Colourful craft room tour: before

This room is a little bit of a funny shape, because of the chimney breast and the old airing cupboard in the corner. We couldn’t really do anything removing them, so it made sense to work around it. My wardrobe has always been in this room, so I decided to turn the existing cupboard into a built-in wardrobe. Next to this I wanted as much shelf space as possible, which would fit nicely into the alcove gaps. So I got out my masking tape and worked out where I wanted them to go:

Not the prettiest photos (awful wallpaper – we hadn’t decorated this room at all after buying the house!). But marking it out like this was really helpful I calculated the depth and width of each one around some storage boxes from IKEA, which meant that I could maximise storage space. As part of the shelving wall, I also wanted a mini desk for my computer. We have a similar thing in our living room from when my computer was down there, and it’s really handy.

Colourful craft room tour: starting work

To get the shelves exactly as I wanted meant that we had them custom made. This isn’t the cheapest option, but we got the same guy who did our living room shelves to build these too, and so we knew they would be good and give me the storage I need. I’ve had various shelving arrangements over the years, and they were all fine at the time but these need to be super strong and different depths. Working around that cupboard wasn’t going to be easy either. You can’t really tell from the photos, but we painted the ceiling and the other walls white before the shelves went in (there was no point in painting this one as it would be covered up). Our joiner Graeme did a brilliant job making the shelves on our extremely wonky walls, and it looks amazing!

So the final thing to do was to get it all painted, which we did ourselves. Because the shelves are made from MDF, we used the not-so-quick-drying satinwood in white. I like the look of this paint because it isn’t too shiny – but it takes a while between coats so that the MDF doesn’t warp. And it’s a bit stinky! Once it was touch dry, we had to leave it for about a week to make sure it had completely dried. Then the fun of moving things in could begin!

Colourful craft room tour: after

So now we’ve got to the colourful bit of the colourful craft room tour!

The space works perfectly for me – I’ve been organising things since the beginning of the year and I’m so happy with it. The flexibility is working out really well with this desk from IKEA – the trestle bottoms are great for storage, so I keep my sewing thread boxes there. We also have a sofa bed from John Lewis in this gorgeous teal colour, so that the room can easily be turned into a bedroom again when we have visitors. The desk top isn’t attached so it’s easily stored whilst the bed is up, and my little IKEA trolley can easily be move out of the way.

I have a mix of different sizes of boxes for ultimate storage – the bottom two rows are for large boxes, with medium-sized ones just above that. There was a little bit of space in an alcove next to the wardrobe, so that was designed around my smallest boxes. I have 10 of these to maximise space, which is great for keeping little things in.

These magazine files are really useful for storing things – I wrote a blog post about how to cover them a few years back (which you can find here).

This is my desk space, and it’s just what I wanted! I use the table or sit on the sofa to craft things, so this is where I do any other blog or shop admin. I’ve decorated it with happy prints and little things I’ve got from indie makers I’ve purchased from. You can also just see my Pantone colour chart curtains, which add a whole lot of colour to my room!

Super-handy letter board from The Room Alive and gorgeous felt ball garland from For Mama and Baba. Rainbow rug in the next picture is by Little Bird and I love the contrast of the rainbow against the teal sofa. It’s an extra fun pop of colour!

My colourful hoop wall

My hoop wall is one of my favourite things about my room. It’s a lovely way to display my work but also to support other talented indie makers too. I’ve added a few more things to it since taking these photos, so head over to @hellohoorayblog on Instagram as I’ve shared them there. The details for some of these are below (L-R on photo below):

Good vibes hoop and pastel enamel pin holder hoop from hellohoorayshop

Wooly girl hoop is a personal project

Spider pin from gildedcreatures (hoop is personal project)

LOVE hoop stitched from pattern by Brynn&Co (click here to read my post about it)

I love tea banner from hannahdoodle

Felt colour wheel hoop from hellohoorayshop

Tea helps hoop from ohmygollyembroidery

Small wreath hoop from GeorgieKEmery (which I won on Instagram!)

