I have been absolutely delighted to see lots of people joining in with The Happy Stitch Project this week. It has been so amazing to see you all enjoying some creative time, and so many of you learning a new skill. It feels like the perfect craft for 2021 to bring us a little peace, calm and creativity. These little moments and pockets of time are truly going to be invaluable for us all. Here in the UK as we are now in our third Covid lockdown, and I’ve had lots of lovely messages from people saying that they are looking forward to making time for themselves, and that’s really so important. It’s hard to believe we’re only seven days in to 2021 and everything has gone completely crazy!

Earlier this week, the lovely Helen from The Unicorn Factory shared a hoop design in her Instagram stories, which she had put together to be able to make a sampler for The Happy Stitch Project. It has 52 sections, and Helen said that she was going to use it to practice each of the stitches that we’re learning throughout the year. I just think this is the most brilliant idea! So I got in touch to ask if I could share them with you, and I’m very pleased to say that she said yes (thanks, Helen!).

Helen is a surface pattern designer, and you can buy fabrics from her beautiful first collection (called Rainforest Joy) on Fashion Formula and Spoonflower. I love the colours she has used in this collection, and they complement each other so well. Go and give her a follow on Instagram too!

Happy Stitch hoop templates

Helen has very kindly put the documents together for the Happy Stitch hoop templates, so they’re ready for you to download and print!  You can either stitch in an 20cm (8″) or a 25cm (10″) hoop, depending on what you feel most comfortable with. You can print both at 100% on A4 – the larger size will get chopped off slightly when printed, but the lines are clear enough for you to be able to draw this on anyway.

Click here to download the 20cm (8″) templates

Click here to download the 25cm (10″) templates

Week 1 project – in case you missed it!

Did you see the design for week 1 of The Happy Stitch Project? It’s this lovely little sprinkles hoop – I have loved seeing your creations over on Instagram this week. Keep sharing, as I’ll be sharing my favourites each week! And don’t forget that if you need some sewing supplies, you can find lots of lovely things in my haberdashery. Hoops are now available, and more things coming soon!

Have you stitched anything this week? Let me know in the comments! The week 2 stitch tutorial and project will be available tomorrow – yay!

You may also like…

Enjoy stitching the Do Your Thing hoop from week 7 of The Happy Stitch Project:

Do your thing embroidered hoop

Try out the first kit from The Happy Stitch Project here:

https://hellohooray.com/product/brighter-days-are-coming-kit/

Try out your own 100 Happy Days – perfect for practising gratitude:

100 Happy Days

The post Happy Stitch hoop templates appeared first on Hello! Hooray!.

The Creative Family Manifesto

The idea for this came about after reading The Creative Family Manifesto by Amanda Blake Soule*. Tom’s Mum gave me a copy of this for Christmas a few years ago, and after Littlest One was born I finally started dipping into it when I got 5 minutes here and there. It is the most wonderful book, and I wish I had started reading it sooner! If you want to live a more creative life and encourage your children to get involved at every opportunity, then I would highly recommend it.

Soule encourages you to use simple things around you to encourage creativity as a family. I love the part where she talks about imaginary friends, as Little One has an imaginary camel and he comes everywhere with us! He really is like a part of the family now, as is Camel’s friend Elephant and Elephant’s friend, Oscar the dog. Soule also emphasises the joy of sharing the tradition of handmade things, which is obviously something that is really important to me too.

Writing our own family manifesto

We are about to embark on our home education journey, as Little One will soon be 4 and would be going to school in September. It seemed like the right time to write our manifesto with this in mind, but also with everything that’s going on with Covid 19 too. It is a very surreal situation isn’t it? We are social distancing now, and it has actually been really good to think about what should be on our manifesto as we’re going to be spending much more time at home! It might be something that you can do with your family too as a positive activity to complete together. It doesn’t have to be framed if you don’t want to – even just jotting down your list of statements is a good place to start.

