Easy Bunting Birthday Cards

I absolutely love bunting at the moment - I think it looks so cute and am looking forward to making some for my bedroom next year.

It also makes a cute topper for birthday cards and this card can be whipped up in just a few minutes - it is very simple! You could vary the colours to personalise the card for you recipient, add a different message or stamp a greeting on the front....this is a really versatile card that will always look cute!

Materials

Card Blank

2 colours of felt

Contrasting thread

1. Cut triangles out of your felt

2. Line the up on your card to get the position you desire

3. Using a glue stick, glue the back of each triangle and stick it to the card

4. Using a contrasting thread in your sewing machine, sew a line across the top of the felt triangles

And that is it! These are super simple and you can whip up a batch so you always have one handy!

Have a great day!

Love Rebecca

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Storybook Craft Project - Happily Ever After Inspiration Book

How could I do a Storybook Craft Project and neglect the most classic stories of all time - Fairy Tales. We grow up with these stories and they are well know throughout our culture. 

The different stories have many aspects in common, one of which is of course the Happy Ending.

I have been thinking a lot lately about my Happily Ever After. What I want out of my life and where it will take me. For as long as I can remember I have wanted to be a teacher (with certain points where I changed my mind and preferred vet, astronaut and child psychologist!) so for me, my happily ever after is going to be achieving this goal and beginning my career. And I am thrilled that next year will be starting my journey. I will be moving, finding a place of my own to live (for the first time ever!) and I have been having so many ideas of things I can do for the new place. Although I have gathered them on pinterest (of course) I like the idea of having them physically as well, that was I can slip the book in my bag when I go shopping and then if I find some fabric or something I will know how much of it I want etc. So I made my Happily Ever After book that I am sharing with you today.

This is a really easy and fun project that will keep growing.

Materials

Blank Notebook (I got mine from Paperchase)

Stickers and washi tape (again from Paperchase)

Cute papers and embellishments

(just to say I have just realised I got all my supplies from Paperchase - this is not a paid endorsement of any kind I just really love that shop!)

1. Decorate the front of you book with stickers, washi tape, papers. I also used washi tape to make the tabs on the side. I also added a picture of a castle I got from the internet

2. I used washi tape to decorate the back as well (these are my first ever rolls so I am a bit over-excited by them!)

3. Print pictures, cut from magazines, draw/sketch/doodle your inspiration on the pages inside. I have split my book into Future, Projects and Dreams. And then I have different sections within each one. For example...

In the Future section...the bedroom

Bedroom from Scrumdillydilly

Quilt from Sew Can She

Bunting from The Painted Hive

In the Projects section...sewing to wear

Paper bag skirt from Oh Sweet Joy

Milkmaid skirt from Crafter Hours

I am excited to keep adding to this and to finally make my Happily Ever After a reality!

Have a great weekend

Love Rebecca

Olympic Countdown - 11 Weeks to go - Olympic Keyrings

Just 11 weeks to go until the start of the London 2012 Olympics. This week I made some London keyrings inspired by these over at Sarah Ortega.
I have never had Jenga so couldn't use Jenga blocks to make these key rings. Instead, I used 7 x 2 x 1.2 cm blocks of wood. I bought a 1.5m long piece of 2cm wide, 1.2cm deep wood from B&Q and used a saw to make the 7 cm blocks. Make you sand the raw edges where you sawed and then you are ready to go!

Materials



7cm x 2cm x 1.2cm wooden blocks
Screw Eyes
Key Ring
Wrapping paper/maps etc.
Mod podge (or I use a mix of PVA and varnish)
Hammer
Nail






Instructions


1. Draw round all four sides of your block plus the bottom. Cut these out.

2. Using the hammer and a nail, make a small guide hole in the top of the block by gently knocking the nail into the top. Attach the key ring into the screw eye and screw into the guide hole you just made.

3. Modpodge the first side and stick the corresponding piece of paper on. Repeat with all four sides and the base. Cover the whole key ring with modpodge and leave to dry (I hang them by the key ring on a paintbrush which is suspended from two cups)

These technique is versatile an adaptable to creating keyrings for any occasion!

For my London Olympic keyrings I used...London tube map, Union Jack wrapping paper and crown wrapping paper (left over from the Olympic Storage Boxes).

You could also use magazines, wallpaper or scrapbook paper to create a totally unique keyring

So have a look in your stash and see what great papers are waiting to be transformed into cute keyrings

Love Rebecca

Linking to...

The Grant Life 
Naptime Crafters 
Six Sisters' Stuff
Family Ever After
Tatertots and Jello 
Positively Splendid 
Making the World Cuter 
Rae Gun Ramblings
Sew Much Ado
Fireflies and Jellybeans
A Creative Princess

Olympic Countdown - 12 weeks to go - Olympic storage boxes

This year is an exciting year in Britain with the London Olympics and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. This means that there is an abundance of British inspired things to buy! Paperchase (amazing shop. just saying!) is no exception and they have some mega cute notebooks, pencil cases, cards etc. But I love their wrapping paper and at £1 a sheet its a great alternative to scrapbook paper! I found three sheets I liked and bought them with the intention of covering some shoe boxes.

