Make it. Applique April Showers Sweatshirt DIY

I love giving a new lease of life to old garments that I love that just need a little TLC. Using Bondaweb and some fabric scraps to create your own unique appliqué design is a great way to revive any old t-shirt or sweatshirt or usually in my case, to cover up an unsightly stain! 

I used an old sweatshirt that I had taken a motif off a while ago, it has been in the top of my wardrobe for ages and I thought it would be perfect for a little April shower update.

You will need: an old sweatshirt, Bondaweb/fuseable web, a fabric scrap, vanishing pen, scissors, an Iron, your sewing machine and a free embroidery (darning foot) or a needle and some embroidery thread. 

Start by ironing your bondaweb to your fabric scrap. Lay it face up over the area of the sweatshirt you want to cover. Use your vanishing pen to draw the shape you want onto your fabric. I drew a cloud and some raindrops. Keep lifting your fabric to make sure you are covering up the mess underneath. 

Once you are happy with your shapes cut them all out, if you want to keep them in the same position that you drew them in, lay them out on a flat area as you go.

Lay your sweatshirt out flat, peel off the backing paper from your bondaweb and place all your pieces down onto your jumper. Go in with your iron and press down firmly, then lift and move to the next section - you don't want to disturb your layout by running your iron back and forth. Now you are ready to stitch down your design.

I used my sewing machine and free embroidered around all the shapes multiple times, but you can easily hand stitch around your shapes with some decorative thread.  I would suggest that you do one or the other, in order to make the garment last longer, bondaweb is not strong enough on it's own to hold all the pieces on through the wash. Once you have stitched all your pieces in place go over and snip away any stray threads from the front and back of your design.

And there she is, an old sweatshirt with a new lease of life.

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

Make it. Shoe Clips Trio

In an effort to curb my shoe buying habit, I have been making some shoe clips to jazz up some of the pairs I already own. I thought I would share how I DIY three of my favourite pairs. The thing I love most about shoe clips is that they are interchangeable, don't damage your shoes in anyway and make a boring pair of shoes into a really cute pair.

Two important things to have on hand are 1. Strong glue, I love this Gutterman HT2 glue as it is super fast drying and very strong and 2. Blank shoe clips. I get mine from my shop Sew Crafty but you can buy them easily on Ebay.co.uk and Etsy.com.

The Bow clip. These are really fun and easy to make, and you can use almost any fabric you like.

For the bow clips you will need: Two fabric scraps, thread, a needle, and some shoe clips. I used my sewing machine, but you can easily sew these by hand if you don't have a machine.

I started by measuring the fabric against the shoe I want them for, I made my square twice as deep and twice as wide as I want my finished bow to be, about 6 inches square. I folded the fabric in half and stitched a small hem at the open edge. Take the fabric tube and move the seam to the centre and flatten it before stitching up one end completely. Leave a small gap in the second end to turn the fabric right side out.

Once I have turned it through, I hand-stitched the hole closed with ladder stitch. I then scrunched up the fabric and carefully tied it into a knot. Pulling firmly on both ends, a bow shape starts to appear. I fiddle with the shape until I am happy then sew the shoe clip in place.

The Heart clip. These are so cute the glittery hearts are so sweet, and surprisingly durable. 

For the glitter hearts you will need: A scrap of felt, glitter fabric (I get mine from Josyrose.com), a pen, shoe clips, Strong glue, scissors and a small scrap of paper to make a template.

I start by making a template to check the size I want my heart to be, will fit on my shoe. I use this to draw around onto the back of my glitter fabric, then do the same on my felt, before cutting all the hearts out.

I use my super strong glue and stick the shoe clip to the back of the glitter heart. I leave them to dry for a while before going in with some more glue, all the way around the edge and some more on the back side of the clip. Then I am ready to pop the felt heart over the back. I found I needed to trim away some of the felt to get the clip to close better once the glue was dry.


The Sparkle Clips. These beauties can be made from old bits of jewellery or buttons and they add a touch of sparkle to the most boring of shoes.

For the sparkle clips you will need: Scissors, thread, felt scraps, glue, a needle, shoe clips and some sparkly gems or buttons.

I used some old gems from a bracelet that had broken, and laid them out on the felt until I liked the shape they created. I used my strong glue to glue them onto the felt, leaving out the middle gem. I then cut the excess felt away. By leaving off the centre gem it is easier to then stitch the shoe clip in place. 

