Another Pretty Parcel

On the Shabby Chic Cafe the lovely Mary Poppins did a very generous lavender giveaway and lucky me I won! The prize came today smelling lovely!

Inside was a pretty Bonne Maman jar filled with lavender, wrapped with a lovely ribbon and with a matching label on the front. This definitely smells a lot stronger than the stuff I was using, its lovely and I will really enjoy using it in my makes without worrying that the smell is going to fade overnight!

Mary was also kind enough to send me one of her pretty handmade hearts, this also has some lavender inside and smells lovely, I have hung it by my bed to help me drift off!

I love the sparkly pink button on the heart, and I believe the fabric is some old Cath Kidston material, although I am not sure...

The heart is now sitting happily with my lovely G from Lace Hearts.

Thankyou Mary for a very generous and lovely smelling giveaway! X

Constant Crafting

Last week I went crazy with the sewing machine making up pretty floral cushions for Emporium here. I brought that batch into the shop and made a start on batch number two!

I chose this brown hollyhox fabric. 

This time I managed to get six cushions out of the material, and I am definitely getting faster at the sewing, its just the cutting out that takes me all day to do! I should probably invest in a rotary cutter or some sort of equipment to speed things up! 

Again, the fabric is gorgeous and has a real vintage feel to it. I'm not sure if it actually is vintage, but very pretty don't you think?

After all the cushion making I have been doing I've had to order some more fabric labels, these are really great for giving a more professional finish to something, and they are good value for money (I personally think). I now have a little jar to keep all my labels in, aren't jars great for making you feel organised?

I don't think I like this material quite as much as the rosy stuff from last time, I do however think this is more suitable for sofas rather than bedrooms which is good. I think the brown background makes a nice change too.

I still have the great green fabric that everybody loved to work with, although I won't get as much out of that, I'm sure it will be fun to play with!

So thats 11 cushions down...lots more to go!

Mmmm vintage buttons :) X

A Parcel From Lace Hearts

I have been doing a spot of swapping lately as you have seen with Lesley and Claire, and my latest swap to arrive was from lovely Lace Hearts. I had asked Lacey if I could do a little swap for one of her gorgeous handmade fabric letters, we would send each other a few little bits and this is what I received:

A beautiful Lace Hearts original fabric bucket :) I have wanted one of these for ages so I am soooo pleased to have got one!

Pretty pink gingham and Cath Kidston spotty fabric. I love it!!

I also got my lovely 'G' letter made up in pretty Laura Ashley Bibi fabric (my fave LA print as a matter of fact!) 

I am going to hang this up next to my bed, its so lovely and such an original idea :)

Lastly I got some fab Rosali fabric coasters which Lacey sells in her Sew Happy Shop, if you like these you should click on that linky! Almost too good to be used...

So here is my little bundle of goodies, including a lovely card. I do get such pretty cards from my swaps.

Here's the G hanging up in my room, on my shabby chic wall! I am so lucky to have such gorgeous handmade things, they are so special and each and every single thing I receive I treasure.

Thankyou so much Lacey for a gorgeous swap! I will show you what I sent for my part of the swap once I know it has been received :)

Cushions

Last week when I dropped off the union jack hearts to Emporium the lady owner asked if I could make some cushion covers using some gorgeous vintage floral fabrics she had. So I took home a bag stuffed with lovely fabrics and today I made a start on the covers.

I think they are all vintage, especially the one with the green background, it looks almost painted onto the fabric..


Some beautiful pink lilly fabric, and lots of roses (my fave!) for me to get crafty with!

I thought I'd start with my favourite fabric of the lot, and cut out five cushion covers. The lady also gave me some great vintage buttons to use for the envelope backs, and buttons meant I had to use my button hole maker for the first time. I was a little aprehensive about messing it all up, but it was surprisingly easy to use and I actually ended up enjoying it!

This is the back of one of them, the buttons on this one are wooden, and the ones below are a metalic silvery grey. She also asked if I could add my Roses and Gingham labels to the cushions to give them a more proffessional look, which was lovely of her considering the fabric and buttons aren't even mine!

I put cushion pads in them just to check they looked ok, and thought I'd put them on the sofa! The fabric is so lovely I'd love to keep them for myself, but I'll have to bring them in to the shop soon.

Yep I took lots of photos...just because the fabric is so pretty!

I've still got all of the other different materials left to work with, so I need to make some more cushions, and also some little drawstring bags out of the pink rosey and lilly fabrics which should keep me busy!

Sorry about the silly amount of photos, I just took a load then couldn't chose between them!

Oh I just thought I'd show you the print on this fabric, it looks quite fifties to me, although the colours are still really lovely and bright. Its a linen cotton mix so I think it was an old pair of curtains, and its lovely to see it re-used.

Thanks to everyone who left such lovely comments about the kittens, they are lovely, and very playful and we are having lots of fun with them! :) X

Introducing...

