Handmade Thursday; a little handbag

This is a little prototype bag I made for my daughter.

It is cotton on the outside and green felt on the inside; you can't really tell in the photo but that is a Hello Kitty button.

I made it last night, presented it to Poppy this morning expecting it to be cast aside. She is not overly fond of girls's stuff but the desire to carry things around her neck seems to override the pink, flowery aspect.

Anyway, she agreed to have a photograph...

...although she also insisted on choosing her own accessories!

Linking up with Handmade Thursdays at White Lily Green.

My heart canvas

I made this picture for my bedroom wall; it's a fairly large canvas - about 20" x 12", and it's mostly made from bits in my vastly overflowing scrap box.

I sewed 3 little buttons at the bottom of each heart. Because I like things in groups of 3.

I love it, but it got me thinking - this would be a great thing to make out of all those cute, sentimental baby clothes. Like a memory canvas for a nursery. What do you think?

Easter Giveaway!!

 Would you like to win these Easter goodies?

You would?

There's an Easter card with a padded bunny motif...

There's a cotton treat bag - filled with chococolate ...

There's an emergency chocolate pocket - including chocolate of course...

And there's a very ugly, boggle eyed chicken.

But she does have a chocolate egg up her bum, so that's good.

(Her name is Ethel.)

So, what do you have to do to be a winner??

• You could leave a comment on this blog post and I will put your name in the proverbial hat.
• If you are a new follower to this blog you will get an extra entry. (Make sure you tell me in your comment.)
• You could like me on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/shazronniemakesstuff - all new likers from today will be in with a chance.
• If you visit my facebook page you will also be able to get more entries by sharing and commenting there.

(Disclaimer; all these items have been made by me, they are not toys and should not be given to children without supervision - they might choke on a little bead or scoff all the chocolate.)

The giveaway closes on the 26th March so that I can get the goodies posted by Easter.

(And if you live locally I will also give you 6 lovely free range eggs from my chickens!)

Linking up with handmade Thursday at White Lily Green.

Handmade Thursday; for a birthday pirate

My not-so-little-anymore boy is 7 on Sunday (and I will be 38 - eek!!) and is having a pirate party.

This is the card I made for him today; some fabric pieces stitched onto card, the number 7 is made from felt.

Linking up with handmade thursday at whitelilygreen.blogspot.com.

Reverse applique

I've been meaning to try this for ages - reverse applique!

This basically means you cut a hole in your fabric, and put the contrasting fabric behind it.

Simple!

I made this one into (another) card. I think I might save it for Mother's Day.

I call this Bunny Bunting!

More bunny rabbits!

I know it's not time yet to think about Easter, but these are so cute I had to show you.

Five little bunnies, made from scrap pieces of fabric, slightly padded then backed with felt.

The faces are hand embroidered.

I think they'll look great at Easter, and would also make a lovely decoration for a little girl's room.

Pirate Party bags

My son, Anthony, has decided he wants a pirate party for his 7th birthday, so I have made a bunch of little drawstring bags for his friends to take home.

I hate those little plastic bags of crap which kids bring home from parties. I spend half my life trying to evict plastic whistles from the house, standing on plastic flippy frogs in bare feet, finding stray marbles down the back of the sofa. Even though we have received numerous novelty erasers over the years nobody can ever find a blasted rubber.

I have also been reading The Moneyless Man which has inspired me to cut down on throwaway goods. I figure at least these little fabric bags might be slightly useful, more so than a little plastic bag.

I shall be filling them with pirate treasure, aka chocolate coins and sweets!

Because the only thing my children are ever really want from a party bag is something edible and not remotely healthy.

Pirates have terrible teeth.

I thought I saw a bunny rabbit...

This is a little bunny rabbit I've designed with Easter in mind.

He has a floral cotton front, hand embroidered face, felt bow tie and a felt back, slightly padded out with polyester wadding.

I decided to embroider the name of a friend's new baby onto the tummy and attach it to a card; I think it makes a rather cute little memento.

Another bag :)

I've just listed this in my etsy shop here.

It is similar in construction to the Cath Kidston bag but with slightly different dimensions and shape.

The fabric is a cotton mix, a remnant of curtaining.

I put a lining in this one, which I think finishes it off nicely. The lining is upcycled from an old shirt of mine.

Still more letters!

Everyone loves my little name canvasses! (See the first lot here.)

It makes me feel very clever to have so many people ask me to make them something! I've made 16 names on canvas in the past fortnight - with another 7 on order to make next week!

I love making them because everyone is slightly different and if you've read this blog in the past you will know I hate making the same thing twice!!