I used my personal manifesto as a starting point, as there were a few things that I thought would be good for our family manifesto. There were others I wanted to add to encourage things for our children and for ourselves. This is the list that I wrote, which contains 14 statements:

• Stay curious
• Go outisde
• Explore
• Make a mess – tidy up later
• Try again
• Learn from your mistakes
• Notice the little things
• Create together
• Make music
• Collect things
• Play
• Read every day
• Always be kind
• Love your community

This list covers things that we want for all of us as a family – things we want to encourage, and the ways in which we try to live our lives. I don’t see creativity as a separate ‘thing’ that we do, it’s in everything that we do. At the moment, Little One  frequently says that she can’t do things, so we’re always encouraging her to try again. We try to create things together when we can, whether that’s music, craft or something else. We read every day, and we emphasise the importance of being kind.

I wondered about changing the phrase ‘collect things’ as it reminded me of the phrase ‘collect moments, not things’. In the end, I decided that this is actually what I want it to say! Collections are great – leaves, stamps, feathers, colour charts – all of these things can inspire us in so many ways. It isn’t so much about having physical things for me, it’s about how we take inspiration from them. So I left that bit in!

Making your own creative family manifesto: materials

To make a family manifesto to be displayed like ours, you’ll need a few basic materials:

A big sheet of good quality card (we used an A1 size piece of card that I bought from our local art shop)

A set of watercolour paints and brushes

Some coloured paper

Stamps and an ink pad

A pencil

Scissors

Double-sided sticky tape or glue

A frame to display it in

Step 1

Take your large piece of card and set up the watercolours. Then get each member of your family to paint something on it! We went abstract and painted whatever popped into our heads. Littlest One even joined in too, and you can see where he painted with his hands in the corner. I think he was just 10 months when we did this, so it’s something that all ages can join in with. Leave it to dry completely.

Step 2

Now take your stamps and ink pad, and stamp out each of the creative statements onto coloured paper. I used a different colour for each statement, and chose 7 colours of paper for the 14 statements. When the ink has dried, carefully cut around each one in a rectangular shape.

Step 3

Remove the packaging from your frame. Take out the mount, but don’t discard it as you’ll need to use it in the next step!

Step 4

Once the watercolours have dried, place the mount on top and draw around it with a pencil. Then carefully cut it out, so that you have the right size to fit in your frame. If you prefer, you can use the mount to display – just do whatever works for you and adjust the size of the painted card accordingly.

Step 5

Position the creative statements on top of the painted card and work out where you’d like them to be. Stick them in place with double-sided sticky tape or some glue.

Step 6

The last thing to do is to put it in your frame, secure the back and then display. We have hung ours in the hallway, as we wanted to be able to see it frequently. Little One asks about it every time she goes up or down the stairs, which is great!

The beautiful pennant hanging above our manifesto is by HouseofHooray on Etsy*. The Pride of the North hoop is designed and stitched by me as an exclusive for For the Love of the North, an amazing shop which supports creatives from the North East of England. You can purchase one here! The pink pineapple embroidery was stitched by me, and you can read about that on my blog here.

Share your manifesto!

I would really love to see your manifesto if you make one – let me know in the comments below, or tag me on social media @hellohoorayblog. I hope this project brings you joy, especially during this really tough period. Stay safe, and wash your hands!

Please note that links marked (*) are affiliate links.

The post Our creative family manifesto appeared first on Hello! Hooray!.

I’m so excited to be having a natter with Zabby Allen from The Procrastination Paper on my blog today – yay! I have been a huge fan of Zabby’s for a long time now, and had the pleasure of meeting her in real life at Blogtacular in 2018. She is a super talented creative who works on so many amazing projects (I’ll let Zabby you a bit more about those in this mini interview). She started writing The Procrastination Paper to encourage people to #WasteSomeTimeOffline and recently decided that this will be her main personal project, which I think is amazing! In this mini interview we also talk about Zabby’s inspiration, how she started The Procrastination Paper and what she does to #WasteSomeTimeOffline, and I know you’re going to love getting to know her a bit more. Zabby is currently on a mission to recruit 100 new subscribers before Christmas, and there’s a bit more info about that at the end of this post so do check that out!

Describe your work in 3 words.

Colourful, collaborative, varied.

Who or what inspires you?

I’m inspired by the people I feature in the Paper – I’m usually in such a rush to get the magazine edited that it’s only when I come back to issues a month or two later that I really get to appreciate them fully myself. The honesty and creativity of my contributors never fails to amaze me!

