Advent Day 2: 'Comfort and Joy' cushion

In my recent post showing you my living room Christmas decorations I featured this 'Comfort and Joy' cushion I'd made. I thought I'd give a little tutorial on how I made it!

It's really simple and it all starts with my envelope cushion cover DIY which you can find here and use to create the main part of your cushion cover.

Once you've got your pieces of fabric, take your full front piece and sketch your design lightly with pencil.

You can choose any stitch you like but I went for a split stitch where your stitch comes up in the middle of the previous stitch creating a raised texture.

The simplest way to embroider is to use a embroidery hoop, I used quite a large one and moved it as I worked to accommodate whichever part I was stitching. 

This was an easy festive touch to add to our living room. As our cushions are pretty neutral all year round I've just thrown a few extra Christmassy bits in to bring it into the season. 

You could choose whichever phrase you like when designing your cushion and use thread which fits your theme. I love the traditional reds and greens at Christmas.

If you make this feel free to tag me on Twitter or Instagram I'd love to see what you make! The links are on the side bar!

I hope the holiday spirit making you feel all jolly!
Katy xx

Advent Day 1: Decorating for Christmas

We put our Christmas decorations up this weekend! So I thought I'd share our tree and other bits and bobs with you. This is our first Christmas with Lux so we're pretty excited to see how she feels about everything! 

So here is our living room and hall way! 

She's definitely a fan of the tree, it's not been climbed yet but it's been pulled and chewed and had decorations ripped down.

I made this 'Merry Christmas' banner to hang above the tree and there'll be a tutorial up this week!

All breakable decorations have been banished to places where they won't be smashed so Santa has pride of place on the mantle with our candles from Sainsbury's which smell like Christmas all wrapped up!

Our wreath is another DIY that I did last year when I couldn't find a wreath I liked. I grabbed a plain wreath and some of the berries which are wired then I twisted these in where I wanted them.

I also had a hanging 'Merry Christmas' from Paperchase and used the wired wreath to hold it in place. 

Another little DIY coming soon! This embroidered 'Comfort and Joy' cushion. So simple and you can personalise with whatever phrase you like.

There are even more decorations around the rest of the house, mainly our bedroom which now has our winter bedding and some other little decorations.

I'm going to be blogging as much as I can this month with plenty of Christmas DIY's, present ideas and some of my favourite winter things so keep an eye out!

Katy xx