We've gone card crazy.

[[Pinterest pin found here]

Inspired by Mrs Showers over at 'lettersandmylife', i have decided to send a couple of my friends valentines cards this year. I love to receive post, its one of my favourite things. And so, this year i'm spreading the love a little further and sending these girls a little surprise via their letterboxes.

Having expressed my love of card making, it should come as little surprise that i am getting out my supplies. I'm using this card i pinned
awhile ago as inspiration:

1. Start with a cut out rectangle of chosen card.

2. Fold in half and cut out half a heart - nursery school style!

3. Make sure the crease is deep so the card 'pops out' from the back.
Sew heart onto card.

4. Outline heart with stitches.
hint: Hold up to light so you can see heart's outline whilst stictching - you dont want to sew all of heart onto card.

[[The finished product.. its much cuter in 3D i promise :)]]

A simple, quick craft!

I am the sort of person who expresses their love through gifts, hand-written letters and through homemade cards.

So, of course, i jumped on the chance to send steve's newly engaged brother an engagement card. 

I simply got a piece of card left over from my wedding thank you cards, sent off a picture of the happy couple to Jessops to get printed (40p - thank you very much!) and used this as the background for the card.

 I love that they haven't seen this picture before, it was one of the candid shots from a friend at our wedding.

Then, my favourite bit - i cut out two simple hearts from felt and hand stitched them onto the photograph before securing it to the card-stock. This project was unbelievably simple. It took no more than ten minutes to finish.

I have recently fallen in love with felt.. its the most versatile material ever and i love the contrast of textures. I may actually be addicted.

[[some recent felt projects - hair-clip, stocking advent calendar and another engagement card]]

A gift.

A good friend of mine recently gave birth to an exceedingly cute baby girl. This friend and her husband are very talented at making beautiful babies. Their five year old son is already a heart-breaker.

And so, knowing the calibre of their genes, the news that this little bean was a girl was all the more special - because lets be honest, whilst baby boys are amazing and SOO much fun, there is something nice about getting all girly in preparation for another little female to enter the world. Especially if this little girl was going to resemble something of her gentle, godly mother.

So early on in their pregnancy, i decided i wanted to sew Baby Girl a little gift. I quickly decided on a bird mobile, and got to work hand sewing each individual bird from fabric scraps left over from my wedding crafts. This project was honestly so much fun, but unbelievably time consuming..

I started a couple of months before my friend's due date intending for it be be finished in time with the nursery. To my shame, i didn't finish until Baby Girl was two months old (and then it spent an extra month hanging in my hallway waiting to be delivered!). 

Still i'm pretty pleased with it!
There were some teething problems with what to hang the birds from. I began with a cross shaped structure, made from two sticks bound together but the balance was off. In the end i used the wire circle from the large end of a lampshade. It holds up nicely, but next time i think i'll incorporate some colour and neaten things up a bit!!

I hope you like it Baby Girl :)

Yours,