Once the clip is in place I go ahead and glue the centre gem in place. To make the clip a little firmer I glued some more felt to the back of the clip and again trimmed away the excess.

So there you have it, three sets of shoe clips that you can attach to any pair of shoes you like and swap back and forth, to coordinate with your outfits. They look great on any shoes from high heels to your favourite pair of Converse.

Don't they jazz up my flats a treat? I think the glitter hearts are my favourites, I'm sure they will get a lot of outings on lots of different shoes this year.

Sammy xxx

We would love to see if you have a go at these. Like with all our DIY's if you do, take a quick pic and share it with us on Twitter or Instagram don't forget the hashtag #livelovemake

Our Fashion and Textile Museum Adventure

Now you may have noticed that we both have a bit of a thing about fabric and pattern!  So it will come as no surprise that when we found out their was an Artists Textiles exhibition on at the Fashion & Textile Museum in London, we hot-footed it up there.

For those who have never heard of it, it's a small museum around the corner from London Bridge Station (near Borough Market too for an added foodie bonus) and let's just quote the website here: 

"The Fashion and Textile Museum is a cutting edge centre for contemporary fashion, textiles and jewellery in London. Founded by iconic British designer Zandra Rhodes, the centre showcases a programme of changing exhibitions exploring elements of fashion, textile and jewellery as well as the Academy which runs courses for creative students and businesses.

Situated in the heart of fashionable Bermondsey Village, in a fantastic building designed by Mexican architect Ricardo Legorreta, the FTM aims not just to display and collect items relating to fashion, jewellery and textile design, but to offer inspiration to a new generation of creatives. Now redeveloped and operated by Newham College, the museum is a hub of learning, ideas and networking for the fashion and jewellery industry."

Just about sums it up really.

The Museum as you can see is a paying museum, but with a National Art Pass you can always get a bit extra off the ticket price, so if you are a museum lover, it might be worth buying a card.

Anyway, H has been before to a Sanderson Exhibition a few years back and so it was a great excuse to go back and see what treats were in store this time.  The Artist Textiles exhibition (to once again quote the website) "traces the history of 20th century art in textiles. Highlights include work by Georges Braque, Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall, Salvador Dalí, Sonia Delaunay, Raoul Dufy, Barbara Hepworth, Fernand Léger, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, Henry Moore, Pablo Picasso, Ben Nicholson and Andy Warhol.

The exhibition features examples of key European and American art movements: Fauvism, Cubism, Constructivism, Abstraction, Surrealism and Pop Art; as well as the work of leading fashion designers and manufacturers. Artist Textiles shows how ordinary people were once able to engage with modern art in a personal and intimate way through their clothing and home furnishings. With over 200 rare pieces, many of which have not been on public display before."


When we walked in, we walked through a small room and a corridor which started us on our journey to learning about Sonia Delaunay and Salvador Dali pieces, to name but a few.  One thing that struck me was that there was so much crossover between artists and designers in the 20th century, which seems to have been separated in recent years, but I really feel that we are starting to go back to that way of working, to Artists being fashion designers, architects planning exhibitions and designers making art.

The main exhibition room itself is two floors and this is where we started to see mannequins with dresses on and large pieces on the walls covering artists such as Picasso, Andy Warhol and of course Zandra Rhodes herself.  It was lovely to see items made up with the fabrics and the fabric pieces themselves, some of the lighting could have been a bit better for them to be shown in their best light, but it is difficult to get light on everything.  Of course there is the added concerns of fading fabrics also, so that may have been why.

These fabrics above were definitely cute and quirky and have the very 60's appeal.  Clothes are starting to get this treatment again with big bold prints being showcased more and more on the high street.

Overall, the Artists Textiles exhibition was very interesting and for fabric lovers it was a feast for the eyes.  I think for someone who didn't know much about the artists themselves it would have been difficult to pick up on what the artists were famous for outside of these pieces.  This exhibition was geared more for those who already know artists and what they are known for.  It is hard to half every little piece of information on display, but I think for the fanatic there could have been more in depth knowledge gained and for the novice it was pitched too high.

It did inspire me to go home and draw some patterns and look at all my 50's and 60's pattern books again.  I love the era and it reminded me why I love it.

The exhibition is open until Saturday 17th May and so you still have chance to go and see it.  If you do go, let us know what you think?  Or if you have been to see anything else like this, let us know in the comments below so we can check it out.

