Wedding Overview, Sola Flower Crazy!

Ok its been far too long since I've posted on here, 8 months infact! So much happened in that time including me finally getting married.
As quite a lot of my wedding decor was handcrafted I thought I'd do a quick post to show everything! As I've previously posted, I fell in love with Sola flowers and chose to use them rather than real flowers for the entire wedding. Not only were they way cheaper than using fresh flowers, but I got to keep them! Infact I'm sitting looking at one of the smaller bridesmaids bouquets on the fireplace right now.

If anyone has found this post and is considering using Sola flowers GO FOR IT. I got so many compliments and when I went to gather them up the next day, alot of my flowers had somehow walked out of the door on their own so I'm assuming people really did like them and weren't just being polite lol.

First up is the buttonholes, pink for the Groom, father of the bride and best man, natural for the rest of the wedding party. I found the green burlap leaves on Ebay but they would be pretty easy to make yourself (by this point I was at the omg I'm never going to finish this in time stage so went for the easy option of buying them ready made)

Free Crochet Patterns For Boys

Having a boy myself and being crafty, I know how hard it is to find items to crochet for them. With a new baby/toddler/little boy, of course you want to craft for them!

These are the top five free patterns I have found for little boys. I also have a few available on my blog

Crochet waistcoat/vest

Simple sandals

Crochet Tank Top

Crochet Dungarees


1. Crochet Wrap Around Baby Boots

I love this pattern from I'm Topsy Turvy and have made them several times for both my ds and dd.

2. Leaping Crochet Baby Hoody

Its so nice to find a sweater that is crochet rather than knit!

3. Breezyboy Newborn Newsboy

 

A great alternative to a regular newborn hat from Breezybot

4.

How adorable is this Peacoat from Inner child crochet

5.

This Varsity Sweater from Crochet Today is ideal for slightly older boys.

Diy Kraft Pocketfold Wedding Invitations Tutorial

Wedding planning is plodding on, most important things are booked, just need to sort out little details now, 7 months to go!!

One of the first impressions of your wedding your guests will see is the wedding invitation landing on their doormat. If you are having a themed wedding, you should really give guests an idea of what to expect, however if like me you are not having a majorly themed wedding, a vague idea of colour scheme will do!

Our theme is (for the time being..) a bit rustic, but not overly so (ie no birdcages and definitely no mirrored plates!) On the seemingly never ending search for suitable invites I discovered the kraft paper style and fell in love! Then I saw the price and cried lol BUT with a bit of planning and hard work, we've diy'd our invites and hopefully this tutorial will help some of you.

Supplies needed (per invite)

1 x 130 X 130mm pocketfold - mine was the flat, not ribbed style
1 x A4 pattern background paper (you will use the whole sheet per invite for backing and belly band)
2 x 120 x 120 mm insert
1 x 120 x 105mm insert
1 x 120 x90mm insert
1 x 140 x 140mm kraft envelope (main envelope)
1 x 95mm x 122 mm kraft envelope (for rsvp)
Double sided tape
Rubber stamp and ink (mine is a Noolibird stamp)
Printer (or get them professionally printed if you prefer)

 

Firstly you need to make a template for your backing paper, it saves loads of time and will ensure all your invites look the same and are not wonky! Simply lay your pocket fold out flat and trace around it onto thick card. You may notice it doesn't reach the bottom of the pocket fold, but don't worry this is inside the flap and wont be seen!

Cut out and CHECK IT FITS.  I recommend testing your template using scrap paper/newspaper, whatever you have spare before cutting your precious patterned paper!
Once you have this then start cutting your backing paper. I found I could cut through three at a time but if you are unsure, just do them individually, better to be safe than sorry. I also cut and stuck as a went, mainly to stop boredom, but also just to double check they fit as I went. IMPORTANT! The strip left over at the side is the belly band, do not touch it with those scissors and keep it safe!!!

Now the tricky part, sticking it on smoothly! Attach tape to the pocket fold flap at the top, and very carefully line your backing paper up and smooth down. When the top is stuck, fold the pocket fold up, making the creases in the backing paper before you stick the rest down as I found this helped prevent creases. then simple attach tape to the edges  and just underneath the folds, and gently place the paper down, smoothing with the other hand as you go.

Next stage is stamping. Its pretty easy but if you've never stamped before do some practise stamps on scrap paper, simply line your stamp up with the v in the pocketfold and stamp away!

Attach tape to your pocketfolds and tape them up - pocketfold done!

