Gorgeous Gift Tags

December 14, 2015

You may have seen that Prestigious Textiles have a crafty advent calendar this December. Each day there's a snazzy new craft idea and there's been some real corkers so far. The wallpaper stars from day 10 are definitely going on my "to make" list.

So when they got in touch and asked if I wanted to get involved by choosing a day and making my own version of their prompt, of course I said yes. So by now you'll have worked out that I chose day 14 and gorgeous gift tags.

So let's get started.

You'll need:

material squares in Christmas fabrics, my squares are two inches
plain gift tags, or card and twine to make your own
pins
needle & thread
scissors
glittery or glitzy embellishments
buttons

Inspired by my mum and the decorative additions she'd added to a new bag she'd made I decided to try my hand at Kanzashi. Yes exactly, I'd not heard of it before either - but mum assured me it was easy. It certainly looked impressive so I was in.

Kanzashi are decorative hair ornaments used in Japanese hairstyles and often worn by brides and geisha in tea ceremonies. The folded fabric flower kanzashi is just one type and that's what I'm going to add to my gift tag to make it gorgeous. I'm going to embellish them with some glitzy trimmings and then add a button as the flower centre.

That's the plan anyway!

To make the kanzashi

1. Each of our two inch squares will make one petal. Take one of the squares and fold in in half diagonally and then fold the corners down towards your hand.

2. Turn your folded fabric over and fold both tips of the "side" corners to the centre, see below.

3. Now add a pin through the folds.

4. Repeat the steps above to make as many petals as you need. The finished flower will be approximately the same size as the squares you started with, so in this case two inches. For this size I found seven petals worked best, but you can choose if you add more, or less.

5. When you have the number of petals you need, trim each petal to remove the "bulk" of the material at the non-folded end.

6. Ensuring all of your petals face the same way, thread them onto a length of cotton leaving both ends of the thread long.

7. Pull the thread tight so the petals come together and form a circle, then knot the thread. I added a few stitches to keep the petals where I wanted them.

8. Next I took some glitzy fabric trimmings and cut a length of about two inches. For each I sewed a loose running stitch on one edge and once again pulled that tight to form a rosette and attached it to the kanzashi. I added a button in the centre, which not only finishes the flower, but it also covers my sewing.

For the first gift tag I used a spotted craft button and omitted the glitzy trimming, for the other two gift tags I used an old shirt button. Then I replaced the gift tag string with a beaded string.

I'm rather pleased with my gorgeous gift tags, what do you think?

With thanks to Prestigious Textiles for the challenge and for the Christmas fabrics.

Hidden under the leaves...

December 10, 2015

At the weekend I glimpsed out of our conservatory window and couldn't help but notice the spent agapanthus stem and how different it was now. I made a mental note to pop out and take some pictures of my garden for this post. Then what with the rain and the wind and my march about town in new shoes on Sunday it didn't happen. Harrumph.

But yesterday was one of those crisp, clear winter's mornings so before I went to work I grabbed my camera and had a quick wander around the garden.

But first isn't the agapanthus a beauty?

Looking at the picture now I'm not quite sure what it's caught, it could be the petals or it could be some wildlife. Either way the colours make up for it. The plant, though is still lush green and quite a contrast.

Further along the tagetes and scabiosa are still flowering - I know it sounds painful doesn't it?

And it seems the leaves have shed all their leaves already. MOH noticed the trees were bare, but as the grass was clear assumed they'd blown away so he wouldn't need to clear them this year. Well they have blown away, I found a lot of them up against the fences...

It wasn't long before I spotted some flowers on the hostas, hopefully they'll continue to flower and the pastel pink will deepen in colour.

Up by the phormium with its ribbon-like leaves I couldn't quite believe my eyes. That's right I spotted bulbs already coming through, these I think are most likely bluebells. Although my bulbs aren't as advanced as some, I saw during the week that Ness has already seen her first daffodil.

At the back of the garden my pyracantha is still loaded with berries, probably the most we've seen on this plant. Not as many as some I've seen but as it's a shaped bush, quite a few I think. Then I wondered how the succulents had fared with the weather we've been having.

Perfectly well it seems. Considering I only bought two small plants a few years ago now, they're doing fine!

Then I spotted a primrose amongst the grasses. These are the ones I'd named perpetual primroses because they flowered for so long. Well they did stop flowering eventually, but it seems it was only a short break as they're back.

The strawberries are also doing well. They're harbouring even more leaves, perhaps they know they're destined for the allotment...

My new patio pots - which are still lodging at the far end of the garden - are doing well, the heather has grown and continues to add a burst of pink. But even they are harbouring leaves - I guess it's just that time of year!

Putting my new Hotter boots through their paces

December 8, 2015

Last week I met up with the lovely people from Hotter Shoes in their new Brighton store, and as you might have seen on my social channels I left with a new pair of boots. I was in shoe heaven that evening locked in a shoe shop after hours, with company and under instruction to try on whichever shoes I fancied. That's definitely a good night in my book.

