Advent Day 8: 'Merry Christmas' Banner!

Merry Christmas! Christmas has always been my favourite time of year and this year is no exception. I want to have Christmas spirit in every inch of my house so I decided to make some banners to do just that! 

This is nice and simple and uses things you'll likely have around the house. 

You'll need: 

Black card,

String, 

Scissors, 

White pencil or Chalk pen, 

Hole punch. 

I cut 16 circles using a small bowl to outline the shape. I also punched two holes in the top to thread the string through.

Next up I used a chalk pen to draw my letters on, you can use a white pen or pencil. My banner reads *Merry Christmas*.

Once I finished all my letters I grabbed some green string and threaded my letters together.
I've hung one in my living room above the Christmas tree which you might have seen in my Christmas decorations on Monday! And another in our bedroom above our bed.

I'm all about easy ways to spread the Christmas cheer and this is one of them.

I hope you enjoy making and I'd love to see your pictures if you do! Find my Instagram and Twitter in the side bar.

Katy xx

Wall Art

So I was sketching the other day and came up with this little Calligraphy style Wall Art.
I've spotted quite a few quote wall prints on Pinterest and Etsy and thought I'd have a go at sketching something of my own. The first quote I chose was "You are my Sunshine my only Sunshine!" G sings this to me all the time so it was an obvious choice. 

I did a couple of quotes to pop on our wall and thought you might like the a peek at them too.
These are great because you can choose whatever quote you like and in any colour and personalise them to your own colour scheme.

Grab a pencil, rubber, pen and some A4 paper or card.

So to start off I picked my quote "A person is a person no matter how small" from Dr Seuss.

First sketch out your quote in pencil onto a piece of A4. The first few times I drew these it took a while to get the letters exactly how I want it that's why we start with pencil so we can easy peasy change it whenever.

Here's a sketch of the alphabet to get you started but if you're writing the letters joined these might change slightly or depending on your own style might look a little different. 

Next go over your lines carefully with a pen. I like to use black as it looks clean but you could choose any colour. 

Fill in and add curves and flicks to the letters of your quote. I drew these in first where I wanted them, then filled in with my pen to make the Calligraphy style font.

Lastly wait until your pen is dry completely then rub out any stray pencil marks you can spot! 

Then hang your handmade quote on the wall and marvel at your craftiness! 

Thanks for reading! Which quotes did you choose? I'd love to see what you've all made!

Katy

Scrapbooking!

I was sifting through old photos from Sixth Form the other day and it was bringing back so many memories, unfortunately the photos were in the back of a draw as I don't really have anywhere to put them.

As I was reminiscing I decided that I needed to put these into a scrapbook so I could look back at them and they'd be to hand rather than just in a draw.

My desk is often a huge mess and it gets crazy when I scrapbook, but it's my favourite time because all my crafting things are out and I'm in my element. 

So what are the essentials I'd recommend for Scrapbooking? 

Scotch Photo Corners could not be more useful when it comes to putting photos in my scrapbook, I'm not big fan of glue as it gets everywhere and if you're sticking whole pages it can warp them a little and ruin the look of your book, but these corners can be placed anywhere and seem pretty easy to remove too. (So you can change your mind later!) 

What's in my craft boxes? Well I have plenty of different inks, a huge stash of wash tapes (Check out the Washi tapes post for ideas on how to use it!) and stamps. I also have coloured strings from RE and various Hobbycraft bits and bobs.

Pens! Pens, pencils, markers all of them, if you've got them in your stash they can be invaluable, you can draw with them or just make your hand writing much prettier. 

I love the Uniball ones, they have plenty of colours and I've had these for months and they're still going. 

Tips on Scrapbooking!

I find it's easiest to sketch out where you want everything to go and once you're happy stick everything in. 

Grab your pencil! It might seem like common sense but sketching out in pencil first with either drawings or text is a good way to make sure you like everything together. And if like me it takes a couple of goes to get it perfect. 

Simple isn't boring. It can be super fun to draw illustrations and pictures but sometimes a whole book of this can be distracting and hard to enjoy. Sticking two similar pictures next to each other can be just as effective as filling a page.

I love Washi tape! (Just in case you hadn't noticed) In the above page I took two group shots from different nights and taped them in with a grey patterned Washi tape. I like that this is all I need to do to this page and the pictures just speak for themselves, they bring the colour and life to the page.

Sometimes you just want to doodle on a page. And I think doodling is good when there's only one or two pictures on a page. Try different fonts and colours that match your pictures to tie the page together. 

I'm big into arrows and laurels at the moment so I used used them throughout the book, I outlined my photos with arrows and straight lined text on this page and let the pictures take the focus.