(notice my classy information hiding of scraps of paper... they are not there on the real thing obviously!)

Printing - OK..if you are clever and creative you can make your own fabulour design and print it. However, if you are like me, sadly lacking in the creative department, either buy someone elses fabulous designs (Etsy have some gorgeous ones) or use a free one! I went for the free option of course and used a template from the amazing Weddingchicks website. Pick your colours( mine was all black text), add your details and download the pdf, easy.

Yes I know the bottom insert is a different colour, this was a practise one and is printed on the wrong side of the insert!
I know some people have trouble with getting their designs to fit on the inserts, especially the smaller ones but do what I did...cheat! If you search for pocket fold invites uk, you can download their templates for free! (ok maybe they want you to actually order from them but tough!) check you pick the right one *coughoriginalpocketfoldcough* download the invitation and insert templates and ta da, there you have templates the exact size you need! We kept our inserts really simple, just the details needed and downloaded a matching font for the headers.

 

We're nearly done I promise! So you've now got your pocket fold, and all the inserts ready, all that is left to do is the belly band which couldn't be easier! Hold the strip of background paper left from lining the pocket fold, check there's no scraggy edges and that the pattern looks ok. Some of mine ended with half a polka dot at the edge which really annoyed me so I trimmed them. Maybe that's a bit obsessive though. Line the middle of the band up with the centre of the pocket fold, and fold it around. It SHOULD be the perfect length as long as it was A4 to start with, and you used 130 x 130 mm pocket folds! Stick together with some double sided tape, making it tight enough to hold it but giving a teeny bit of give to allow people to slide it off if they don't want to rip it and you are done!


I hope this helps some of you or at least gives you an idea! Its cost me about a quarter of what it would have to buy them and I have the stamp left to continue the theme throughout the menu and table plan. If anyone would like to know where I bought from then let me know!

 

 

 

 

 

Sola Flowers

Well its been a while, life well and truly got in the way - 2 children under 3, increase in working hours, Christmas, birthdays and wedding planning have taken up all of my time. Its one of these things I am going to focus on today though, it is of course THE WEDDING! I'm sure most people who have planned a wedding will agree that it completely takes over your brain to the extent of when doing a nappy change you start wondering which cloth nappy to buy to match the flower girl dress you have for your daughter (is that crazy?)

Anyway, we are attempting to do this wedding on a budget (saving for a house deposit at the same time) and the cost of flowers was pretty shocking. I attempted coffee filter roses (look back on the blog, pretty hideous) then thought of getting silk until I stumbled upon Sola flowers! Made from balsa wood, they are handmade from soft wood and most importantly REALLY CHEAP! You can buy them ready made (look on Etsy, they are beautiful) but that is obviously more expensive than making them up yourself.

Sola flowers are pretty unheard of in the UK but I was lucky enough to find a bag of them leftover from someones wedding on Ebay which I bought just to check I did like them in person before I had them shipped over from America. The beauty of sola flowers is that you can easily dye them any colour you want. These were dyed (rather impatiently) with food colouring

Knitted toddler hoody

 I haven't made anything for my son in quite a while now, and I really wanted this to turn out OK but..well you'll see. I picked this pattern, it has really good reviews on Ravelry and everyone else's seems to be brilliant...but for some reason I decided to do the 18 month size when my son is coming up to 24 months and is big! DOH

Way too small, the hood doesn't even go over his head lolol. Oh well I tried I'll add a bow on and save it for my daughter.

This is his camera face, whenever we take a photo of him now this is what we get!

Anyway, it really is a lovely and easy pattern I would recommend it, just pick the right size!

Stage one of wedding craft

Well I'm really not sure if I've mentioned it before but I am actually engaged, have been for 5 years now, we've done it a bit backwards and had the children first but we're now finally starting to plan our wedding..our extreme budget wedding I should probably add.
Like millions of other brides to be I've been scouring pinterest pinning endless ideas I'll never actually do but one I have attempted is the coffee filter roses that kept popping up.

I used this tutorial (which has the link to the free template) and well... to be honest mine have turned out a bit raggedy and ENORMOUS. The photo above is after one dip in red food colouring which has given the ends a nice pink tint but the rest of the petals have gone a dirty white...not exactly what I had in mind!
I'm persevering with it (well I have a packet of coffee filters, I may as well use them all! I think the main problem is the are so big, so next batch will have the last 2 layers of petals left off, we'll see how that looks..then of course theres the issues with the colouring. I might attempt a tea dip but I'm a bit worried that will just look like...well a used coffee filter lol

Heres some more pictures of my attempts anyway, the latest 3 havent been dyed yet.

