2012- a craft odyssey

Happy New Year! I hope the start of 2012 has been good for you so far.

I started my 2012 craft  list last night and it looks like I'm going to be pretty busy. Still, what could be better than a crafty hibernation period until the sun comes out! Feeling really excited to start some new projects, like my friends wedding invitations, a patchwork quilt project and starting an Adobe Illustrator course, but before I start on them, here is a round up of my Christmas makes.

COASTERS

 Yep. More appliquéd coasters! But they're such fun to make.

PEGS

I have been meaning to do some fabric covered pegs for yonks and I'm so pleased I did. I'm really chuffed with how they turned out and it is such a great way to use scraps of fabric. AND they were easy to do! All you need are some plain old wooden pegs, some card, fabric scraps and lots of glue.

Fabric Covered Pegs Instructions:
1. I measured the front of my peg and cut out a bit of card just a teeny bit smaller.
2. Then cut the fabric scrap so that will wrap around the cardboard- I had about 5mm extra round the edge.
3. Cover the bit of card with glue- I just used PVA but if I had any spray mount I would have used that- stick the fabric to it, wait for it to dry.
4. I trimmed the corners from the fabric so that it would wrap around the card neatly and lie flat and then glued the edges and waited for them to dry.
5. The last step is to glue the fabric covered card to the peg. Again I used PVA for this. Simples.

FABRIC COVERED NOTEBOOKS

I also made some more of  fabric covered notebooks to go with the pegs using the same method as I did here.

SPICE JARS 
I am really pleased with how these spice jars turned out- not complicated to make at all but I think they look quite classy. I painted the lids with some emulsion paint I had in the cupboard (yep- teal tension again), drew a designy-thing in black permanent pen around the edge and then painted a layer of PVA over it to give it some shine and protection. The labels are just ripped from brown paper and stuck on with PVA. Very much looking forward to eating some of the dishes Slim will make using them...

BUNTING
Slim's niece isn't quite old enough for super fun toys yet so I thought I would make her a keepsake for her first Christmas. Hopefully this celebratory Eleanor bunting will be something she will keep for years to come. And to make it extra special I have used material from her mum's maternity dress and her grandma's sewing box.

CUSHIONS
This last make was for my friend's birthday and it just wouldn't be a blog post from if it didn't feature at least one cushion. This one that has a pretty good story to go with it though. My dear friend Mazz's mum was given the fabric by her uncle who was in Malawi on a GCHQ mission in the 70's. Then when she moved house she found it and very, VERY kindly donated it to me knowing how much I would love the colours and patterns. It is truly stunning fabric and I have lots of other ideas planned for it.

I really love making things have that an interesting story, heritage, history or link  to them so if you have anything that you would like to turn into a keepsake or memento get in touch and I would love to work with you on it.

So that's Christmas all wrapped up for another and the countdown to spring can begin. Yippee x