Vintage and Retro #dicraftswap

The theme of last months #dicraftswap was vintage/retro, a theme I thought would be super easy - turns out it wasn't, as there were just too many possibilities. I was sending to Jenny from the blog Pretty Column, who it turns out is actually not far away from me up north. She listed as her vintage interests the campaign of knitting for soldiers during the wars as well as war posters and propaganda (which made me happy because I'm a bit of a fan too!). I decided to embellish a wooden photo frame with buttons for Jenny to put her own 'retro' memories in, although I did include a 'make do and mend' postcard from the Imperial War Museum.

...Which is what gave me the idea for my bought gift. I sent a copy of the 1943 make do and mend guide produced by the government to advise people how to patch things up and reuse scraps. As Jenny is a knitter too I thought some of it was particularly appropriate...

I put in a few extra treats as well. The post office man laughed at my doily-decorated envelope!

Jenny wrote a post about what she sent to her own recipient here. Her crocheted bunch of flowers are just fantastic!

My parcel arrived from Jess at Dear Wildflower. I had said I loved the 1920's era, and so Jess sent me this beautiful notebook that made me instantly think of The Great Gatsby...

...so when I opened up the rest of the beautifully packaged items I wasn't surprised too see Jess had included a little page cut out from the book itself! She had also included an array of vintage floral patterned and polka dot craft papers and some lovely card blanks and envelopes, as well as a little hedgehog cross stitch kit. I think I'll incorporate the Great Gatsby passage into a card design using some of the flowers from the craft paper sometime. 

 Thank you so much Jess, and thank you as always to Hannah at Dainty and Ivory for organising the swaps. The next theme is Christmas, but is a little more general to allow people to incorporate other ideas too. If you want to sign up get in touch with Hannah by the 15th of November - I promise it's great fun! 

My #DIcraftswap Kawaii experience

Last month, I took part in my first craft swap, hosted by Hannah over at Dainty and Ivory. Although the craft swaps have been taking place for a while, I've been reluctant to join in as firstly I didn't really have the time to commit to it, and secondly I'm not that great at making things (at least, to send to other people... When you're creating things yourself at home you don't mind the flaws and imperfections, but others might!)

I thought I'd give it a go this month, as the theme lent itself to perhaps easier craft ideas. The theme was KAWAII.

I was sending to the lovely Rhiannon from The Sparkly Panda. Here's what I sent...

For the 'made' item I got hold of these cute happy cloud buttons and added magnets to the back, for memos or to brighten the fridge. One of Rhiannon's 'likes' in the craft swap form was weather with faces - quite specific, but perfectly fitted these! 

For my bought item I took a bit of inspiration from Rhiannon's blog, where she had mentioned her love of Totoro. I found this cute ring from a handmade seller...

 I added in a couple of other goodies, stickers, tea and chocolate. Can't go wrong there I think!

The partner sending to me was Hannah from Cupcake Mumma, a blog I only discovered through the craft swap. Its actually proven really great for getting to know different blogs and other bloggers! Here's what I received.

This eye mask has proven very useful to get my forty winks as I just moved house and we don't have dark curtains up yet. Its also super cute! 

A cat notebook I'm using for list making (she obviously knew I was a fan of all things cat!)

A whole bundle of cute other little goodies, more than I photographed. I was spoiled! 

 And finally, Hannah made me the most awesome cookie necklace. I really love this, its just the sort of thing I'd choose myself. Thank you so much Hannah!

So my first craft swap experience was actually really fun, thinking up ideas and getting excited when a parcel arrives in the post. I'd definitely recommend it - I've already signed up for this months, with the theme of retro and vintage. If you want to find out more or join in, head over to Dainty and Ivory for happy mail and happy crafting!

Valentine's Gift Bag Tutorial

Happy Valentine's! Well, almost..

We don't really celebrate in a big way, but I do have a small gift to give, so I thought I'd make it a bit more personal by making a gift bag to give it in. There are LOADS of gift bag/box tutorials online, and mine here is pretty simple, so I've also included some of my favourites for something more fancy :)

First, find some pretty paper. Scrapbook paper or card would work well. I used some pretty hot air balloon pattern wrapping paper (he's a bit of a balloon fan) - luckily this paper is quite sturdy, this might be a bit trickier with thinner type wrapping paper though. 

Next, measure your gift onto the paper. Draw your pattern around this, so you get a larger size than your item. This is just a really simple template - 4 sides, slits along the bottom so you can glue it all together, and a tab at the side to join. I also folded over the top to make it look a bit more neat when it is together. 

