Tuesday 15 February 2011

Birth Announcement


I made this birth announcement for my brother's Christmas, to commemorate his daughter's birth in November.

I was inspired by these birth announcements on Etsy. Which were done using a printing method and the art of typography. I found printing from my computer quite limiting, so decided to combine typography with collage to give it a more individual look.

I got the variety of patterned papers ( and some of the fancy lettering) in a scrapbooking kit, which I bought from Paperlace in Dalkeith and used Word to type then print the names. I spent a long time trying out different fonts, colours and sizes and arranging them on the page to get the best layout. All of the paper was hand cut using a craft knife, a metal ruler and a cutting board.

I wanted a little motif of some sort, one which would match Rachel's bedroom decor, so I found out the name of the website which Derek and Nicola bought their wall stickers from and sourced miniature pictures of two of the images in the set, a rainbow and a tree with a little bird sitting on the top.

One of the trickiest things about making this was subtly trying to find out Rachel's exact time of arrival so long after her birth, without Derek or Nicola realising something was afoot!

Wednesday 5 January 2011

Lavender Bags


I made these lavender bags for my sister Louise's Christmas, using material bought from John Lewis and crocheted flowers which I found in Ikea's fabulous fabrics and sewing department. The ribbons and buttons came from my sewing box ( I always save the ribbons I cut off the inside of dresses).
Louise loves all things bright and prefers blues and greens, but I  also added in pinks to make it a bit different and to tie in the material from John Lewis that I loved. 
To make one, I cut out two CD sized circles from  the material and sewed a ribbon loop on to one circle with a button to disguise my amateurish sewing. I pinned both circles together inside out, with the crocheted flower in between the two layers. I then sewed the three parts together, leaving a small gap to turn the bag right side out again. Before sewing the bag up, I stuffed it with cotton wool pads and dried lavender ( not from my garden, sadly there just wasn't enough at this time of year- I'll have to plan ahead next time) and then stitched up the hole. Finally, I decorated the outer of one the bags with three matching buttons.