Introducing Crafty Colour Palettes with @hellohoorayblog

Crafty Colour Palettes is the inspiration for your next craft project. On my blog and on Instagram, I’ll be curating colourful photos and creating colour palettes with embroidery thread for you to use for crafting! Every colour palette will come complete with a blog post and full details of the threads that you need. I’ve chosen to use embroidery thread for my project because there is such a vast array of colours, which gives lots of opportunity to create so many palettes. Not a stitcher? Don’t worry, I’m on the look out for other ways of suggesting colourful projects! I’m also looking for contributors too, so keep reading on if you want to know more…

Inspiration from everyday things

We are surrounded by colour, and inspiration can come from anywhere. The initial idea for this project came from a tray that I bought in IKEA! You’ll see that in my first Crafty Colour Palettes post. I think it’s lovely to be able to create something which your own curated selection of colours. I love to play around with colour. Something as simple as a bunch of daffodils in your favourite jug could be the inspiration for your next project!

How to find Crafty Colour Palettes

The full details for each colour palette will be on my blog, and I’ve created a separate page for you to be able to find them all in one place – just click here. If you’d like to follow on Instagram, search for @craftycolourpalettes. Or search for the #craftycolourpalettes hashtag. Alternatively, you can find a board on my Pinterest. There are lots of ways to get your colour fix!

Interested in getting involved?

I would LOVE to have some guest curators of Crafty Colour Palettes! I think this would give greater variation for your craft projects. If you are interested in being a guest curator, you can email me clare@hellohooray.com or get in touch via my contact page. Or get in touch via Instagram @craftycolourpalettes or @hellohoorayblog Don’t worry if you don’t have oodles of embroidery thread like me – I can create palettes with your photos very easily. Let me know your ideas!

I really hope that you like my new project! Look out for the first Crafty Colour Palette tomorrow…

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I’m so excited to be guest blogger over at Oh No Rachio! today with my geometric meal planner DIY! achel has recently set up a group for creatives over on Facebook and we connected through this, although I’ve been reading her blog for a while now. I designed this project to fit around Rachel’s inspiring fitness posts – a meal planner can be really helpful if you’re trying to eat well. We try to do this as much as possible, and it helps me to avoid buying things we really don’t need at the shops! Planning the meals that you are going to eat each week means that you know exactly which ingredients you need to buy. And if it isn’t on the list, it doesn’t go in the trolley or basket!

If you like the tutorial but don’t want to make a meal planner, you could always use it as a general weekly planner instead. Write down any events that you have on each day in a different colour for each person, and then you’ll know what the plan is for the whole week! I find things much easier when I know what’s going on. In fact, I’m definitely an organiser!

See the full geometric meal planner DIY tutorial here – and be sure to check out the Oh No Rachio blog and shop too!

Post updated 12th February 2020.

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Out of the other things that I roughly sketched, this little fox was my favourite. I wanted to do something a little different for the actual feature, because I know that foxes are everywhere right now! But every time I opened my sketchbook, there he was, and I just had to make him. The making principles for the fox brooch are the same as the bird, although there is a little less embroidery on the fox in terms of different stitches. I kept the border of this brooch a little simpler, but you could do a scalloped edge like I did on my bird brooch if you prefer.

Materials

Felt Fox Brooch templates – click to download

A brooch back and a small piece of plasticard

You’ll also need a needle, possibly a pin or two, as well as some sharp scissors.

The felt I used for this brooch is from Wool Felt Company in orange and turquoise.

The threads I used are: Anchor 433 (blue), Anchor 333 (orange), DMC 712 (cream) and black thread too. Just make sure that you match your thread and your felt, whatever you make on your brooch!

Get stitching!

For the most part you’ll need to follow my tutorial on the Craftseller blog, but here are a few additional tips to help you with this design, relating to stitching the fox on to the front felt piece:

• You’ll need to position the body over the tail piece, and then neatly stitch them on to the circle of felt (the bird felt piece doesn’t have to be neat as it gets covered up!). Once they are secure, stitch the head on.

• Stitch the nose on using black thread and satin stitch, then stitch the cheeks (do foxes have cheeks?! You know what I mean, anyway!) using the same stitch but with cream thread. Outline this first as shown on the bird brooch tutorial.

• I stitched the eyes last, using some small French knots.

• Once the fox is stitched, follow step 6 of my bird brooch tutorial to finish it, and then it will be ready to wear!

This is my little bird brooch – be sure to let me know if have a go at making this, the fox, or your own version of a felt brooch! Share them with me via Facebook, Twitter or tag me @hellohoorayblog on Instagram. I’d really love to see what you make!

