Showing posts with label presents. Show all posts
Showing posts with label presents. Show all posts

Gifts for your Parents

Letterfest Personalised House Portrait  //  Keelham Farm Shop Ginger Sweets Treats Hamper  //  Claireabellemakes Personalised Scrabble Frame  //  Lauren Aston Designs Chunky Throw  //  Lahla Studio Egg pots for Two  //  Anna Wiscombe Wooden Flowers  //  Duck Ceramics Porcelain Mug  //  Tea and Crafting Rag Rugging Workshop With Ragged Life  //  DejaOoh Animal Chopping Board  //  Sophia Victoria Joy Personalised Teapot

Your parents will love whatever you buy them because that's what being a parent is all about, but wouldn't it be lovely to get them something they will treasure? Personalising gifts is a great way to take them from great to awesome! A lot of these gifts have that option but get on them fast as personalised options often take slightly longer to be made and delivered and you don't want to miss out on the perfect parent present.

Sammy and H xx

Check out the rest of this year's guides here:
Gifts for your Little Ones
Gifts for your Pets
Gifts for your Lady
Gifts for your Man
Gifts for your Best Friend

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Make it: Christmas Stockings

We couldn't do our Christmas Tutorials without making Christmas Stockings and so today, it's all about just that.  I have started a bit of a tradition with Christmas presents for all my friends children's first Christmas and I make a stocking with their name on.  So if you want to make your own, just follow the instructions below.

You will need:  Patterned Fabric for the outside (at least a fat quarter size), Plain fabric for the inside (although you could have patterned fabric inside too), Scissors, Sewing Thread, Ribbon, Pattern piece or an idea of your stocking shape and a Sewing Machine.

The first thing to do is cut out all your fabric pieces.  I made a template and then cut out 2 pieces of patterned fabric and 2 pieces of plain fabric to a little larger in size to the pattern piece for some seem allowance.

I then laid all the pieces together how I wanted to put them together.  The two pieces of lining fabric go together and then the two patterned pieces go right side together on top.

Then, you need to sew all around the outer edge, making sure you don't sew up the top.

When you get to about two thirds of the way up the back of the stocking, add a looped piece of ribbon inside the stocking.

Sew right up the back of the stocking, making sure the looped ribbon is sewn in place.  Also, make sure that you sew this piece of ribbon about 2 inches down from the top of the stocking as will become clear later.

When you are all sewn up, it should look a little like this.  You can trim around the edge if you have any excess fabric.

On the inside of the curve, cut into the fabric to make the curve work better when you turn it the right side out.  Make sure not to cut through your sewing though.

You can now turn your stocking the right side out.

At this stage you can do many different tops for your stocking as you have a blank canvas to play with.

For this stocking, I decided to sew around the top of the edge of the stocking so that it was all kept together.

Then, I folded over the top and used my trusty hair straighteners to press it.  I always use my straighteners to press small items and it saves getting the ironing board out!  Something I am always keen to do.

I then, folded the edge over again to hide the seem and pressed in place.  Now you can always leave it like this.

Or, like me, use a nice zig zag stitch to keep it in place.  As this is going to a child, I thought stitching everything in place would be a great idea!

After all that, you are finished!  What do you think?  I usually add their names onto the stocking, but that would give the game away as to who these are going to.  So I thought I would show you them before.  If you do want to know about the names.  I cut out letters from felt and then glue or sew them in place.

Below are a few of the other ones I made.  As you can see, you can make them all look different, even with the same fabric.  Who would you make yours for?  I made one for Sammy too last year, so at least Santa knows where to put her presents when he comes! he, he.


As always, if you make anything for our Make it Tutorials, just tweet us or Instagram with #livelovemake.  Or put a pic on our Facebook page.  We had some great pictures recently of our Cable Cosy, so thanks for those.  Always lovely to see what you have made.

H


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Hidden Treasure: Lady Dinah's Cat Emporium

Photo courtesy of www.ladydinahs.com
After our monthly theme in September, we thought we would do another one for November and this time all about Presents for that Big Christmas thing happening in December. Well why not!

So to start, I thought it would be good to use my Hidden Treasure feature as a way in which to spend some quality time with friends.  One thing I love about Christmas time is spending time with friends who you don't see all the time and instead of buying each other presents, why not book a meal out, go out for the day or go for a few cocktails?  You know, actually hanging out with each other and catching up properly rather than always on the phone or by email.

With that theme in mind, my hidden treasure is Lady Dinah's Cat Emporium in London.  I have been waiting for this place to open for so long and now it's finally here, I just have to get on that waiting list to go as it is booked up way in advance, but I think worth the wait.

Lady Dinah's is a cafe with cats.  They will sit on your lap, you can stroke them and generally just chill out in their space.  It comes from a Japanese idea that stroking cats can be very therapeutic.  They use rescue cats too and re-home them, so its also doing a good deed.

So, why not get some friends together, book a spot now and take yourself off for some hanging out with your mates time.

H


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