And one final photo which is by far the best, I think I might end up just carrying my dd in front of me like a bouquet...

Toddler messy play

So my son is getting bigger and bigger, hes now started going to football classes, more and more identifiable words are coming out and hes getting harder to entertain! Having decided himself to drop his nap during the day, by 3pm hes grumpy, tired and irritable so what am I to do...MESSY PLAY! I'm pretty sure every toddler loves creating mess so an out of date bag of flour, a plastic serving tray and a whisk later we had this

Then we added water (and a lot more mess)

 He loved mixing it, squishing it in his hand, pouring the water and of course tasting it but it passed an afternoon, it was free and he loves it, Unfortunately afterwards I went in the kitchen to make a cup of tea and came back to this

Fast asleep, this quick 5 minute power nap added an hour onto his bedtime! sigh

Fan Lace Hat

Well we seem to have gone from Summer and straight into Winter here in England, its freezing, rainy and very very windy! Of course winter means...cute knitted baby hats yay!!!

Believe it or not this is the best photo I could get...

Overjoyed at her new hat as you can see but I love it anyway. Really quick to make and uses less than a skein of yarn! Click here for pattern.

Sew Prettty Homestyle baby quilt

So here it is.The quilt that has been on the go for YEARS! I originally started it as a gift for one of my neices, it is now for my own Daughter! Its from the Sew Pretty Homestyle book by Tilda, the embroidery designs are stolen from different projects in there (like this cafetiere)

Oh dear...I really should iron BEFORE I take the pictures! Also I swear its not wonky in real life!

All hand sewn using scraps from my stash so free, its in no way perfect but I am so proud of it! Also very relieved its finished as its been hanging around for years, been through..4 house moves with us (yeah we move alot)

My two favourite sections!

Crochet Shawl

Another catch up post, although this was made over a year ago, I have only just got round to posting it which is strange because it was actually one of my favourite makes!

No idea why its upside down, it wont turn round! Anyway I made this for my sister last christmas, really quick to make and nice and big so you can actually wrap it around you and not just drape it over your shoulders.

This is the pattern I used (free of course) Sidewalk Shawl from Red Heart.

If you are looking for something to make for christmas, this is fab and not too old fuddy duddy!

Im Back..this time I really am back I promise!

Ok looking back on my blog I see quite a few of these posts, saying I'm back and then disappearing. Well (hopefully) I am now back for good! I've gave birth to my beautiful (GIANT) daughter 5 weeks ago, a day after Prince George was born so just missed out on a coin, we've starting getting back to some normality now, getting a bit more sleep (thank god) so I've started crafting again!

At the moment I'm just finishing up a large project which has been on the back burner for about 3 years eeeeek, so that should be finished by the end of the week and I'm SO excited about posting the finished pictures, I'm so proud of it.

In the meantime I'll post the few projects I have completed during my time away from the blog, starting with my favourite, this beautiful knitted dress from Drops Designs (click for pattern)

 

No action shot yet as the weather has been unusually warm for England (yes I did give birth in a heatwave, I thought I was actually going to melt in hospital, we are not equiped for hot weather!) but I LOVE this dress and will definately be making it in bigger sizes as she grows. The pattern goes right up to age 3/4 so plenty of opportunities to make it again.

 

 

I'll be adding my other finished projects over the next few days.

 

 

 

 

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Worlds Slowest Crafter

I really cannot believe how slow I craft now. I currently have  projects I want to finish:

• Latch hook rug for Baby
• Crochet play mat for Son's cars
• embroidered throw from Sew pretty Homestyle book for Baby
• Cath Kidston Bag kit I got at Christmas..2 YEARS AGO! I haven't even started it. Its in the drawer mocking me...

This is without the MAHOOOSSIVEEE queue I am creating in Ravelry of things to knit for the baby! I at least need to buy some wool and print the patterns out to stick in my hospital bag...

I think I will prioritise my son's play mat. He really loves his toy cars so from now on that is No. 1 on my list!

My favourite sewing project...so far!

I thought I'd take a break from crochet, knitting and attempting to grow vegetables to show everyone the most useful thing I have ever made, my needle book.

