Lovely Lilac Felt Heart

I think that this blog is becoming a bit heart obsessed. Or could that be me? Which ever thing it is I have made another heart for you all.

Can't decide if I went over the top with the flower, but I rather like it.

Products used to make this were:

White Felt Hearts 7.5cm, wide, 30% Wool Blend x 6
White grosgrain ribbon with lilac carnations, 3m by 9mm
Light Orchid grosgrain ribbon with white swiss dots, 3m x 9mm
Grape Satin Ribbon, 3 metres by 16mm
I also used lilac embroidery thread and a white button.

Crimson Valentine Heart. Well it is almost Valentine's Day

The crimson heart die cuts are really beautiful. I played around with the ribbons, buttons and bows and came up with this combination. Hope that you like it too.

If you want to make one you'll need:

Crimson Red Felt Hearts 7.5cm wide, 30% Wool Blend 
Pointed Ribbon Flower with Pearls - Light Pink
Glass Seed Beads, Dyed Round, Crimson, 6cm tube
Wine Diamond Woven Satin Ribbon 9mm 

Some stuffing and thread to sew it together.

You will get far more products than you need to make this heart, so you'll have plenty left over to make something else.

Shocking Heart

I,m working my way through a rainbow of felt colours as I want to make a felt heart bunting to hang on my stand at the NEC in March this year. I realised that I hadn't made any hearts from the cerise felt so I put that right this morning and came up with this design.

It's  a kit too so, if you want one, you can get it from Craft Fairy. Just click on 'kits'.

My banner is coming on a pace. It measures 2 metres when the hearts are touching. All I need to do is make sure that it will be about 7 metres long. If I leave a space between each heart I think that I may be about there. I'll get a long piece of 16mm grosgrain out and give it a try.

Hubby wonders how we are going to attach it to the stand. I have the solution:

Self adhesive velcro.

The hearts are really light so they won't put much pull on the bunting and the velcro. That's my idea and I'm going with it. Fingers crossed.

Valentine's Day is almost here

It's a cold morning today so I thought that I would sew one of the new Felt Heart kits that I have just added to the Craft Fairy web site.

This kit is the pink heart kit and it is made up of lots of our beautiful Crat Fairy products.

So. I'm sure that you want to get started on your project.

Get your kit here:

Decorated Felt Heart Kit

This is what you will need to do.

The heart is decorated before it is sewn together.

Start by sewing a length of the heart ribbon in a diagonal across one side of the felt heart. Don't worry if the ribbon is a bit too long as you can trim it later.

Now sew on the buttons as seen.

Next sew on the beads. I sewed them on randomly. You can add more if you want. There are plenty of beads in the pack.

Take a length of ribbon and fold it into a loop. Pin the loop to the inside of the felt heart.

Now, using the white embroidery thread, sew the heart together. I used blanket stitch. Make sure that you sew the blanket stitch through the ribbon loop as this will hold it in place.

When you have sewn about three quarters of the heart, fill it with some stuffing until you are happy that it is bouncy enough. Not too full though.

Finish sewing the heart together. remembering to remove any pins. 

You have a heart. Perfect for a little girl's room.  

Purple Felt Heart with Beads

A simple name for this post, I know, but I couldn't think of anything else so please, help out if you can think of anything better.

However, today, I decided to put a new kit on the Craft Fairy web site and, as, I've fallen in love with making these felt hearts, I decided to make up kits of these hearts. The first one is this purple beaded beauty.

You will get a fabulous kit that you can use to make 3 of the beaded felt heart in purple that you see in the image.
The kit will consist of:

6 die cut purple felt hearts
1 pack of clear beads
1 pack of stuffing
1 pack of white ribbon roses
1 length of purple spotty grosgrain ribbon

You will need to supply your own needle and white thread for sewing the heart closed.

A Jute Bag for the Tiger in You

You can't have escaped the growing craze for personalized jute bags. Many of them are of stylized faces that look fantastic, but not everyone wants one of these so I thought that I would show you an alternative bag for the more tigerish amongst us.

You can make this bag in an hour, it's that simple.