How did you first get the idea for The Procrastination Paper?

I had the idea for the Procrastination Paper on a train to Wales. My best ideas always come when I’m not working! I’d taken the month off freelance work in order to give myself time to figure out where I wanted to take my business and had got as far as realising that my passion was in print – I knew I wanted to make my own magazine! I’d been thinking a lot about the amount of time I spent staring at my screen and had downloaded an app which told me I’d spend 4 hours on my phone most days. I was horrified by the discovery! As I sat on the train, I started to think about what I was actually doing during those 4 hours… and the answer was procrastinating on Instagram. I started to think about the ways in which I used to procrastinate, before I had social media… and decided that they were much more fun. Then and there I scrapped the original plans I was making for my magazine and started work on what would become the Procrastination Paper, to help others procrastinate in a more positive way.

What do you love most about creating The Procrastination Paper?

I love getting to share other people’s stories. When I approach people to write an article for the Paper often they declare “I’m not a writer” or apologise for their writing when they send through their piece. But I believe that we can all be writers and we all have a story to tell. I’m in a privileged position to be able to share the stories and creativity of others with a wider audience.

I also cut all of the titles and cover illustrations out by hand, from real paper, for each issue. I wanted at least part of the process to be handmade. I’m always in a rush to get it all done, but cutting out those tiny little letters feels like my own little bit of offline procrastination each month – even if I do often have Netflix or a podcast on in the background while I’m doing it…

What’s your favourite way to #WasteSomeTimeOffline?

Going for a walk. Nothing clears my mind and motivates me more than being on top of a hill or in the depths of a forest! We recently adopted a street dog from Morocco and she gives me the opportunity to go outside and get muddy every single day, which is brilliant!

You also work on The Happy News with Emily Coxhead and run In Colourful Company with Toni Bee. How do you juggle working on multiple creative projects?

Often not very successfully! Last year I experienced some burnout and decided that I had to be kinder to myself and cut out some work. A couple of my jobs naturally came to an end (at Lucky Dip Club and Caboodle Magazine), which was good timing, and I left the part time illustration agency job I had. This year we hosted three In Colourful Company Colour Walks and I created a ‘Stumped’ travel guide for each city we visited. It was a lot more work than I’d anticipated, and after those I had to take a bit of a step back whilst I moved home and got organised. This week I’m juggling editing The Happy News and the Procrastination Paper and it’s not ideal – I’m determined to plan my time better next year so that I’m only ever working on one job at a time. A combination of bullet journals, Google calendar and lots of colour coding is my trick for organisation!

What’s next for The Procrastination Paper?

I’ve just created a secret member’s area of my site where subscribers can go to find discounts and deals from other subscribers who own businesses – I can’t wait to share it with people as there are some wonderful people involved! I’m currently on a mission to up my subscriber numbers as I stopped selling all of my other products this year in order to concentrate on the Paper and I need a bit of financial stability back! Later in 2020 I really want to bring the Procrastination Paper into the real world with some events too!

What advice would you give to someone who is just starting out on their creative journey?

Follow your passions and do the work, but remember that time off is just as important as time working. Don’t forget to check in with yourself once in a while and ask yourself if what you are doing is making you happy and what you really want to be pursuing.

Yay! Thank you so much for chatting to me, Zabby!

I hope you have enjoyed having a natter with Zabby Allen from The Procrastination Paper as much as I have.

As I said earlier, Zabby is currently on a mission to get 100 new subscribers to The Procrastination Paper by Christmas, and I would love to help her reach her goal! The paper is colourful, creative and informative (I had no idea that Zabby hand cuts all the letters until now – amazing!) and it would make a brilliant Christmas present for creative people in your life or even just for yourself. It’s really wonderful to have this drop on your doormat once a month, and I know that you will love it. Visit Zabby’s website to find out all of the info, and don’t forget to follow @zabbyallen and @theprocrastinationpaper on Instagram too for lots of colour and inspiration.

A big thank you again to Zabby, and good luck reaching your target – you’ve got this!

The post A natter with Zabby Allen from The Procrastination Paper appeared first on Hello! Hooray!.