It was one of the first 'proper' things I made. Its hand sewn, wonky and to be honest has seen better days but I just cannot bring myself to make a new one and replace it. The original pattern was from my trusty Sew Pretty Homestyle book by Tilda (one of my favourite pattern books to browse through, dreaming that my house actually looks like the pictures...) but there are many free patterns online if you search for them.

So if you are looking for a quick, useful project that uses hardly any material at all, make a needle book! Trust me it will get used.

Grow your own

Every year I have big plans on how I'm going to grow my own vegetables and come Summer/Autumn have an abundance of free veg to eat. Then every year my plants fail to grow and wither away and die having given off one pathetic shrivelled up tomato if I'm lucky!

Well this year I have a plan.. its not really money saving but I bought some grow your own kits...surely I cant do them wrong!! saying that this is what happened to a shop bought pot plant...

 

 

 

 Anyway, I'm being optimistic and this year have bought these

 

 

 

 

Courgettes, bell peppers, chilli peppers and the classic tomato. From reading the instructions they don't look too hard to start off...put the seeds in the dirt and leave on a windowsill. So this weekend I will be planting the ones that get sown in February and hoping for the best! I'm imagining in Summer being able to pop out to the garden with my new born baby to harvest some vegetables to make a lovely salad...

Granny Square Crochet Headband

Ok if you have seen my posts before you might guess I like a crochet granny square (here, and here) so when deciding what to make to start my crafting going again I of course had to turn to my trusty old friend, the granny square!

I wanted to make something useful and as this pregnancy seems to have made my hair CRAZY I decided on a hairband to mainly use when washing my face to keep my hair from getting wet and even more frizzy than it already is!

 

 

Mauv is NOT crafty!

I really think I should be renaming this blog Mauv is NOT Crafty! I have done nothing remotely craft related for months, I even BOUGHT a cake for my sons first birthday. Eugh whats happened to me!?!
I'm 17 weeks pregnant with a little girl and the tiredness kicked in at  4 weeks (as well as the horrendous morning sickness which thankfully has eased off now) that's what happened!! Being pregnant and looking after a toddler is very tiring!

Anyway, a very belated new years resolution - complete one small craft project per week OR one large project per month. That seems doable! I just need to decide on what to make now...


Mauv

Pumpkin cake...

I like to think of myself as a good baker. I can cook reasonably well (apart from bagels, I most definately can not make bagels..they come out like bricks!) and in my head, my cakes are amazing, frosted perfectly, moist..basically lovely! Until now...

Knitted Christmas Stocking Finally Finished

Its finally complete, I have finished my knitted christmas stocking! This is the pattern I used, a completely customisable pattern and not too big so wont cost a fortune for Santa to fill (hurrah!)

 

Christmas Stocking

Well we've moved again! Nothing has gone wrong with this house (so far) and most imprtantly  - THERE IS NO LEAKING ROOF HURRAH!

Anyway because of the move I was without internet for 2 weeks - now I'm not sure how I survived before having the internet but I was so bored without it! I obviously need to get some more hobbies! During the two weeks of boredom I did in fact finish a large crochet project yay! Only thing is I cant post it until after Christmas as it is a present for my sister Doh! nevermind

I did however start on a christmas stocking for my son. I've been eyeing these up for years, meaning to make  them for me and Oh but never got round to it but as its LO's first Christmas I thought I'd put the effort in. In my head he will be using this for years to come but in reality, knowing my knitting it will last one Christmas and fall apart lol

I'm a bit worried about how narrow it is but it will do - it will be cheaper to fill lol. Bit nervous about actually doing the foot part. I'm rubbish at socks and it is effectively a large sock eeek.
This is the pattern if anyone wants to make their own!

I'll post the finished project soon hopefully.
Mauv

Finally a finished project!

My crafting has been even slower than usual recently. A teething 6 month old, a looming house move (yes I am moving again!) and general laziness have meant that craft has taken a back seat. Sometimes I sit and look at my knitting bag, or browse my ravelry queue but getting the energy to actually move my arms is hard at the moment lol. I did however manage to finish a project! My neice is 2 this Wednesday, I saw this on Ravelry and had to make it for her. I let her open it on Saturday as I wont be seeing her for a few weeks now and her little face lit up and she hugged it! Soooo cute.

I used scraps from my knitting bag which ended up looking like he is wearing trousers (..yeah I totally meant that to happen...) Didnt have any child safe eyes so sewed some felt ones on instead but overall I am very pleased with it! The pattern is here if anyone wants to make their very own baby unicorn.

Mauv