H

Review: Nokia Lumia 1320

Being bloggers with full time jobs, Sammy and I are always looking for things to make our lives easier so when the lovely people at Nokia gave us the opportunity to have a go with the Nokia Lumia 1320 we thought it would be a great opportunity to see what could be done with it for blogging on the go and as we are both iPhone users we wanted to see what other phones out there had to offer.

The first thing to note is that this phone is advertised as a part phone, part tablet, a 'Phablet'! If you are on the fence about the need in your life for an iPad (other tablet computers are available) then I would think that this would be a good way to ease yourself in to one, as the price is way more competitive. As far as using it as a phone, we both have small hands and it is significantly bigger than a normal phone so making sure we didn't drop it was our first challenge! We loved the yellow back cover and yet you can easily get hold of a variety of cases and covers if you get a bit bored of it. We also liked the look and feel of the phone as its smooth and good to look at.

One of the best things for Sammy about the Nokia is that it is a WindowsPhone and runs Windows 8 so you can sync it with your PC, if you are a Windows 8 user rather than a Mac user (like we both are) this is a great feature. This is also where the size of the screen really comes into it's own as you can clearly see documents when you are away from your computer, you can use Microsoft Word, Excel and OneNote on the move. It is great for viewing blog pages and internet sites clearly and the screen didn't make our old, squinty eyes ache.

Nokia Lumia 1320 seen here next to Sammy's iPhone 5s

Unfortunately for us small, right handed people all the function buttons are, quite awkwardly, positioned on the right hand side.  If we held it in our right hand, the side of our palm managed to press the buttons by mistake all - the - time! But if we held it in our left hand our fingers just wouldn't quite reach comfortably to press the buttons whilst using our thumbs to navigate. We are both used to working our iPhones one handed, so it took a while to get used to, but once we did get used not holding it too tight and using two hands it navigates quickly and smoothly.

For both of us having a good quality camera on the go is important, looking at the stats for the phone, the camera on this one is at a similar level to the iPhone 4, however because of the larger screen it did feel like the pictures were lower in quality with a very grainy feel.  I would say that the larger screen highlighted the flaws in the camera quality. However, we found an article in Creative review where they had used the Lumia for a fashion centrefold and so it is clearly an issue that can be worked around, maybe you just need some better lighting, great editing software and bigger hands!?

These are some of the photos we took with the Nokia 1320. These are all unedited, fresh from the phone. Sammy took it to work with her for the day to see how the camera coped with colour and texture. Then I took it to Liberty with us for our adventure there and found that it took great photos in low light without needing to use its built in flash.

Sammy had a play with 'selfies' and the standard editing apps available on the Lumia.  The cinemagraph app was great fun, letting you apply some super funky filters, great for us Instagram lovers.  There are also a bunch of apps you can add via the Windows app store, check out Reddit's run-down of the best ones.

All in all we did like the Nokia Lumia 1320, but for us perhaps just a little too large for a phone and not big enough for us to be a useful tablet. Sammy was disappointed with the camera quality compared to her iPhone 5s, what you get for the price though is brilliant.  As we said for those unsure if a tablet is the way to go, this would be a great alternative as it can be used as both a phone and tablet in one. Great for blogging on the go if you are a Windows 8 user as it has flawless compatibility with your existing apps. The look and styling of the phone is both classy and trendy, and the Windows 8 functionality is a dream to use on this device thanks to the larger screen.

If you are interested in learning more about the Nokia Lumia 1320, you can check out the Nokia website for more technical information.

H and Sammy x

Make it. Felt Garland with Blooming Felt

We are starting a little series today with the lovely Blooming Felt. We thought we would start simple with the first of our collaborations with this super easy, spring time Floral Garland.  Blooming Felt has some really lovely felt shapes on their website, we just loved these retro flowers and thought they would make a great garland to cheer up some empty wall space.

Make it: Daisy Print T-shirt DIY & Free Printable

This week I decided to have some fun with one of my favourite, but long neglected products, Iron on transfer paper. Long thought to be just for those who wanted to put inappropriate nicknames or embarrassing baby photos on hen and stag do t-shirts, I can tell you it is massively under rated!  I have seen so many daisy print clothes in the shops lately, from daisy print to daisy trim it seems to be the flower to be seen in for spring and this range by Jaded at Topshop caught my eye.  I love the look of digital printed gems on fabric, so I turned to my printer and transfer paper and got to work.