I've listed them in my etsy shop and you can also contact me via Shazronnie makes stuff on facebook.

Linking up with Mum of all trades weekend blog hop!

How to make a bag out of a pillowcase

This is one of my favourite upcycling projects. I'm sure there are lots of tutorials on t'internet about how to make a bag from a pillowcase. I'm not saying this is the best way, but this is the way I do it!

First you need a pillowcase; they are really easy to pick up in charity shops and I love the chintzy floral prints.

Then you need to chop it into pieces. 

The bottom piece is the main part of your bag - I measured this to be 18 inches deep.

The two smaller pieces will be the handles; mine are 3 inches deep.

(The top part is leftover; ideal scrap for applique and patchwork projects.)

Take your two handles and turn the ends under and pin.

I top stitch these together, rather than sewing it inside out then struggling to turn them back again.

Here they are all stitched, ready to attach onto the bag part.

Turn the bag part inside out (hopefully you've realised by this point that the beauty of using a pillow case is that it is almost a bag anyway!!) and turn over and iron the top edge down, slipping your handles under in the right place.

Stitch all around near the raw edge. (I cut mine with pinking shears to avoid fraying but you might need to do a double hem here.)

Then turn your bag the right way out and topstitch all around the top, making sure you go over the handles. This will give them extra strength and stop the top of your bag flopping over.

Ta-dah!

(And it folds up all teeny tiny so it's fab for popping in your handbag when out shopping.)

Fabric letters galore!

It all started with a little name canvas I made for my daughter. 

Then a friend from my college days asked for one for her daughter.

That had to be larger, because I can only fit 5 letters on a small canvas!

Then another friend asked if I could do 5 canvasses, each with a letter spelling her daughter's name.

And then I got a request for a boy version, which turned out like this :)

I have 6 more name canvasses on order, which is fabulous! I have been neglecting the housework to sew, sew, sew! I have also set up a facebook page, which is where most of these orders have come from.

If you are so inclined you can like me on facebook here :)

Bunkbed bag

This is something I've been meaning to make for ages (and a girl needs a break from applique occasionally!!)

It is basically a rectangular bag, divided into two pockets and attached to the bunkbed rails with buttons on straps. This is actually the first time I did buttonholes on my sewing machine. Don't know why I thought it might be difficult...

But anyway, now Poppy has a little bunkbed bag, perfect for a bunny and and a book :)

I like sewing cupcakes more than baking them!!

The cupcake image is just so sweet and easy to make, and I love it in this red, pink and white colourway. Good enough to eat - except the buttons might stick in your teeth!

It's Handmade Thursday today; why not take a look at some more lovely crafty stuff at www.whitelilygreen.blogspot.com.

tea cup on canvas

More applique, this time one of my favourite things - a cup of tea :)

More fabric upcycled from my blouse, with some lovely linen cut from a man's shirt.

Very pretty and subtle, which is not generally how my work turns out!

I now have an etsy shop just here which is still rather amateur. It's still a work in progress though - I think I need a selection of interesting pieces of driftwood to photograph my items with!!

A little birdie told me...

...that I just had to do some sewing.

So I made this little card.

Pirate boat on canvas (can you spot a theme to these recent posts??)

This is pretty similar to a bag I made for a first birthday.

It is 20 cm square and made from scrap pieces of fabric. I rather like the flowery sea!

I'm going to put it in my etsy shop (when I get one - would like to accumulate a few more first.) I think it would make a great decoration for a little boy's bedroom.

Ooh, look, it's handmade Thursday - go check out some more handmade things!

Cupcake on canvas

Another stitched picture mounted on canvas :)

This one is 20 cm square, and upcycled from scraps of fabric. (That floral print was my blouse!)

I am thinking about opening an etsy shop to sell these. It's a very scary thing though; I like to show off on  my blog but I am serious lacking in confidence when it comes to asking people to part with their cash.

Car on canvas

I am experimenting with this sewn art on canvas idea, so I made this for a little boy called Oscar. His daddy likes ferraris so this is supposed to be a ferrari-esque sports car.

I used felt for the car - mainly because I didn't have any other suitable red fabrics to hand. I'm not sure that I am completely happy with how it has turned out. It is only small - a 7 x 5 inch canvas and I think that made it more difficult - less space for layers and embellishment.

I've sent it to the recipient anyway, so we will see what sort of reception my little artwork gets!

65th birthday card

For my father-in-law, continuing the current theme of all things stitched there is an appliqued "65" which is stuck to the card with the glue gun.

Then I embellished the card with some ribbons from my cardmaking stash.