Make it: Fox and Bunny Chopsticks with Tiger

As Sammy mentioned last week, we took a dive into what Tiger had to offer a couple of weeks ago and I found these training chopsticks which I thought would look great with a little additional fun to them.  As these training chopsticks would probably be used for children (although any age need a helping hand with chopsticks sometimes - am I right?!), I thought that making the ends a little more fun with some animal faces would be a good idea.

You will need: Training Chopsticks (mine were from Tiger), Acrylic Paint, paintbrush, black and coloured pens, paint palette (or plate like me) and water pot.  You may want to varnish these aswell, but acrylic should hold up well to washing - just maybe not the dishwasher.

So first you need to decide on your characters, I went with a bunny rabbit and fox as I felt that the pointed ends lent themselves to these animals.  I did a little sketch first so that I had an idea first, but you many want to just go for it.

I gave the ends of the chopsticks a base coat of the colour I wanted and then gave it another coat to make it a nice solid colour.  For the bunny it was white and for the Fox I went with a brown and orange mix.  I did both sides of the chopsticks but you could always just do one side if you preferred.

I added in a few of the features with the paint, pink ears for the bunny and a bit more orange for the fox ears, then left them to dry.  I used my water pot to stand them up to dry, so that one side didn't get smudged.

Then, to add detail, I used a black pen to do the eyes of the fox and outline detail on both the fox and bunny ears.

Then voila, all done.  A really simple customisation of some training chopsticks, just to make them a little more fun for your dinner.

Which animals would you make, or would you make them with patterns on or something completely different?  Let us know in the comments below.

H, xxx

This Post is in collaboration with Tiger

Bloglovin / Twitter / Facebook / Pinterest / Google+ / Instagram

Review: Simple Stylish Knitting Magazine

Towards the end of last year we were approached by Simple Stylish Knitting to review their Magazine and have a go at one of their first projects the knitted Fox iPad cover.  Now due to phenomenal demand they sold out and so we had to delay this post so they could restock and then at least you could all have a chance of ordering it if you wanted.  As it wouldn't do to tell you all about it, but then you couldn't actually get it yourself.  Simple Stylish Knitting supplied us with all the wool and equipment we would need for the project, which is very much appreciated.  We also have been Pinning on their Knits to Give board over on Pinterest.

Firstly, lets chat about the magazine itself.  It's a weekly magazine that aims to help people get into knitting one granny square at a time, with a ball of wool with each issue to make a different style stitched square each week, that will make up the blanket you can find in issue one.  It is made for people who have little or no knitting skills and so each issue teaches you a different stitch pattern to give you more knowledge as the issues go along.

Each issue has binder holes and you can buy the binder separately, so you can keep all the projects you like altogether.  They also have a grading system for all the projects in each issue, so that you know what you can achieve and when you start to get better.  The projects are really achievable and not too overwhelming for a beginner, but also make for timeless items to keep in your collection to make time and time again.

Now onto the Fox iPad cover project, this is such a cosy place for your iPad.  Its quite a simple set of stitches with the fox sewn on afterwards.  So a really good starter for 10 as they say.

Simple Stylish Knitting gave us all the wool and needles we would need for the project and lovely Rowan wool at that!  The main part of the case is the darker grey wool, but of course you could always make it whatever colour you like.  We do love a bit of grey though, so its always a good start.

The instructions are really clear and take you through the steps.  They even give you the stitch pattern for making the fox, so you know exactly how to stitch on the very lovely fox on the front.  This was a great project to try and its keeping Sammy's iPad very cosy indeed for winter.

There is an online stitch library too, so you never have to worry about finding the magazine with the stitch you are looking for.  The magazine is available by subscription, which you can get here.

We think that it is a great little magazine for beginners and will give you plenty of projects to try out.  Sometimes just having the ideas can be difficult and so that's why we also have been pinning lots of ideas on their Knits to give board, which you can find here.  That should give you plenty of ideas.

Do let us know if you have read the magazine and you have made the Fox iPad cover. We would love to know what you think.

H & Sammy

Disclaimer:  We were sent items from Simple Stylish Magazine for this feature but were not required to give a positive review.


Bloglovin / Twitter / Facebook / Pinterest / Google+ / Instagram

Make it. Embroidery hoop art

Last week we did our monthly Craft Club down at Norden Farm and this time it was all about Embroidery. We took our little group of participants through a few basic stitches and then showed them how to make their own artwork. We love embroidery, I (Sammy)  like free hand embroidery an H is partial to a bit of cross stitch. We thought we would show you some of the examples we showed our students last Thursday.

I really enjoy the freedom of free hand and the flexibility of using any fabric you like. Most of the designs I stitch I end up leaving in their hoops, but you can always take them out and frame them up too. 

 These are four of my favourite  pieces, they show a range of different stitches on different fabrics.

This stag picture is done in basic back stitch on teal taffeta with a gold metallic thread. Sometimes the simplest things make the best pictures.

This Hello beautiful is taken from an idea I saw on Pinterest , I used spot cotton fabric, chain stitch for hello and back stitch for beautiful.  For the love hearts I used lots of different stitches to appliqué some red fabric hearts and stitched love with chain stitch.

 This little guy is one of my favourites, I love using long and short stitch to give texture, it worked so well for this foxes fur. I used some fabric, a lovely blue and black tweed used to be part of  a jacket that was my Dads.

A few years ago my Mum gave me a great stitch leaflet she had kept from the seventies. It is falling apart but I still use it as a reference when I am stitching. I love the drawings that accompany the descriptions. Here are some of the basics from the leaflet.

As well as the leaflet, I have a few books that I use for ideas and for learning new techniques. These are my favourites, Adventures in Needlework by Jessica Aldred and Emily Peacock, Love Embroidery by Future Publishing (the guys behind Mollie Makes) and Doodle Stitching by Amiee Ray. 

Love Embroidery has great projects to use your embroidery on as well as taking you through the basics.

I adore this Brooch from Adventures in Needlework, I haven't made it as a brooch yet but I used the template to stitch a piece for a friend of mine as a birthday gift a couple of years ago.

Doodle Stitching has a great selection of cute templates and it comes with a DVD of all the images so you can upload them to your computer and print them any size you like. There are a few more books in this series to try out too.

We had such a fun time last week and all our ladies went home with the start of hopefully a fun new hobby.

Our next two Craft Club evenings will be released for booking shortly over on the Norden Farm website. We are making ribbon rose corsages at the end of May and creating Button Jewellery at the end of June. We will let you know more as soon as the booking goes live. 

Sammy xxx

Don't forget the closing date for the Company Magazine #StyleBlogAwards is this Saturday! 

So if you haven't already voted for us, Pretty please pop over and cast your vote now. We are up for Best Blogging Duo and Best Craft Blog. If you have voted, Thank you so much and keep your fingers crossed for us!