Seed Packet Gift Wallets

Hi all, hope you are well and enjoying some late summer sun? There's something about a sunny day that gets the creative juices flowing isn't there... We've had some gorgeous days this week and i've had fun coming up with some new products the first of which i'm looking forward to showing you today :)

Seed Packet Gift Wallets

I love receiving seeds as a present, its the little gift that keeps on giving! Its such a joy when they grow into something lovely and it really does remind you of the person who gave them to you. Its nice to see more people choosing to give seed packets as favours for their wedding guests these days and i think they work just as well on other occasions too, especially marking new beginnings or memorable occasions.

So, all of this got me thinking and i decided it would be fun to come up with some seed gift wallets, just to make the gift of a packet of seeds a bit more fancy!

I've chosen three of the fabrics from my Gardeners World collection (all available to buy from my Spoonflower shop),

and paired them with hessian and unbleached organic cotton to create a rustic looking wallet with plenty of room for a seed packet or two.

Along with room for the seeds, there is an internal brown paper panel for writing a message to the recipient. I'm also offering the option to have the wallet personalised with a name on the outside.

They are available to buy now from my Etsy shop priced £5.50, or £6.25 with a name on the front. As always, i look forward to hearing what you think!

What have you been up to this week? I'm off over to Handmade Monday to find out! See you there x

Rustic Gardeners Bunting For Handmade Monday

The gardening theme has continued for me this week with some rustic bunting featuring some of my Gardener's World fabrics... (available to buy for your own crafting from my Spoonflower Shop)

Rustic Gardener's Bunting

I've alternated the patterned cotton flags with hessian (burlap) which i hope enhances the rustic charm :) 

The whole length measures 170cms with additional string ties at either end. I think it would look cute in a conservatory, garden room or any other space that invites the outside in, i hope you do too!

Its available now from my website and Etsy shop priced £16.50.

Meanwhile, everything its grow grow growing in the garden just now and on our allotment too... here's a pic of the dog sunning himself by the strawberry patch (while i get on with weeding it!) It will be worth it when all those yummy strawberries appear in a few weeks :))

What have you been up to? I'm off over to Handmade Monday to find out!

Thanks for stopping by :) x

Personalised Garden Journal And A Chance To Win Some Lavender Pillows For Handmade Monday

After a busy April moving house its been sooo lovely to get back to making things this week!

Bedroom Blinds

I couldn't resist starting off with something for my new home! We needed some blinds for our bedroom and seeing as i'd never made any before i thought it would be a fun project to tackle.

I went for stripes of grey linen and white cotton canvas with simple velcro tie-backs... 

I'm pleased with how they turned out although i can't say the same about the photo! I should have snapped a pic before they were up with the light behind them... hopefully you get the idea though :)

Personalised Garden Journal

Its such a lovely time of year to spend time in the garden isn't it, there's new life everywhere from tiny seedlings to heavenly blossom and its all so refreshing and inspiring. I find myself ooohing and ahhhing everywhere i go and making mental lists of all the things i want to do to make my garden into the perfect outdoor retreat!

Poppies are one of my favourite flowers so these gorgeous orange ones i recently saw sprouting from a wall are now definitely on the list,

as are these beautiful white/pink/lilac bluebells i saw on a country lane... aren't they just soooo pretty!

It probably won't surprise you to hear that my makes this week have had a garden theme too...

The first is a personalised garden journal.

The fabric for the cover is a linen cotton blend featuring my peas and pea shoots design. Its one of my favourites, i love the freshness of the greens and white together and i've been itching to make something with it for a while.

It can be personalised with any name, hand embroidered on the front.

It comes complete with an A5 notebook made from recycled paper (which can easily be replaced with a new one when it is used up).

The cover is lined with natural white organic cotton and has been top stitched for a neat finish.

Its not listed for sale yet but it will be soon... i also have plans for some more notebook covers so watch this space!

Win A Set Of Nesting Bird Lavender Pillows!

I have started work on another garden themed creation this week but seeing as its not yet complete and this post is getting long already i'll save it for next week!

One thing i must let you know about before i go though is the competition currently being run on the WowThankYou facebook page - all you need to do is pop along and leave a comment saying which is your favourite or four sets of lavender pillows and at the end of the bank holiday one of the people who voted for the set with the most votes will win it!

One of the sets up for grabs is my nesting birds trio of lavender pillows (worth £12)...

If you fancy being in with a chance of winning them, do pop along and vote (a big thank you to those that have already! :))

Don't forget to visit Handmade Harbour for Handmade Monday too... see you there! x

Spring Fresh And Garden Room Fabrics Now For Sale!

Exciting news, sample swatches of my new fabrics have arrived! This of course means that they're also now available for sale from my Spoonflower shop if any take your fancy for your own crafting projects.

