Somebunny Loves Me...

The winner of the Buttonberry kit was Sarah. We've left you a comment on your blog and if you email us we'll pass your address to the girls at Buttonberry.

If you are looking for an extra special gift that you can really put a lot of love into this Christmas - or anytime of year - we think we have found the perfect idea, read on to find details of this weekends super prize draw!!

Buttonberry are an online store owned by Emma and Lisa, selling fabric and patchwork goods and stock a vast array of patterns including the rather adorable Pocket and Floss bunnies by Australian designers Melly & Me.

Andrea discovered Buttonberry earlier in the year and has bought several of their lovely patterns including the Pocket and Floss pattern. As she says "After making 17 of these lovely bunnies over the past couple of months I still haven't got bored of creating them and although each one is made from the same simple pattern, they all have their own little characteristics and personality. They make gorgeous hanging decorations in a room and are the perfect gift to celebrate the arrival of a new baby, a birthday or just to show your love for someone."

Andrea's latest bunnies were a gift to celebrate the arrival of baby Luca and a special Christmas gift for a little girl up in Scotland, with the addition of a little embroidered pinny to keep her frock clean during all the Christmas preparations!

The Pocket and Floss pattern is very easy to follow with simple step by step instructions and Buttonberry carry a vast array of fabrics for making your own bunny, why not visit their online store and check out their latest fabric finds, we love their Christmas fabric ranges and we can't imagine anything nicer than giving a special Christmas gift created with love that will last forever.

The girls at Buttonberry have very kindly donated a Pocket and Floss kit to make your very own bunny as a prize for all comments left on our blog during this weekend (we will draw the winner at 9:00pm on Sunday evening). Please leave some way of contacting you with your comment (blog link, email address or forum username etc.) so that we can track you down and send you your wonderful prize.

If you feel inspired to make your own Pocket and Floss bunnies please leave us a link when you finish them so we can all come and take a peep!

Have fun crafting this weekend and don't forget to leave us a comment to be entered into the prize draw.

Love from the IACW and Buttonberry girls

xxxxxxxxxx

Christmas bunting

Very warm Sunday greetings to you all from Caz and Angela!!

Today we are bring you a little more Christmas inspiration to get those creative juices flowing :)

Buntings have been around for years, but i've noticed this year that they seem to have been a very popular decoration!

So we are bringing buntings indoors and using up those bits of Christmas fabric to make great decorations for the home :)

Caz

For my bunting I have cut triangle shapes from fat quarters using pinking shears, this meant I didn't have to stitch around each one {lol}.

I folded the tops of each triangle over a length of twine and hand stitched using thick green thread. I didn't want my triangles moving around on the twine so I popped a couple of stitches through the top to hold them in place.

I cut green felt in the shape of holly and stiched it to a couple of the triangles using red buttons and ribbons for the berries.

And on a couple more I again cut green felt into strips {3 different lengths} and attached in the shape of a Christmas tree. Brown velvet ribbon did the trick for the trunk and these gorgeous little yellow star buttons were perfect for the tree tops!

Angela

I have made some Christmas bunting that I would like to share with you.

I made it from 3 different fabrics, 2 Christmas decorative fabrics and gold satin to finish off the back. I cut the fabrics into triangles, using a template I had cut out of paper. I also cut out some Pelmet Vilene triangles to use as a support for the bunting. I sewed 14 triangles, 7 in white and 7 in green to the Pelmet Vilene and then I covered a large piece of cream felt with Versamark ink, and sprinkled gold embossing powder on it. I then heated this with a heat gun and let the embossing powder melt. I repeated this process twice. This left a beautiful gold felt :)

I then drew around some Heidi Swapp Ghost Letters onto the embossed felt to read "Merry Christmas" and cut these out. I then cut some gold fibre paper out in squares the same size as the letters and sewed the letters to the bunting.

I used gold cord to join the flags together and sewed these in place, attaching gold satin fabric to the back of the flags. Finally, I embossed some cream buttons with matching embossing powder and attached these to the cord using ribbon.

Thanks for visiting and don't forget to SCRAP YOUR BOOBIES for a great cause! All entries received at acreativeworld@hotmail.co.uk will be entered into a prize draw at the end of October. The lucky winner will receive a gorgeous collection of PINK embellishments.

There are also spot prizes through the month for anyone who donates through our JUST GIVING page!! Don't forget every penny counts.

haPPy creATing

Caz and Angela

xx

Christmas Sewing

Hi again, today we are bringing you ideas for handmade Christmas fabric items; we hope you get some ideas and inspiration. Trish xxx I will start with my Christmas pinny. I bought this gorgeous holly fabric from my local fabric shop and got a bit of a bargain, as there was a pattern miss so ended up with more than I had wanted, which was ideal. I put the fabric on the floor and laid my full length pinny on the top, gave myself a 1 inch allowance and cut round the shape, hemmed it all the way round, cut a medium sized rectangle, hemmed it and stitched it on for a pocket and used ribbon for the ties. As I had some fabric left I decided to make a hot pad for getting the dinner out of the oven, I just cut 2 squares approx 9x9 inches of the patterned fabric, the same from slightly thicker plain cotton fabric, and the same again from wadding (doubled up), pinned it all together then used my sewing machine to stitch diagonally across to form a criss cross pattern, then edged it with bias binding, very quick and simple to do. I still had a few scraps of the fabric left over, but not really enough to sew anything, so after hunting round the internet I came up with a great idea, A rag wreath, I made the circle with jewellery wire, it took quite a lot of wire to make it relatively sturdy, but you could always use an embroidery ring instead, I tore the fabric into strips approx 1 inch wide and 3 inches long, and tied it on the wire until it was full, I then tore a plain red fabric into slightly smaller strips, about half and inch wide and 2 and a half inches long and tied them in between, this wreath will hang inside my kitchen door. Di has done a lovely pinny/sack/shopping bag using fat quarters and calico.

I bought about 5 "Fat quarters " in a little shop in Hitchin. Cut then into 6 inch srips and stiched them together. (about 5 feet of strips) Then backed them with calico so that the whole thing would be lined, turned the whole lot inside out and the top stiched. Almost too late added the smiley face buttons using embroidery cotton . i should have added them before attaching the lining so that the stiching would be concealed. I then made the ties, turned them inside out and attached them to the side of the SACK. VOILA I had a Christmas sack, a pinny with a BIG pocket, and a xmas shopper!!!! It is robust washable and I think quite Joyful.