DIY's I Want to Try: The Craft Studio Books

I have a whole weekend to myself this week so I am going to lock myself up in my craft room with a long list of projects to get stuck into. The giveaway we are running with 'The Craft Studio' ends tonight so I thought I would highlight some of the projects in the books that I want to have a go at myself. 

My 'We Make Collective' dying kit arrived a couple of weeks ago, so I want to have a go at the dip dye tassels from the pompom and tassels book. I have a ton of little canvas bags that need a bit of cheering up so I want to have a go at printing some up with cute designs. I love these little speech bubble brooches, I think I will have a go at some small ones to add to my growing collection of pin badges and last but not least another dye project. I don't know about you but with the 5p bag charge my totes are getting more use than ever so I am planning on giving some of them a makeover.

There is still time to enter the competition, but hurry it closes tonight (18th March at midnight), head over to our original post to find out how to enter to win all four of these cute books.

I hope you have a fun weekend planned, enjoy!
Sammy xxx

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Review: The Craft Studio books + Giveaway (CLOSED)

We have a review for you today and a little Giveaway, yey (only UK residents this time, sorry).  The Craft Studio books from Thames & Hudson and are out today!  So hot off the press just ready for you to win them, more about that at the end of this post.

There are four books in the series at the moment, but I am sure there will be more.  The books are; Tote Bags by Sonia Lucano, Brooches by Corinne Alagille, Decorating with Pompoms & Tassels and Stamping & Printing by Emilie Greenberg & Karine Thiboult-Demessence.  Each are priced at £9.95 each and so not too expensive either which is always nice.

 Each of the four books contain 20 easy to follow projects with beautiful pictures and an easy to read layout.  They are not too large a book, so they fit neatly on your bookshelf while also being useful for those 'what project shall I do today' times.

The contents page just makes you want to dive in more.  Lovely photographs and a simple to find contents page is always a great thing in my mind.

There are some Tips & Techniques in the books, to get you started and help you if you are a complete beginner.  If not a beginner, then you can dive on in to the rest of the book without a problem.

I just picked out a few of the pages from the books, this sequinned tote bag looks so fun to make and will make a great gift for someone.  The projects are broken down into what you need and how long it is going to take you which is always nice as then you can decide which project you want to take on in that spare few moments.

Onto a Pompom mobile, what a great project for a children's bedroom or wedding decoration.  Some of the projects have handy hand drawn details to go with the written instructions, handy for the more complicated parts.

This Origami brooch is definitely on my list of makes.  I am not a big brooch wearer, but they look so fun to make, I might change my mind.

Last but by no means least, this simple to print polka dot tableware set is so cute!  I am all about the ceramics at the moment as you may have noticed from my pottery class post and so this project is also on the make list.

I love that the four books give a good range of skills for people to pick up, even if you only had one of the books you can learn new techniques and gain some new ideas.  The projects inside range from very simple to more complicated projects for the beginner and more experienced crafter, which makes them perfect as gifts or just to keep for yourself.

Speaking of which, that Giveaway.  You can win all of these books, yes all four!  One lucky winner will get these books to be able to go through the projects all by themselves.  Which one will be your favourite?

All you need to do is comment on this post with the skill you would like to learn the most with these books (remember to leave your email address).  If you like us on Instagram and twitter (if you don't already) you will get an extra entry for each one you follow us on - so those people who already do will get an extra entry too.  The Giveaway will be open until Friday 18 March 2016 at 12am (midnight GMT).   This time I am afraid the Giveaway is only open to UK residents - sorry international readers.  We will have something for you soon, promise.

We will add all the names into a hat (I know, so retro) and pick our winner and email you, so don't forget your email address when you enter.  Then we can post them off to you for you to enjoy.

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED.

Good luck
H & Sammy, xxx

A few Rules:
The competition closes at 12am midnight GMT on Friday 18 March 2016.  No entries after this time will be counted.
The winner will be picked by ourselves and will be picked at random.
If we do not hear back from the winner by Monday 21 March 2016 at 12noon GMT, we will redraw and another winner will be picked.
This competition is only open to UK residents this time- sorry!


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Love it: Autumn

Autumn is by far my favourite time of year. I am a person who loves being cosy, and snuggling up at home with my hubby and our cats is my favourite thing to do in the whole world. It is a time of year when for me work gets hectic so my home is the calm, soft, warm place I can retreat to when it all gets a bit crazy. It is a time I usually get to reflect on the year that, like so many before it, has gone by way too fast and dream of the plans I can make for the last few months of the year.

Link for the week: Books for good

This week's link has a little charity flavour.

You might remember a few weeks ago Sammy did a post about Breakthrough Breast Cancer's fundraising fashion.  They have just added a new campaign and as its related to books (which I LOVE) we thought it only fair you guys should know about it.

http://www.breakthrough.org.uk/news/all-news/breakthrough-launches-new-reading-campaign-penguin-and-whsmith

Breakthrough Breast Cancer has teamed up with Penguin and WHSmith to launch the Read Pink - Make a Difference campaign.  Each of the Read Pink titles carry a 50p donation to Breakthrough Breast Cancer and  WHSmith are offering a "buy one get one half price" promotion on the titles!  Even better.