I've already got a few ideas of what i want to create with some of these designs but if you have any bright ideas of what you think they would work well, do let me know in the comments! :)

Spring Fresh Fabric Collection

I was so excited when the samples arrived in the post this morning that i wanted to get them photographed straight away... i thought they would look cute hanging on a line but a you can see from the image at the top of the post, the wind was making this very hard work... I managed to get the chicks done though - here's a close up of the turquoise version.

All of the swatches are 8x8 inches... i'm tempted to make some little egg cosies from the chick designs... what do you think?

Here are the bunnies...

... i'm pretty pleased with how they've turned out, for some reason my first thought of what to make with this design is oven mitts! I think they would be really cute :)  I'll need to order some more of the fabric first though... any thoughts on what i could make with these 8x8" swatches?

Here are the flowery designs in colours to compliment the rest...

... i'm thinking either lavender pillows or mini bunting for these swatches or perhaps i'll combine the  yellow and green with the rabbits above for some fun spring bunting on a slightly larger scale.

Last but not least from the Spring Fresh collection is my Birds On A Wire design...

... this is one of my favs (as you can probably tell as its currently gracing the background of my blog!) and i can't wait to make something with it... i'm just not sure what that's going to be yet!

To view details or buy any of these fabrics visit my Spring Fresh collection over on Spoonflower.

Garden Room Fabric Collection

If you're a regular visitor to my blog you might remember me showing you my Garden Room designs recently. I created them with soft furnishings for conservatories and other outdoor/indoor spaces in mind but of course they could work well in lots of other situations too!

Here is the garden tools design...

I'm really pleased with how this design looks in 'real life' and i'm happy with all the colourways although i think this is my favourite... there's something modern about the pastel blue on the olive green which i find refreshing, i hope you like it too!

The other design in my Garden Room collection so far is the garden chairs...

I'm happy with how they turned out too although this is not the best picture... i think i was getting a bit fed up of the wind blowing anything and everything away by the time i took it! Hopefully it still gives you an idea of how the design looks once its printed onto fabric though.

All of these photos show the colours pretty much as the are in real life. I hope they have helped you visualise the designs more clearly than the digital images i've been able to show you in the past. I would love to know what your favourites are if you have any!

Thank you very much to all those who left kind comments about my new mini notebooks last week, as always i enjoyed reading them and of course visiting the other Handmade Monday blogs and reading about everyone else's crafting adventures (which is where i'm off too now btw... have a great week and see you next time!)

Spring Fabrics And Craft Papers For Handmade Monday

Thank you to everyone who left lovely comments about my Easter craft papers last week, i'm really happy that you like them! The set is now available to buy in A4 size from my Print and Paper shop on Etsy, priced £3.50.

This week i've been working on some spring fabric designs...

Spring Fresh Fabric Collection

As i showed you most of these designs last week i've put them together in one image just to give an idea of how they look as a group - do pop along to my Spoonflower shop if you'd like to see them in more detail.

I've called this collection 'Spring Fresh', they're not available to buy quite yet but they will be very soon, i'll let you know!

Garden Room Fabric Collection

I've also started work this week on a new fabric collection i'm calling 'garden room'. My inspiration is to create some patterns that will work well for soft furnishings for 'outdoor/indoor' spaces like conservatories and garden rooms although of course they could be used for lots of other things too!

The first design is a simple print featuring an iron garden chair (as always drew the image by hand before uploading to the computer for colour editing).

Here's how it looks as a fabric print... (this image represents a 21x18inch fat quarter)

Its quite subtle which i think will work well one once its printed onto fabric (although i know a bit of imagination is required when trying to make it out on a computer screen!)

The turquoise colour is also not nearly as glaring once on fabric as it appears here... i've ordered samples so i will get them photographed to give a better idea of how this design looks in 'real life'.

So far i've made it up in pink too...

... although of course i can create a custom version with any colour your heart desires... just let me know if you have something in mind!

The final design i have to show you today is one i've created with some of the components i used for a website background design i did a few months ago for the lovely So Eden tropical gardening blog and shop. Here it is to jog your memory...

... and here's my new design, using just five of the elements for a simplified and universal garden theme, with a fresh injection of colour for a contemporary decor style. I've made it up in turquoise to match the colour i used for the chair design,

and also a modern olive green/pastelblue combination,

and in some fresh gardeny greens too.

I'm really looking forward to getting the samples and seeing how they look in the flesh!

Right now though i'm off over to Handmade Harbour to see what all the lovely crafters over there have been up too...

As always i look forward to reading your comments on this week's offerings... thanks for stopping by! x

Summer Fabrics - Vegetables And Butterflies For Handmade Monday

Thank you to everyone who kindly left a comment about my garden themed fabrics last week, as always your feedback has been invaluable!