First, get your hands on a bag from Craft Fairy. Click this link to get one super quickly.

Small NATURAL JUTE Shopper 250 x 110 x 290mm

Then you will need:

Leopard Print Grosgrain Ribbon, 2m x 23mm

Chocolate Brown Grosgrain Ribbon, 2 METRES x 25mm

Raw Silk, Single Faced Satin Ribbon 2m x 38mm

Needle and thread

Double sided tape

Start by cutting a piece of  Leopard Print Grosgrain Ribbon to fit the front of the bag. Stick a piece of double sided tape to the back of the ribbon, remove the tape backing and stick down to the bag. You can now attach it to the bag with a row of running stitches. This will help to make it more secure.

Now make a dior Bow. I'll make a video for this.

Cut a piece of Chocolate Brown Grosgrain Ribbon to the length that you wish to have the bow tails and cut a 'v' out of the ends. Stitch this in place on the bag.

Sew the dior bow to the bag and you're finished.

Lots more felt heart designs

Looking for wedding ideas?

Decorated felt hearts are all the rage. Choose shabby colours and you will create a double whammy of felt hearts.

Rather than bore you all with lots of individual posts on the felt hearts that I've been making, I thought that I would put a whole lot of them on at once. If you're wondering how I made so many then the answer is simple. They  can be made while watching the television of an evening.

So, what are you waiting for? These pretty felt hearts will make fabulous favours for any wedding, or a perfect gift got a bride.

Hearts in Lilac Felt

I hope that I'm not the only one to become obsessed with making a whole load of variations on a theme.   My current obsession is these felt hearts. My daughter said that she really liked them so that was me convinced and I was off. So here's today's heart in lilac this time.

I made it slightly different from the last one so compare them and see what I mean.

  

Felt Hearts with Lace, beads and ribbon

Have you noticed that decorated felt hearts are all the rage at the moment? Well, if you haven't you must be hiding under a craft free stone. They are all over Pinterest. I decided that I wanted to make one of my own designs. So I'll tell you how I get started on designing any of the projects that I let you have for free on this blog.

Today's project is a pretty, purple felt heart that I've decorated in beads, ribbon, and lace. 

Keep in mind that these are the quantities that they are sold in, you won't use any where near so much and if you buy the pack of hearts you will be able to make at least 3 of these hearts with lots of ribbon beads and lace left over for other projects.

To make this heart you will need:

Glass Seed Beads, Ceylon Round, Lilac, about 3mm, hole:1mm 6cm tube

Antique Mauve and Ivory Luxury Damask Ribbon 2 metres x 16mm

22mm Guipure Lace x 1 Metre - ivory

Purple Felt Hearts 7.5cm, wide 40% Wool and Synthetic Blend x 6

Light Orchid Satin Swiss Dot Ribbon, 3m x 6mm

Some soft filling. I used kapok.

Cotton, I used an off white sewing cotton, nothing special really, just what I had in my sewing bag.

Once you've assembled these pretty bits and pieces, you will need to start by stitching the mauve damask ribbon to the felt heart. I believe that the stitch is called whip stitch, but it is simply sewing the edge of the ribbon to the heart. 

Now trim the ribbon to match the heart exactly.

Lay on a piece of lace and stitch that to the heart too. Trim the lace. 

Sew the lilac beads to the top section of the heart in a random pattern.

With the cotton,  I used a blanket stitch, join about three quarters of the heart. Remember to add, and stitch in, the loop. You can make it as long or as short as you like. Fill with enough filling to make the heart puffy and finish off the blanket stitch to close the heart.

Finished.

New designers

I'm so delighted to tell you all that Craft Fairy is now sponsoring three new designers. Some of my Facebook buddies may have already spotted their makes on their facebook pages.
So let's start with Tina Cox who is already well known for her parchment craft designs. Many of you have no doubt seen her on Create and Craft. Well she has used Craft Fairy ribbons for years.  Now we're just making it official.

Let's start with one of Tina's cards that combines parchment and ribbon.

