Wedding belles

Those of you who read my main blog will already have seen my many wedding pics of our handmade wedding back in July this year in the Derbyshire countryside.  If you want a peek at more pics have a look here.

We had a really handmade theme to a lot of our wedding.  My husband designed the invite which we based on the royal wedding memorabilia (which you can see here), which were printed on tea towels and he designed the menus and order of service etc.  I made my wedding dress and accessories for the wedding day, the boutonnieres and made and sourced most of the decoration for the wedding too and me and my family did the flowers on the morning of the wedding, having bought flowers from the wholesalers that morning.  My brother took all the pics and my sister in law took a Super8 video of us too and our families worked their backsides off to help us out setting everything up and taking it all down after the celebrations.  It was a lot of hard work, but definitely worth it.  

Did you have/Are you thinking of having a handmade wedding?

Baby DIY

With a little bun in the oven of my own, I am starting to think about making some cute little clothes and baby accessories while I still have a bit of energy left and there is a tonne of inspiration and ideas on the internet, here are just a few.

Yikes! Aodrable baby booties from I Think Sew

Fitted crib sheet easy tutorial from Joanne Arbour 

'Cute as a button' button top tutorial by Shwin&Shwin

Yay!  A tutorial from Dana Made It for an easy skirt, and a cute one at that!

Lotta Jansdottir's book, Simple Sewing for baby has a lot of lovely simple patterns for baby, like this little swaddle blanket. 

Every baby needs a bib, find out how to make your own at Purlbee.  For your baby, not you, of course!

There is nothing cuter than a little bundle of joy in stripes.  Made by Rae shows you how to make your own

Apologies for going AWOL the last few months.  I was busy preparing for my wedding which was in July (tutorial posts to come) and also found out I was pregnant so been struggling with morning sickness which has thankfully now passed, with eveything going on the blog has been a little neglected, so as I was writing this post for my main blog, I thought I would copy it here and just to let you know I haven't gone for good!  

Put a lid on it!

Cute tutorial to jazz up your old jars from Designsponge using scrap paper.

I have to make this!!

Doilies plus wallpaper paste plus glue = fantastic looking lightshade!!  Tutorial from the amazing dosfamily

New Bettyjoy website

Yay!!!! I finally got myself organised and got myself a new website with the help of my boyfriend (who designed it) and Applebox Designs (who did all the tech bit and the online design). There are workshops, tutorials, surface pattern design and more to have a gander at on there so go check it out the new Bettyjoy website here and let me know what you think.

Cute 'all year round' wreath

A wreath is not just for Christmas as this cute tutorial over at Curbly shows.  

A different kind of writing desk

I saw this image on Kika Reichert's blog.  I love a good soak and whats even better is if you have a good writing tray to pen your memoirs as you bathe.  Check out this fantastic idea - you could knock one up using just old pallets and nice bit of varnish.

Canamel (or Caramel in a can)

Not a tutorial as such, but a very good idea nonetheless.  I found this idea onYolanda Campbell's  pinterest page.  Simply boil a tin of condensed milk.  

Cabbage Rose stamp

Cute easy-peasy stamp idea from good ol' Martha Stewart

A little horse

What an adorable and simple idea from lightbluegrey.  Check out her tutorial here.  Unfortunately i don't have a child to make this for, maybe one for me to galavant about the house on??

Ribbon holder

If you have ribbons and bobbins lying about in a tangle looking unsightly, these ribbon holders will not only keep you organised but they make a really pretty creative statement.

Super sewing brooch

If you pine for people to describe you as 'a bit arty' and want to give off a 'creative' vibe then this is the brooch to flash about!  And when strangers stop you in the street to ask where you got that fine accessory, you can casually reply 'oh, this old thing? I made it'!

Sew Super Necklace

This necklace doesnt even really need a tutorial as its as simple as threading bobbins onto a length of cloth or a scarf.  The necklace is secured by tying a bow at the back.

Bobbin drawer handles

Are your drawers looking drab, do they need a crafty spruce up?  These dapper drawer handles are super quick and easy to make and attach.

Crafty stamp

Super simple craft stamp which you can use to decorate wrapping paper, or envelopes & letters (if anyone out there is old school and still writes letters) and anything else lying about.

Bobbin picture holder

This project is super simple and requires no crafty skills whatsover but looks effortlessly cool!

Fabric boxes

Fabric boxes look great and can be used to hold a multitude of things.  I originally wrote this tutorial for Making Gifts magazine but thought I would share it here also.

These buckets make great storage solutions. You can use them to store smellies in the bathroom, socks and pants in the bedroom, crafts supplies in your studio or just put them on your shelves to pretty it up!.

The buckets are reversible, can be used with edge rolled up or down, depending on your mood and they can be stacked when not in use.

Tape brooch

A quick and easy accessory to make - perfect as a last minute gift too if you forgot to get one.

Primark scarves

Tip: Primark scarves are cheap and often come in very pretty pattern and can be cut up and re-hashed into new fabulous DIY projects.

Primark re-hash bracelet

link

This pretty bracelet gave me an idea for creating something similar of my own.  I have since seen quite a few similar designs, involved plaiting chain, fabric and strings of beads.  I recently bought a big load of scarves and cheap jewellery from Primark to cut up and rehash into new things and this bracelet was the first quick DIY project.

my version

Fabric covered bangles

materials

fabric covered bangles

There are 2 methods for making fabric bracelets, one involves wrapping fabric around the bracelet, the other involves gluing a strip of fabric onto a bracelet and folding the edges into the inside of the bracelet.

Fabric wrapped bracelet

This is a super quick and easy accessory to make, either as a gift or as a little something to set off your outfit.

