Make it: Fabric House Advent Calendar on Skillshare

If you have been following us on social media you will already know that we published our first tutorial on Skillshare last week! I know, right!

Makers Month: Rag Rug letters with Ragged Life

Continuing with our Makers Month, we have a you tube treat for you today by the lovely Elsie from Ragged Life. We have known Elsie for a while and have had the pleasure of taking one of her classes, which was very fun indeed.  She made this tutorial to help promote her book, more on that later and so we thought we would share it with you for that Friday feeling!

Espadrilles with The Makery

Yesterday we got the chance to visit the new workshop space for The Makery in John Lewis, London.  We are big fans of The Makery as you may know from our posts about our visit in 2013 and again in 2014 and so we were so happy when we found out they were opening a workshop space in London and even more excited when we were offered the chance to join a workshop!

We decided to go for the Espadrilles workshop as neither of us have ever made shoes before and so what a great workshop to try.  Also we thought we would let you join in the fun by showing you our photos as well as adding their You tube video as part of this post.  So that you can make your own at home if you can't get to Bath or London for a workshop.

We had to bring our own fabric to the workshop - but luckily we have our own 'little' stashes at home, ahem. I went for rockets and spaceships and Sammy chose colourful chevrons. Although as the workshop space is on the 4th floor in John Lewis, you can always buy a little something from their fabric department if you forget or don't have any to bring.

We started by cutting our fabric using the pattern pieces for the shoe size we are.  We cut 2 pieces of each and then 2 each of the lining fabric. One set is for the front and the other is for the back and sides.

Then, we made sure they were right sides together before sewing around the edge, making sure to leave a gap so that you can pull it through.

Once we had sewn around our pieces,  we cut notches in the curves of the front piece where our toes will be and the bottom of the back piece to make the curve lay flatter when turning them through. 

We then turned them through to the right side and pressed them flat, making sure to have points in the end of the front piece and turning in the gap and pressing down.  You won't need to sew this shut as it will be sewn in place when you construct the shoe.

Now time for sewing your pieces to the soles.  Starting with the back and sides piece, find the middle of the fabric and pin it to the middle of the back of the shoe, you then pin around the edge of the shoe at an angle (so the pin goes into the sole), with the fabric flat to the sole.  I am sure this is where the video above will come in real handy.

Then it's a case of blanket stitching around the edge of the sole, making sure the loops go to the inside of the shoe, not on the edge of the sole - again I am sure the video will explain much better than I can, but you can see below how the stitching sits.

Once all the edges are in place, you need to straight stitch up the side of the back and side piece to the front piece so that it all stays together when you put them on.

Then voila, you are done - new shoes!  I can see how these would be really addictive to make, Sammy has already bought another pair of soles to play with.

What pattern would you choose?  I think if I was going to make another pair,  I might go for classic on the outside and then a fun print inside, or slightly different prints for the back and front pieces.

Thanks again to The Makery for giving us the opportunity to attend the workshop, we had great fun!

H,xxx

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Guilty Pleasures: YouTube Beauty Vloggers

Guilty pleasures.  Those little things that bring a smile to your face everytime without fail, that your not quite sure you should admit to. We all have them, whether it's listening to Brittany Spears on full blast and singing along whist no one is watching, or having a Step Up movie marathon.

H and I have a new-ish guilty pleasure and we feel the need to share, we are a little (read: a lot) in love with (UK) beauty You Tube vloggers right now!  Vlogging for those of you who are unsure is Video Blogging (see what they did there) so rather than, or as well a writing a blog you make videos and upload them to YouTube or Viemo.

We have some mutual favourites and some that each of us like more but we are just going to share our top five today.  Despite the fact that most of these girls are quite a bit younger than ourselves, we love watching their videos (hence guilty pleasure not just a normal one). We are pretty sure that we are way off their target demographic, but you can't help but love these girls. I *Sammy* am a little obsessed with their secondary channels too, its the nosey neighbour in me. Their recommendations have even encouraged H to buy and try some new make up (this never happens!) 

I'm sure some of you will know of at least one or two of these girls and if you don't, get over to You Tube and start subscribing, follow them on twitter, facebook, instagram, Internet stalk them as much as you like, go on you know you want to!

(disclaimer: we do not encourage actual stalking)

Sprinkle of Glitter

Louise was our gateway if you will.  We have followed her blog for a few years now as we found her when searching for other UK blogs just at the time we started ours, but didn't really get in to her You Tube channel until recently (we used to just watch her videos on her blog).  Louise is super sweet and comes across as really approachable. She talks about beauty and make up, but also cover more serious subjects and shares her feelings about being plus-sized, her recent plus size look book video prompted me *Sammy* to raid my wardrobe.  Oh and as you can tell from her name she love a bit of glitter, what's not to love!

Zoella

Watching Zoe is like watching the little sister we never had, she is so damn cute! And boy does she have good taste in products, we have both been out and bought products on her recommendation. (currently loving Bourjois nail vanish remover pot and lip boost crayons)

Tanya Burr

The beauty vlogger that everyone wants to follow, mainly I think because she is B-E-A-utiful, outside and in! She comes across as such a normal, humble girl with such a genuine nature. Her tutorials are current, achievable and easy to follow. So much so that despite having done a smoky eye on my own for like, forever, I *Sammy* sat make-up brushes in hand the other night and followed her night out smoky eye tutorial for a night out with the girls.

Pixiwoo

These two gorgeous sisters are like miracle workers with eye-shadow! A little closer to our own ages we feel far less guilty about watching hours of beauty vids from these two gorgeous ladies. Samantha (great name) has her own range of make-up brushes (of which I own quite a few) They also have a digital magazine as well as their blog and You Tube channel. They are both professional make-up artists, they write for magazines and present on Daily Mix. Is there anything these girls can't do? 

Super Beauty Nerd

H loves this girl, she is super feisty, and blogs about all sorts of things as well as make-up, including baking and fashion. Jess also has a cute Tumblr account too! 

These are just a few of the ones we subscribe to, You Tube in the UK does seem to be a hang out for the young, but not exclusively. I have noticed that the girls from A Beautiful Mess have been uploading more videos on their channel lately and there are tonnes of craft tutorials available too.

We are toying with the idea and have been for a while, of making some crafty videos, what do you think? Should we dip our toes in to the You Tube pond??  I *Sammy* definitely want to start making them, mostly so I can one day maybe film with Louise, I would totally love to have a fun crafting day with Sprinkle of Glitter, How awesome would that be!

What are your current guilty pleasures? Do you watch You Tube videos? Who's channels do you subscribe to? 

Sammy xxx

( All image credits go to each respective vlogger, via their websites. Links above)