Thursday, 24 September 2015

Collaboration with Artist Not Included

Back in the summer I was contacted by the wonderful Charley of Artist not Included to collaborate on a personal project, creating a bespoke journal combining my bookbinding skills with her fantastic screen printing skills to produce a totally unique journal for someone special. 
Well, we certainly didn't fall short - it was so much fun to work with Charley, picking out the perfect materials, sending them back and forth until we had the perfect combination of leather, paper and ink! Not only are there the sweetest screen printed robins all over the cover, but there's a golden robin on the first page followed by the most beautiful poem - I think we did pretty well, if you ask me!

Check out the images below for some work in progress shots - this truly was one of the best projects I've ever worked on, seeing an idea like this come to life was amazing and hearing how well the journal was received was just wonderful. Check out Charley's blog post to read a little more about it and check out her awesome work!

Saturday, 7 March 2015

TUTORIAL - Felt Roses

These are so easy. SO EASY. Totally cute little felt roses that make everything look pretty. I've made brooches, garlands, wall decorations with them. You can stick them to your shoes or update a clutch bag with them for a big event. Anything! I'm going to show you how to whip them up quick time so you can get on with making all kinds of great things with them!


You will need:
  • Felt Scraps (I used woolfelt)
  • Matching Thread 
  • Needle 
  • Scissors

Step 1 - Cut your petals.
I managed to get one nicely sized rose out of a piece of felt measuring approximately 10 X 20cm. From this piece, you'll need a 15cm strip for the rosebud (cut into a similar wiggly shape to the one in the photo) and a selection of organic shaped petals ranging from small to large.

Step 2 - Make your bud.
Once you've cut all your shapes out, it's time to sew them, starting with your bud! Begin rolling your rosebud with the skinny end in the centre, adding stitches as you go to keep it from unrolling.
Once you've rolled it all the way, secure with a knot. Your rosebud should look something like this, cute huh?

Step 3 - Get those petals on!

Next up we're adding some petals! You want to sew a continuous line of stitches all the way around until you get to the last petal so your rose will be extra-secure! You want each petal to overlap slightly so the trick is to add a new petal part-way through sewing the previous one. Start with your shorter petals in the centre, getting larger as you work towards the outside. I've snapped more photos here for reference.
Once you've sewn all your petals, secure your thread and your rose should look something like this!
If you like the look of it like this, leave as is or if you want it a little fuller, pull the petals out backwards towards the stitching starting from the outside working your way around until your petals don't stay put anymore! If you want it to be extra secure, you could add some glue on your stitches but it's not necessary.
There you have it, cute little roses to add to whatever creation you like. I like to use woolfelt for these because of it's thickness but acrylic craft felt could work just as well - if using the thinner acrylic felt you'll want more material for thicker roses! You can pick up woolfelt from The Eternal Maker in as little as 10cm X 90cm strips right off of the bolt so you can choose a fantastic selection of colours without breaking the bank - WIN!

 If you want to make a garland or wreath, just measure 6ft or so of wire, wrap with floral tape and glue your roses along the wire using left-over felt scraps as a backing to secure it in place. The leaves were created using scraps of leather glued to a short length of floral tape covered wire (with a leaf at either end) and simply wrapped the wire once or twice around the garland where I wanted. Hey-presto, you now have one super beautiful felty-rosey garland! To turn it into a wreath, just coil it up to a size you're happy with and tie with twine and you're done!

Enjoy ♥

This tutorial was originally written by myself for the Button Company and can also be found here on their blog.