Our top ten Craft books + blog birthday giveaway (CLOSED)

A double whammy of awesome for you today, We have curated our Top 10 Craft Books and because we are lovely and it is our blogs 4th birthday (where has the time gone) we are giving you the chance to win the lot! Stick around until the end for your chance to win and in the meantime, lets get into the Top 10.

We have a mix of slightly older titles and new ones too, one of which has only been out for a week! But it is that good we couldn't not include it in our ten.

We have two books in the top ten from the Queen of crafting magazines Mollie Makes (you know how much we love the team at Mollie) the first is Making it! The book you need if you are embarking on a career in the craft industry. Packed with great tips and seriously useful information for anyone looking to make it big in the world of crafts.

This is the super newbie we were talking about and it is also the second from the Mollie Makes team. We knew as soon as we saw it, it was going to be a winner for us.so much so that Sammy pre-ordered two copies knowing that it would be featuring in this top ten. Sammy love's the Paper book-zine that the Mollie team had published a few times in the past and she had a feeling that this was going to be all that and more. It did not disappoint. It is packed full of awesome projects using paper of all kinds. Sammy is going to love working her way through the projects in this one. 

We reviewed Craft, Show and Sell on the blog last year and it has been a go to tea-break read ever since. With it's beautiful images and useful storage and selling tips it is a great read for all kinds of crafters. 

The second book from the lovely Kate (the Makery) We have a full review of this coming soon, but spoiler, We love it. We loved the first offering from the Makery which we reviewed back in 2013 but we think we might love this one even more. We suppose because we are sewest at heart, the projects in this book are some of our favourite's.

The beautiful Makers Spaces by Emily Quinton is a must for any Top 10, crafty or otherwise. If you love interiors this book is an equally joyous read. Pages filled with gorgeous photography of makers homes from all over the world, 'Home Goals' on every page! 

We were lucky enough to be chosen to be Cut Out and Keep Superstars earlier in the year and you may have seen our review of the book that takes you on a tour around the USA with different crafty projects along the way.  We love the quirky projects in this book and Cut Out and Keep in general really, they rock!

Hoarders like us will LOVE Pretty Organised. You can tell, we hope, that we really only end up recommending books we love, because we reviewed Jane's book back in March. We loved it then and we still love it now, with loads of creative tips and again, beautiful photography, this book is a must for crafters and hoarders alike. 

1980's Bumper activity book was a book Sammy received as a birthday gift a while ago and enjoyed it so much she has since re-purchased it as gifts for so many of her friends! It's jammed with fun projects and activities that will have you reminiscing about your mis-spent youth for weeks! (even if you were born in the 90's)

One of our favourite people on the internet is the lovely Katie Allen and her book Just Sew Stories was always going to be in our top 10. Packed with achievable, cool, trendy projects. All of which you would actually want in your home/wardrobe and that you would be proud to give as a gift. 

Another of our fave people is Tilly (and the Buttons) Walnes. We kind of knew, didn't we, if you had been reading her blog for a while (like we had) when we saw her on the first season of the Sewing Bee that a book was on the cards. Her sweet personality and enviable style shines from the pages. Each project is wearable, would fit in anyone's wardrobe and as it is with her blog, her tips and techniques are great for beginners and more experienced sewers.

Now for the fun part! For your chance to win all ten of these amazing crafty books, all you have to do is comment on this post below telling us your favourite craft book that is NOT on our list. Don't forget to include an email address, twitter or Instagram account so we can contact you if you win.  

(CLOSED)

The Giveaway is open until Midnight (UK BST) on Friday the 3rd of July and the winners will be announced and contacted shortly after this.

H & Sammy

T&C's:

Your name will only be counted once, but please do feel free to comment as much as you like.

You don't need a gmail account to comment. Just go to the drop down box below the comment section and you can post as your name or anonymous (just remember to put your contact details in the comment box).

Only replies on the blog to this post will count.

The winners name will be chosen at random.

All ten books will be posted to the recipient after the closing date.

The competition is open to everyone, in the UK and Worldwide! yey. 

Disclaimer: These books have all been purchased by ourselves, with the exclusion of the Cut Out and Keep book, which was sent to us for consideration. We fell in love with it and had a spare copy which we have chosen to give away as part of this competition.


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Make it: Birthday Fun DIY's

1/ Honeycomb Garland  2/ Cake Topper  3/ Party Hats  4/  Invitations  5/ Paper Streamers  6/ Ombre Cake   7/  Pompom Topper

Everyone loves a party, and there is no better reason to celebrate than a birthday! It is our blogs 3rd birthday tomorrow and we are celebrating the only way we know how, with cake and crafts! Here is a quick round-up of some of our favourite party DIY's.  I am so having a go at those party hats over the weekend, How about you?

