Love it: Sew Crafty Window Display Special

Last week I was invited by the Manager of the Nicholson's Shopping Centre in Maidenhead, to discuss a proposal she had for me. Intrigued, I went along to the meeting where she offered me the chance to use one of the empty shop units for a Great British Sewing Bee inspired display, to help advertise my shop. You may remember when we first took over Sew Crafty (Orxiom fabrics as it was then) we were residents of the centre. Lots of people to this day still ask if we are the shop that used to be there. Anyway, of course I jumped at the chance, Mostly because I love window dressing, I'm sure I get this from my Dad, as he used to fit window displays in Harrod's when he was a teenager. Also because as much as I love our window at work, it has its limitations, it was so fun to be let loose in a new, empty space.

I spent the week collecting together props and making examples to use in the display to best show off our products and on Friday my Dad and I spent the whole afternoon in Unit 27 setting up our display.

Here is what the unit looked like before, displaying some of Teresa Mills lovely mosaics. You can see that the window is spilt into four sections separated by a door.

We used the two smaller sections to display costume ideas as we sell a lot of fabrics and accessories for making costumes. When the schools have Book week our shop is a busy place, we love helping parents out with costumes for their kids to play dress up! We have put a poster in a fabric covered frame to tell people where to come to get all their sewing goodies.

 The other two windows we dedicated to more traditional sewing fayre. We used the top window as a dream sewing table of sorts, with a mood board, a sewing machine and supplies, books, trimmings and yarns. The bottom window we used as more of a display space showing off some pieces we made from the show and some customising ideas.

We tried to use a mix of our products with some from mine and my mums collections, like you would have at home.

A glass dish with new and vintage buttons in front of a collection of Cloth magazines. The Sewing Bee book is on display surrounded by ribbons, fabrics and My Tilda bunny.

I set up a little design station too with a sketch book and samples in front of our mood board, which is brimming with cuttings and ideas from Company and  Cloth magazine.

I was really pleased with the end result, it looks like a work space any respectful sewer would be proud of. Hopefully it will inspire a few people to take the short walk down to our end of the High Street and pay us a visit.

This is the pretty little sheared dress my Mum made, the same as the one they made on episode 3 of the Sewing Bee. The Sewing machine is on loan from the lovely Anna (aka Thumbelina design) and the mug is mine that I use at work that was a gift from my friend Claire for my birthday, I'm missing it already!

Hope you enjoyed that little peek at our display, if you want to come down and take a look for yourself it's in Unit 27, opposite Iceland in the Nicholson's Shopping Centre, Maidenhead until the 29th of June. Whilst you here, you can pop down and see us at Sew Crafty (3 High Street, Maidenhead) at the same time!

Sammy xxx

Make it: Up-cycled Jewellery box now a Sewing box

I love little trinket boxes, my husband will tell you boxes in general float my boat, he finds it hilarious that I have an obsession with storage. But I cant help it from jars to dishes to boxes, if it stores something and looks cute whilst doing it, it is in our home. Another of my loves is making things that are a little sad, look pretty again, So when I saw this old jewellery box in our local charity shop it just had to come home with me, I knew with a little I could give it a new lease of life.

I started by removing the glass from the lid, and the knobs from the drawers, and giving the whole thing a good sanding. I took all of the lining out of the top and the drawers, and put them to one-side to use as a template for the new lining so I knew what size to cut without having to measure everything, it also meant I could re used the wooden dividers from the top section.

I used a tester pot of moonlight white paint that I had picked up from Laura Ashley to do three coats of paint all over the body of it and the drawer fronts, I decided not to do the inside runners of the drawers because they always get scuffed when pulling them in and out. I left the paint to dry over night each time before applying the next coat.

Next I used the lining I had removed to cut new ones from scrapbooking paper. I used Tilda design because their papers are really good quality and have a really velvety texture, and I also knew I had the co-ordinating fabric that I was going to use for the lid pin cushion.

I cut the shapes from the templates, scored the folds and glued them in place with Guttermann HT2 glue. after the glue had dried I replaced the handles on the drawers and glued them in to position.

To make the lid in to a pincushion, I used the glass I had removed from the top and cut a piece of mount board the same size to create the base. I then covered this with two handfuls of poly stuffing and wrapped it in muslin, to hold the stuffing in place. I laid that on top of my Tilda fabric and marked and then cut out a piece 2" bigger all the way around.

I then used a needle and thread to pull the fabric tight over the cushion base, starting from the middle on the long sides and working my way to the edge, then the same with the two shorter sides.

then I used the screws and washers that had held the glass in place to insert the pincushion in to the top. As this didn't look very tidy I used some more of the paper to cover the underneath of the lid and glued a coordinating trim around the edge. 

I added a few cute pins in the top as a finishing touch.

Why don't you have a look round your local charity shop at lunch time, or this weekend, wouldn't an up-cycled trinket box make a great Christmas present!

Making it 

Sammy xxx