Wedding Pyrography

The weather was beautiful, the ceremony was heart-felt, the personal and handmade touches at the reception were perfect and the couple were radiant. 

I mentioned a while ago that Hobbycraft had been posting some blog posts with some handy tips for pyrography so this seemed the perfect opportunity to attempt to massively improve my skills and make a hand crafted piece for the happy couple.

So, what was the key that Hobbycraft provided? A cunning method of transfering an image (in this case writing) onto the wood before burning. I printed a mirror reversed image onto tracing paper, laid it ink side down onto the wood and then traced out the design leaving an imprint of the ink (along with slight indentation). Using a fine, rounded nib I burnt the outline first before burning the interior of each letter.

That printing on tracing paper tip is a real revelation and I can't wait to do more and more pyrography now. Thank you, Hobbycraft!

Quilled Wedding Gift

It had been a long time since I had done any quilling when I embarked on this project at the end of March 2016. I always forget just how painstaking it is but I find it really therapeutic and I love the fiddly work.

For these flowers I can't use the precut quilling papers so the first job is always to cut the strips, and plenty of them. Next I have to do the fraying. This involves making hundreds of tiny cuts along the length of the strips, as close together as possible, being careful not to cut right through the paper. It takes hours but the flowers that result are beautiful. 

There are four flowers in this design. Two different sized roses, which are created by rolling and folding and two types of fringed flowers, with and without centres. On the ones that are quilled without centres I added tiny jewels on this occasion. The design comes from Anne Redman's book Practical Quilling. It was published in 1998 and it looks like it might be out of print but she has some really beautiful projects in there and I've always found the instructions to be very thorough and easy to follow. 

I don't do it often but I think quilling will always be a craft that I come back to. I enjoy the process and am almost always pleased with the results.

Small Wedding Gift

When stitching wedding gifts, I love it when I can steal the design from the bride and groom’s wedding stationery, which is exactly what I did with this piece. I enlarged the image from the wedding invitation then pricked and stitched for a couple of hours (or so). I have put the finished item in a silver plated frame from John Lewis.

Congratulations Carrie & Simon

It has very much become a tradition that I create a stitched gift to commemorate the event when I am invited to attend a wedding. This weekend Carrie and Simon tied the knot and hosted their reception at their lawn tennis club. Carrie made their invitations. They were so striking that I decided to use the design as the inspiration for their piece. This is a trick that I have used before and it usually goes down very well. Below is the finished gift and a close-up of the stitching alongside the original invitation. Sorry I couldn’t take a photo face on; I needed the flash so this was the only way I could avoid losing some of the image to flash blowout.

  

They are a wonderful couple and I wish them a lifetime of happiness and fabulous adventures together. Congratulations one last time!

For Mr & Mrs Webb

I spent Friday crafting in preparation for Chris and Laura’s wedding on Saturday. I must be out of practice because they took me hours – it actually took me a whole hour to decide on the design of the framed piece, which was ridiculous given the simplicity of it. Here they are:

It was a beautiful wedding for two very special people. For one final time on the occasion of their wedding, I’d like to send them all my love and very best wishes for the future.

Alternative to Wedding Card

David and I flew to Munich last weekend for Florian and Julia’s wedding. It was a scorcher but an absolutely amazing wedding from start to finish. I loved it and am thrilled to have been able to celebrate the start of their marriage with them. I decided to make them an alternative to a wedding card, framing this stitched piece for them.

Here’s the happy couple outside St Paul’s Church in Munich. Not a very traditional shot but I like it…

Wedding Gifts

It turns out that there are still some crafty things that I haven’t blogged about from our wedding. In our lounge hang these two fantastic pieces that we were given as wedding presents. Lib made the cross-stitch and Ruth did the stunning drawing of our wedding venue Cley windmill. The only things that I can take some credit for on these photos are the cobwebs and I certainly didn’t make them, I just didn’t bother to clean them! Actually, I hadn’t even noticed them until I took these photos...

I’d better get a duster out before Mum sees this and goes mad!

Quilled wedding card

As you can see, Chris and Akiko tied the knot today. I made this last night and felt a little rusty if the truth be told. My petals could have been more consistent but I was quite pleased that I could remember how to make the roses because they’re definitely my favourite quilled flower. At some point I’m going to try making lots of them and glue them together into a heart but not yet. It’s time I got back to that kite…

Wedding Acceptance Card

My first job on Bank Holiday Monday was to make an acceptance card for a wedding later this month. I’m not sure that I’ve ever made one before although I usually make cards for the day itself. There is nothing complicated in this design but I definitely like the effect.

The wedding cake saga

David and I got married in Cley Windmill where we could only have 20 guests so I decided that I’d bring the windmill to the reception by making a windmill wedding cake. I made two round fruit cakes and a third in a pudding basin. I marzipanned and iced them successfully and even spent hours creating a wooden sail and balcony from headless matches (the sail even turned). It wasn’t perfect but I was proud of it…

However, I did all this at home in London without properly thinking the whole thing through. I had no way to transport it to Norfolk. For two and a half hours I held it on the floor between my feet but the car was too warm and the icing slowly began to melt and sag. By the time we got it to Norfolk I wasn’t prepared to have it used. I demolished it and cut it up for the guests to eat but they were never to see it and this is the only photograph I have of the creation.