Sammy xxx

Make it: Pompom's 3 Ways

It is celebration central round here this month, one reason is our blogs 3rd Birthday! (check out tomorrows bonus post to find out what else we are celebrating). We are thinking ahead and trying to decide how to celebrate... probably a little party! My favourite thing about a party (after cake of course) are decorations. We thought we would show you how to DIY some of our fave party decorations, Pom poms! We have an epic three different options to show you today using paper, wool and net.

Paper Pom poms

Paper pompoms are just everywhere these days, I have been making them for a long time, you probably saw them here when we did decorations for my friend Kelly's Barbie party a couple of years ago. You can buy them in lots of places now but they are super easy to make, then you can have any colour you like.

To make these small ones you will need: Two sheets of tissue paper, some wire, Scissors and thread.

Cut each of your tissue paper sheets into four strips, so you will have eight strips all together and pile them up on top of each-other. Start to make small folds back and forth until you reach the end. It should look like a fan. Find the centre point and cut two small slits in either side of your fan being careful not to cut all the way through.

Take your wire and wrap it around the centre of your fan shape, making sure the wire sits in the cuts you have made. Twist it around to make a loop, which you can hang it by later. Next is the fun part, start to separate the layers out one by one. Work you way around until you get to four layers down, then flip it over and peel away from the other side until you reach the centre, you may need to fluff it a little to even it out once you are done. Then attach your string to the loop you made and hang it up somewhere to look pretty.

Wool Pompoms

There is a long story behind my love of the Clover Pompom maker, it is a serious game changer if you like making wool pompoms, it means you can make a garland at lightning speed. If you are off to The Handmade Fair in September you might want to get involved in #worldpomination A record attempt to make the world longest PomPom garland! Head over to the site to find out more.

For style number two, wool pompoms you will need: Clover Pompom maker (or go old-school and use cardboard) Wool and Scissors.

Open out one side of your pompom maker and start wrapping your yarn around the double arm until it is full. Don't be tempted to over-full the tool, it works better if you just fill it to the edges. Then wrap the other side to match. Cut yourself a length of yarn to wrap around the centre, then start to snip the wrapped yarn in the groove of the tool.

Wrap the length of yarn around the centre and tie it firmly into a knot around the pompom. You can then remove the tool and you have a perfect pompom. To make it into a garland just use the yarn and tie it to a long length of wool to create a garland. 

Net Pompoms

The third and my personal favourite type of pompom are nylon netting pompoms. They are made in a similar way to paper pompoms but you can be a little more haphazard, oh and they are waterproof so you can hang them outside!

You will need: 75cm x 140cm of dress net, Scissors and wire.

Cut yourself a length of wire and eight strips of netting and layer all of them up. Start to scrunch the layers up in the centre, like we did for the tissue ones, but you don't have to be too neat about it. Grab a hold of it nice and tight in the centre and wrap your wire around the middle.

Once you have secured the netting, make a loop so you can hang up your pompom later. Then, as with the tissue paper style, pull the layers apart until your pompom is full and fluffed. Attach a length of string to the loop you made and hang it up wherever you need a pop of colour. 

 There you have it, three different but equally fun pompom techniques for you to try this weekend.

What are you celebrating at the moment? big or small, let us know in the comments below. There is no occasion too small for a pompom party! Right?! Don't forget to pop back for an extra special post tomorrow and don't forget to make a few extra wool pompoms to be a part of #worldpomination !

Sammy xxx

We would love to see if you have a go at this. Like with all our DIY's if you do, take a picture and share it with us on Twitter or instagram with the hashtag #livelovemake

and the Winners are ...

As I am sure you will already know we had our 2 year birthday last week and gave you all a competition to win 2 different boxes of goodies.

We put all the names into 2 hats for each of the boxes and took out a name each.

So, the winners are ...

Celeste who wins H's Blue Box

and

Hannah Jurgelis who wins Sammy's Purple Box

Congratulations you guys.  We have sent you an email, so please do check your inbox (and junk mail just in case) and we will post them off to you.

Love it

H & Sammy

Blog Birthday Giveaway (CLOSED)

All these photographs were taken for us by the Lovely Carly Wurly Photograms

It's Official! today our little blog turns Two.

We want to say a massive Thank You to everyone who reads the blog and has supported us over the past two years, it has been an amazing learning experience for both of us and we can't wait to show you what we have planned next.

It's not a birthday without cake and so two of our very good friends Kelly and Katie who run a little cake business called Cupcakkes,  made us some gorgeous Live it. Love it. Make it. cakes especially for our birthday, aren't they cute, and, oh my, were they Yummy!

Along with Birthday's, come presents and luckily for you guys the presents are for you and not for us.  We have decided on a BIG giveaway for 2 lucky readers, yes that's right, there are 2 chances of winning some great goodies.  We have a box full of goodies each to compliment our personalities and so you have the chance to win whichever box you fancy the most.

Sammy trying to put on a brave face as H told her that she was going to have to give 

her box of goodies away!