I had a lovely afternoon in Brighton yesterday, though am paying for it with tiredness today! After some lunch we went...
Posted by Life at 139a on Wednesday, 2 December 2015

Some of you will already be Hotter converts, knowing that their shoes are some of the most comfiest around. Others of you may still be in the same camp as MOH who quite frankly refers to them as old people's shoes. He's got a lot to learn, although I'll admit that not all of their styles appeal to me. But then again nor do the entire range of other brands either.

Actually let's talk about that. Hotter will I'm sure be the first to admit that they first appealed to an older audience, in 1959 when they started out slippers were their thing. And as an image, you really can't get older than that. But now they say they make shoes as comfortable as slippers, and that's quite a claim.

Last week I tried on several pairs of shoes - well it would have been rude not to, wouldn't it? And it was the boots I left with that I found the most appealing, and the most comfortable. In fact I kept them on the whole evening and yes I was extra careful not to spill my canapés on them. I learnt that it's the millions of air bubbles that make the Hotter shoes comfortable, that and the wiggle room they provide for feet.

So while I wasn't under any compulsion to write a review of my new boots, I did want to share with you just how comfortable I found them. And when I got to thinking about a review for shoes, I thought that wouldn't be so exciting to read - I mean there's only so many ways to photograph and describe any pair of shoes. Even for me.

So I guessed you might be more interested to know what I got up to in them, and as they were so comfortable I thought I'd put them where my mouth was so-to-speak and wear them for the first time this weekend when we had a bit of a mega-day planned in town.

I woke Sunday morning reconsidering my madness. Was wearing new shoes for the first time for a Christmas market, Christmas shopping and Festive afternoon tea jaunt really my best idea. Thankfully I'd not said this publicly so I could back out without anyone knowing...

However I had planned my outfit around them. And they did feel comfortable. So I decided to go with it, even if it was a little bit of a bonkers plan.

What could go wrong?

We left home and headed to Waterloo so MOH could pick up my Christmas present which I'd reserved earlier in the week. With that collected we headed over to the South Bank and being in full tourist mode I couldn't resist some photos of the London Eye. And MOH was given his first photo assignment of the day.

We wandered along the South Bank heading towards the Christmas Market there. To be honest I was less impressed with the market, I think previous years have been better, but the carousel was pretty. There were more food stalls this year though so we stopped for a Bratwurst with sauerkraut and perched alongside a table to make sure no stray mustard or ketchup attacked my boots.

Now fed and running out of Christmas market we headed over the Hungerford Bridge, up through Trafalgar Square and past some huge box balls in some rather fine dustbins. Don't they look great?

Then it was onto Piccadilly where there's one shop we always visit this time of year to buy a special pack of mince pies. And this year was no exception.

While MOH explored the gentleman's department, which I'll admit is a fascinating place I sneaked a quick sit down in one of their wing-backed arm chairs. Well I was conserving energy, though actually my feet were feeling surprisingly spritely.

We still had a fair bit of walking to do though as our next stop was a couple of department stores on Oxford Street. So avoiding as many of the crowds as we could by skirting around some of the back streets we finally headed up New Bond Street and along to the shops we were aiming for.

With our coffee supplies replenished and some Christmas shopping bought, we were soon done with Oxford Street. We don't tend to walk up and down Oxford Street itself because of the crowds so as usual headed towards Wigmore Street and walked parallel to the busier street. By now I fully expected to be flagging and in truth I was a little. But my boots weren't rubbing, and we slowed our walking pace for a little to give ourselves a breather.

I also deployed my old trick of pausing for photos as and when I fancied a break. It's a great tactic, and quite often it means you get to see bits of wherever you are you're not quite expecting.

It wasn't long before we headed back towards Oxford Street, crossed it into Berwick Street and zig zagged our way through the streets and towards Seven Dials. There was a point for us aiming for Covent Garden and that was a rather scrumptious and longer than intended Festive Afternoon Tea. It's something that's becoming one of our traditions and not a bad one to have, which makes Christmas shopping much more fun and more of an event.

What I hadn't thought of when I planned this post was darkness. I know it's getting dark early but I'd overlooked the fact that photographing black boots once it's dark doesn't really work, does it? But after our late afternoon tea we headed down towards the Piazza at Covent Garden anyway to admire their decorations.

COVENT GARDEN'S CHRISTMAS TREE (WITH AN UNKNOWN GENTLEMAN!)

And then it was time to head home.

So almost 17, 500 steps later we were home. And more importantly I was still wearing my new boots and I could still walk in them. My feet were tired, but given how far we'd walked of course they were. But boots hadn't rubbed and the next day I still wore my heels to work, as usual.

So I think you'll agree the boots (and my feet) did well. So if you're looking for some stylish and comfortable shoes take a look at the new Hotter range I don't think you'll be disappointed, I certainly wasn't. And just so you know there's no need to test them in the same way I did, unless you want to of course, and afternoon tea is always a good move!

Thank you to Hotter for my new boots and for providing the inspiration for this post, all opinions within it are my own (and my feet's!)