How to - Valentine's Day Felt Card Tutorial

Ohhh it's that smoochy time of year coming up again and so I thought I'd do a fun little no-sew felt tutorial for you.

Here's what we're making:

It's a fairly simple tutorial, so I'm going to put the step by step instructions in the comment field for each photo.

If you're looking for presents to go with your handmade card, have a look in my Etsy Shop and also at Uniquely UK for masses of gorgeous pressie ideas!

Obviously you can change the slogan, but as it's supposed to be a jigsaw puzzle I chose 'We are a perfect fit!'

Materials:

Card (I had a pre-fold card in my stash, but you can always fold in both ends to meet like a door)
Thick red felt (if you want to make your felt thicker you can glue two layers together but it doesn't matter if it's thinner felt)
Paper
Pencil
Ruler
Red Pen
Glue

Instructions:

1. All the materials you'll need

Fold the piece of paper in half and draw half a heart shape as shown

Cut out the heart shape (with the paper folded over so you have a perfect heart shape)

Using your pencil, draw around the heart onto the felt.

Draw a jigsaw shape into the heart. I went straight down the middle, but you can do it in any shape and on any angle you like.

Cut the heart into two pieces according to your jigsaw line

Draw around the jigsaw line, using one side of the paper template (it doesn't matter which you use)

The trickiest bit is to cut out the heart and cut the jigsaw line into the shape keeping both sides looking perfect... small cuts and take it slowly is the best advice.

Your cut out heart should look like this when placed back together.

Using your paper heart, work out where to draw your lines on the card (you may need more or less lines, depending on what you want to say)

Write your message in pencil first, to make sure it fits on ok.

Go over the pencil writing with your red pen.

Then stick your heart onto either side of the card, so when it's closed, the heart fits together.

If you don't want to use a card like the one above with two doors, you can use a standard folded piece of card and either stick the heart pieces together, or just apart to make the jigsaw shape more obvious.

When the red pen is dry, rub out the pencil marks and you're done :-)

I hope you all have a very Happy Valentine's Day!

Goal: Creating PDF Sewing Patterns

One thing I promised myself that I was going to make time for this year was to get a line of PDF patterns in my shop and I'm really really proud of myself, that before the first month is out, I've made a great start!

I've started off with the masks that I've had rolling about in my head for a while and I really love the Easter ones, particularly the cute Lamb Mask:

And sticking with the Easter theme... the next up will be these 3 adorable Finger Puppets:

You'll be able to find all these patterns through my Etsy shop and also my Craftsy Shop.

Changes at Uniquely UK - the Home of Gorgeous & Unusual Gifts!

I was thinking about trying to be a bit more organised with my blog posts this year, rather than just crashing from one event to another at the last minute, which is rather how I feel last year's posts were put together!

So I Googled a calendar of events and created a spreadsheet for myself.

Do you know what though? Since then I've had complete brain freeze when it comes to creating new posts!

Typical.

So I thought I'd just give you a flavour of some new things going on...

We've rearranged our Uniquely UK website a bit, so it's got a fresher, more contemporary feel:

I love the Spring colours that the clever ladies who made the changes have chosen (can't claim any credit for that bit) and the brilliant 'New!' section, where you can jump immediately to the new things that have been added:

We're all quite a bit in love with our resident photographer's cushions! This one is my favourite:

And lastly a little something that has landed in my Etsy shop (can't work out how to get it instantly downloadable (is that a word?) from the Uniquely UK website, but as soon as I do, it'll be there too!)

Duck Dressing Up Mask

It's the first of a new range of PDF patterns that I've been promising (threatening?!) for a while now... watch this space for more!

Belated Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!!

Sorry it's a little late, but as with everything, when you have two over excited kids underfoot, nothing quite gets done on time.

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas - we were visiting family in London and Hampshire and then came back for New Year, which we had at home, with friends over (for that, read: too much food & booze and not enough sleep!)

Presents with their cousin at the Great Grandparents' house

Meeting Santa (again!)

Patrick modelling one of his pressies at Grandad's on Christmas Morning

Seren modelling a pressie at Grandad's house on Christmas Morning

I didn't take any pictures on New Year's Eve, but I do have a link to the fabulous recipe I used for our 'grown up' meal (once the kids were in bed)

We were given two pheasants by our local pub landlord, plucked, gutted and frozen... so initially I thought I'd just put them into the casserole whole, but there were some sharp shards of bone already sticking out, so I decided to joint them. Well. That was a whole saga on it's own! But 2 plasters, lots of swearing and an hour and a half later, two jointed pheasants!

I meant to do all the prep and cooking the day before, so that it had time to settle, but of course, I ran out of time (for that read: I drank too much to remember to take the damn birds out of the freezer!) so had to cook them on the morning of New Year's Eve. Still, the meal was delicious!

I added an apple, cored and chopped and some leaks and served it with just crusty bread as we'd already had a starter and had pudding, I didn't want everyone too sleepy after an enormous meal!

The kids are (thankfully) back to school on Monday, so I can get back to some kind of routine and some desperately needed sewing time as I have orders piling up!

Keep your eyes peeled here as the first Spring Patterns will be going on sale next week!