The ribbons and lace are availabe from http://www.craftfairy.co.uk

You can get Tina's designs her on her web page. http://www.tinacox.co.uk

Plum and Gold, Luxury Colours for a Ribbon Flower

Do you have trouble finding stamens?

Do you have trouble attaching stems to your ribbon flowers.

Well today, I hope to solve both of those problems in one fell swoop.

I've created this ribbon flower with a single stem from a bunch of 12 flower spikes. 

I chose satin as it has a fabulous sheen that brings the flowers to life. So for today's project I decided to use this luxurious plum satin ribbon as my treat. 

You need a length of ribbon
Plum Double Faced Satin Ribbon 3m x 23mm
A needle
some thread







Don't be afraid that this is a lot of difficult sewing. All you need to do is thread the needle and sew a running stitch along three edges.

When you 've done this, pull the thread to gather up the ribbon.

Put the stem in the center of the gather and pull the the ribbon tight around it.

Secure the ribbon with a few tight stitches and a knot or two.

If you can manage it sew through the wider part of the stem at the base of the spikes as this will really secure the ribboon in place. Turn around and admire your work.

How about a bunch of these flowers in a minature vase?

Make a gift box - tutorial

In the last post I gave you a video on how to decorate gift boxes, and this one is on how o make them. It should have been the other way around really but that's femail logic for you.

So this post is on

How to make small gift boxes

It's a video tutorial again so I hope that you enjoy and learn and make lots of boxes.



Get your supplies from

www.craftfairy.co.uk

Enjoy and please let me see the boxes.

Tutorial on Decorating Gift Boxes

I'm a member of a local WI and this weekend I'm going to have a table at a craft show that they're organising at Margam Country Park. We are going to be in the Orangery so, if you are around then please come along.

Now why am I prattling on about the fair when this is a tutorial about decorating gift boxes? The answer is quite simple in a femail logic sort of way.

I am going to sell some of my handmade jewellery and I need some boxes to sell alongside the necklaces and bracelets so I though that I would get on and make some and make a video a the same time.

This is a very simple way of decorating boxes, but don't knock simple as it comes in handy at Christmas when you've lots and lots of packaging to do.

Happy Crafting

Yvonne

Christmas Pressie Idea

I bet that you're all stuck for Christmas presents. Well, think no longer as here is a quick and easy gift that you can make yourself. The cost to you will be small but the thanks and appreciation will be huge.

To make this bag you will need:

Small NATURAL JUTE Shopper 250 x 110 x 290mm
Garden Pastels Assorted Buttons approx, 50g - You will have anought left over to make more bags
Celadon Grosgrain Ribbon, 3m x 9mm Again lots left over
Celadon Double Faced Satin Ribbon, 5m x 3mm and again
Double sided tape

Lay your bag flat on a worksurface. About 6cm up from the bottom seam  put a strip of double sided tape.
Now use 3mm tape and put a few strips at random heights vertically down the bag front as seen in the picture.
Stick your ribbon to all of the double sided tape.
Using double sided tap again, stick buttons to the bag.
For added security, sew the buttons into place.

All Hallows Church

Yesterday i had a table at a small craft Fair at All Hallows Church in Miskin. It's not the usual huge stand that I have at craft fairs but I wanted to make it as striking as possible given that there is not a lot of time to set it up.

What I did was to put a cloth on the table first.
I then added the 4ft gridwalls for height and covered them with another white table cloth.
I pinned my beautiful corsage roses to the cloth and boy, did they stand out.
I had packed my ribbons, buttons and felt, etc into boxes. All of the boxes were the same size. It looks messy if you use different sizes.
I then added the price labels so that everyone could see what they had to pay.

What would I do next?
Cover the boxes with adhesive film so that they don't look so much like boxes. I think that pink of white would be fine. It will also make them stronger.
Tape the prices to the front of the boxes so that everything looks straighter. I am not a fan of higgledy piggledy.

Any suggestions, anyone?

Hearts for Christmas in Shabby Colours

Christmas, gulp is coming, and I feel the need to make beautiful decorations for the house. So this is the latest.

It really is a quick and simple heart to make and will look fabulous on a few dried twigs. 

To make it you will need:

Felt hearts in light stone

Buttons from the natural selection.

