I’m keen to support handmade as much as possible this Christmas, and wanted to create something a little different. So here’s my Sprout lovers and sprout haters Christmas gift guide with Etsy!Etsy recently contacted their affiliates about creating a gift guide that holds meaning for us, I definitely wanted to get on board. When I was thinking about what to have as a theme for my gift guide, I just kept thinking about sprouts! Which camp are you in? Sprout lover or sprout hater?! I’m definitely in the latter…sprouts are not good in my opinion! Every year when I was a kid, my Mum would make me have ‘just one’ sprout. It stared at me on the plate, as I ate everything else in an attempt to try to leave it. It’s just one of those things I remember about Christmas – even now she still tries, but to no avail!

So whether you’re a sprout lover or a sprout hater, there’s definitely something here for you in my sprout lovers and sprout haters gift guide with Etsy! All sellers are UK based.

Gifts for sprout lovers

1. The pet Brussel sprout by tinofbeans

2. Brussel sprouts plant kit by PlantsFromSeed

3. Eat your sprouts Christmas tote bag by KerrisGaneson

4. Lil sprout babygrow by BigMouthUK

5. Brussel sprout Christmas phone case by DessiDesigns

6. Christmas Brussel sprout lover enamel pin by HannahHitchman

Gifts for sprout haters

1. Christmas Brussel sprout hater enamel pin by HannahHitchman

2. Christmas grumpy sprout by lovelylittlelamp

3. Sprout Free Christmas card by ChalkOrCheese

4. Death by Chocolate sprouts by SweetznChocolitz

5. Sprouts are for Weirdos card by PAPERSTANYON

6. Christmas engraved pencils by BeanieandBob

And finally, one for the sprout lovers and haters…

How cute is this sprout pom pom garland by ElistonButton? I LOVE it! So it’s my final suggestion for both the sprout lovers and haters. How could you not like these little guys?!

The small print…

This post is sponsored by Etsy and all links are affiliate links. Affiliates receive a £10 Etsy voucher for sharing a gift guide.

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When we planned our new kitchen, we knew that it would be a lovely light, bright space. Now that we’re well in to spring and the days are sunnier and longer, we’re really feeling the benefit of this! We knew that we’d have to get some blinds for the windows, and found one for the front one no problem (we just got a cream Venetian one, so it matches the front window in the living room). But the back windows are a little trickier – we used to have a roller blind in the existing window, but fitting something over the new door and window would be tough as there isn’t a lot of space. And I really wanted them to match, so it meant one thing: having a go at making them! 

It needed to be something that wasn’t bulky at the top, and we also wanted to retain as much light as possible so it needed to be fairly thin. Our old roller blind was a blackout blind, and we didn’t really want anything like that this time. I remembered that my parents used to have some net curtains on extendable rods that sat on little hooks, and this seemed like it would be the perfect thing. I had a look online and found these in Homebase (there are various lengths, which is helpful – although we did need to exchange one because the hooks add about half a centimetre in length on to each end, so bear that in mind!).  The blinds for the door and small window either need to be up or down, so I decided that I’d make some ties to tie them up. The larger window is in front of the sink and I like to look out when I’m washing up, so longer ties would be needed on this one. These are roll-up blinds (not roller blinds) so you have to roll them up by hand. Although this sounds a bit faffsome, it isn’t really – they take no time at all to tie up.

Geometric painted roll-up blinds: materials list

Fabric – I used 2 metres of white premium Kona cotton from Plush Addict

Fabric paints – I used 3 colours and got them from my local art shop

A paint brush

Sticky back vinyl – you can pick up a roll of this cheaply in Wilkinsons

A cutting mat and craft knife (or scalpel)

Sharp scissors and a rotary cutter

Bias binding – I used just under 5 metres of 25mm binding, and it was easier to buy pre-bought

Matching thread

An iron

Dowel – for the length of each blind

Step 1

Measure the inside of your window, making sure that you take measurements at the window itself (i.e. not at the wall). Cut your fabric to size, adding on an inch at the top and at the bottom, as well as each side, to allow for hemming. I used my rotary cutter to do this so that it would be neat.

Step 2

Make your stencil out of the vinyl – you can draw the design on the back and then cut it out if you like. I just made some triangle shapes, so it was easy to do freehand.

Step 3

Take your fabric and peel off the backing from one of the stencils, before sticking it on to the fabric where you want the shape to be. You’ll have to check the instructions on your fabric paint, but I needed to paint and then let it dry a little before ironing to fix it.

I decided to use one colour for each of my three stencils, and found that the easiest thing to do was to paint one shape then hang the fabric out on the line to dry, before fixing and then moving on to the next colour. This did involve a lot of running around between inside and outside, but I think that I ended up with neater shapes and well-fixed shapes because of it! I kept the triangles fairly far apart, and I like the simplicity of the design.

Step 4

Once the fabric is painted, you can construct the blinds. Fold and press the side seams to the correct width of your window. Pin in place and stitch along each edge.

Step 5

Next, place your extending rod at the top of the fabric to work out where the top hem needs to be. Fold over enough fabric to allow the rod to pass through freely, and then pin in place. Don’t stitch just yet!

Step 6

Take your bias binding and press it in half. Stitch all the way along to secure it, close to the edge. This will form the ties for the blinds, which need to be measured to check the length. Roll up your blind as if you were going to tie it up and place some of the binding underneath (see below). You need to work out how long each tie needs to be to be able to tie it up comfortably – for me, this worked out as 55cm long for the door and little window, and 125cm long for the large window. Remember that you need to make two ties for each blind! Pin each one where you want it to be, then remove the rod.

Step 7

Stitch along the edge of the hem at the top, securing the ties in place as you go. At this point, you might want to hang the blind to be able to measure where the bottom hem needs to go, before pressing and stitching that in place. Once you’ve done that, put your dowel in the bottom hem and the blinds are ready to hang!

It was really tough to get a decent photo of the blinds – taking photos of a window is difficult! The one above will give you some idea of how much light we have even with the blinds down. You can probably tell that this was taken on a really sunny day! (Sorry about the bin in the photo…). I took a few once it had got dark, so hopefully you’ll get a better idea of what they’re like from these:

This is the blind for the larger window – it’s easy to roll it up to the middle. Not sure if we’ll ever need to roll it right up, which is good because I can’t reach!

These geometric roll-up blinds turned out even better than I thought it would in my head, and it’s brilliant to still have the light during the day without the glare of the sun bouncing off all the glossy units in the kitchen! You could apply the painting and stencilling techniques to any project, as it’s really easy and fun to do. Have you made anything for your house recently?

You may also like…

See more of our kitchen build progress here:

Kitchen progress: part 3

Make your own geometric meal planner:

Geometric meal planner

Put a little geo into your stitching too!

Link stitch geometric hoop

Make an easy painted fabric banner:

Painted fabric banner

Post updated 18th March 2021.

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So the first thing I made were these record placemats for my lovely sister and brother in law. They got married last year too, and had a record-themed occasion (Ant is seriously into his records – what he doesn’t know about dance music isn’t worth knowing!). I originally found this project in issue 41 of Mollie Makes magazine, which came out way back in June, and had them in mind since then.

I wanted to match the middles of mats to the colour scheme that Naomi and Ant had at their wedding, which was teal and purple, but I just couldn’t find the right thing that I had in my head! I found this selection of fabrics in John Lewis – most of them are from the Glow collection by Amy Butler, and they compliment each other really well. 30cm of each one was more than enough to make these and to have a bit left over for my ever-growing fabric stash!

The next project I made was a perpetual ‘paper’ chain for Helen – when I saw them I immediately knew that she would like them. I found it in a wonderful book called ‘Stitch the Halls‘ by What Delilah Did, and then they printed it in Mollie Makes too! But it’s such a lovely book that I’d highly recommend investing in it for next year, and I’m so pleased that I have the other projects to work on as well.

These chains are definitely a labour of love, but are really lovely! I had never used waste canvas before (and actually bought the wrong thing at first – get the right stuff here). The ESTs (Estimated Stitch Times) given in the book are quite accurate, although it did take me ages to stitch the stags, and it took me about 20 minutes to remove the waste canvas.

[vc_gallery type=”image_grid” interval=”3″ images=”6488,6484,6485,6483″ onclick=”link_image” custom_links_target=”_self” column_number=”2″ grayscale=”no” choose_frame=”default” img_size=”large”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1417803771710{padding-top: 30px !important;}”]Plasticard is a new material to me (I got mine on eBay) but it’s really great for strengthening felt and I’ll definitely be using it in future projects. I got a pack of seconds with a few scratches on and this made it cheaper – no-one will tell when it’s sewn in!

I’m so pleased with how they turned out! I also made a fabric envelope to keep them in. In case you’re wondering how long the chain is, I made 12 links in 6 different colours and they fit nicely above a door frame with a small piece of ribbon at each end. It’s the kind of gift that you could add a couple of links to every year, which would be great!

My final make this year was our Christmas cards – I had the photos for this printed out for so long but it took me ages to get around to making them and we didn’t get them in the post until the 19th December. Oops! Tom took this photo in Keswick last year and we knew it would make a lovely card. I made them size A7 with mini envelopes to match (if you’d like to make some envelopes and cards this size, click here for my tutorial from last year).

What did you make for presents this year? Were you lucky enough to receive a handmade present? I received some wonderful craft books, so look out for more projects in 2015!

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Every year we go on a lovely walk from Crosspool in Sheffield to Bamford in Derbyshire, which has become known as ‘The Tinsel Tour’. Tom and his friends started it years ago and yesterday was the 11th Tour (we worked out that it was probably my 6th). The main aim of the walk is to get to a lovely pub called The Yorkshire Bridge Inn where we have lunch before moving on to other pubs. Yesterday, however, was the wettest Tinsel Tour on record and we were all absolutely soaked to the bone, so we stayed at the Yorkshire Bridge for most of the afternoon!

We usually wear our Santa hats for the walk, and for the 10th anniversary last year we did it in fancy dress – I went as a present made from a large box, which was ok for walking but not for sitting! This year we all wore Christmas jumpers, which gave me the opportunity to make my own (hooray!). I bought the jumper from good old Marks and Spencer and drew out a template for Rudolph, checking that it was the right size.

I used dark brown felt for his antlers and some beige corduroy for his face to give a different texture. I decided to use googly eyes and a pom-pom for a nose (which took ages to make – thanks to Tom for his help!). I used my sewing machine for this but it did take a while to sew some bits, particularly the antlers. But I’m so pleased with the finished jumper! Will definitely have to wear it on Christmas Day!

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