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You’ll need about half a metre to cover these files, which I got from Paperchase. Over the years, I have learnt that you get what you pay for with magazine files, and I was always forever buying those cardboard ones that break after a little while. These are super sturdy and much wider than normal ones, so you can fit more in too! They are £7 each but are worth the investment, I promise.

You will need

A magazine file (or as many as you need)

Half a metre of fabric to cover each one (pre-washed and ironed)

Some A3 card

Pencil

Sharp scissors

Mod Podge and a paintbrush (I just used the matt one, but use whatever you have)

Step 1

Make a template of your magazine file by drawing around it on the card – you just need to draw around one side and half of the back (the deepest bit) and then measure the bottom and front (the shortest bit) as a separate piece (see below). I added a couple of centimetres around the edges of the side template to allow for overlap, except for along the bit where it is half of the back. This edge will be placed along a fold of the fabric when you cut out.

Step 2

Place the larger template with the deepest edge along the folded edge of your fabric. Cut it out carefully, and then repeat with the rectangular template (which does not need to be cut on a fold). Then open out the larger piece of fabric, face down, and position the file on top.

Step 3

Once in position, spread some Mod Podge on one side of the file – you need a fairly thin layer but enough to make it stick. Pull the fabric over and smooth out any creases. Repeat with the other sides. If there’s a hole in the side (for pulling the file off the shelf) you can either cover it up as I did with mine, or cut a hole in the fabric if you prefer. I covered it for easiness!

Step 4

Next, carefully spread a little Mod Podge on the inside of the edges, and fold over the fabric and stick down. You’ll need to snip the fabric a little for neatness.

Step 5

Now stick down the edges at the bottom, and then cover the rest of the area with Mod Podge.

Step 6

Take the rectangular piece of fabric and place it carefully along the edge, and then smooth it down. Then repeat with the front section and neaten the edges inside too.

Ta-dah! You’ll have to let the file dry before you can use it – you don’t want all your magazines to stick to the insides!

Now I can tidy my magazines away in style! And when I have a craft room one day, they will go in there perfectly Until then, I’ll be storing these in our study. The great thing about this project is that you can cover these to suit different rooms and styles. Yay!

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You will need:

Some mini glass baubles

About 125cm baker’s twine (this was the length I needed – alter as appropriate!)

Sharp scissors

Tape measure or ruler

A couple of pins to hang it up

Step 1

Match up the ends of your twine, and then thread one of the baubles through one side so it sits in the middle of the whole piece. Tie a knot so that the bauble stays in position.

Step 2

Thread another bauble along one side of the twine. Using your tape measure, position the second bauble so that it is 10cm/4″ apart from the first. Tie a knot to secure it in position.

Step 3

Repeat step two with your other baubles – I found it easier to do one side and then the other so that I could spread out the colours evenly. Make sure that you leave enough twine at each end to be able to make the loops in the next step.

Step 4

To make the loops to hang your garland, make a small loop at the end of the twine and tie a knot. Cut off any excess twine so that it doesn’t look messy, and then you can hang it up! I used a couple of push pins in our wall which makes minimal mess.

We hung our garland underneath Reggie, who is our lovely reindeer – he also has some of these lovely baubles on his antlers!

What have you been crafting for Christmas?

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I wanted to make something special for Donna, because I think it’s brilliant that she and her fellow Owls have taken on these roles, which are all voluntary. So I decided that Brownie badges were a good plan! Felt badges are really easy to make, and you can make the design as simple or as complicated as you can manage. So even if you don’t want to make owl badges you could make any felt badges in this way, so just follow the steps below.

You will need

Pencil and paper
Scissors (a pair for paper and a pair for fabric)
Some wool felt in various colours (I got mine here)
Matching thread
Pins and needle
Little pieces of fabric with a small print, matching the felt
Brooch backs (I got mine on eBay)

Step 1

Draw out your design and then cut out some little templates for each required piece (you might need to trace the design to do so). Pin the templates onto the felt and then carefully cut around each one. Layer them up to check that they are all the right size.

As I was making my owls, I changed my mind about the design – I cut body-sized pieces of fabric here instead of doing the separate scalloped pieces of felt that I had originally thought about. Don’t be afraid to change your design as you make, as I do it all the time!

Step 2

Next, I started stitching the pieces together. You might need to change thread a few times here, depending on how many colours you’ve used! I started with the beak because that was the smallest piece to get in the right place. I also stitched the head pieces on at this stage too.

Step 3

I decided that I wanted my owls to be on a background, because I wanted to stitch the pack name on each one. So at this point I cut out two oval-ish shapes of felt and then began to stitch the owl to one side of the badge.