Hello banner from CottonClara

Retro floral hoop which I designed for Bibelot Magazine – find the tutorial here

Future craft room plans

On the other side of my craft room (for now) are my wardrobe and chest of drawers. This is just temporary until we get the rest of our extension done and they can move out into the new bedroom – we’re keeping everything crossed that we can get that done soon! Once they are gone, I’ll add peg boards to the wall for more storage and I have another IKEA trestle table for extra workspace. Yay!

I hope you’ve enjoyed my colourful craft room tour! I am working on a related post about being organised and crafting when you don’t have a craft room, so look out for that on the blog over the next few weeks. How do you organise your craft supplies? Let me know in the comments below!

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I’ve been wondering about sending out a newsletter for a while now. It’s sometimes hard to find the time to write a blog post, but I’d like to keep you updated! I’d also like to share lots of crafty things, links to what I’ve been reading or other things I’d like to share with you. These don’t always fit into a post so a newsletter seems like the perfect way to do this! I’ll be sending them out once every 2-3 weeks at first until I get into the swing of things. So no, I won’t be clogging up your inbox! I’d love to hear what kind of things you’d like to read in them so do let me know

Sound good? Just click on the link below if you’d like to receive the first one on 1st March!

Click here to sign up for my newsletter!

In the first one there’s a sneaky peek at something I’ve been working on…it will hopefully be coming soon as a free PDF download. Yay!

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Future creative projects will be a way of bringing together things that inspire me to create something. It might be a particular tutorial that I want to follow to the letter, and I’ll make it exactly. Or it might be that I gather inspiration from several places to create my own version of something. A creative project might be something I sew, bake, build or experience. It can be anything creative, but I’m saving my inspiration on my blog and sharing my ideas with you.

My first future creative project is to make some new cushions for our living room. We have a lovely collection of cushions that we’ve collected over the years, but they’re all a bit mis-matched! I’d really like to update them and use some lovely fabrics that compliment our purple curtains and the decor. I have pinned some inspiration on my #futurecreativeprojects Pinterest board if you’d like to see – there are lots of vintage fabrics, pretty trims and different shapes that I’d love to try! I particularly love the tutorial from Fall for DIY which would be great for using up some fat quarters.

I’ll be using the hashtag #futurecreativeprojects to share my ideas on Pinterest and also on Instagram If you’d like to join in with me then you can! Just use the hashtag on Instagram and tag me @hellohoorayblog – I’m looking forward to seeing your future creative projects, so put the kettle on and think about what you’d like to make!

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I spent a lot of my working at home days during my pregnancy sleeping – that was one thing I hadn’t really anticipated! I’m not going to lie, I lost a bit of enthusiasm for crafting and my blog which was a bit disheartening after all the effort I had been putting in to it. But in the last few weeks I regained my crafting mojo and was able to complete a few projects for Little One. The fabric buying ban was still in place (and still is, actually!) so I raided my stash for all the plain colours I have. So these are a mixture of mainly Kona cottons, Moda solids and a few other random ones I had. There are 21 colours altogether, and I used 3 squares of each – Tom helped me to work out how to lay them out so they were ‘random’, and I’m really pleased with how it turned out. It reminds me of Elmer the Patchwork Elephant! The backing fabric (pictured above) is ‘Mother Goose’ by Windham fabrics and it’s just gorgeous – I got it from Fabric Rehab with a birthday voucher (which certainly does not break the fabric buying ban haha!). As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to get it for this quilt.

I ended up with extra backing fabric and my Mum suggested making a cushion for tummy time – I found a tutorial online and it has turned out really well. I made some spare covers for it, which is why you’re probably thinking ‘but the one in the photo has cats on it!’ I’m going to do a separate review post about that pattern, so look out for that at some unspecified point in the future…!