True to our style of an all or nothing approach, we have a bumper crop of items in the boxes for you to win.

Sammy's Purple box contains: A shopper bag Kit, M&S milk chocolate Pretzels, a note book and two pens, Sewing themed covered buttons, a Candy Kitten's Lollipop, A bag of sequins, beads and studs, a handmade bracelet, some beading cord, 2 reels of washi tape, Essie Nail polish in 'Cute as a button', a mini pin cushion, a mini reel of divine twine.

H's Blue box contains: A shopper bag Kit, M&S white chocolate coated strawberries, a note book and two pens, liberty print covered buttons, a Candy Kitten's Lollipop, A bag of sequins, beads and studs, handmade earnings, some beading cord, 2 reels of washi tape, Essie Nail polish in 'Turquoise and Curacos', silicone cupcake cases, a mini reel of divine twine.

For your chance to win one of these boxes, all you have to do is comment on this post below giving which of the two boxes you would like to win and if you want, give us a why.

The Giveaway is open until Midnight (UK BST) on Wednesday 26th June and the winners will be contacted shortly after this.

( Our Giveaway is now Closed. Thanks to everyone who entered and for all your birthday wishes)

That's it, it is as simple as that.  Remember all you have to do is comment on this post on the blog - not on facebook or twitter I am afraid. (as these won't be counted)  But of course you can spread the word on Facebook and Twitter - if you don't mind that someone else might win of course.

We can't wait to see who wins and who goes for what!  eeek, exciting.

Speak soon,

H & Sammy

Just some things to note:

Your name will only be counted once, but please do feel free to comment as much as you like.

You don't need a gmail account or anything, just go to the drop down box below the comment section and you can post as your name or anonymous (just remember to put your details in the comment box).

Only replies on the blog to this post will count.

The winners names will be chosen at random.

Box will be posted to the recipient after the closing date.

The competition is open to everyone, in the UK and Worldwide! yey.

(CLOSED)

Love it: Blog Birthday Winners 2012

Back in June it was our Birthday and we had a competition for you all to win some of our fab Kits.

We have looked through the entries and chosen our winners, So here goes.

Our first prize goes to 

Steph Smith

Well done! we loved your idea of a paper folded lillies tutorial. 

We will be posting that up on the blog very soon.

our second place goes to 

Kelley Murphy

and third place goes to

Kim Royce

Congratulations to all of you, 

pop in to Sew Crafty, Maidenhead as soon as you can to pick up your prizes. 

Live t. Love it. Make it. 1 year old today Birthday *Giveaway* (CLOSED)

So as the title suggests our blog is 1 today!  Happy Birthday us.

We actually started thinking about and procrastinating over the Blog a while before we finally did it, but our first post was on the 21st June 2011!  My has it gone quickly!

We have learnt alot and met some fantastic people though this time and hope that we will continue to do so.  Being part of a craft community whether online or dare I say 'in the real world' has been an amazing experience for us both and long may it continue.  We want to explore this world of ours so much more and hope to get some more trips in the diary so that we can tell you all about what we are up to - any excuse hey!

What started off a year ago with talking about what we were up to and things we made at home has turned into; being part of a local group 'The Craft Coop'; taking on the planning of our first ever 'Live it Vintage' event - thanks to H's event experience and Sam's enthusiasm and love of her town Maidenhead, along with some great Maidonians also; running workshops from Bunting and mobile phone cases, to hand puppets with Little Pickles; and finally by no means least, letting all you lovely people learn how to make things yourself with online tutorials or our ready to go kits!

So to celebrate, we have a little Competition for you, the prizes are

1st Prize - All 5 kits from our collection

2nd Prize - 2 Kits of your choice from our collection

3rd Prize - 1 Kit of your choice from our collection

(Kits include: Sewing Machine Cover, Mobile Phone Case, Personalised Bunting, Rosette, Shopper Bag)

All you have to do is tell us what you would love to learn how to make, so just finish the sentence below:

I would like to learn how to make ...

Send in your answers to liveit.loveit.makeit@gmail.com by Friday 13th July 2012.

We will then pick the best 3 to win the prizes, simple hey.

The best part is that we will then make the top three into tutorials for the blog and hey if we get loads of lovely ones, we may just keep on putting them up.

What's next for us includes finally getting our acts in gear to get some of our handmade items online and then hopefully - with the help of some talented friends - getting our own website up and running.

So please do keep reading, and chatting to us.  We love to hear about your projects, get your responses to things we have written or be nosey into your lives - look out for a craft space series of posts soon!

and if you want to get in touch or would love to write us a post, please do get in touch through the blog, on our facebook page or even on our email: liveit.loveit.makeit@gmail.com.

Bye for now, we are off to eat our body weight in cake!  Well what are birthday's for??!!

Sammy & H

Live it.  Love it.  Make it