Day 44: Homemade Daily Challenge. Heart Bunting

Sticking with the Valentine's theme from last week, I thought I'd show you a pic of a new bespoke order I have been working on. Last month I added more bespoke Personalised bunting to my shop with a new design of loveheart end flags. I like to keep my fabrics fresh and up date, no two buntings are the same so to help that happen I have just installed a drop down menu for the buyer to select a colour scheme. My first order was for greens and pinks which was this one:

 The most recent order was for creams and pastel pinks, I love how two products with the same designs can look completely different just by using different fabrics. From uber modern to shabby chic, the design somehow works for both genres :)

Day 43: Homemade Daily Challenge. Pass the pompoms

The best thing to do on a bitterly cold (-2) snowy day, is stay jn and make things. Well Eva and I think so (any excuse to crack open the glitter glue).

Day 42: Homemade Daily Challenge, bit of tlc

Today I thought I would do a little job I have been meaning to do for years (yes I do mean years) but have never got round to.

When my Great Granny Jeanie died she left lots of lovely pieces of jewellery and luckily some pieces came to me. None were particularly valuable, but worth more in sentimental value. One piece that she left was a string of plastic blue beads. I loved these beads and wore them all the time, even though the paint was chipping off I still loved them.

When Eva my daughter was around the age of one she developed a love of jewellery, beads in particular and one day while I was carrying her to the car she took a swipe for my beloved blue beads and the cord broke,  I acted with haste and scooped as many as I could find into a (clean) nappy sack.

They have remained in this nappy sack for nearly three years, I always intended to fix them but it was always at the bottom of my list of jobs to do. But when I started this blogging everyday challenge I seen the perfect opportunity to get some of those little jobs done too. I knew I had lost some of the beads so would need extra ones to make a similar size necklace, so I bought some chunky wooden Royal Blue beads from a shop on the Portobello Road which match perfectly and set about mending my necklace.

 

It honestly took me about 15 minutes and I am so pleased with the results, I do wish I had mended them before now as I have missed out on years of wearing them but maybe in some strange way I'll appreciate them all the more. I hope my Gran would be pleased with the results.

Day 41: Homemade Daily Challenge, Button Heart

With Valentine's Day looming, I mean just around the corner I thought I would base the next few days posts around things that you could make as a gift, or better keep for yourself. I am lucky enough to have a special person in my life, fellow craftsperson of squarepear furniture but I am not going to be giving him one of these supercute button hearts as he won't appreciate it, he doesn't share my button addiction for a start!

 These lovely little decorations are simple to make, you just need about 15 inches of 15 amp fuse wire and a selection of nice buttons, I have decided to go a bit non-traditional and have chosen a spring palette as I am hopeful it is on it's way :) You also need some ribbon or string to hang it.

 

First job is to thread the buttons on to the wire making sure they all face the same way (all fronts lined up). I have found the easiest way to do this, is to thread your first button into the middle of the wire and work outwards to either end, it just makes it less fiddly.

To make life even easier, thread each button on to the wire through the first hole and push it all the way to where you want it to sit on the wire and then thread through the second hole you will find it easier than trying to push two threaded holes down the wire. 

Once the whole wire is covered (leaving about an inch or two of bare wire at either end) wrap the remaining wire over and under the wire on the back of your heart, you will now have a big circle of buttons. All that's left to do is squish in at the top and pull out the bottom until you are happy with your heart shape. Attach your chosen hanging ribbon and go beautify a room with you new make :)

Day 40: Homemade Daily Challenge, Labels

Since I set up evajanie (Jan 2011) I really wanted to have some fabric labels made up to stitch into my products. I  search high and low but only found cheap and nasty ones that were printed or not sewn nicely which wouldn't sit well with the high quality products that I make and sell.

I use an all-singing-all-dancing Janome sewing machine and attempted to sew my own labels using one of the fonts but I wasn't happy with those results either. So I saved some of the money I had earned over the Christmas rush and splashed out on some from a British company called www.labelname.co.uk/ Firstly I was really impressed with their site and the options available, you can really get a bespoke order by using the drop down menu, there are a selection of fonts and icons, a choice of colours for both the text and for the background and you can pay using paypal, it was a really simple process. They took three weeks to arrive (you can pay more for a quicker option) but they were well worth the wait.

I have been super excitedly sewing them into my orders all week,  I love them :)

Day 39: Homemade Daily Challenge

Hand embroidered patch no.4 for Eva's patchwork quilt, made using lovely vintage salmon and royal blue fabrics, with blanket and chain stitch.