I also managed to make some curtains for the nursery, using fabric from the duvet covers I had when I was younger. I loved them so much that I couldn’t part with them! It’s really nice to have been able to use them to make something for Little One.

Our nursery is quite small, so we kept everything white and decided to add lots of colour. My Dad very kindly came to re-wallpaper the room, and Tom did the painting. I think he’s all DIY-ed out now! Here are a few more pictures:

The piano stool has been useful in the nursery (added storage = bonus!), but I didn’t get the chance to paint it before Little One arrived. Something to add to the list of things I’d like to get around to at some point…

We are big fans of The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Dr. Seuss My Mum picked up these cute bookends in the charity shop she works in. They’re fab!

This mini wooden seaside was a gift from Grandma H and Grandad K – we call it Maryport in a tin (that’s what it came in). We spent quite a bit of time there as a family, so it’s lovely to have this in the nursery. Little One likes to look at it now that she can focus in on things a bit more. It’s a good job that crabs and seagulls aren’t this big in real life – not to scale here!

The lovely prints on the wall are from Miri Studio. We wanted to have some pictures in the nursery, and had a couple of these frames from Ikea already. Katy from Miri Studio makes them to fit these frames, so they were perfect! And it’s good to support artists from the UK. I love them all, but the cheeky squirrel is my favourite!

I can’t tell you how long it has taken me to put this post together! A big thank you to Tom for the gift of time to be able to do it I’ll be returning the favour so he can do some composing! He has taken some extended leave thanks to shared parental leave, and it has just been wonderful having him around. Time is going so fast and it’s brilliant that he can be around to be with us. I can’t imagine what it would have been like if he had gone back to work after only two weeks – I have a lot of respect for everyone who does that. We’ve been able to muddle through the fog of the first few weeks together, and it’s so nice to be emerging from it and to be able to do a few more normal things. I’ve been getting back in to Instagram too, as well as posting a few things on my Facebook page, so you can pop over there to see more in between my blog posts if you like. It feels good to be back!

(I love this picture! It took a while to get it, but I got it! )

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To get me started, I was kindly sent some vouchers for Hobbycraft so that I could get some supplies for my wreath. I decided that I wanted to make an indoor wreath so that it can be used again each year and become part of our Christmas traditions, and so felt seemed like a good choice! I already had some lovely wool felt in my stash, and so I used my vouchers to buy everything I would need to try out needle felting. As many of you know, I’m always keen to learn something new, and this seemed like the perfect time to have a go! You can find the links to the supplies I bought in the list below.

You will need:

A polystyrene wreath (mine was 350mm)

About a metre of wool felt in dark green

Some 1cm red pom poms (I cut them off some pom pom trim!)

Mod Podge (or other glue that will work with felt) and a paintbrush

Paper, pencil, marker pen and paper scissors

Sharp fabric scissors

Needle felting tool

Wool roving (I used this Christmas pack)

Needle felting mat (optional – you might find it easier without one)

Some craft wire

Step 1

Draw out a few holly leaf shapes and choose the one that you think is the best shape. Draw around it with a marker pen and then cut it out with your paper scissors.

Step 2

Pin the template on the felt and carefully cut around it. You will need a lot of leaves to cover this size wreath – I cut out 120!

Step 3

When all of your leaves are cut out, add a little texture to them by machine stitching along the leaf. This is really effective, but you could leave it out if you don’t want to. Theres no need to tie the thread at each end – just cut it close to each leaf.

Step 4

A little while later (when you have cut out and stitched all your leaves!) you can start to stick everything on to the wreath. Cut out 2 long strips of felt, about an inch thick, and stick them around the bottom edges of the outside and inside of the wreath – this will make sure that you can’t see white bits around the edges.

Step 5

Brush a little Mod Podge or glue on the back of each leaf and then stick it on to the wreath. I found it easier to work from the outsides up to the top, so stick leaves along the edges first before layering up like this:

Once the edges are covered, your layered leaves will begin to look more wreath-like!

