Cow Bag!

Here’s the bag as promised yesterday. It’s about 45cm by 30cm from memory, so quite large. I used one of my bags as a guide so that it didn’t look too weirdly proportioned. I really hoped that I was on safe grounds with this present because Sarah does love a funky bag and animal prints. I fully lined the bag with some upcycled sheets and as you can see, I placed a red popper at the top to keep the bag closed. I effectively created two identical bags from the two fabrics then attached the handles to the outside of the lining before sewing the two pieces together. The letters used the same template and technique as on the cushion. I am really pleased with how this one turned out.

PVC Cushion

I bought a load of cow PVC (under £3 a metre) from Dunelm Mill to make Sarah a bag, which I will post about tomorrow, and decided to make a cushion too. I whipped it up pretty quickly and was impressed how well my sewing machine dealt with the fabric. The “MOO” is made from felt that I bondawebbed to make it more rigid but then attached with fabric glue to avoid any ironing PVC incidents. The envelope style cover is secured with three brightly coloured poppers on the back and was beautifully made (if I do say so myself). However, Archie soon discovered that it makes a good noise (not quite whoopee cushion standard but not far off) if you jump on it. By the time it made it to Sarah’s house one of the seams had split open. I must think these things through more carefully in the future!

Hama Coasters

Next to the least exciting of the five gifts for Sarah. Nothing new here, you’ve seen them before but I was utterly paranoid about losing any beads for Jess to find and swallow/choke on later so that was different! They also seemed to be new to Archie too who quickly set about trying to bend them in half. I wonder how many will survive until Christmas…

Dandelion Clock String Art

On several occasions my sister has made it very clear that she is not a fan of handmade items so when she told me to use my wild imagination in choosing her birthday presents this year I set about making five gifts designed to change her mind. She really ought to have known better but we all live and learn!

I’ll start my series of blog posts with the biggest failure (in terms of purpose not craftsmanship). This one did not convert her and it now hangs proudly in Mum’s bedroom. Well, you can’t win them all. This dandelion clock is a piece of string art created from a pattern I bought from String Art Fun. The patterns cost just £1 each and some of that money goes to charity. I pushed veneer pins into an A4 cork notice board that I had painted black and used two threads of embroidery silk throughout the design. I finished it off by painting the frame with two coats of fudge brown nail varnish! Despite the fact that Sarah didn’t like it, Katryn and Mum both wanted it so the effort was appreciated! Mind you, Sarah also used her own wild imagination when she didn’t recognise the picture as a dandelion clock and believed it to be a moon and stars!!! That was a total mystery to me!

Woodland Bunting

Jessica and I were lucky enough to meet the beautiful baby George at the weekend. His proud parents, Laura and Stuart, brought him round to Mum and Dad’s to meet the whole family. Archie and I made 12 chocolate pirate themed fairy cakes for the occasion, half of which he ate while the rest of us cooed over the baby. Laura had “liked” the post of the bunting I made for Max and I had some new woodland themed fabric to use so his present was a no-brainer. Here it is…

Lots of Spots

Here’s a more masculine bunting that I have made for Max and his new room in his new house in Canada. The fabric is from a fat quarter pack that I got from Hobbycraft a few weeks ago. Who doesn’t love polka dots?! It’s almost in the post Rebecca!

  

Additional Storage Space

Unfortunately we don’t have a wall in our kitchen that is suitable to hold a shelf or even spice racks and I’m beginning to run out of surface space as a result of so many things we’ve needed for Jessica. Well, I’ll use her as an excuse anyway. So, DIY project time…

IKEA facilitated this project with their £1.90 shelf and two 85p storage jars. Ridiculous prices really. So, I drilled a hole in the lid of each jar and screwed them into the bottom of the shelf. I then filled the jars with rice and split peas before screwing them into the lids. Hey presto - a rigid, sturdy shelf to provide me with extra surface area in the kitchen.

I decided to turn the jars around to maximise the space underneath once I’d started loading it up…