As I got to the sides, I attached the wings at the same time. I obviously got carried away at this point, because I didn’t take any photos!

Step 4

I worked out where the lettering needed to be, and then marked it on with a fabric marker (ideally I should have used my dissolvable one, but I used a very fine quilt marker instead). Then I stitched over the letters using splitstitch, but you could use whatever you feel comfortable doing.

Step 5

The next step is to attach the brooch back to the other oval-ish piece of felt. Try to get it as central as possible!

Step 6

The final step is to attach the front and back of the badge, using a small running stitch.

Ta-dah! The badge is ready to wear. I also made a badge each for Snowy Owl and Tawny Owl too – I picked backing colours that would all work together. I really hope that the ladies like them, and wish them the best of luck running their new pack!

Post updated 23rd September 2024.

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Today’s post is a wonderful DIY tutorial: how to line a vintage suitcase. I bought this gorgeous vintage teal suitcase last year with the intention of re-lining it – in fact, I looked at my original post about it and realised that I got it in March! I had a bit of practice at re-vamping a suitcase when I made my travelling craft suitcase, but that was made from a new case rather than a vintage one. So this was new territory for me and I really didn’t want to mess it up! I spent ages looking for the perfect fabric, and eventually found this tape measure fabric on Ebay.

If you want to have a go at this yourself, you’ll need the following:

A vintage suitcase
Some fabric for the lining
Some ribbon to compliment the fabric
Paper to make the templates
Mod podge
Fabric glue
A paintbrush
A pencil and scissors

Step 1

Place the paper inside the lid of the suitcase and draw around the edges. Cut around the lines and double-check that the template is the right size! Repeat this with the base and sides, and with any extra pieces that you may need.

Step 2

Carefully remove any fabric or paper within the suitcase (I couldn’t get the paper out of the base or lid because they were sewn in below the trim around the edges, so I removed what I could!). Then wipe clean the suitcase with some antibacterial spray, making sure it is dry before you stick anything in.

Step 3

Lay out the lining fabric and pin the templates, before cutting out the pieces. Press the fabric to get rid of any creases.

Step 4

Next, starting with the lid, place the fabric inside the suitcase and trim off any excess. I made sure that the fabric covered up the ugly black trim, but left lots of the teal on show (any rough edges will be covered up with the ribbon later, but try to keep it as even as possible at this stage).

Step 5

Using a thin layer of mod podge, glue small sections at a time – it dries pretty quickly and doing it in small sections means that you can flatten it out much easier too!

Step 6

Next, brush some mod podge around the tops of the sides of the suitcase. Carefully place the side pieces in, smoothing out the fabric as you go. Continue around the bottom and cut two slits in the fabric in each corner to be able to fit it in. Trim any excess overlap, fold over to neaten and then glue.

Step 7

Repeat step 4 with the base of the suitcase. Then, using the fabric glue stick the ribbon around the edges of the lid and the two edges in the base (this velvet ribbon I’ve used here comes from RE in Corbridge).

Step 8

The final pieces from me to stick in were the pieces that support the lid – I used mod podge to secure these. The rectangular piece at the front has some thin card sandwiched in the middle to give it more support.

Ta-dah! That’s it! Now it just has to dry completely before I can put some of my fabric stash in it. I love the contrast between the fabric and the teal velvet ribbon and I’m really pleased that I didn’t wreck this lovely suitcase!

Post updated 14th August 2016.

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Photo credit: glorioustreats.com

Last week, I wrote a post about the variety of online tutorials available on how to make bunting, but for some reason it wouldn’t upload and then it deleted itself! So now I’m going to try to recreate it…I really want to have a go at making some bunting for our garden at some point this year. Hopefully, we’ll actually be able to use our garden this year – last year it rained most of the time!

The first tutorial I found is from Glorious Treats and is an online tutorial for ‘double-sided’ bunting. The instructions are really clear and the step-by-step photos are also really helpful. Another tutorial for a similar style bunting can be found at the Making Spot although this link does take you to a limited view – you have to buy the rest of the tutorial. But I did find this one at Send A Cow which includes a template – looks like it would be fairly easy to follow!

Photo credit: housetohome.co.uk

A slightly simpler tutorial can be found at House to Home – this version is ‘single-sided’ bunting, so there isn’t quite as much sewing! But I don’t think that this alters the effect and it looks just as beautiful.

And if you don’t want to do any sewing, you could always try this tutorial from Doing It In Style – a great idea!

I’m still collecting bits of material to use for my bunting but I think I’ll go with the ‘single-sided’ version. Can’t wait to get started!

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