A length of tan and brown saddle stitch ribbon

Cotton thread.

Wadding

To make this heart:

Sew the buttons on to one side of the heart shapes. Use both and medium and small buttons.

Stitch around the edges with blanket stich. Leave enough room to fill the heart with wadding and to stitch in the ribbon.

Finished.

Have entered this for the 'Fab 'n' Funky' Button it Up challenge.

Bags More Ideas

Last weekend I exhibited at the Hobbycraft Show at the Cardiff City Stadium and had a wonderful time. I met lots of wonderful crafters and I hope that I was able to inspire them with what we had for sale. I believe that the most popular inspiration was the bag designs. You've all seen them before, but to may customers they were new. So it has spurred me on to come up with more designs and this is the latest. It's artistically arranged in my garden of course.

You will see that I've used a different bag this time. Well you do need a bit of vatiety in life and a girl can't have too many bags.

All of the following items are linked to the website.
You will need:

Natural Sage Coloured Jute Bag

Red Ribbon with Green Saddle Stitching
This is a 23mm wide fairly soft ribbon which allows you to make the folds easily.

A piece of Light Stone Felt

Embridery Cotton

Buttons


First of all, make the roses  as described in a previous post. I make three widths of rose so that they would look better on the bag. All the same size is not so good. Look at the picture below to see what I mean. The graduating in size looks best.

Sew the roses to the felt as shown. Then stitch a line of embroidery thread to make stems. No need to be too precise here.
Sew the felt to the bag with blanket stitch.

I then added some large red buttons because I love buttons and because they look good on the bag.

Rose Posy Picture so 'Chic'.

Today's post is going to be about using some of those beautiful flowers that we sell at Craft Fairy in a picture frame. I've made this because so many of my customers say that our flowers are too beautiful to use and they keep them in a draw to look at from time to time. Well we cant have that can we. So this is how to get them out of the draw and use them to good effect.

Do you like this frame? Does it look expensive? Well, it actually cost me 99p and it came from the shop of the same name. You probably have a local one yourself so get on over and have a look at what they have in stock. There was no glass. What did I expect for 99p? Better for the purposes of making this picture.

The paper is from Making Memories and was part of my stash that I'd been keeping for a long time as it was too pretty to waste.

 Cut the paper so that it fits on the backing board. Fix it in the frame.

For the posy, I used a selection of flowers.

Large curly roses in pink.
Vintage blue roses in blue

Shape your roses so that they form  round shape as seen in the image. Then apply foam pads to the back of the posy.

Stick down onto the backing paper.

To make the vase cut a vase shape from some decorative card. I used some non shed glitter card but you could use any toning card that you have.

Tie a knot in a piece of 16mm ribbon. I used french blue,  and trim to make it look like a bow. Apply tape to each side of the ribbon and tape to the back of the vase shape.

Now attach this to the picture with more foam pads and your picture is complete.

I have just entered this on the Our Creative Corner Challenge. So if you have anything in the colours pink, aqua and a flower then why don't you enter too.

Shabby Chic Lace Flower Tutorial

Shabby Chic Lace Flowers are really hot at the moment so this is my tutorial pick for today. If you click the image you will see the video.

I was inspired to make this flower as www.craftfairy.co.uk is now stocking this fabulous pointed lace. I believe that it is leavers lace. That is the same type of lace as the one used on Kate Middleton's wedding dress.

Apart from the lace, you will need a needle and thread and a flower to put in the centre. Please see my video on making folded flowers to see how to make one for yourself. 

Jackie has made a flower using this way of making lace and ribbon flowers on her blog, 

SCULLDUGGERY (CARDS BY JACKI)

So go look and see what she's made.

Pointed Petal Ribbon Flower

Well, the video camera has been out again and this time it is for a pointed petal flower. As I am into spots lately, I have used the fab taffeta and satin 38mm ribbon again. It really is too good to resist so why bother to try. This is what you'll get:

Here is a list of the things that I used:

38mm spot ribbon in Shocking pink
Buttons
thread
pins

Off you go. Now I want to see what you've made.