handmade

You are currently browsing articles tagged handmade.

Glittered rose

Certain scents will always remind us of Christmas, like the amazing smell of real Christmas trees and mulled wine with warming spices and orange.  For me gingerbread men and Christmas candy are another favourite Christmas smell, but that’s another blog.  I love having fresh arrangements in the house at Christmas.  Traditional winter foliages like holly and spruce are perfect for Christmas designs as they are very hardy so last extremely well.  You could have garlands of spruce and holly hung on the staircase or table arrangements with orange slices and cinnamon. 

 

Big chunky candles are perfect in Christmas arrangements. For a lovely natural feel in this arrangement I’ve used lichen covered twigs, pine cones, spruce and scented wax flower with a few white roses.  You don’t need many flowers in Christmas arrangements just lots of nice foliage and accessories like pine cones, cinnamon and berries with some pretty fabric ribbon.

 Christmas candle arrangement

In this festive arrangement I’ve used a cinnamon scented candle in a red container with pine cones, holly, pine branches and glossy red hypericum berries (also known as St. John’s Wort).  The only flowers are cream spray carnations and some glittered Grand Prix roses. 

 Candle arrangement

For a more modern Christmas design I’ve used icy whites and iridescent sparkle. The foliage is spruce with silver bear grass and eucalyptus.  It includes long lasting anthuriums, chrysanthemum blooms and carnations.  The amaryllis will open into beautiful large white blooms.  The feather Christmas tree sparkles with iridescent glitter.

modern Christmas arrangement

Tags: , , , , ,

plasticine flower

After James May’s Plasticine Garden at Chelsea, I was tempted to make my own plasticine flowers.  If you fancy having a go yourself there’s a step by step guide below to make a rose suitable for kids or big kids.

You will need a few colours of plasticine including green for leaves and some heavy gauge florist wires. (If you don’t want to let children use wires a pencil will do) The plasticine will need rolling a little to make it pliable. Start by rolling the colour for your petals into a thin sausage shape. Cut several small pieces of the plasticine and press flat into oval shapes.  These are the small petals for the centre of your rose.

Take your smallest petal and loosely roll it up to make the centre of your rose.  The next petal is placed around the open edge of the centre petal.  Continue adding more petals always placing them over the open edge of previous petals.  When you have used all your small petals, roll another long piece of plasticine.  Make this piece slightly thicker than the first and cut into pieces, which should make bigger petals.  Press them into flat ovals again and add to the rose.  Each layer of petals should be slightly looser to make a nice open rose.

plasticine flowers

When you are happy with the number of petals on the flower, you can make the flower stem.  Take your green plasticine and roll it until pliable.  Gather together about five wires and mould the green plasticine around them leaving a little wire showing at the end to place your flower head on.  To make leaves follow the directions for making petals and then pinch at one end to make the tip of the leaf. If the leaves are too heavy you can push a short wire through up centre to support them.  Place the leaves along the stem and push the flower head on the top of the stem. You should be able to make several flowers from one pack of plasticine.

Tags: , , ,

heart

My love of pretty hand made things prompted me to make our first non floral handmade gifts.  They looked lovely nestled in bouquets and make a lovely scented gift.

To make a lavender heart you will need some vintage look fabric about 50cm x 50cm, dried lavender, narrow ribbon, stuffing and an old button from the bottom of your sewing box.  I prefer Cath Kidston and Laura Ashley fabric, but any good quality fabrics will do.  The fat quarter pieces a lot of craft suppliers sell on the internet will make one heart each.

The easiest way to draw a heart is to draw two semi circles side by side, using something like a china cup the appropriate size to draw around, then follow the outside ends down to meet at the point of the heart.  This will make your pattern for your heart.

heart pattern

Draw your pattern into your fabric ensuring you will fit two hearts on the fabric, for fabric with flowers or lines on, check which way up the pattern lies before you cut your hearts out.

Once you have cut out the heart shapes line them up, pattern side together and use a few pins to keep the pieces together while you sew them.  Leaving a good centimetre hem, sew them together using short stitches leaving a gap of about 3 inches on a long side so you can fill the heart easily.  Make little cuts around the hem so the fabric will stretch easier when turned out, be careful not to cut through your stitches.

Carefully turn the fabric the right way out and iron flat.  Fill with stuffing around the edges and then add your dried lavender to the centre, once you have put all your filling in and you are happy with the shape pin the last open edge together and finish with neat stitches.

Cut your ribbon to the desired length for hanging the heart.  Cross the ribbon over and position where you want the button to be, stitch onto the heart and then sew your button over the stitches on the ribbon.

Hang your heart and admire your handiwork. 

hearts

Tags: , ,

Newer entries »