This is what happens when you glue it all together... 

I pinched in the sides and punched a couple of holes at the top. After putting in the gift, tie a bow with string or ribbon.. and that's it! 

Well, I did say it was simple...

Here's my Valentine's offerings, with my gift being accompanied by a jar of treats - in this case LOTS of jellybeans. I hope he shares! 

And take a look at my DIY Fox Box tutorial for more gift-giving inspiration!

If these aren't your bag, here's a few of my favourite tutorials to give a go.

Awesome DIY gift box for Cookies and other treats - find the tutorial here

Recycled newspaper gift bags - find the tutorial here

A super colourful variety of the easy square origami boxes we have all made before - make it here

...Or how about these recycled cardboard pillow boxes? Perfect for small things - here

<3

Learning to Crochet

Sometime last year I watched a YouTube tutorial on crocheting a hat. What I ended up with was a very miss-shapen bright green beret too large for my head, and that was the end of my hat-making dreams. Recently, I've been inspired to give crochet another try by some friends who are currently working on granny square blankets, creating beautiful little patterned squares on thier lunch breaks at work everyday. So far, I have a little pile of squares which are all the same sort of pattern, after following this YouTube video. I'm not sure yet how to get different patterns and designs of squares, so I'll have to do a little more research and practice, but I'm happy with my progress so far!

DIY Fox Box

With Valentine's day coming up, I've been looking around for DIY ideas to come up with something a bit more personal this year. I've already been inspired by thegluegungirl's simple tutorial to make my own card, and stumbled upon a really cute little gift box idea here. The instructions used a favour box and then added the extra card cut-outs to make it look like a fox. However, I have no idea where I'd get boxes like that, and, after a bit of searching, I found lots of similar versions of this 'fox box' people had made themselves, so I thought I'd have a go.

I used:
2 A4 sheets of orange card
White and black felt
2 small magnets (left over from here)

With an A4 piece of card, I used a basic template to make a gift bag shape, like this:

I then used another piece of card to make a flap over the top, and cut out a tail and ears from the card too. I used white and black felt for the face and tail parts instead of card, to make it look a bit more 'furry'. Finally, I added two little magnets under the flap and on the box, to keep it closed. This was the result:

I LOVE it! Although I've bought the boyfriend a 'proper' present, I think he'll appreciate more that I made him something, especially if I fill the box with his favourite sweet treats :)

Mollie Makes Magazine Review

In the past, I have avoided craft magazines. They tend to be quite expensive, and I've always thought, why buy a magazine with not much in it when for just twice that cost I could get a brilliant craft book packed full of stuff? At the moment there is a fairly long list of books I want, so I'd much rather wait and save to get some of those than spend £5/6ish on a magazine.

That said, the other day I DID purchase Mollie Makes. It was an impulse buy - I saw the cute felt foxes and racoons on the front, flicked through and saw DIY shoe clips and granny square blankets, all things I want to have a go at, and was sold.

 

As well as the makes mentioned, the magazine also comes with a small kit each month. This issue included a kit for a fabric wallet. 

 

The idea of the kit was to make up a travel card style wallet, with two plastic pockets. It came with printed and plain fabric, plastic pockets and ribbon to edge them with, and card inserts to make it more sturdy. 

Pros:

* The instructions were fairly simple to follow.

* I completed the wallet in less than 30 minutes, so a pretty easy and fast make.

Cons:

* The kit is not very generous - there is little room for error, as the pieces of fabric provided were only slightly larger, and the ribbon was the exact amount needed. This meant that, when i was just a couple of millimetres out on measuring the ribbon, it was left short for another piece.

* The instructions state machine sew, although my machine really didn't seem to like sewing over the pieces of plastic. I'm not sure if this is just my machine though. In the end, I resorted to gluing the pockets on!

This is what I ended up with, which doesn't look half so good as the one featured in the magazine!

Excuse the creased fabric :/

                                             

 While I still think I'm justified in thinking that craft magazines are expensive for what you get, (after all, I could have found tutorials for all those things I was interested in online for free if I'd looked, and the kit isn't really worth buying the magazine for by itself), it was a nice surprise in that this one was full of interesting articles and interviews as well as the makes featured. There was also plenty of inspiration to be got from the products, makers and shops featured in their monthly craft picks.

All in all, while I won't be buying this every month, I would pick it up again should something especially interesting catch my eye on the cover, as it did this time. I'd give it a 3/5.

I'll have a go at the 'forest felties' soon and post those too.