Make do and mend: personalised cushion.

Now, what I should be showing you tonight is the pictures of Astrid's party - I want to show you what I did with a whole lot of paper and a small branch. But, I've just realised that would involve searching through and editing all the pictures that were taken at the party and I haven't done that yet (and don't have time tonight, sorry). I'll aim to get them ready to show you before the week is out!

So, to this post - making a personalised cushion.

I managed to grab some time to make some gifts just before Christmas and I even remembered to take some snaps of some of them so I could share them with you.

Up first, is a personalised cushion that I made for our niece, Harriet. Her bedroom is neutral but with tasteful, brightly coloured accessories and so I wanted to give her a cushion that mirrored that. As I don't possess a sewing machine, I chose to use a shop-bought cushion cover and then embellished it myself.

Like most of my crafts, it was really easy to make - I think it took me three evenings to make it (well, the time left after re-settling two children!). I used:

• chartreuse cushion cover from Dunelm Mill
• pink toile de jouy fabric from Laura Ashley
• empty cereal packet
• pencil
• ruler
• decent scissors (I have to confess I used our kitchen scissors, as I don't have any fabric scissors)
• pins
• white cotton thread

What I should have also used:

• thimble (ouch!)

I began by drawing an H on the empty cereal packet using the pencil and ruler. When I was happy with the dimensions, I cut it out and used it as a template to draw an H onto the toile de jouy fabric.

Next, I removed the cushion pad, positioned the fabric and then pinned the H to the green cushion cover. I then sewed around the edge of the H using a very simple straight edging stitch. Please excuse the total amateur nature of the following stitching, but if you're not a perfectionist, here is a close up showing how I finished the edges of the H.

All in all, this was a inexpensive, easy craft to do and hopefully Harriet will like it (she's only seven months old) when she's older.

What do you think? Did you get around to making any gifts this year?

Make do and mend: Astrid's winter-themed birthday invitation.

As you know, Astrid turned one in November and we had a winter-themed party for her. I realised that I got all carried away saying that I'd got my craft on, and then Christmas took over and I didn't get around to showing you what I had made.

First up is the invitations I made for her party. Do you like?

To make this I used:

• cream cardstock
• a snowflake punch
• an old, unwanted book
• silver card
• white card
• silver pen
• glue pen

It was super easy to make - I just simply punched out several snowflakes from the silver and white card, and old book; experimented in laying them out until I was happy with how they looked; and then stuck them on to the card using the glue pen. I finished by using the silver pen to write "Astrid is One" on the bottom right hand corner.

A very simple idea, but one that I was quite happy with.

Make do and mend: snowflake table confetti.

Now, I know you can buy this kind of stuff, but I thought I'd use materials that I already had and spent a lovely evening in front of Kirstie's Vintage Home pressing out a load of silver snowflakes.

I used a snowflake design hole punch and thin silver card to make these little shimmery cut outs - my thumbs hurt quite a bit now as I had to press down with both of my hands in order to punch them out. Using thinner, silver paper would have been a lot easier, but I wanted to work with what I already had - so card it was.

I'm going to use the snowflakes as table confetti and scatter them over a white tablecloth on the food table at Astrid's party. Simple, but pretty, don't you think?

Also, sorry - in hindsight, I should have used a white background in this picture, as I can see some of the snowflakes are a little hard to see against the grey. 

Yarn covered letters.

In preparation for a little craft I'm planning on doing as a present for someone, I've been looking at lovely pictures of yarn covered letters.

These are some of my favourites:

An unusual way of displaying initials from Let Birds Fly.

Image from here.

I really liked the choice of colours in this pile of letters, as well as the addition of the flower.

Image from here.

This cheeky addition to this cosy grey letter made me smile:

Image from here.

Covering letters in wool/yarn looks so simple, but I have a feeling that it may be a little harder than it looks. Any tips for making it easier?