More after the jump

Fabric covered beads

materials

finished fabric beads

Fabric covered beads are really pretty but they are expensive and previously I always thought if I made my own I needed to use a wooden bead as a base, which in itself is pretty dear if you plan on making more than a few.  Recently I came across these polystyrene balls of various sizes which they stock in John Lewis and online and thought that I could cover the polystyrene balls with fabric using a sort of decoupage method - I tried it and it works!

Typewriter Tags

I just found this old pic of one of the tags I made for my brother's wedding favours. Dead easy to do, providing you have access to an old fashioned typewriter (I picked one up in the charity shop for £5). I just scrolled the fabric into the typewriter, the same way you would with paper and typed away. I hole punched the holes in the cloth and added a little scrap of patterned fabric to brighten it up.

Isle be seeing you...

in all the old familiar places!!....Why not use an old vintage tea-towel to re-cover an old chair pad, like this one I made last summer, using one of my Grandma's tea towels featuring the Isle of Wight. I just lifted off the seat pad, drew around it directly onto the tea towel adding an extra 1 1/2 " all the way round, cut it out and used a staple gun to attach the new fabric to the underside and then put the pad back.

Belle Jar

I love bell jars, cloches or specimen jars, whatever you want to call them, I love them. But I cannot afford the pricey tag of an expensive bell jar, or a taxidermy crow which I would love to have inside one of my imaginary bell jars, so I looked online at DIY ways to make bell jars. Many people had used old domed carriage clock cases, removing the clock part and painting up the base of the clock, and that works really well, but I don't have a carriage clock and its raining hard today so I didn't want to traipse round the charity shops looking for one. I've been keeping lots of empty jars recently for various crafty projects and I was looking at an old pickled onion jar which was stacked upside down and thought it could make a sort of DIY version of a bell jar, which a bit of TLC. So I knocked up this little version. Its nowhere near as good as the real thing but it'll do for now, although I might make a couple more as collections often look better than single objects. (This afternoon, I was scrolling thru my blog and came back across this post, so my idea wasn't original after all, and they have a crow!)

Stepping Up To The Plate

Christmas is coming and this goose (me!) is getting pretty fat and I dont have many pennies to put in anyone's hat, so I'm on another handmade Christmas presents tip this year. Sorry family and friends - you'd better start practicing your 'what a lovely present' faces. They'll probably be a bit sick of my handmade wares by now! Anyway, if you are in a similar boat this year why not create some cute dinnerware or decorative plates, like these.

The first one is an old plate which has been knocking about the kitchen for some time looking plain and boring I found some porcelain/ceramic pens at Hobbycraft which cost less than £3 each (If I remember correctly) and you can use these to draw directly onto a ceramic surface of your choice. You can hand draw your design onto the plate in pencil (use a soft pencil for this) and then simply draw over the top with your pen. Why not create a set of personalised plates or cups for christmas.

I was inspired by a decorative plate display I saw on the wonderful Yvestown blog ages ago, but I didn't have any cute vintage plates with big floral designs so I decided to make one. This one is simply a decoupaged plate - I found a couple of images from a recent Country Living magazine and cut them out and using PVA glue, glued the images on and put another coat of PVA over the top to seal it. I did this in a hurry using images I found quickly, but if you hunt about for better images, I'm sure you could do a better job. These obviously can't be eaten off, unless you want a meal flavoured with PVA! But you could make cute decorative plates, I think I'm gonna make a heap more of these then I can display them in the house - or give them to unsuspecting family members!

Fabric Bangles

I love fabric covered bangles, but I can't justify spending over £10 on these, plus they always look better if you wear a couple at once, and that is easily £20 out of my near-empty purse. So I got a couple of charity shop plastic bangles for 50p each and re-fashioned them into something I'd be happy to wear on my wrist. All I did was cut a strip of pretty fabric slightly longer than the circumference of the bangle and twice as wide, then smothered the outside and inside of the bangle with PVA and stick the fabric onto it, tucking the edges into the inside of the bangle, then I gave the fabric another coat of PVA to seal it, left it to dry overnight and it was good to go.

Vintage Spool Buttons

I have been looking for a winter coat for a while but they are either prohibitively expensive or not my style. I had a bit of a brainwave last night when I saw an old summer khaki coat in the wardrobe. I have had the coat since my uni days, so over 10 years - eeek! I've altered it already a number of times. So I took hooded top (which I no longer wear as its covered in paint) and I cut the hooded top up the middle at the front and sewed it into my khaki coat - ta da...New winter coat!! It doesnt look too shabby either.

I was going to buy some nice wooden buttons to sew down the centre of the coat to jazz it up a bit and was about to leave the house to go button shopping this morning when I suddenly realised I didnt need to buy any wooden buttons, I could use the ends of old wooden spools.

Chalkboard Jars

Take an old glass jar and give it a good old wash and remove any labels by soaking the jar in warm water.

Unroll your sticky back chalkboard paper (I got mine from a local stationers)

Cut out a square, use the grid on the back to keep it straight.

Using a white chalk pen, your your design freehand onto your chalkboard square.

Peel back the sticky backing and stick the square to your jar.  If you change your mind about the design, you can simply peel off the sticker and put a new one on - they are easy to remove.

Shrink Plastic Buttons

Take one sheet of shrink plastic (I use Lucky Squirrel shrink plastic) and using a template (I used a small roll of sellotape), draw yourself a circle on the shrink plastic with a permanent marker (fine) about 5-6cm in diameter.  Cut out your circle.

Jam Jar Pincushions

                   


Take one small tiptons jam jar. These are the little ones, about 1 1/2" high.