class project to make something inspired by the film The Dark Crystal (?)

Whatever the brief was, this was what I came up with: a lumpy hand-sewn, hand-painted creature with a big nose and big floppy ears.

Here's the other side:

 

Kinda cute, kinda strange, kinda awesome.

I'm glad to have rediscovered him!

P.S. Last year we found this bear in another box: I stitched him for my sister when I was eight. Click here for more pics and to read all about him.

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.

A New Crafty Challenge: 100 Gift Wrapping Ideas

I've started a new project!

I've set myself the challenge of sharing 100 crafty gift wrapping ideas over the coming weeks and months.

I love giving creatively wrapped gifts, and I'm hoping this will be a fun challenge... and something a bit different to my usual projects.

I'm going to start with a simple brown paper parcel each time, sharing the results on my Instagram, Twitter and Facebook under the hashtag #100giftwrappingideas, then I'll be blogging about the ideas in batches of 10 as I work my way up to 100.

I'm not setting myself a time limit to complete the challenge, I'm just gonna go with the creative flow and see what happens.

As you might have guessed, the first idea involves lots of fluffy pompoms!

In the meantime, you can find lots of creative gift wrapping ideas in my archive of free crafty tutorials (scroll down to the bottom of the page, you'll find card and gift wrap ideas below the Christmas tutorials).