As you may have gathered from the image at the top of this post, as a continuation of the gardening theme, i have some vegetable fabrics to show you this week (there's also some 'real life' pictures from my butterfly meadow collection coming up too!)

Vegetable Fabric Designs

The first of my vege designs is the tomatoes at the top of this post - here's what a 22x18 inch peice of fabric would look like.

I have to say, i'm really pleased with how it turned out - i just love the cheery colours! :)

Next came the peas. I think that curly whirly pea shoots are one of the loveliest things on a vege patch - full of sculptural elegance...

... so i was excited to make them a feature of my pea fabric design.

This is an 8x8 inch swatch.

And here's what an 18x22 inch piece of fabric would look like.

You can find these along with the rest of my 'Gardener's World' Collection in my Spoonflower store. They will be available to buy from there on a range of fabrics in the next couple of weeks (if you'd like to be notified when they're available just let me know).

Exciting News! Spoonflower Does Gift Wrap!!

Before i tell you what i've been up to with my butterfly fabrics, i must let you know about the latest development at Spoonflower. As well as printing designs onto fabric, they have started to branch out into other areas... first it was wallpaper and decals and now gift wrap! I have made my designs for sale in all of these mediums - you can just select which you would like from the menu (let me know if you get stuck or have questions!)

I'm especially excited about the gift wrap option as i could see lots of my fabric designs working equally well as gift wrap. Its not cheap at $15 (£10 ish) a roll but its a great way to get something a bit different for special pressies, or even to use as paper for other craft projects.

Here's a mock up from Spoonflower using my white on pink watering can silhouette design... :)

Butterfly Meadow Fabric Update

When you upload a new design to Spoonflower you need to order a sample of the fabric before you can offer it for sale. When you have a lot of designs (as i now do!) the easiest way to do this is to order a swatch sampler of a whole collection which provides one large piece of fabric with an 8x8 inch swatch of each design.

I recently received the swatches of my butterfly meadow collection and i'm really pleased with how they turned out!

Here are the small prints...

And one close up.

And some of the large prints...

And one close up...

So far i've made this cute mini-bunting... 

...which i think would be perfect to decorate a bookcase or bed in a child's room.

I've still got quite a few swatches to use, including some from my birds of a feather collection too... i've a few ideas of what to do with them but any thoughts from you clever people on great makes using 8x8 inch swatches would be super useful! :)

Maybe i'll find some inspiration on this week's trip around all the wonderful crafty blogs over at Handmade Harbour's Handmade Monday - if you've never visited before, i highly recommend it! (be sure to visit the fabulous Planet Penny too if you're intrigued to know why i'm rushing out to buy some knitting needles this week!!)

Have a wonderful week all :) x

Gardening Fabrics For Handmade Monday

A big thank you to all those who kindly left comments about my potting shed fabric last week - thanks to you i've had lots of ideas about how to develop further garden related designs and this week i'm going to share some of them with you!

Watering Can Fabrics

A lot of you seemed to like this image of watering can sprinkling some seedlings, and i like it too...

... so i went ahead and created this super cute design (for scale, this is equivalent to an 8x8inch fabric swatch).

I also created this colourful watering can design...

... and for something a bit different, this white silhouette one too. I am so in love with this gorgeous deep pink!!

Garden Tools Fabrics

If you popped by my blog last week you might remember these garden tools...

Well, this week i added a rake...

... and created this design. 

I was inspired by the number of people who showed an interest in fabrics that might work for men and i thought this might fit the bill!

Here's how it would look on an 18x22 inch piece of fabric.

And here it is with a pale olive green background - i love this colour and it won't show the dirt so much so is a good practical option too!

Seed Packet Fabric

Last week i showed you a few simple seed packets like this tomato one.

As a number of your commented favourably on these i went ahead with a few more, and lined them up to create a simple seed packet design.

Here's how it would look on an 18x22 inch piece of fabric...

I was a bit worried it could be too busy but my OH said its his favourite... i'll be interested to hear what you think of it :)

Herb Fabric

Last but not least... do you remember me showing you these rough herb pot sketches last week?

Well, this week i've been busy colour editing them into something prettier like this pot of chives...

...and this pot of basil,

So i could turn then into a fabric design... and here it is!

This is what a 16x18 inch piece of fabric would look like. I'm really happy that it turned out pretty close to the image i had in my head :)  I think its my favourite of this week's creations, i hope you like it too!

As always, i look forward to hearing your thoughts and ideas. I'm also looking forward to having a happy wander around lots of other lovely Handmade Monday blogs, which is where i'm off to now!

Have a wonderful week x