mark two

I've been thinking about the bookmarks I made earlier. Mark suggested covering the stitching and thought I had missed a trick by not using eyelets.

I made a few new bookmarks and this time paid attention to the size so I could easily stick a piece of card on the back once I'd sewed the material on. I was a bit dubious about sticking two pieces of card together, it wouldn't look good if they pealed apart. I decided on PVA glue and smeared it out with my finger so I didn't get any gloopy bits squishing out the side. A few hours under a heavy pile of books and they were great. Much more sturdy than my first few where the card stock was a bit thin.

I think the coloured eyelets really finish them off nicely. In fact I liked the them so much I did the same to the earlier batch.

christmas cards

Inspired by the bookmarks I've been mulling over some christmas card ideas. I really like mixing fabric with card, it has a bit more texture than just using card and paper. Having said that I'd like these cards to have a bit more texture. I am going to try very lightly padding the tree next time.

bookmarks

I love to make as many christmas presents as possible but this year I am running out of time and energy, it's halfway through November already. Luckily the Sewing Dork got me inspired with her bookmarks.

I had a some time whilst Mark took Grace out and the hardest part was finding some plain card stock. Turns out I have lots of twinkly, shiny card but not much plain cream. I wanted the material to stand out not the card. I used pinking shears to cut the fabric and cut it just short of the top as my hole punch was not sharp enough to cut through fabric.

I like them, I wonder if you could put fabric on both sides of the card? They are all blue because I had blue thread in my machine and the blue fabric was at the top of my stash!

tagging

We took our decorations down early to get some decorating done, so I thought it was time to make the Christmas cards into tags for next year. I really enjoyed using last years home made tags.

It is really nice to reuse cards and not just put them into the recycling. It is also a nice process, as Corrina said, it's great to take time and to get into the detail of the cards. You don't need to use the whole picture, maybe just the words or a part of the pattern. And you don't need to stick to squares either. I have great oval cutter that is just the right size, but you could make round tags by drawing around a jar and because a jar is see through it will be easy to position where you want.

The other thing you can do to jazz them up a bit is use scissors that cut patterns, I have some that cut a scalloped edge and some that make a ziz zag. You can normally pick them up cheap in the kids section of craft shops or stationers. You don't even have to use them on all of the edges, I made some long thin tags and did the zig zag on just one short end.

If you are punching holes into them for ribbon remember to leave room when you are cutting them out! I leave the ribbon until I come to wrap the presents, I never know what colour to use until nearer the time.

table decoration

The winter solstice got me thinking about bringing some holy and ivy into the house. We have some decorating our yule log and in the wreathe over the fireplace but I wanted to bring some to my parents on Christmas day.

I haven't done any flower arranging before so it was all a bit trial and error. I found a small terracotta plant pot and brought a round piece of oasis that fitted in the top. I was hoping the glue gun would secure it but that wasn't a great success. I think a bigger piece of oasis so it can be pushed right to the bottom of the pot would be better. I pushed the candle in the top then used the glue gun again to make it a bit more secure.

I cut lots of holy, ivy, rosemary, and lavender in longish lengths, most of which I ended up cutting down so it didn't get too mad.

I started at the bottom of the oasis and worked up to the top where the candle is. Starting with the holy, then smaller ivy sprigs and finally filling in the gaps with smaller lavender and rosemary.

Keep turning it round as you go so it looks good from every angle. I also left one sprig of holy longer than the rest so the whole thing had some shape rather than being round. One really handy thing to do is cut some individual big ivy leaves because they can be placed exactly where you want and fill any holes.

As all the red berries have been eaten I made my own by threading red beads onto wire and pushing them into the oasis in random places so it doesn't look to regular