I have heard about some of the books on the list and also read a few.  My favourite being The Help by Kathryn Stockett.  This book is about African-American maids from the Deep South in the 1960's who decide to help a woman write a book about their treatment at the hands of their white employers.  This is a hard hitting subject which really lets you into the world in which women in the deep south would have been in.  It is an uplifting book though, all that being said and you come out of it knowing that people who believe in each other and trust each other really do win.

Anyway, back to the books:

Belle - Lesley Pearse

Stolen - Lesley Pearse

Trust Me - Lesley Pearse

The Promise - Lesley Pearse

The Help - Kathryn Stockett

Foursome - Jane Fallon

The Ugly Sister - Jane Fallon

The Patchwork Marriage - Jane Green

Mr Maybe - Jane Green

Accidental Husband - Jane Green

The Mystery of Mercy Close - Marian Keyes

Anybody Out There - Marian Keyes

Sushi For Beginners - Marian Keyes

Rachel's Holiday - Marian Keyes

The Seamstress - Maria Duenas

The Postmistress - Sarah Blake

The Girl You Left Behind - JoJo Moyes

Me Before You - JoJo Moyes

Lake of Dreams - Kim Edwards

The Memory Keepers Daughter - Kim Edwards

Secret Life of Evie Hamilton - Catherine Alliot

A Rural Affair - Catherine Alliot

One Day In May - Catherine Alliot

Between A Mother & Her Child - Elizabeth Noble

The Way We Were - Elizabeth Noble

The Friendship Test - Elizabeth Noble

What The Nanny Saw - Fiona Neill

The Fever Tree - Jennifer McVeigh

Women Who Went To Bed For A Year - Sue Townsend

Pieces of My Heart - Sinead Moriarty

So, pop on down to WHSmith and check out which one, or two or three of the books you want to go for.  I have heard really good things about The Seamstress and Accidental Husband.

Let me know which ones you go for.

Live it

H

Make it: String Art

I have been crushing on these string art pieces for a while now, the technique uses small nails and string weaved back and forth to create an image. I particularly like these U.S. State ones with the little heart in the area of the state where you are from or where you live. 

State string art

Of course I live in the UK, so I thought I would have a go at doing my own version with a map of the United Kingdom. Whilst I was painstakingly pushing nails in to foam-board I had an idea to do a set of three using three different techniques. I ended up doing one in thread, one in fabric and one in paper. Don't they look cute! I have put them  pride of place on the bookcase on our landing. 

I love how they look al together. Three is my lucky number, so I always like things in groups like this.

I started by printing off an image of the UK map that I then traced on to tissue paper.

For the thread version I laid it over two sheets of black foam-board, and pushed the nails in through the tissue paper and board together. When I had finished pushing the nails in all the way around, I gently tore away the tissue paper to leave just the nails in place. Then I took a reel of white thread and started winding back and forth from the nails. 

  

It was super tricky to thread the cotton back and forth without nudging the nails out of place and the thread kept coming un-hooked from the nails, but I finally got it reasonably neat, and really satisfying to see it grow as I worked.

 The second one I made was far easier, I just took my copy and rubbed pencil lead over the back of it then traced down onto three pages from an old book which I had stuck together with washi tape at the back. Once I had traced the map onto the pages I cut it out with scissors and glued it down to a blank sheet of card. I found the little red heart embellishment in my stash. 

I used the same technique for the fabric version too. Except I traced a little outside the lines so that my stitching would be more accurate to the coast line.  Once I had traced it, I cut it out with my fabric scissors and sprayed the back with fabric adhesive to hold it in place whilst I stitched it to the calico I was mounting it on with embroidery thread. For the heart I cut a small piece of red fabric and stitched it in place.

I had great fun creating these and they look lovely on our landing. I ended up getting the frames on three for two at Wilkinsons, they are great for low cost frames. 

Have you ever had a go at string art? If you have or if you give it a try, send us a picture, we would love to see what you create! 

Sammy xxx

Email photos or links to Flickr/Google plus/facebook of any of your crafting projects to Liveitloveitmakeit@gmail.com

We love to see what you guys are up to! #livelovemake

Book Review: The Great British Sewing Bee

Are you ready for the new BBC show that will have you glued to your TV??

From the people that brought you The Great British Bake Off, tonight the debut of The Great British Sewing Bee will be at 8pm on BBC2 here in the UK.

The first of the four episodes shows the Contestants make an A-line dress, alter a top and create a made-to-measure dress.

I was lucky enough to get an advanced copy of the book from a friend of mine and have been looking over it for a couple of weeks.  It is available now from most book shops (We have a few copies at Sew Crafty) and on Amazon.

This book is Gorgeous! Underneath the dust-cover it has a hard cover reminiscent of some of the vintage sewing guides that my mum has in her collection. It is filled with beautiful photographs and jam packed with great sewing tips and tricks.

There are 28 projects to have a go at with varying degrees of difficulty. Each one is well described and illustrated. 18 dressmaking projects and 10 homeware projects give the book a nice balance. The projects are well executed and as I said, beautifully photographed.