Add a quote that means something to you is a wonderful way of reminiscing when you flick through your book. 

Or just fill your page with pictures of the people you love. 

Last tip? Just love your pictures and the rest will fill the pages. Is there something hilarious about  a picture you remember every time you see it, include it in your page and the memory will be even stronger when you look back. 

Once I've done a little more of my book I'll give you guys an update! 

Katy!

Handmade: Napkins

Pinterest is one of my big inspirations, it's such an easy and simple way to find examples of anything you want. One thing I spotted recently was hand embroidered napkins. I've very much been getting back into hand embroidery lately (check out my previous post for constellation embroidery), I find it's so easy to personalise something for your home with this technique and it's no where near as difficult as people think.

Before I made my napkins I did a little research to find out the best fabric for their purpose and settled on a natural coloured cotton linen blend. It's a thick fabric but sewable, and absorbent so hopefully it will wipe up any spills. (Plus I'm going to use the left over to make tea towels!) I got my material from eBay at Dottychic11.

These are really easy to make and you can match them to you colour scheme. Mine is a minty green!

I took my fabric and cut it into 10" by 20" pieces. To do this I used pinking shears all the way round which will stop the fabric from fraying on the raw edges. 

I then hemmed the edges of the fabric folding the corners into a neat point in the way shown in the pictures below. 

1.

 2. Next fold the fabric next to that over on both sides so as to create a sharp point.

4.

Pin this in place, from there fold the edges over by about a centimetre all the way around and pin in place. 

Sew along these edges with a simple stitch on your machine, careful with the corners as your machine might struggle so just take it slow and make sure to feed the fabric through carefully. If your machine can't handle these you can hand sew the corners and machine the rest.

Once your finished hemming you can decide on what you want to embroider on to your napkins.
I chose the word 'Yum' in a mint green embroidery thread, to go with my theme.
I lightly sketched on the word I wanted to embroider in the style I wanted and popped it in the embroidery hoop.

For my stitching I chose a split stitch something which is new to me but I think ended up looking quite good. 

For this you do a normal stitch first then come back up halfway through said stitch like in the picture above. Keep repeating this process as along all of your word. The final product should look something like below.

I am really pleased with the final product. I now have matching napkins that fit in my colour scheme and of course have that handmade look which I love. 

So get sewing! Hand embroidery is so much simpler than people think and looks impressive. Plus isn't it nice when someone asks where they came from and you can say they're all you! 

What do your napkins look like? 

Katy

Hand Embroidery: Constellations

Constellations are so pretty and ever since I heard the Jack Johnson song Constellations I've been a little bit in love.
So embroidering constellations seemed like a logical step to include them in my home.

The things you'll need are: 

Your chosen constellations, 

Needles,

Fabric- I think embroidery is a perfect time to use up the scraps you might have laying around,

Coloured embroidery thread, 

Pencil, 

Embroidery hoop, 

First of all look for your chosen constellations. I just did a quick google search and loads of images popped up, draw these down on a scrap of paper so you have them to hand. 

Choose which of your constellations you’re going to embroider, and lightly draw them on to your fabric. It’s easier to draw on the fabric not in your hoop and then pop it in when your ready to sew. 
I've chosen Ursa Major and Ursa Minor: 

Next step pop your fabric in your embroidery hoop. 

Thread wise I use embroidery thread which usually comes in a string made up of around 6 thinner threads, I split these in to two groups of three so I get a thinner line when I sew. But if you want yours thicker or thinner then just change up how many of these threads you use.

Next up thread your needle and tie a knot in the other end as you usually would with hand sewing. 

Start of with a cross, this is to mark each spot where the stars are on your constellation. 

Then connect this to your next marked point with a straight line. 

Do this for all of your constellation until you've connected all of your 'stars'. 

To do the crosses can sometimes get more difficult especially around the corner of shapes, so here's a little step by step: 

Once you've finished connecting all of your 'stars' your embroidery should look like 4 in the step by step above and something like this...

A simple way to finish your embroidery at the back of your fabric is like below:

Firstly slide your needle underneath the nearest strings of thread like in 1. This will make a little loop like you see in 2. slip your needle through the loop and pull tight. Like in 3. you should end up with a tight knot. You might want to repeat this once more to make sure the knot will hold and then snip the end of the thread short. 

These are really easy to do and you can do them in which ever constellation you like.
I've also done the Aries constellation (Me) and the Scorpius constellation (G) underlined with our dates of birth.

Embroidery is much simpler than everyone thinks, you can embroider anything you like, I'm in the process of doing a geometric pattern in a selection of bright colours. Keep your eyes pealed for a how to. 

I'd love to hear about anyone else's embroidery and techniques!?

Katy