I like Colour!

I’ve finally finished the colourful iPhone cases I was making and uploaded them to the store!

Now OBVIOUSLY I am not the most professional crafter, but I do like to make stuff, and matching colours is one of my favourite things to do. I spent one night a few weeks ago (oh my, it’s probably more like a few months ago now!!) just cutting all these stips of fabric for these bags. I worked out all the colours, matched them, connected them and worked out what combinations would work best. It’s seriously my favourite part of making these cases, and when you read what happened making the rest of them, you’ll see why.

So many things went wrong.

For some reason I cut them all the wrong size (2 inches instead of 1 1/2), then I had this major brain malfunction and thought they were meant to be 1 inch, so started triming some down to 1 inch. Thankfully I stopped and looked at it again. With the 2 inch stips, I cut them down to the right side and then when I sewed them together on my new machine I used my 1/4 inch foot. Turns out when I’d made them before on my old machine my ‘guess’ 1/4 inch was more like 1/8 inch (but not exactly- argh!). So then they were too small for the iphones! So some I completley unpicked, added more pellen, and did up again, others I just added an additional strip of fabric and they’re just a bit bigger then an iPhone (not a big deal, it’s just that before they were PERFECT fits before). The rest are all just still in the box waiting for me to get over my frustrations!

But at least these three made it INTO the store. They’re $10 (plus P&H) but believe me, the cost price of these buggers has ended up being around $20 each! Not your fault of course, so I’ve kept that at the original $10!

I’m playing Danielle’s new game, PUSH! You can join in too.

Tags: case, colour, danielle, helloowl, iphone, push, red, shop

Stars & Hearts for Christmas…

Yay! Another project complete with project sheet! As much as I love making all the beautiful creations other people post on their blog, I love to share with you my own ideas and craft projects!

This particular little beauty I started last Christmas, but only got round to finishing recently. They’re quite simple and easy to make- great for someone who’s just starting with stiching and crafts (like me!).

First you’ll need to download the pattern here (apologies for it just being a jpg and not a pdf… it’s A4 size). And then you can follow the instructions below!

Step 1: You can either choose the same material for all of them, or you can mix it up a bit, like I did. Either way you need to cut out the template for each once with the material the right way up, and once with it the wrong way up.

The reason you have to do this is because the star (or the heart) isn’t exactly even. If you just cut two out the same they wouldn’t match up.

Step 2: Cut out the shape from wadding.

Step 3: Join the three pieces together, and using either running stick (which I used) or backstich, stich around the edge, about 1/2 inch in.

Step 4: Using the pinking shears to cut around the edge. You can easily adjust the size of the stars and hearts by cutting bigger/smaller shapes. You can also replicate this idea to suit anything you want! You might want to do some stars of david for Hanukka, or some cute animals for a nursery, or letters of a kid’s name for their room…

Step 5: Join it together somehow… this part is up to you! I think I’m going to either add it to one of my christmas swags, or join them on a string of raffia… let me know what you do with yours!!

P.S: If you want to make some other cute softies… check these out!

Tags: Christmas, christmascraft, Craft, green, heart, pinking, pinkinshears, red, star

Plush Mushy!

My latest first craft adventure was this pin cushion mushroom and toadstool. They are incredibly cute, and I don’t really want to poke pins into them!

Toadstool on the left, mushroom on the right.

It was suprisingly easy and quick to make. I whipped up the mushroom in a day (plus the day before I went out to buy the supplies) and the toadstool took a little longer, but that’s just because I was back at work, so had a bit less time on my hands!

The tutorial is here, and I would really recommend checking out all of Little House By the Sea’s blog, because there are some great projects! If you want to know what else I’m looking at doing, then you can check out my tumblr.

Tags: Craft, cute, fairy, mushroom, pincushion, red, toadstool, white