I'd like to introduce some adorable little things who have come to live at the BF's:

This is little Ruby (my choice) :

This is little Rambo (the BF's choice) :

Hope they like their new home!

X

Union Jack Hearts

I popped into Emporium the other day to pick up some lovely vintage floral fabrics to make some cushion covers that I have been asked to make. The day before I thought I'd bring in something new to show, and came up with these lavender union jack hearts. 

The buttons (if you can see them) are from Paper and String and are lovely, although I have used the plain side, the other sides are polka dot and checkered. I highly recommend for beautiful packaging, fast delivery and such fab customer service! :)

I can be very hit and miss with hearts, sometimes they look very dodgy shapes or wonky sides, but these turned out ok, probably to do with me paying attention as I cut them out, and actually pinning before stitching!

I also stitch the whole thing by hand now as I cannot seem to get to grips with curves on my sewing machine, it just doesn't like them (or maybe its me, yeah its probably me come to think of it!)

They absolutely reek of lavender as I am paranoid about the smell running out by the time (if!) someone would like to buy one. A little tip I have found is to add a couple of drops of lavender essence into your jar/bag of lavender to strengthen the smell a bit, I wonder whether rose petals would be a decent alternative? 

It certainly worked as my bag, and all its contents is still smelling of lavender today!

I put a couple of them on these hooks to take some photos. Anyway, the lady in the shop loved them and there are now 4 little hearts hanging in the shop :) if you are in North London I'd highly recommend popping into Emporium as you will walk out feeling so happy, it is such a cheerful shop and tea room and serves yummy cakes too!

I do like taking photos of these cushions, the Union Jack is still very popular with me! :) X

Gone To Earth

I was reading a while back on Rose's lovely blog Victoria Rose Papercraft about the fantastoc online fabric shop Gone To Earth on this post.

Anyway somehow my finger slipped onto the link and these three fabrics found there way into my basket and through the online checkout. Oops! I ordered two fat quarters (the pink and purple fabrics) and 1/2 a meter of the gorgeous 'Rosie Dot' fabric and am so pleased with them.



This one is my fave, its a Tanya Whelan design, and although they do it in other colours like red, pink, yellow and green I went with the blue because I thought it was so pretty, and I actually thought I'd like to make something just for myself from this - very greedy I know!
Now though...what to make?!


This is a funky Amy Butler print, which is a bit different for me, but could make a nice change from the roses!!

Lastly this is another Tanya Whelan print, which I think looks quite similar to the Ikea Rosali stuff, they do it in a pale blue and white background (which are practically identical to the rosali) so I went for pink. I feel like making another quilt at the moment, and although I really enjoyed the last one, well I enjoyed the chosing fabrics, cutting the squares and playing with the layout, the wadding and binding were no fun at all! Hmm I'll have to have a think because my stash is building up and I am not making enough with it!!

Mmm new fabric!

Anyway I would highly recomend Gone to Earth for gorgeous (and American) fabrics at really reasonable prices, so thankyou to Rose for the linky! X

A Boat In The Post

I did a little swap with Claire from Dollydollop this week after spotting something lovely in her blogshop Ginger Pudding. My swap arrived today and as you can (hopefully) see there was a little bundle of lovely fabric scraps included for me to play with! (Did I mention how much I like scraps?!)


There are some lovely pieces, strawberry, flowery, spotty, and even a little bit of Cath too!



Complete with a VW Campervan postcard too which will go in my 'bloggers and shabby chic-ers notes and letters box' I might even show you sometime as there are so many beautiful cards, including some handmade too.

This is what the swap was for, this lovely little handmade stars and stripes boat with sweet little buttons too. I love it and this is going to live in the BFs bathroom as he has a little nautical set of hooks I am going to hang it from (once he puts the hooks up lol!)

If you were wondering what I sent Claire, she may well pop it on her blog, but it was a rosey pinky autumnal brooch which I forgot to photograph! X

Rosey Napkins and Lavender

I have been utterly spoilt with parcels this week (bloggers and shabby chic-ers are ever such nice people!) and this is another little swap I received from Elaine (Eddie), a lovely lady on the Shabby Chic Cafe who sent me some pretty rosey napkins to use for decoupage. The blue ones are from Aldi, although they look very CK to me. The white ones are from Tesco and are really pretty.




I haven't done any decoupage for a while, but a few people on the forum have recently been doing it and I do have some boring old things which could certainly be 'prettified' using these :) I will keep you posted!



If you were wondering what I sent Elaine it was one of these, my fabric hearts (with a bit of lavender thrown in too)

Speaking of Lavender, I was getting fed up of the plastic bag scenting everything in the cupboard where I keep my crafty stuff so I bought a pretty jar to keep it in and now the smell is safely contained inside!

I added a little bit of CK writing paper that I photocopied (couldn't cut into the real thing! oh no!) and cut it to size to stick ontop ::

Much better!

Hope you are all having a lovely weekend, see you Monday! X