Handmade Gift Ideas

Unless you are amazingly organised and probably feeling pretty pleased with yourself right now, you may be wondering what the baubles to get for everyone this holiday?  Over the last year or so, I've posted a few quick, easy and fairly low cost projects, so here are a few that might be the answer to your friend/family/Secret Santa gifting worries?  Grab a cuppa/cocktail - it's a long one :)
Click in the top right corners of each photo to be taken to the DIY!

1. Tote Bag
Who doesn't need a tote bag?  A handmade, personalised, potentially gold glitter tote bag?

Decorate it in any colour or design for a unique and useful gift [you could even grab a fabric pen and let the kids loose on the design?]:

2. Bag Tags

Decorate that tote bag, or any bag, with a handmade bag tag.  Personalised and open to any design, colour and material - it's optional sew or no-sew - so perfect for that last minute gift too!

3. Jewellery and Accessories

I have too much jewellery! Too many accessories!  Said no-one, ever! These DIYs create fantastic presents and the design and colours can be adapted to suit the style of whoever is lucky enough to receive it:

4. Stationary

Something else you can never have enough of? Stationary.  Design your own pattern and personalise with favourite quotes or lyrics with paint, embellishments, pens and stamps and store them in updated folders.  Pins, clips and magnets make fun stocking fillers too:

5. Study Organisation

Which are the perfect accessories for fun pinboards - perfect for updating an office or work space:

6. Phone Cases

Know someone who is never off their phone, or loves it just that bit too much?  Try creating a personalised phone case with these simple DIYs:

7. Home Interiors

Add a little sparkle or personalised design to your friends and family homes with these interior ideas:

8. Clothing

Clothing is a bit of a tricky one, unless it's an item that has been specifically asked for.  Nothing screams 'change your horrible style' passive-aggressively like buying someone clothing.  But a personalised top with a favorite design, quote or word that reminds you of the person in a colour and style they love? Winner:

...and if you have a crafty friends that does not own a glue gun? Can I suggest you fix this for them?

I hope that you find something here that may help - if all fails, chocolate is always a winner!

Have a great weekend x

Embroidered Heart Christmas Decorations

Sometimes, the best decorations are the simplest and these felt hearts are a quick project that can be further embellished with a quick embroidery trick.

What I Used:

Felt

Wedding

Toy Stuffing

Template

Embroidery Thread / Sewing Thread

Needle / Pen / Scissors

[right-click on the template above to save and print from your computer]

To start, print off the template and use the heart to cut 2 pieces of felt for each decoration:

To add an embroidered word, use some fabric webbing to trace over the festive word of your choice in pen - the webbing is much more practical for smaller, more detailed projects than paper [as used in previous posts] and will allow you to embroider over the webbing without it tearing or moving:

Place and pin your traced word over one of the cut hearts and begin to embroider over the word:

Once finished, cut away the webbing and pull away carefully from under the stitches [use tweezers to help remove any small sections] to reveal a beautifully hand embroidered design:

Next, join the two cut hearts together with a simple running stitch around the edge - I left around a 0.5cm hem and spaced out my stitches to a similar measurement.  Continue until you reach around 3cm from the start to add your stuffing [completely optional]:

I filled my hearts with a small amount of toy stuffing to provide a little padding and plump to the hearts.  Secure in place by finishing the stitching around the edge and secure your stitch with a double knot before trimming the excess:

Finally, add a loop to the top of the heart to hang your decoration:

These are perfect as hanging decorations for the tree or home and they make pretty fab keepsake present tags too.  Embroider names, your own choice of words or song lyrics - mix up the colours, materials used and sizes for a beautiful handmade collection of decorations.

The perfect evening and film-watching project.

[You can see a larger version of a similar project here - apologies in advance for the photo quality].

see you next time x

Christmas Pudding Teacakes 2014

For me, teacakes are synonymous with Christmas.  

Mainly because for years, I have turned them in to these:

...and when I first started blogging, it was the post I was most excited to share.  

Since then, I've exhausted the dressing up of teacakes [ghost & spider Halloween teacakes, anyone?] - but this is, by far, my favourite.  Want to make your own?  Here's how:

What You Need:

Teacakes

White Chocolate

Green and Red Icing Pens

 To start transforming your teacakes into puddings, melt your white chocolate to the point where you melt around 2/3 of your chocolate and mixing with a spoon melt the remainder - this will help ensure the chocolate stays at a fairly thick consistency and also not too hot that it melts through the teacake.  With the spoon take a small portion of the chocolate and starting from the top centre, guide it around the sides in a dripping design:

 ....continue across all your teacakes and leave to set fully

[pop in the fridge to help speed this along if you need]:

 With ready-made icing pens, or royal icing coloured and added to a  piping bag, 

create your holly and berry toppers:

 ...leave to set and your christmas teacake puddings are good to go:

 It really is as quick, simple and easy as that. 

Make them - they go down brilliantly at parties and are so quick and simple to make, you can create them in the little time you have around the Christmas season.  Kids will love having a go too!

[wrap them back up once the chocolate and icing have set to keep them safe for travelling from your home [if they make it that far from the kitchen.........]

Happy December 1st - and so it starts!

More teacake madness? Original post here and added value ideas here.