Step 6

When the whole thing is completely covered with leaves, add the pom pom berries. Place them first and then add a little glue on the back and press down firmly.

Step 7

Now to make the robin! As I said, I had never done this before so it was trial and error really. I have a lovely book called Wool Buddies by Jackie Huang which I used for a technique guide, but I made up the design as I went along! I started by taking a ball of white roving, and prodded it a bit to make it into an oval shape. Then I covered this with brown roving, leaving the front white.

Next I attached the red wool, and at this stage the robin needs quite a bit of prodding to make sure it is attached. I’m not sure if that’s the technical term, but hopefully you know what I mean!

Step 8

The eyes and beak are made next using tiny pieces of black roving. Position them first before carefully attaching with the needle felting tool.

As I said, my design kept changing as I went along and at this point I decided that his head and wings could be shaped out of his body. I did some serious prodding to do this – please mind your fingers here!

Ta-dah!

Step 9

The final thing to do is to attach the robin to the wreath, and I wound some craft wire round and round to do this. Poke it into the bottom of the robin (sorry, robin!) and then poke the other end into the wreath. You may wish to glue the wire in to the robin too – I did this just to make sure it is really secure.

Then attach a wire loop at the back of the wreath so that you can hang it up, and you’re finished!

I hope you have enjoyed my tutorial – if you have a go at the wreath or the felted robin, then I would love to see them! Feel free to leave a link in the comments box below. If you are looking for more inspiration, you can visit the Direct Blinds inspiration blog for more ideas! What are you crafting for Christmas?

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So firstly, my new blog name…I must point out that despite my musical connections, it isn’t named after an Alice Cooper song of the same name! I actually didn’t even realise that there was a song called Hello Hooray until I was Googling potential blog names and it came up. I have since listened to the song, and it’s not the worst song I’ve ever heard but it isn’t really my cup of tea to be honest! So I just wanted to clear that up As I said in my original post, the main reason for changing my name was that when I started blogging a couple of years ago it was just for fun, and I came up with the name because that’s how I felt about crafting at that point – I had so many things that I wanted to make, but had no time at all to do any of them! But that’s all changed now since I’ve gone part time in my day job, so the name didn’t really make sense anymore. I also realised that a blogger in America had a blog of the same name, so it was important to me to have something unique. Thinking of a blog name is really tough though! You think you’ve come up with the perfect thing and then you find out it has been taken. Argh! I wanted something shorter, something that sounded friendly and welcoming, and something less specific so that I can take my blog in any direction I want to. So Hello! Hooray! was born!

The direction of my blog has changed a bit since I started blogging a couple of years ago, and it has become such a big part of my life. I could never have predicted that! I love being a part of the blogging community, and it’s great to connect with people all over the world. I enjoy blogging so much more than I thought I would, and would love to make the jump from being an English teacher to full time blogger. Whether that’s actually a realistic possibility I have no idea, but I’m determined to make a go of it! So that’s one of my main goals – a long-term one, obviously. In the meantime, I’d love to get involved with other blogs and have guest posts on my blog too, so get in touch if you’re interested! I’m also keen to try out new crafts and have lots of projects planned, so stay tuned…Another thing that I have considered is selling a few of my makes, but I don’t know if that will be possible/practical/worth it. It’s something that I would love to do at some point, so maybe I’ll add it to my list of long-term goals for Hello! Hooray! and focus on building up my site for now. Who knows where I’ll end up…

In order to start working towards my goals, there will be a few changes on my blog. I guess the main one is that I’m going to be signing up to Affiliate Links to be able to place some adverts on my site. I know, I know, adverts are everywhere – but I need to start somewhere if I’m going to build things up! I don’t want them to take over, so they will be in the sidebars only and I’ll be picking and choosing the content that I feel is relevant to what my blog is all about. I may have some affiliate links in my blog posts, but I’ll be pointing them out to you so you know where they are. I’m also going to be trying to post more frequently – I do this as often as I can at the moment, but I’d love to have some brand new content for you every day. This is one of my mid-term goals, because I don’t think I can do it straight away but I’ll get there one day!

