CALLING ALL UK CRAFT BLOGGERS 2015 edition...WIN £1000

Do you craft? Do you blog? Do you like fabric? Do you want the chance to win £1000????

We know that a lot of you guys do, so today we are here to let you know about our fave craft competition, courtesy of the lovely Hillarys Blinds.

Hillarys approached us to be judges for their Craft Competition for craft bloggers again the second year running and we couldn't be more excited. We will be judging all the entries alongside Dragons and Fairy Dust and the Hillarys design team. This year there is also a public vote!  It is an honour as always to be a part of this creative competition. We saw some amazing entries last year and we can't wait to see what you all come up with this time round. 

There are some lovely fabrics to choose from this year too. Sammy loves Rayna Apple and H's fave is Safi Turquoise. For some ideas check our our post from last year.

Entering is easy:

• Send an email to Chris.Roome@hillarys.co.uk with your Name, Address, Email, Fabric Selection and Website URL by Friday 22 May 2015.

• A 1 metre squared piece of your chosen material will be sent out to you on Monday 25 May 2015 (to give everyone the same amount of crafting time).

• Using the fabric and any other required materials that you have, put your creative talents to the test by making a craft design. This could be a soft furnishing, item of clothing, child’s toy… or something else entirely! The only limit is your imagination.

• Publish a blog post describing how you made your entry and featuring photographs of the finished article, which mentions this competition.

• Submit a link to your entry via an email sent to Chris.Roome@hillarys.co.uk.

• Hillarys will add a photograph of your entry to our Pinterest board for the world to see.

• Once the closing date is reached, a shortlist of 10 will be created. Hillarys will post the shortlist on their website, where visitors will be able to like, pin, share and tweet the entries they like the most.

• The judging panel will consider the 10 submissions and the winner will be contacted by email.

• See the full terms and conditions here.

For more info head to Hillarys website

As an added extra we would love to see all the entries that have come via our blog.  If you post about it on Instagram or twitter use the #livelovemake so we can take a look at what you have made. 

The closing date for entries is 11.59pm on Friday 19 June 2015, (but don't forget to order your fabric by Friday 22 May) so get crafting and creating soon and Good Luck!

Sammy and H 

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Hayfever Free Fabulous Faux Flowers

Clockwise from top left: Felt Bouquet / Paper Hydrangeas / Pompom Stems / Fabric Florals / Magazine Blooms / Felt Flowers / Polyester Peonies / Story Book Roses / 

I love a good bunch of flowers around the house, it makes the place feel so fresh and happy. I am however lazy... and a little cheap, I just hate that they die so fast. I love my succulents too but sometimes you just need some colour don't you think? Another issue for me is that our H is allergic and my Steve gets hay-fever! I am hoping these amazing crafty creations might just be my salvation. The links above take you to the tutorials to make all of these beautiful faux florals, a good compromise for my house hold, now just to choose which ones to make first. 

H and I are off to see the Alexander McQueen exhibition at the V&A today, We are sooooo excited! Check out our Instagram as we will be posting live all day on our little London day trip. 

Have a lovely weekend

Sammy xxx

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Messy Box Review

As I am sure you all know by now, I love paper and a good subscription service! Also being a big fan of the girls over at A Beautiful Mess I was very excited when they announced 'Messy Box'. I have had two boxes now so I thought it was about time I told you what I thought about it so far.

Lets start with the basics, if you live in the UK you will pay £15.75 (approx) every month if you sign up for 12 months like I have. This includes international shipping and all taxes etc. Which I think is a pretty sweet deal as I ended up paying £14.00 in Post office and customs charges alone for a parcel I had shipped from the U.S. recently.

You will in essence receive:

-

6 9x12" pattern pages
journalling cards 6 3x4" 6 4x6" and 12 3x3"

Then also a selection of embellishments, like brads, alphabet stickers, washi tape, transparencies, die-cuts, stamps etc.

Of course the idea is that you would also buy a 'Messy Book' album to use with all these items, but that isn't totally necessary.  You can use any album you already have or just use the paper and embellishments for your own paper crafts as you choose. 