I'll post a picture of my finished object when it's done - won't be until next week though as I don't fancy taking both children to Hobbycraft by myself!

Make do and mend: personalised baby card.

Heard today that my really good friend and her baby have finally been allowed to come home, after a week in hospital - baby Jasmine was four weeks early! 

We'll hopefully see them before the weekend is over, so I made her a personalised card to welcome her into the world (her full name is Jasmine Ann Bartlett).

Do you like it?

It was really simple to make - I used:

• plain cream card stock
• various different patterned papers
• a craft knife
• a butterfly hole punch
• glue pen
• glue stick

I started by choosing a font that I liked the look of on the computer. I then copied the initials onto the front of the card freehand.

Using a craft knife, I cut out the letters, making sure I kept the inside of the A and B to stick back on afterwards.

I then used the butterfly hole punch to stamp out the butterfly shape in the bottom right hand corner and stuck some pink shiny card behind it using a glue pen.

Next, I chose three different patterned papers and stuck these behind the letters so each one had a different pattern behind it.

Lastly (and I apologise for not showing a picture of this), I cut out a square of paper and stuck it on the inside of the card to cover up the individual pieces of paper that were stuck on behind the letters. This made sure the inside of the card looked neat.

Can't wait to meet little Jasmine, although she's going to make Astrid look huge - Jasmine was only 3lb 12oz when she was born and Astrid weighed 11lb 6oz last week!

Make do and mend: bears for a baby.

Back from a lovely spell in Kent with my family - lots of delicious food, beautiful weather and lots of time splashing in a paddling pool in my parents' garden. We spent a lot of time at the beach, visiting local attractions like Leeds castle, and seeing extended family, so I'm really sorry that my promise that I was going to post every day proved a little too ambitious.

As I said, I'm back in Cardiff now and I spent this afternoon visiting my lovely friend Mary who has just had a baby girl. Baby Sophia had such a mop of black hair and was a real sweetie. It was funny for me to compare Sophia at nearly 4 weeks, with Torin - a newborn suddenly seems very easy to deal with - feed, wind, sleep, feed wind sleep . . . Of course, I'm sure the reality of actually having a newborn with a two and a half year old will be a lot of hard work!

I made Sophia's gift myself:

Her room is green and white, so I chose paper with different patterns in those colours to fit in with the room scheme.

Here's a little how-to if you want to try your own:

I began by buying a small white RIBBA frame from IKEA - they are great for this type of project as they come with a mount that is just about the right depth for what I needed.

I also used a teddy bear shaped hole punch to cut out loads of little teddy bears out of green and white paper.

I then cut out a piece of plain white card and fixed it to the back of the mount with tape, to form the background to the picture.

By eye, I then laid out the teddy shapes on the white card and moved them around a bit until I was happy with where they were - I didn't want the layout to be too strict, so I avoided creating a sequence of patterns by punching out different amounts of bears from each type of paper.

Once I was happy with the layout, I stuck the shapes onto the white background using tweezers and sticky pads - you can see from this picture how the shapes stand away from the backing card.

And that was that! Once the shapes were all stuck in place, I popped the mount back in the frame and the gift was finished.

I then wrapped the picture in brown paper and finished it off with some green curling ribbon and a green flower on which I wrote Sophia's name.

I was really pleased that Mary liked the present - she'd had a bit of a clothing overload, and was also relieved that there was no pink in sight!

Make do and mend: bubble birthday card.

Yesterday, in amongst a day of tidying and toddler grouping (going to one, not rounding them up!), I managed to make Torin's birthday card from David and me. I based it on the same design as the invitations I made for his party (these ones); this time I simply added a cut out number 2 instead of writing directly onto the card like I did with the invitations, and fixed it onto the front of the card using the same sticky pads I used to stick the bubble onto the card.

From this picture it's a little hard to see that the bubble and the 2 are raised up using the sticky pads, but I hope you get the idea.

Hope you all have a great weekend, and I’ll be back next week with some pictures of the party (fingers crossed for good weather)!