Fortunately, David does not like fruit cake so we had ordered a couple of sponge cake bars from M&S so there was another option… One of our readings at the ceremony was The Owl and the Pussycat so I had asked Ruth to make us an owl and a pussycat from polymer modelling clay for the windmill cake. I constructed a card windmill and made a pea-green boat to go alongside a cake bar painted with food colouring. It was tiny but you’ll never see another wedding cake like ours!

Wooden Wedding Flowers

It occurred to me this morning that I have shared very few of my crafting exploits from my own wedding back in February 2009. I made all of the invites, orders of service, wine glass charms, favours, thank you cards and even the wedding cake (which is an amusing tale that I shall share another time…). The biggest task that I set myself was to do all of the wedding flowers – bride, bridesmaids, buttonholes, table centrepieces and thank you bouquets. I bought thousands of wooden roses and my lounge turned into a workshop for weeks. I loved it and even now, 3 years later, everywhere I go people have our wedding flowers on show in their homes. When I chose to use wooden roses it was due to the time of the year that we were getting married and the fact that I wanted to do them all myself. There was no way I could have done it on my own with real flowers. I hadn’t thought about the fact that they’d last forever but it was a great bonus.

Anyway, here they are…

Katryn’s bridesmaid flowers

 

Men’s buttonhole – I made them for the women as well but they had two cream roses

 

My flowers

 

Centrepieces for the tables named after the Islands of the Outer Hebrides

 

Small arrangement for each person at the reception

I hadn’t expected guests to use them quite like this…

    

Last wedding of the year

Actually, strictly speaking it’s both the first and last wedding of the year. Guru and Lihua actually tied the knot in Shanghai in May but are having another reception over here in a few weeks. I really wish I could have been there to share in their special day and see Lihua in her three dresses. After all, it would have been my only chance to experience a real Chinese wedding. Unfortunately, the curse of the teacher struck as their chosen date lay in term time so there was no chance of me making the trip.

I’m very excited about the reception up North in a few weeks’ time though. They are having it in the Centre for Baltic Art in Gateshead and we are having a private viewing of the gallery in between the drinks reception and dinner. A wonderful idea…

To commemorate their marriage I’ve made them one of my stitched wedding samplers. This time I opted to use Stitching Cards dandelion design (slightly enlarged). It’s one of my favourites I think.

I also put together a couple of birth samplers to stitch for the wonderful Arthur Anderson and Megan Thomas who were both born earlier this year. I’m really looking forward to meeting them and getting lots of cuddles later in August. Right now (Friday 29th July – had no decent internet access to upload this post since then) I’m on the train up to North Wales to get away from the big smoke and enjoy some overdue family time. I’ve got my cross-stitch with me so I’ll post an update at some stage to keep my husband happy. He keeps moaning that I’ve been neglecting it (which I really have) and says that he wants to see it hanging on the wall. That’s a long way off but his bribe of an offer of a present when I finish may motivate me just a little!

How do I make a wedding stitched sampler?

I met Bill twelve years ago on a Sutton Trust Summer School at Cambridge and it was a real pleasure to see him marry Melanie yesterday. They’re a wonderful couple and it was a fabulous day in Wimbledon at St. Mary’s Church and Cannizaro House. As part of their wedding gift from us I made them this stitched sampler to commemorate the day. I think it took between four and five hours to complete but I wasn’t really counting and I did it over a couple of days.

So, this is how I did it…

Step 1

I put the design together on the computer using bits of patterns that I have bought from Stitching Cards, which is my greatest source of inspiration.

Step 2

Put the printed design onto a piece of white A4 card and prick each hole through with a bobbin type needle into a felt mat. This step takes care and precision. It’s really important to keep the needle straight otherwise you can end up with the hole in slightly the wrong place or pricking two holes into one.

 

Step 3

Begin stitching the design. Tape the thread to the back of the card and then concentrate really hard! It’s devastating to get most of the way through a section and then discover that you miscounted.

Step 4

Frame it, wrap it up and keep your fingers crossed that the recipients like it!

For more information on how the stitching is done see the tutorial on the Stitching Cards website.

A wedding card

I’ve just been flicking through my pics and found this one that David scanned for me when we got our new all-in-one printer a few weeks ago. I’d forgotten to post it so here is the card that I made for Niall and Isabel…

A few things I’ve been doing

It doesn’t feel like I’ve had much time for crafting recently but the UCAS references are finally all done and the application process is over for another year so I’m back! Here are a few things I’ve done recently…
I made something like 100 of these simple place settings for a colleague last year who used them for her parents diamond wedding anniversary party. 
This framed A4 piece speaks for itself.
This was an alternative to a normal birth sampler for my god-daughter. She’s nearly two and I still haven’t got around to having it framed yet. Oops.
  This is a stitched isometric cube for one of my Maths department colleagues. It took hours but I absolutely love it, hope she does too!

Wedding Ideas

With all this stupid snow keeping me from work (yes, I really do want to get back to normal now) I’ve been trying out some new designs inspired by those new books that I discussed in the previous post. However, I’m not going to blog about those until I’ve made a couple more so today’s post shows a few of the wedding designs that I’ve used in the past…

This one was an A4 design that I put into a frame for Rebecca and Jon as part of their wedding present.

I made this one for my sister-in-law and her husband in November, it was well worth the time and effort – I love this card.

Our wedding invitation, simple and elegant, but it had to be, I made 55 of them!