Aside from projects, it has a few historical insights including the origin of the term 'Sewing Bee', there's a great section on tools and stocking your sewing box too.

There is also a great section on choosing the right fabrics for your projects, I always find these sections a little difficult to read, as a person who sells fabric for a living, but for the first time in a long time, I agreed with their advice and it seemed a pretty comprehensive list. I also really liked their section on understanding a pattern, again they covered all the basics that we try and help our 'new to patterns' customers with at Sew Crafty.

The basic tutorials for techniques like invisible zips and making bias binding are clear, well photographed and easy to follow.

As an experienced sewer I found myself itching to get my sewing machine out! It was inspiring and well presented, with a lot of really useful information, quite a rarity in the craft book market. The projects are achievable and the fabrics they have chosen to use for the photographs for each project are all really pretty, the apricot polka dot (crepe de chine?) fabric they have used for the Tea dress is just yummy!

You can tell that Tessa Evelegh (the Author) loves her subject matter, she writes in such a way that engages a new sewer, without patronising an experienced sewer like myself. It is straight forward without being too simple, not missing any detail out. This book is as good for those starting out as it is for those wanting to improve their craft. It's been a while since I have picked up a craft book that made me mark pages in priority order of which project to do first!

I am really looking forward to seeing which of the projects they have to tackle in the show. 

We have been aware of this show since the call for contestants went out last Summer and been waiting eagerly in anticipation since then to see what the show was going to be like. When Claudia Winkleman was announced as the host I was jumping up and down (massive girl crush). It made me wish I had had the courage to go up for the show myself! (season 2...maybe?)

A show like this for me and the industry that I work in and love is untold as yet, but as far as I am concerned it can only be a good thing. To heighten the image of Sewing and to let people into the secret joy that sewing, dressmaking in particular can be is just wonderful.  I am glad that the BBC saw the potential in a 'sewing version' of the Bake Off and let the formula that worked so well for that show influence this one. I can only hope that what people saw in that show they see in this, that sewing is not just about making things cheaper than in the shops, but that making something with your own two hands that is unique to you is special.

When reading this article about the show on the Daily Mail Website I found this quote from one of the shows judges, the yummy Patrick Grant:

‘There are certain things in life that are inalienable facts: we need to eat and society dictates that we have to wear clothes every day,’ says Patrick. ‘Most people can manage some kind of cooking, but the fact that nobody knows how to make clothes is very sad.

‘Human beings naturally enjoy the process of making things. There’s a creative gene in all of us, whether it’s for baking or sewing or something else. When we’re children we make things all the time, but when we become adults we spend most of our time on a computer.

‘It would be nice to think people could get back into the skill of sewing; it’s not just about making new things, but also reinventing old ones. All you need is a bit of enthusiasm and someone to show you how to do it.’ 

Couldn't have said it better myself!

Sammy xxx

Love it: Our Childhood Storybooks

This week is National Storytelling week and as the website tells us: Storytelling can be found enriching lives everywhere: from nurseries to schools, from bereavement aids in hospitals to strengthening communication in the business sphere, from reminiscence centres to support groups for those with special needs, and in theatrical performances.  The sharing between teller and listener empowers, feeding the imagination from one generation to the next.

Love it: Books, books everywhere!

Whilst over at my parents during the Christmas and New Year break I got a big reminder about our family hobby...  books!

I have so many books that I cannot fit them all in my current house and they are mostly languishing in a tall bookcase at my folks place.  I have a few with me, but they seem to grow so easily that soon they will take over all over again.

Having studied design for 6 years, this has meant that I have Architecture, Design and Museum books which range from the Coffee Table books to the theory ones.  I think I have more than my Uni Library used to have!  Then there is the travel books and the fiction books which I try and pass on to Charity shops, but there are just some that you want to keep aren't there!

I really like old books and used to love rummaging around Spitalfields and Portabello market when I was in London to find unusual fiction or craft books.  Now being out in the suburbs means I have lots of Charity shops to check out and also the web to get my new book fix!  I have a book from the 1950's on dressmaking and bough my dad an engineering book which was a newer version of something he had at college - good skills for a great rummage in a second hand bookshop in Wantage.

I love rummaging in bookshops wherever I go, I always have a look in museum bookshops, second hand stores and charity shops wherever I go, from New York to Manchester, I have a book from pretty much every place I have visited!  This probably lends itself to a collection, but I have more of them so I like to call this my hoard!

Over the holidays we discovered that my parents had books in every single room of their house (this was not a new thing, but something we just thought about!), apart from the bathrooms - but even then some people like to have a bathroom book don't they?  I'm not sure about that one myself, but each to their own.  My dad's books are more engineering and racing based and my mum's books are art based, then there are the books from my childhood (more about them another time) and the information ones, like the Joy of Knowledge which was the encyclopaedia to have in the 1980's - it got me through my GCSE's!

I love having books around me and often refer back to them for all sorts, but it's like a comfort blanket for me really, I know where I am with them and it's the joy of getting them home and then flicking through it to find something new.  So on that note, I was given Material World by Perri Lewis for Christmas and so I am off to read some fascinating crafty bits!

Love it

H