Friday 30 December 2011

Baby's bedroom

We went to Mamas and Papas a few days ago and I fell in love with their Jamboree range.  It is cute and fun and seeing as we don't know the sex of our baby yet it is fairly unisex.  I like the jungle animals theme and love the colours.  Here is some from their range:










Sadly we can't afford to buy all these delicious things so we are planning on buying a few key pieces like the wallpaper and then choosing fabric in co-ordinating colours and making a few matching items like curtains and a blanket.  I put together this colour way to make it easier:


I will take some pics of what I make...if I manage to make anything!  Stupidly I didn't photograph ANY of the Christmas presents I made but I might make some more things that are similar and put them in the shop.  Here are the things I made for my family:

Dad - bought three packs of nice and unusual coffee from Whittards, a cardboard (shoe box sized) box from Hobby Craft which I decorated with pretty vintage papers and some small jars which I filled with maple syrup, some nice hot chocolate and some demerara sugar that I infused with vanilla and made pretty tags for them.  I put verything in the box with some raffia to fill in the spaces.

Mum - Made some moisturiser by melting shea butter, jojoba oil and wheatgerm oil together and pouring it into a tin and letting it et, I then made a label for the tin with a piece of pretty scrapbooking paper.  Also bought a kilner jar which I filled with melted wax and a wick.  To make it more interesting I added some lavender oil for a nice scent and some shells and driftwood.  I tied the top of the jar with raffia, a shell and a piece of driftwood.

Brother - Felted a jumper and made a pair of mittens (much harder than I thought, lots of swearing involved), and I made him tie from some tweed that had some sparkly bits in which i thought was quite festive. (Again much harder than I thought, again, lots of swearing!)

Sister - Covered a small note book with pretty fabrics, lace and buttons, bought a hot water bottle and made a patchwork cover with pretty co-ordinating fabrics, some vintage.

Sister - Made some bunting with flowery fabric and bought some cheap towels which I embellished with some lovely Cath Kidston fabric along each end.

Everyone seemed quite pleased with their presents, although my brother less so because his mittens were about 3 inches too long for his fingers!!

Did you make any presents this year?  What did you make?  Did they go down well?

Wednesday 21 December 2011

Christmastime in my house

I have been busy busy busy making Christmas presents for friends and family and trying to get the house nice and tidy before the big day. Also lots of Church things going on at this time like our Youth group Christmas party and youth drop in sessions, so not a lot of time for blogging.  However thought I would share with you a few pics I managed to snatch of our Crimbo decs that we have going on this year.  I went for a red and white theme with a sort of New England/Shaker feel (I think) with gingham and hand-made-looking (bought them in Wilkinsons for £1.00 each) decorations. Last year we had red and gold so I just kept the red and ditched the gold so everything matched.  Also wrapping the presents with brown parcel paper and raffia this year and sewing little name tags to tie on.
School holiday has begun so hopefully will have a little more time for blogging, it only occurred to me the other day that I could have been documenting the making of my Christmas presents and producing tutorials for everything, but by then it was too late, everything was already wrapped up.  I still have a few presents to make so will photograph them and see what I can do tutorial wise.  Having said that I wouldn't want my family finding out what they had got if they took a sneek peek at pics on my blog.
Anyhoo, here are some photos from around the house, the tree is one we bring in every year, it is looking slightly sad this year, for some reason it has started to grow in a curve!:











And then there is me, getting bigger by the day!



Wednesday 14 December 2011

Making Christmas cards

Every year I like to make my own Christmas cards, I think they are more personal than the ones in the shops.  This year I went for a Robin Lino cut.  Here is a peek at the making process: