Love it: Christmas Tilda

Wow, so October flew by and November is going the same way, don't know about you but I am getting that Christmasy feeling!

I have always been a fan of 'alternative' Christmas colour pallet. our current tree is black, A couple of years ago we had a pearl and gold 'CHANEL' themed Christmas tree and last year we had black, gold and red. you will see that I use quite a lot of the same decorations and just add some new ones to jazz it up every year.

This year I am splashing out on a new tree as the cats have broken almost every branch on our black one by climbing up it, and I think it's going to be a white one!

So I needed a new colour pallet to go with... with our new delivery of fabric my questions were answered. We have just had the newest range from Tilda come in to Sew Crafty, not particularly Christmas you might think but I love the idea of a pastels and white with lots of sparkle!

Take a look at these images from the newest Tilda book, I'm dreaming of white sparkle snowflakes, grey floral dresses for peg-doll angles and china blue and mint green hearts with velvet ribbon.

What is your favorite Christmas colour combination, are you a traditional red and green person, or a retro red and mint green, blue and silver or purple and gold??  Why not try and mix it up this year and mix in a new colour with some of your old decorations. maybe have a go at making some of your own.

Loving that its almost Christmas

Sammy xxx

Make it: Up-cycled Jewellery box now a Sewing box

I love little trinket boxes, my husband will tell you boxes in general float my boat, he finds it hilarious that I have an obsession with storage. But I cant help it from jars to dishes to boxes, if it stores something and looks cute whilst doing it, it is in our home. Another of my loves is making things that are a little sad, look pretty again, So when I saw this old jewellery box in our local charity shop it just had to come home with me, I knew with a little I could give it a new lease of life.

I started by removing the glass from the lid, and the knobs from the drawers, and giving the whole thing a good sanding. I took all of the lining out of the top and the drawers, and put them to one-side to use as a template for the new lining so I knew what size to cut without having to measure everything, it also meant I could re used the wooden dividers from the top section.

I used a tester pot of moonlight white paint that I had picked up from Laura Ashley to do three coats of paint all over the body of it and the drawer fronts, I decided not to do the inside runners of the drawers because they always get scuffed when pulling them in and out. I left the paint to dry over night each time before applying the next coat.

Next I used the lining I had removed to cut new ones from scrapbooking paper. I used Tilda design because their papers are really good quality and have a really velvety texture, and I also knew I had the co-ordinating fabric that I was going to use for the lid pin cushion.

I cut the shapes from the templates, scored the folds and glued them in place with Guttermann HT2 glue. after the glue had dried I replaced the handles on the drawers and glued them in to position.

To make the lid in to a pincushion, I used the glass I had removed from the top and cut a piece of mount board the same size to create the base. I then covered this with two handfuls of poly stuffing and wrapped it in muslin, to hold the stuffing in place. I laid that on top of my Tilda fabric and marked and then cut out a piece 2" bigger all the way around.

I then used a needle and thread to pull the fabric tight over the cushion base, starting from the middle on the long sides and working my way to the edge, then the same with the two shorter sides.

then I used the screws and washers that had held the glass in place to insert the pincushion in to the top. As this didn't look very tidy I used some more of the paper to cover the underneath of the lid and glued a coordinating trim around the edge. 

I added a few cute pins in the top as a finishing touch.

Why don't you have a look round your local charity shop at lunch time, or this weekend, wouldn't an up-cycled trinket box make a great Christmas present!

Making it 

Sammy xxx