So here is what I think of the box so far, I want to love it, and I do love parts of it. I think the price is great, I think the quality and quantity of products is just perfect, not too much and not too little, easy to use up all the bits in a month of paper crafts in time for the following month to turn up. 

So far each month has a theme, which is a nice easy way to co-ordinate your pages. The only thing I think that is stopping me from absolutely loving it is that its not quite 'A Beautiful Mess' enough for me. The first box was a little more what I was expecting, and we are only on box two so it is hard to judge completely but this second box is a little soft for my taste. I am looking forward to a bit more of the signature style I love from these girls in future boxes. This is why I signed up for this box over some of the others out there. I guess I was hoping for more of the 'personality' and design I have seen in their 'Happy Mail' boxes to be evident in the Messy Box.

The other slight niggle (that I kind of expected) is the time it takes to arrive. I know it is because of the cheaper shipping and the fact that I'm in the UK but it is a little frustrating to see all the pics on Instagram of the box that I know I wont be getting for at least 10 days later. Maybe that is just the impatient paper-crafter in me though?

So if you love 'A Beautiful Mess' and want to get into an easy, fun photobook/ journalling/ scrapbooking system. I would highly recommend this subscription, even though this months theme was not my favourite, I will still be able to use all the pieces. I think it is absolutely worth the money and the quality of the products is fab. The joy of receiving a box of goodies every month is pretty lovely and it is a great way to build up a stash if you are new to these kinds of paper crafts.

I do hope that this review may have helped some of you who were thinking about subscribing. You can sign up at the A Beautiful Mess shop and keep an eye out on their blog for ideas and inspiration with their Scrapbook Sunday posts.

Sammy xxx


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Bank Holiday Food Round-up

Well, it's that Bank Holiday time and so it's time to try and be a bit more healthy after all the weekend excess and a bit lazy for the last evening of the long weekend.

I found a few recipes that I thought I might try, although maybe not all of them!

First up is these Courgette and Black bean burgers from Girl Makes food, don't they look yummy!

Secondly there is this cheese free Macaroni and Cheese - always a good stodgy food to end the weekend with!  This is from a book I got for my birthday called Keep it Vegan by Aime Carlin- helps with finding dairy free recipes rather than particularly being vegan.

Then, there is this amazing Prad Prig Dang Beef, which I had at Rosa's the last time we went, it was amazing so I thought I should have a try at home.  They have a few of their recipes on their blog and so well worth a look.

Now of course something sweet to finish off the weekend in style!  I found these meringue recipes on the Good to Know site, which helps me to make those amazing massive meringues that look so lovely in cafe's, and dairy free too!

So now we are done with talking about it, I think it's about time I got started making.

H


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Make it: Sleep Mask + Free Template

These light bright spring mornings are a joy to wake up to, but some days you just need those extra few minutes to enjoy your Sunday lie in! Am I right? This sleep mask will not only help you catch a few extra zzzzz but can also help you turn off at night, no peeking to check Instagram though!

To make your own you will need: Two pieces of fabric aprox 35cm x 15cm, the same size of Iron on fleece, felt or wadding, 1.5m bias binding, eye mask template, 30cm of elastic, a fade away pen, scissors and thread.

Step 1. Iron on your fleece to one piece of your cotton, or tack in place if you are using wadding or felt.
Step 2. Draw around the template (you can download yours here)
Step 3. Pin the fabric with the padding to the second piece of fabric with the padding sandwiched between the two layers.
Step 4. Take your fabric scissors and cut around the mask shape to the line you have drawn.

Step 5+6. Sew diagonal lines at equal spacing, approx 1cm apart, all the way along the length of your

mask.

Step 7+8. Once you have sewn to the end, go back and sew diagonally across the other way, to create a quilted effect.

Step 9. To create the strap take a 50cm length of bias binding and with right sides together sew along the length to create a tube.
Step 10. Use a bodkin or a safety pin and turn the tube right side out.
Step 11. Then thread the elastic through the tube and sew it in place at both ends with a few stitches.
Step 12. Pin the strap in place at either side of the mask.

Step 13. Take care and pin the raw edge or the rest of your bias tape around the inside of your mask curving gently as you go. 

