Merry Christmas One and All!

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to visit my blog over the past year - thank you for reading my ramblings, leaving me the occasional comment and for making blogging such a positive experience. I wish you all a wonderful Christmas filled with happiness and joy!

{image via Pinterest}

Have a fabulous holiday!

Do You Pin?

I joined Pinterest ages ago, but with a lot on my plate, I kind of never got around to doing anything more than accepting my invite.... Until this week.

Suffice to say I'm totally hooked - it is just so darn cool!

While looking at new stuff on there this morning (circa 5am), I came across this image and I must say it seems quite fitting.

{source}

I've managed to pin everything from wedding dresses to home decor to puppy dogs! (And apparently tapped into a slightly cheesy side of my personality along the way!)

So my question for today is - do you pin?

Have a fantastic Friday!

Handmade Christmas Decorations - part two

In my last post on handmade decorations, did some patchwork baubles using up old scraps of fabric. Today I made these cute fabric pinwheels, which was another great opportunity to use up fabric that might otherwise sit in my stash unused.

These pinwheels were done with the leftover red gingham from making my little niece a Christmas stocking, along with some calico pieces that I had lying around. (The colours are closer than they appear in this photo). I thought that these would have a kind of vintagey feel, and I just love this cute saddle-stitch grosgrain ribbon!

Pinwheels like this are super easy to make, you can use whatever fabric fits your Christmas colour scheme and with fusible webbing you can even do a no-sew version. For a super easy take on fabric pin wheels, visit  Sandi Henderson Designs for some downloadable PDF instructions.

Have a lovely week! 

Things I've Been Making

I can't believe how fast December is speeding past! I've more or less got everything organised ready to prepare a full Christmas turkey meal (my first attempt at turkey!) and I've got Christmas decorations up around the house getting in the festive sprit.

One of the gifts I made this year was this cute Christmas stocking for my 3 year old niece in Australia.



In between work and preparing for Christmas, I managed to find time to make these two linen cushions for my mum.



These are roughly 18 by 12 inches, with 3 small tucks toward one end. These will go alongside some of my linen ruffle cushions which were made with the same fabric.



One of the things I've been planning to make for a while is this Monotone Union Jack cushion for my Etsy shop. The cushion has grey 100% linen on the front and back, with different size grosgrain ribbons stitched on to make the union jack shape.



And lastly, I managed to get some more of this gorgeous vintage style linen and I've relisted these Vintage Style Union Jack cushions on Etsy.

I hope you're having a wonderful weekend!

Plumo Love-o!

I just recently came across the gorgeous Plumo website, filled with loads of lovely items. This online site has everything from fashion to homewares to vintage items. The products come from across the globe and the underlying ethos is fair trade and fair pay for the maker.

Here are some of my favourites:

{all images via Plumo}

If you haven't visited the site before I strongly recommend checking them out! :)

Have a lovely day!

Handmade Christmas Decorations - part one

It's no secret that I love handmade and Christmas is no exception, so between now and Christmas Day I thought I'd include some posts sharing some cute, fun decorative ideas for a handmade Christmas.

The idea for today's post is Patchwork Christmas Tree Bauble. These are a super cute idea that I found on the Seeds and Stitches blog over here.

These cute handmade baubles are super simple to make, and great if you're like me and you have loads of small pieces of leftover fabric lying around!

These are not quite done, but I had to finish them off quickly after I added to much water to my glue and they took nearly 24 hours to dry (even sat beside the aga!). At the moment they just have some curling ribbon around them, but I plan to finish these with a quick-dry varnish and find some fabric ribbon to replace the curling ribbon. I'm also going to paint a glue design on some and add filigree jewellery findings at the top and bottom for a tidy finish.

I'm pretty happy on the whole with how they have turned out and I was thrilled to find a good way to use up my small scraps of fabric!

Have a lovely day!

Snowy Weather and a new look for my header!

I love snow. I think after a lifetime in the sun, the novelty of the soft white flakes drifting downwards has yet to wear off! So with the first snow falling and after a very hectic month away with friends and family over November, I've decided my first post now that I'm back seems like a fitting time to show off my new blog header, complete with seasonal snowy images.

(Okay, I had to cheat with some from last year, but you get the idea! :) )

I have to say a big thank you to my sis, Letitia from The White Shed, for the lovely photo of my linen ruffle cushions (you can buy them at her gorgeous shop over here). The rest of these are my own photos, and it seemed like it was about time I got some things that I made up there.

Of course, snow goes hand in hand with Christmas, so while the snow is falling outside, I'm going to be snuggled up indoors making some handmade Christmas decorations which I'll hope to share with you over the next few weeks counting down to the big day!

Have a lovely week!