 


 Are you like me when it comes to shoe boxes? I don't know what it is but I can't throw them out! They are boxes. for storing things. that I didn't have to pay for! Its a win win! Except that the stack of shoe boxes in my room looks just like...well...a stack of shoe boxes! Well, not any more! This project is basically a wrapped shoebox - very simple but effective! I have included a tutorial because I found a neat way of using double sides tape for this. You probably already know this already but if not...




Tutorial

Materials for 1 shoe box

1 1/2 Sheets of A2 wrapping paper (1 for box, 1/2 for lid)
Double Sided sticky tape
1 plain Jane boring old shoe box

1. Stick two long strips of double sides tape to the bottom of your box. Peel off the back and stick in the middle of the back of your wrapping paper. Next stick tape around the top edges of your box as in the picture.

2. Peel of the backing of one long side piece and fold to stick paper to that side. Repeat on the other long side

 3. Cut diagonal slits towards the box, fold the flap in half and stick a piece of double sides sticky tape to the flap. Bring the flap inside the box, pull tightly and stick.

4. This is what your box should look like so far...

 5. At one end, cut along the paper in line with the bottom of the box to create three flaps. Trim the two side flaps to about 2/3 the size of the short side of your box

 6. Using double sided tape to stick them, fold in the two short flaps

 7. Fold over the end of the long flap and attach a strip of double sided tape. Peel of the backing and bring this into the box. Repeat with the other side

 8. Repeat all of the above steps for the lid. You may need some normal sellotape to neaten up some edges but otherwise you are finished! All you need to do now is cover all of your shoe boxes!

Have a great weekend

Love Rebecca

Linking to...
Family Every After
Six Sisters Stuff 
Rae Gun Ramblings
Sew Much Ado
Fireflies and Jellybeans
A Creative Princess

Recycled Wall Art

This is a project made almost entirely of the many leaflets we seem to get through our door - take away menus, local news fliers and other random papers. Although time consuming, the resulting poster looks good and it is quite a therapeutic process.

Finished Poster

1. Cut out letters from various leaflets  and sort them into piles according to letters
2. Get a piece of card (mine was 44 x 37 - but it can be any size)
3. Starting in the top left corner, use a glue stick to stick letters to spell desired words - here the possibilities are endless - I chose to do some of my favourite sayings or expressions but you could do books quotes, inspirational quotes - use your imagination!

NB. Try to mix up the letters so you are not spelling a word using letters all in the same colour or font

I now have a stash of letters all ready for another wordy project!

Love Rebecca

Linked up on Craftastic Mondays @ Sew Can Do

Bunting Tutorial

I am now fully moved into my new room in York and thought I'd share the bunting I made to brighten it up! To be honest, I couldn't be bothered to make fabric bunting so thought I'd go for the lower effort (and lower cost) option of paper bunting. I used two sheets of wrapping paper from Paperchase which I absolutely love to create this...

Butterly Bunting

Materials (makes enough for a 2.5m wall)

2 sheets of good quality wrapping paper
Length of wool about 3m long
Sellotape

1. Make a triangle template on card (mine was 16cm on the shot side and 22cm down the diagonal)
       I drew mine on PowerPoint so the proportions were perfect and then printed it

Card template

2. Draw round template on back of wrapping paper (I needed 8 triangles of each kind of paper) and cut out

You need about 16 triangles

3. Starting at one end, secure back of triangle to wool with sticky tape and repeat until long enough (I didn't leave a gap between each triangle to create a continuous effect

Wool taped to back of triangle

 

4. Attach to the wall with blue tack and admire your creation!

Finished bunting

Love Rebecca

Explore our Planet

I fell in love with the map of America from the The 36th Avenue Blog and couldn't wait to have a go. I love to travel and it is my dream to travel across the USA but for now most of my travel has been in Europe - due to the epic interrailing trip! I initially planned to do whole world map but one look at Europe in the atlas put me off that idea! So many tiny countries! I settled for just doing Europe (and this was still tricky with countries like Croatia and Slovenia).

I used a canvas which I painted a pinky brown colour (made from brown and white acrylic paint) with a white border all the way round. I then traced the countries using greaseproof paper and the transferred this to the back of pretty card making paper. Once all cut out and arranged I used PVA glue (with a mix of water and varnish) to stick the countries down and create a glaze over the top.

I then added the title 'Explore our Planet' and tiny brads to indicate places that I have visited. Finally, I added bunting of the countries outside of Europe that I have visited. I am very pleased with the result (apart from the hugeness of Russia which is nearly as big as the rest of Europe and has no brads as I have never been there!). It now hangs in my bedroom at university.

Love Rebecca