Although I’ve been working super hard to update everything after the transfer, some of my old posts from my So Many Crafts, So Little Time! days still need updating. I have over 300 posts now, so it’s taking a little time to get through them all! Some of the formatting was lost in the transfer and the majority of my photos on older posts are watermarked with my old blog name (I would NEVER do that again, but you live and learn!). I’m trying to update things as I go along, but please bear with me as it’s going to take some time…There have been a few other teething problems, but I have been trying to fix those too and learning a lot along the way. My Twitter feed should now appear at the bottom of the page rather than just a blank box, and the follow by email widget is now up and running again too – yay! This still doesn’t look like the prettiest box, but that will be fixed at some point.

The community feel of my blog is also really important to me, so if there’s something you’d like me to make/feature then do let me know. I love hearing your comments so you can always leave me a message on a post (good or bad!) or get in touch via my social media (links on the left and in the footer). It took me a while to find it (despite it being in an obvious place!) but if you’ve enjoyed reading any post on my blog, you can also let me know by hitting the ‘like’ button. It’s underneath the title of each post, as shown here:

I think that I have finally covered everything that I wanted to say – hopefully I won’t think of another 10 things later on… It’s actually very strange for me to have written a post without loads of photos, so I hope I haven’t rambled on too much. The final thing that I’d like to say is a big ‘Thank you’ to everyone who reads my blog – I wouldn’t have got this far without you reading it and it’s wonderful to have your support! Have a super dooper Saturday, whatever you’re doing

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Before you begin, you’ll need to wash any fabric that you’re using to make sure that the colours don’t run.

You will need

A long-sleeved bodysuit (I used these 6-9 month size from Marks and Spencer)
Some fabric for the ukulele body
Some brown fabric for the ukulele neck
Some pattern paper (or baking parchment does the job nicely too!)
A pencil
Some sharp fabric scissors
Pins, needle and matching thread
Ukulele baby bodysuit templates – these are based on a soprano size uke, so use the inner lines on the templates for the 6-9 month size suit

Step 1

Trace the templates onto your pattern paper, and then cut out each piece of fabric.

Step 2

Carefully pin the pieces onto the bodysuit as shown. You could glue them on first if you like – I didn’t do that, but it would help to keep them secure as you sew.

Step 3

Using matching thread and small stitches, sew the body of the ukulele onto the bodysuit. It’s easiest to start where it meets the neck, so that you can secure both pieces of fabric.

Step 4

Sew the smaller pieces of fabric on using brown thread and the same small stitches.

Step 5

Now you need to sew the ukulele neck along the arm – this is quite tricky because it is so small! Try to keep your stitches small if possible.

Step 6

Measure a small piece of the coloured fabric to make the final piece of ukulele – I actually wasn’t planning on adding this, but had to when my brown fabric didn’t quite reach the end of the sleeve! Pin it on and fold over the edge before sewing as before, making sure you have secured it on the inside.

And that’s it – ta-dah!

If you’re feeling adventurous, you could embroider the strings on – I had planned on doing this, but actually liked the look of it without them when I had finished. Here’s to happy ukulele babies! :-)[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

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March seems to have gone in a flash! Here are my favourite Instagram photos from this month

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Happy Mother’s Day to my wonderful Mum! Hopefully you have opened your present…I’m about to tell people how to make it!

My Mum has a little one-pot tea pot, and she asked me to make a little tea cosy for it. When I visited her a few weeks ago, I measured it and made a template. It was actually quite tricky to make the tea cosy back here in Newcastle without being able to try it on the teapot, so I hope it fits!