Step 14. Stitch all the way around the edge with a narrow seam, about 4-5mm. Remove all those pins and flip over the bias to the other side of the mask. 

Step 15. Tuck under the raw edge and pin the other side of the bias in place. 

Step 16. Gently sew all the way around, being sure to catch the edge of the bias under your line of top stitching and to keep the strap well out of the way. 

There you have your perfect sleeping companion, also a great gift for any of your girlfriends. Perfect for helping you sleep on any holiday flights you might have coming up over the summer months too!

I hope you have some lovely plans for the weekend. I'm planning a Sunday lie in!
Sammy xxx


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Myth Busting: Blogging

Despite being bloggers for nearly 5 years now we haven't ever really written anything about blogging. We thought it was about time that we did a little post about the things that people think we do and about blogging and bloggers in general. Those blogging myths, if you like. It is always interesting to see what people think about what you do and everyone has a different take on it I am sure, but these are just some of the myths we thought should be busted!

Myth #1: Everyone has a journalism background.
Not everyone starts their blog as part of a journalism degree or as a way to get free clothing when they are cash strapped.  Many blogs are now started earlier and earlier and in the UK, the fashion and beauty bloggers and vloggers are kings and queens.  Not everyone who starts a blog thinks that they are great at writing. We started with a idea and have learnt about our writing styles along the way - probably still learning there - which is no bad thing. Sammy is still terrible at spelling!  Getting your ideas down and relating to your audience is key, but you really don't need to have taken a degree in it or worked in publishing to do that.

Myth #2: Your going to earn loads of money from your blog.
Lots of people think that we get free stuff and get paid lots for what we do.  Not true.  Obviously that would be lovely, a great way to add to our day job income.  However making a blog work, takes time and hard work.  We have been to many talks and discussions about this and it really depends on each person, but just making money from writing a blog is unusual.  The money comes from advertising, writing for other people and other opportunities that come from having a blog a lot of the time.  Sometimes brands send you items to review, that in itself has a responsibility attached.  You don't want to give a good review if you don't actually like it and also, would you really use it if you were paying for it?  Just because it is free, doesn't mean its a good brand match for you and as lovely as freebies are, they do not pay the rent!

Myth #3: We go to amazing events all the time.
We can only speak of personal experience here, we both have quite full on day jobs, which means we can't go to the opening of every envelope in town, we also don't live in a big City and so we have to pick and choose the events we go to carefully.  Also, we don't always get invited!  We just are not in uber blogger status yet, I know, hard to believe hey!  We would love to be invited and attend more events and meet more bloggers. This is definitely on the networking wishlist.  We also want to go to events that we really want to go to and sometimes we just can't do it which is a shame, but luckily social media always gives us an eye into what went on which helps.

Myth #4:  Blogging is just fun, doesn't take anytime at all.
Blogging is really fun, however to make your blog successful you need to put the time and effort in.  If you just want to write something down every now and again, by all means start a blog, just don't expect to become a blogging superstar overnight.  Anyone can start a blog, its so simple, you just have to have something to say and commit to doing it.  However, if you want to make it something you are proud of, it takes good photography skills, ideas and all of that spare time that you have.  There are two of us and it can be a balancing act with jobs, personal lives and our blog, but we want it to be something that will continue to grow, which means many Sundays spent doing tutorials, many weekends checking out new fun things to do and then stopping every 2 minutes to take photographs and also blog meetings in the pub.  I am not going to lie, they all sound ace, but it can eat into your time with other people and so be prepared.

Myth #5:  We all have amazing homes.
You really do need to see behind the camera.  We move, polish and pile up our daily lives, just to get that perfect shot of a white background for the tutorial.  We have a habit of choosing a little spot halfway between the bedroom and the bathroom or nearest to a window, to get the best light and a nice even surface.  We really do not live our lives like you see it on camera, so don't panic.  Most of us have quite normal homes that mean the clutter and chaos that is around, just gets shoved to the side, but it wouldn't be quite the same for you to think that we are like mere mortals would it?

Any bloggers out there agree, what would be your top myth you would like busted?  Let us know in the comments below.
H


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