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.

Inspired by MADE London

October 26, 2015

On Thursday evening after work MOH and I headed into town towards Great Portland Street and ONE Marylebone - a Sir John Soane church and also the venue for MADE London, the design and craft fair. I'd been invited to the private view evening ahead of the show's opening the next day. It closes today, so if you didn't get to go along, don't worry I've got lots to share with you - and there's always next year.

While I was waiting for MOH to arrive I amused myself by taking pictures of the venue and London's traffic whizzing by. It wasn't long before he arrived and we made our way across the road and into the show.

There were four floors of amazing makes for us to explore. We - as tradition dictates - started on the ground floor and immediately I saw this intricate plate/bowl by Waka Artisans. The detail was amazing.

As we turned the corner we couldn't help but admire these modern side tables by Forge Creative. Aren't they great?

Already inspired it was time to hit us with some colour. These lampshades, vases and plates by Aline Johnson definitely do that. These vases are a great way to display tulips, the colours too focus your attention on the flowers.

I was quite taken with the glass plate (or dish, or what have you) bottom left in the photo above. As well as the colour way, the thing that really caught my attention was the matt-ness of this piece. So different to its shiny cousins alongside it.

We weren't quite done with colour yet either.

This rainbow display of knitwear by Ollive Zwitserlood was simple but effective and eye catching.

These ceramic picture boxes by Maria Wojdat were also a favourite of mine. I was curious about how these were made. Maria explained that each piece of clay is cut to size, sprayed with colour and fired and then placed in its frame. The combinations of colour ways are endless.

I realised Thursday evening that I have a weakness for ceramics as I stopped at almost each ceramics stand. The simple lines and clean display of these by Justine Allison really appealed to me. Of course, I have no need for them but that doesn't stop me liking them!

These hooks made by John Egan made me smile. Their shape amused me and John explained that he likes to use as much of the tree as possible and these are shaped from branches. There's a clever design feature two as they glide onto a fixing on the wall meaning that they can get close to the wall and look as great as these. The multi-coloured wood (fourth and seventh from the left) was my favourite and I was surprised to learn that it was Yew.

We spent a lot of time talking about the eye catching hooks, but John also produces some fantastic furniture, take this bench for example. It uses the natural shape of the wood and I think John's one of the few people who relishes the aftermath of a storm as that means a supply of new materials to work with.

After making sure we'd seen every stand on the ground floor, we headed downstairs to the Crypt and the two floors of makers in these areas. This bright and cheery bird by Amanda Anderson certainly welcomed us into that space.

We saw lots in this part of the show and spoke to many of the makers and I will share more of what I saw there in future posts soon.

With the stands in the Crypt looked up we headed back upstairs and then up another floor to the mezzanine floor. Immediately it was these pictures by Ann Nazareth that caught my eye. They're made of spun paper, and Ann clearly has a lot of patience...

The sheen on these spoons made by Stuart Jenkins caught my eye, and like many of the makers he encouraged us to touch and pick up his items. They look heavy, but aren't as heavy as you'd expect and the ladle which I tried would definitely add a touch of class to any soup. I left trying to find a way to bring something like this into my life - so far, I've failed but I'm still working on it!

This jumper by Sasha Kagan also caught my eye. I'm a lapsed knitter but something like this could tempt my knitting needles out I'm sure. I liked the design, the colours and the bobble details on the rib. Sasha kindly offered me the opportunity to try it on and I was tempted. There were two things that stopped me though - the temperature on the mezzanine floor, and because I had a black top on and I thought there was a high chance I'd end up with white fluff all over it.

This cardigan too caught my eye. For me it has a touch of art deco about it - what do you think?

The yellow straps of this bag by Rosie Moss caught my eye and I soon made a beeline for it. After a while I spotted the gloved hands and I very nearly left with it. In fact there were so many things I could have left with had I been so inclined. I did make a purchase which you might have seen on my Facebook and Instagram feeds already, but more on that another time.

We also spoke with Rosie about our fascination with hares, something she shares too. And that pink hoppy cushion is a fab example of her work.

We were almost done and the glasses of fizz as we wandered around kept us going, thank you to Tutton and Young for inviting me along. It was an inspiring show with so many makers that were keen to talk about their creations.

The last items that I'm sharing today are these Moth Balls and Bee Bug Balls by Claire Moynihan. They have a museum feel to them, but when you look more closely they're not quite what they seem.

Claire hand embroiders British insects onto felt balls. She processes local alpaca wool to produce the felt balls and stitches three dimensional insects onto their surface. They are just beautiful.

I definitely left feeling inspired and proud to be British and of the talent we have, which was clearly evidenced by the items and the people we met throughout the evening.

Disclaimer: I was given free entry to the MADE London show in return for this review, however all words and opinions are my own.

New Prints and Jacquards from Prestigious Textiles for Autumn/Winter

October 7, 2015

It's been a couple of weeks now since I visited Prestigious Textiles at their stand in the Hilton at Syon Park as part of the London Design Festival to see their Autumn/Winter ranges. I liked the ranges I saw then and I still do. I took pictures of my own on the day but they don't compare to the official images for each range, so I'm using those instead in this post - and I'm sure you'll agree they are just gorgeous!

There's florals, bold patterns, silks, velours, rich palettes, some with a scandi-type feel as well as pastels and brights - so there really is something for everyone. I saw the first six ranges I'm showing below, and the seventh is one that I've a feeling will do well and has brought a furnishing favourite bang up to date, so let's get going...

1. Eclipse

This range is full of sumptuous deep pinks which are set off by just a little bit of shimmer. But it's not all pinks as the browns and earthy green and blue ensure it's not too girly. My favourite fabric in this range is shown best in the third photograph, the shimmering brown with the textured stripes looked great, and it was the one fabric I found myself holding onto as we talked about the range.