Day 38: Homemade Daily Challenge. A sad little moment

You may have guessed that I am bit of a fabric fanatic. As much as I am a fan of modern new printed designs, I love the gorgeous Tilda designs in pinks and green and the retro Sanderson ranges are especially scrummy. But most of all I love using vintage fabrics. I am more of a one-off kinda gal, I really love the thought 'this piece of fabric may not exist anywhere else and I am going to make something unique from it'. When I first set up evajeanie this is what I tried to do with each piece but after a while I started to get duplicate orders for the same product and although you can explain that although each piece is lovingly made and similar fabrics can be used no two pieces will be the same. Some people 'get' that and some just don't, it can be a bit of a mine field.

So of late I have tried to purchase larger pieces of vintage fabric so I can at least make a few of anyone product and just alter the design slightly to make each piece unique (to keep with the ethos of what I set out to do). This has worked really well, until last Thursday that is.

I have in my shop a butterfly caftiere cosy I have sold all the stock (3 cosies) so that each one is now made to order and I really love this design and had intended to make one for myself but just haven't had the time of late, last Thursday I sold one in my shop and won't have enough fabric to make any more. It just felt very sad to think 'I can never make another one of those' and worse than that 'I will never own one of those' as I have little chance of finding more of the fabric again.

So although I love vintage fabrics, using them is a bit of a double edged sword. Yes the pieces are either one-off and are unique, so therefore desirable, I will only ever be able to make a few of each at most. I would love to hear if any of you have had a similar problem and if so how do you manage multiple orders for vintage fabrics?

 

Day 37: Homemade Daily Challenge, Toad in the Hole

My heritage is partly from Yorkshire and all the ladies in my family can make awesome Yorkshire Puddings. This skill has always escaped me. No matter what I do, I end up with soggy pudding or burnt pudding. Never the light, crisp, well risen delights that my Mother seems to be able to make in her sleep! In theory it should be easy, get a pan nice and hot with a little oil, pour in some pancake mixture and put it back into a hot oven. But I have always avoided making a Sunday Roast through the shame that is my lack of yorkshire pudding skillage.

Last month I went to a Pampered Chef  party where the host said we were going to make fool-proof yorkies that would rise out of the dish and were easy peasy to make using the baking stoneware. Of course I didn't believe a word.

She added 1 cup plain flour, 1 cup milk and 4 eggs* to a bowl and whisked. Whilst the oven came to a roaring furnace (it's got to be hot I've been told).  Spray some oil into the stoneware. Pour the batter into the dish or dishes to about half way up and put in the oven. To my amazement about 20 minutes later she removed from the oven a dozen, huge, golden brown, crisp, fluffy puddings. I had to buy a dish just to see for myself!!

Two weeks later my dish arrived this weekend I had a bash at making a Toad in the Hole. I first baked the sausages for about 12 minutes in the dish as I then didn't need to add any extra oil, while I prepared the batter (same recipe as above) I poured it into the dish and put back in to over for 20mins on a high setting and then another 5 mins on a lower setting, that bits not an exact science as all ovens are different.

This is what I pulled out of the oven after said 25 minutes:

 

Unfortunately in my eagerness to fill my belly I forgot to take a side view so you could see how well it rose but it stood up from the dish by about 3 inches!! We were all very impressed and got stuck in with veggies and gravy. It was so simple and completely worked even for a first attempt. Although I am not sure my granny would approve of using American stoneware when if I had any actual skill I could make them in her old baking tin!! 

*In my original post I said 2 eggs you actually need 4 for a good rise!!

Day 36: Homemade Daily Challenge

Hope you all had a great Sunday and didn't get too snowed in.

A short post from me today as it's a little late, had a very busy day seeing friends and family as it's Eva's birthday weekend.

Just got time to say I've had a few bunting orders this week and back by popular demand to my noths shop is this country style, Love Heart Bunting. It's Valentine's Day next week and this would make a great present that won't look out of place all year round.

Day 35: Homemade Daily Challenge. Happy Birthday Eva!

Well three years ago today I was in the later stages of labour, therefore today my gorgeous girl is 3! Happy Birthday Eva!

Eva really loves the books and films of the Gruffalo so we decided to get her a special cake made for her Birthday this year. Here is Eva's fabulous Gruffalo Birthday cake:

There is even the little mouse!

This wonderful cake was made by the super talented Zoe at Mummy's Scrummy Cakes if you are looking for inventive and original cake designs for all occasions then contact Zoe. This link connects to their facebook fanpage but if for some reason it doesn't work then please contact me and I'll pass on your details. Thank you Zoe you made a little girl very happy (and Eva loves it too) x