You will need

Some pattern paper (some tissue paper or some parchment paper will work just fine)
A pencil
Some contrasting fabrics for your tea cosy (an outer and inner layer)
Some wadding
A needle and thread
Sharp scissors
A small piece of ribbon

You can make this by hand, or on a sewing machine.

Step 1: Measure your teapot and draw a semicircular shape onto your pattern paper. Make sure that you leave lots of space around the edge so that the cosy will be roomy. You might want to cut out 2 shapes so that you can check to see if they fit around the teapot, and adjust to fit.

Step 2: Take the lining fabric and fold it in half, right sides together. Pin your template on to the fabric, and cut around the edge leaving a 1cm around the template – this will allow for your seams. Then do the same with the outer fabric.

Step 3: Take one piece of outer fabric and one piece of lining fabric, and pin them right sides together. Leave about a 10cm gap at the bottom (for turning out later. Sew around the outside, 1cm from the edge.

Step 4: Clip the edges, turn the right way out and then press. Trim the wadding to size and then fit it inside the cover.

Step 5: Repeat step 4 with the other pieces of fabric and the wadding. Then cut a small piece of ribbon and secure it between the two sides of the tea cosy. Make sure that the ribbon points downward between the two pieces, which should be right sides together. Pin the whole thing together around the curved edge.

Step 6: Sew around the curved edges – this is the point where my old sewing machine decided that it doesn’t like sewing layers! If you’re doing it by hand too, keep the stitches as small as you can.

Step 7: Turn the tea cosy the right way out, and then use slipstitch to close the two open seams along the bottom.

Ta-dah! Time to put the kettle on

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Today was a really exciting day – my new sewing machine arrived! My lovely old machine (that used to belong to my Mum and is many, many years old) decided last week that it didn’t want to sew through more than one layer of fabric This is my old machine:

After a bit of deliberation I decided that I’d need to get a new one, especially as I’ve got lots of sewing projects planned! Even though my old machine doesn’t work properly, I’m going to keep it because of the sentimental value. I’ve made so many things on this machine (including our wedding waistcoats) and I just can’t get rid of it! I love the retro cover, and will keep it for my craft room…one day, I’ll have a craft room

I did quite a bit of research into sewing machines, and settled on the Janome 525S. It has great reviews and was used on the Great British Sewing Bee too! I’m planning on writing a proper review of it once I’ve got to grips with it and made a few more things. I tested it out this afternoon by making a little protector for the needle and foot when it isn’t being used. I used a scrap of fabric I had left over from my vintage suitcase project, and pressed the edges before sewing it all together.

I’m so excited about my sewing machine and can’t wait to get started with some new projects!

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I love embroidery and I love badges, so this little project is perfect as it combines the two! It’s also a really good way of using up fabric scraps – I hate having random little bits of lovely fabric left over with no idea what to use them for. I’ve made these badges using coverable buttons – the small one is 29mm and the larger one is 38mm – and they are so versatile. I’ve got lots of ideas for these badges, so look out for more projects to come soon!

You can get a tool to make coverable buttons, but the biggest size on the tool is 29mm. I was worried that this would be a problem, but the larger buttons are really easy to pop together so it doesn’t matter. When choosing fabric small patterns work best, and I’ve chosen contrasting colours so that the embroidery stands out. To mark out the letters you could use an invisible pen (mine disappeared too fast for me to be able to see it!) – here I used some parchment paper and embroidered through it as I find this much easier. This paper is actually baking parchment but it makes amazing pattern paper – this is my top sewing tip!

You will need:

Metal self-cover buttons (I found these on Ebay)
Parchment or pattern paper
A pencil
Some fabric and embroidery thread
Sharp scissors
Needle and pins
Tweezers
Some brooch backs
Superglue

Step 1:

Remove the wire from the inside of the front of the button, and draw around it on the the parchment/pattern paper, leaving a bit of room around the edge. Then write your word(s) so it fits inside the circle (don’t go too close to the edge – and keep your word choice short enough for your button size!). Cut out the paper and pin onto your fabric.