Make do and mend: bubble cake toppers.

Yesterday I spent a little bit of time making some simple cake toppers for the fairy cakes my mum's making for Torin's birthday party. I'm not sure how many cakes she's planning on making, so I made about 30 cake toppers, all in the shape of bubbles to go along with the bubble theme we're having at the party.

These are the finished ones:

They were so simple to make - I found some plain circular labels, drew around the circumferences with a blue felt-tipped pen and then drew a little shape to make it look like a bubble.

I then stuck a sticker either side of a cocktail stick and voilà - 30 bubble cake toppers! I think they'll look great on the fairy cakes as mum's going to ice them in white and blues.

Make do and mend: bubble theme party invitations.

I mentioned here that Torin turns 2 next weekend! That leaves me with a week to sort out his party. We're just inviting family and close friends, so there's not too much pressure, but I do want to make it a special event for him. I've decided on a bubble theme as he loves blowing bubbles at the moment, and yesterday I made his invitations - yes, leaving it a little late I know, but all of the guests have already confirmed that they are coming anyway.

Here's the finished article - what do you think?

As I was making them all by hand, I wanted to keep the invitations simple, but personal and indicative of the bubble theme. I'm really pleased with how they've turned out!

Here's how I made them:

Using cream card stock (the same size as the invitation), I drew around a jar lid with a blue coloured pencil. This formed the outline of the bubble.

Using the same coloured pencil, I then created a thicker outline around the edge of the bubble and drew the wobbly shape that formed the patch of reflected light (to make it actually look like a bubble!). 

Again, with the same pencil I then lightly shaded around the inside of the thick outline of the bubble, and around the edge of the wobbly shape.

I then wrote "Torin is Two" onto the invitation using a free font that I had copied from the internet (available here).

I attached the bubble to the front of the invitation using little sticky pads. I find it really helpful to use tweezers when applying the pads, as they are more precise than my fingers!

Each invitation took about 20 minutes to make, so I'm glad Torin's not having loads of guests! Having said that though, I did enjoy making them, and I'll probably base Torin's birthday card on the same design.

I'm still working on the ideas for decorations and food, but I will share those details with you when I've sorted everything out!

Simple wedding card

Now our newly married friends have opened their presents, I can show the simple card I made for their wedding:

It was really easy to make - I simply punched out the bell shapes using a hole-punch and different types of paper, and then stuck them onto cream card using these.

Here's a close-up of the bells:

Let me know if you like it!

Make do and mend: diary makeover.

Each year, my grandmother gives me the Dairy Diary for Christmas. This year it came with a mini diary as a free gift, which was lucky as David decided yesterday that he needed an appointments diary to use at work. He thought the mini diary would be suitable for what he needed but didn't like the cover, so he asked me if I would re-cover it for him. This is what it looked like:

This is what it looked like when I had finished:

Here's how I did it:

Using a craft knife, I removed the book from the hardback cover. 

Using the hardback cover as a template, I cut out some fabric that would form the new cover for the diary (leaving 1cm extra all the way around). The fabric was part of a placemat from IKEA, that we already had. 

I then glued the fabric to the hardback cover using a gluepen.

Next, I folded over the 1cm of extra fabric at the top and bottom of the diary, and stuck them down using the gluepen.

Using scissors, I cut right-angles out of the extra fabric at both sides of the diary (at the top and bottom).

I then folded the corners over like a parcel, and stuck the extra fabric down at the sides of the diary.

Lastly, I stuck the book back into the hard cover, by putting glue down the spine, and over the back of the front and last pages (the pages that had previously been stuck to the cover). I then cut out a piece of decorative paper, and stuck this in at the front and the back of the diary to mask some imperfections that had been caused by peeling the book away from the cover.

And there you have it - a diary with a much nicer cover, made with scraps that I already had in the house. The whole thing took about 30 minutes to make, and cost me nothing.