Guest Blog Tutorials for Halloween

I've been lucky enough to be asked if I'd like to create not one, but two new tutorials for different websites recently, both with a Halloween theme.

Both are really fun and easy makes, so there's still plenty of time to get them made in time for the spooky fun on Thursday.

The first is this super cute and rather apologetic looking ghosty finger puppet, that I have mentioned before, but I love him so much, I wanted to share him again!

This little fellow, who I think looks rather like a Graham, has been created especially for a new venture that I'm involved with, Uniquely UK which is a fantastic new website created by a group of artisans and designers who are all based in the UK and who make all their products by hand. The idea is to try and raise the profile and feeling of quality in Handmade goods within the UK.

Graham can be found here

Secondly, through a conversation on Twitter (where you can find me here) I was asked to create a special Halloweeny themed tutorial for NEDay Crafts Site, run by the lovely Vicky and here is the fun and slightly cheeky looking Paulie Pumpkin Brooch:

Paulie is one of a couple of lovely fun Halloween crafts that can be found here

Hope you manage to keep safe with the predicted bad weather heading for the UK in the next day or so and have a thoroughly spoooooooooooky Halloween!

Poppies for Remembrance Sunday

Last year I made a batch of poppies for Remembrance Sunday - they proved to be really popular and so I'm making (and selling as fast as I can make) more. This year I'm donating all the profits from poppy sales during October and November to the Royal British Legion. If you see any you like in this blog post, the links are next to all the pics to the relevant Poppy item in my Etsy Shop.

Last year I raised £85 by selling my poppies and I'm hoping to increase on that this year.

I've also increased the range of poppy items that I'm creating this year, so there are now Large and Small Poppy Brooches:

Large & Small Poppy Brooches with leaves:

Poppies as Keyrings & Hair Combs:

And Poppies as Baby Shoe Clips:

I love making these bright flowers and really love that I am doing something for the wonderful charity, The Royal British Legion. I'll let you know next month how much money we manage to raise this year.

Spooktacular! Halloween Crafts a plenty!

It's that time of year again folks! The ghosts and ghouls are coming out to play (well my two little ones are!) and I thought I'd share a round up of spooky things for you, that can be found in my Etsy Shop or in the Uniquely UK Shop

Felt Bat Mask

Felt Ghost Finger Puppet (DIY Tutorial at www.uniquelyuk.co.uk)

Felt Pumpkin Mask

Felt Witch Mask - both finished item & PDF Pattern available at www.gracesfavours.etsy.com

There is also a very special Halloween Tutorial coming up on the lovely NEDay Blog in the next week, so keep your eyes peeled!

The ghosty finger puppet above is a free tutorial, just like the Pirate Sword and Pirate Eye Patch ones I've recently published but will be published on our fabulous new website Uniquely UK and is a really fun little Halloween craft that your kids will adore.

The Witch Mask Pattern is also available at my NEW Craftsy Shop :-D

The three masks are also going to be on sale next week at the absolutely GORGEOUS boutique in Glasgow, Rowdy Roddy Vintage

 So if you are nearby, why not pop in and say hello to the lovely lovely lovely Jolyne (who I met at the Mumpreneur UK Awards the other week) and check out all the wonderous goodies inside!

Think that's Halloween just about taken care of now... Off to bake a cake or 3 for my daughter's 5th Birthday on Monday!

Have a great weekend and make sure you pop over to Handmade Monday to check out some other fabulous blogs!

Mumpreneur UK Awards Ceremony

Afternoon all :-)

Thank you SO much for all your support last week when I blogged to say that I'd been selected as a finalist for the Best International Trader at the Mumpreneur UK Awards this year!

I was really really really pleased to have got as far as the finals and to add to that excitement I got some lovely press coverage about it too which I blogged about midweek (although of course, being a woman, I hate the picture they used - but Patrick was happy!!)

So the awards ceremony was held yesterday in Birmingham, in the Holiday Inn, which was a lovely hotel inside, despite looking a bit less than salubrious from the outside!

Me by the entrance stand

Brian came with me as moral support (and to stop me from getting lost as I notoriously have no sense of direction!) and although he was a little dubious about the usefulness of the day (not being a small business owner and not someone who's into networking at all) but he quickly decided it had definitely been worth us coming, even if I didn't win.

We sat at a table with some lovely people... Jolyne from Rowdy Roddy Vintage & her husband Richard who'd come down from Glasgow yesterday morning (and I thought we had an early start!) and who's shop was up for the "Best Green Company" award. Fiona Hatton from The PR Garden and Sara Kennaugh from Counting Sheep

We had some amazingly inspirational speakers during the morning - Hazel Cushion from Accent Press, Ben Blackman from Very Nice Things and Anna Kennedy from Anna Kennedy Online

One thing that stood out from all of them, was not only did they not feel that they were anything special, but that they all genuinely felt that all the delegates there were seriously impressive people, managing to run businesses and families at the same time. It's one thing to hear that from your own friends and family, but to hear someone you don't know saying it and meaning it, really made me feel empowered, strong and determined.... I really feel like I've achieved something impressive and I might actually start taking some notice when people tell me now!!

There was a lovely lunch and the bar was open - hurrah! And then we had two more very interesting speakers after lunch.... and then the moment we'd all been waiting for.... the awards.......