You may wish to use an embroidery hoop to keep the fabric steady – I find it easier to hold a smaller piece, so I cut it out. Do whatever works for you!

Step 2:

Thread the needle with your chosen colour cotton and then sew over the letters. I prefer to use a split stitch, but you could use any you like as long as the letter is clear.

Make sure that when you change a thread, tie a knot and trim the excess as close as you can to the fabric.

Step 3:

Carefully remove the parchment paper. You may need to hold on to your stitches at times! Use tweezers to remove any small, tricky pieces.

Step 4:

Place the fabric face-down on a flat surface, and then line up the front of the button over the embroidery. Hook the excess fabric over the back of the button and adjust as necessary. Once lined up, place the back of the button over the top and pop into place.

Step 5:

Very carefully, use the superglue to attach the brooch back to the button, making sure that it is horizontal in relation to the embroidery. Make sure that you don’t get any on your fingers! Leave to try for a few minutes.

There will be a little bit of discolouration with the superglue, but it is on the back so who will know?! I’ve tried loads of other glues and none of them hold, so this is the best option by far!

That’s it – as soon as the glue is dry, your badge is ready to wear! There are so many options with this project, and the possibilities are endless. I have some others in the making but I can’t share them with you just yet…you’ll have to keep looking out for them!

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Many, many years ago, I made a bag for our Scrabble letters with my Mum – here it is:

Yes, that does say ‘1993’ and I was 7 and 3/4 (the 3/4 is very important!). Unfortunately, it got a hole in the bottom and I think something was spilt on it, so we had to wash it – so the colourful tiles that I had drawn on were washed away! This lovely faded creation has served us well, but it was about time that we have a new one for the next 20 or so years.

I found this gorgeous fabric and decided that it would be perfect (I did suggest to Tom that I could make a skirt out of it, but he didn’t like that idea – it would be ‘too jazzy’ apparently!). I teamed it up with some neon pink ribbon and decided that I’d make some little Scrabble tiles with some wool felt.

The first thing I did was to draw around a Scrabble tile onto the felt, before copying the letters and points onto the felt too. Then I embroidered the letters on using split stitch.

Then I made the bag (modelled on the old one) – after folding it in half with the right sides together, I pressed seams that would allow the ribbon to pass through the top and then stitched close to the edge of the hem. Then I pinned the sides, stitched them together and then trimmed off the excess with pinking shears. After turning the bag the right way around, I pressed it.

The next step was to attach the letters – I used a small running stitch to do this.

Next, I finished the edges of the tops of the bag, before threading the ribbon through and sewing the ends together.

Ta-dah!

Here’s to many more fun games of Scrabble!

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Many of you will already know that one of my crafty plans this year is to learn how to make my own stamps (see my previous post about stamp-making if you haven’t already!). I have a new found admiration for anyone who can make beautifully crafted stamps – it’s trickier than it looks! Getting a neat edge is really tough, but practice makes perfect…

Last week I had the idea to make a little button stamp. Then I had an idea of what I could use it for! So yesterday, I drew a few little sketches and settled on this button. It took a while to carve it, and I tried to do it as neatly as I could…

It isn’t perfect, but as you can see from the bottom left-hand square, it printed out ok! I’m really a perfectionist, so dealing with that can be hard sometimes…but I actually like the slight wonky nature of this button

I realised that the light was disappearing (come on, British summer time!) so I gathered all of my things and started printing. I thought that this stamp would make some great little notebooks – and as a craft supply hoarder, I had some of these little Moleskine notebooks that were perfect.

Then I got out my alphabet stamps too!

I like this black and white version, but decided to add a little extra touch by sewing in some cotton in different colours.

Make sure you snip any excess cotton as close as you can to the knots on the inside. Ta-dah! They’re ready for lots of crafty notes

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