Sadly I didn't win my category, but after all the talking up the speakers had done during the day, all the wonderful and inspiring people I'd met (and having an order placed for 30 of my Halloween masks!) I really truly didn't feel downheartened by not winning. I can honestly say I went home with a smile on my face!

I'm sorry this hasn't been a very visual post - I got too carried away tweeting people yesterday and listening that I forgot to take many photos!

So instead I'll leave you with a picture and link to my very first PDF Pattern for sale in my Etsy Shop - I was terrified of releasing this into the shop, being my first, so I'll be over the moon if I get some sales in the next couple of weeks - given the timing couldn't be better!

I'm off to link up with Handmade Monday and hopefully I'll get to comment on a few more this week! Enjoy!

Press Coverage

For those of you following the blog, you'll know that I found out (at a bit of a late stage) that I have been selected as a finalist for the Mumpreneur UK awards - Best International Trader - see post here

Well I (for once) got my act together quickly and sent out a press release to all the local news outlets and one of them called me and managed to organise a journalist & a photographer to come out and see me on Monday.

Yesterday the article was published in The Citizen, a Gloucestershire based newspaper!

I hope that's clear enough to read!

As you can see Patrick managed to get in on the act and swaggered into nursery yesterday and told them all about how "he" was in the paper... no mention of me at all!!

I'll be back on Sunday with results of the awards - I'm not expecting to win (there are some seriously good companies that I'm up against) but I'll let you know :-)

Mumpreneur Awards - making the finalist group!

Well, I have so much to share this week I don't really know where to start!!

This is my 3rd blog post this week (almost unheard of!) as I shared two Piratey tutorials for a Pirate Eye Patch and a Pirate Sword in honour of International Talk Like a Pirate Day on Thursday (September 19th)

Then I found out on Tuesday that I had been selected for the finals of the Mumpreneur UK Awards!

I was in total shock!

I entered back in January and then promptly forgot all about it and when the finalists were announced on the Mumpreneur Facebook page I had a nosey, wasn't on the list for either Best Product or Best International Seller (the two categories that I'd entered) and slunk off to lick my wounds in private.

BUT.... I got an email on Tuesday saying they'd been having some problems getting in touch with some of the finalists and here were the details of what they needed from me as I was a finalist in the Best International Seller category!

WOOOOOOO-HOOOOOOOO!

Out of approx. 1500 entries, each category is whittled down to 8-10 finalists and I was one of them! I'm over the moon :-)

Quickly put everything they needed together and emailed it all over, whilst also writing a press release for the local media, to see if it wasn't too late to get some publicity and I got a phone call yesterday saying one of the local papers will be sending a reporter & photographer out to me on Monday (tomorrow!) and the piece will be in the paper on Wednesday!

Yay.... but... wait..... "What about the tip you call a workshop?" my helpful husband asked, last night, while we were away celebrating our anniversary!

So today, I have lugged, shoved, tidied, junked, retrieved from the bin, found homes for and put up on walls all the stuff that had been covering the floor of my workshop! I still have a big pile of paper to sort though, but it does now resemble a room that someone works in, not just a fabric dumping ground gone wrong!

Need to make a curtain to hide everything under the workbench!

Sign stolen from the Home & Gift Exhibition

Finally got some of my work displaid!

So my lovelies, that's me for now... off to make some dinosaur cushions, put more things up on the walls and try and hide this big wodge of paperwork!!

Enjoy Handmade Monday!

How to Make a Felt DIY Pirate Sword Tutorial

Arrrrrrr, me hearties! It be International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Yesterday I shared a Felt Pirate Eye Patch Tutorial which was admirably modeled by my own little Pirate last night:

And was then borne off to school by my bigger Pirate this morning:

So today I'm going to share with you my tutorial for making a Felt Pirate Sword. This is quite timely as my smallest Pirate was bought one (a very flimsy one!) last weekend and promptly broke it, so he needed a replacement!

You will need:

- Cardboard - A4 size (either two pieces of thinner cardboard stuck together or a piece of thick cardboard that won't flop about when waved about)
- Grey Felt (9" x 8")
- Black Felt (11" x 6")
- A Biro
- Strong Scissors (for cutting the cardboard)
- Grey & Black embroidery thread
- A piece of ribbon and matching embroidery thread
- Glue
- Template (which can be found at the end of the tutorial)

First cut out the template and draw round it onto the cardboard & cut out. (if you are using thin cardboard, cut two pieces and stick them together)

Then draw around the cardboard onto the grey felt with your biro and cut out leaving a 1/4" extra around the edge

Flip the cardboard sword over and repeat so you have two mirror images on the grey felt for the blade part of the sword

Then repeat on the black felt for the handles. If you have tailors chalk you can use that to draw round to see the lines more easily, but I found I could just about see the biro lines if I held the felt up to the window:

Then using a bit of glue to keep the grey felt in place, with the grey embroidery thread (2 strands) blanket stitch neatly all the way round the grey felt to make the blade

Next using glue to keep the black pieces in place, with the black embroidery thread (2 strands) blanket stitch all the way round the black felt to make the handle.

Lastly sew or tie a piece of ribbon around the join between the black & grey felt

And now you're ready for a swashbuckling adventure!

Please feel free to make this felt sword as many times as you like for personal use, but please do not sell either the finished items, or the tutorial and if you blog or want to share any of the pictures from the tutorial, please link back to this post.

I'd love to see any Piratey pictures that you take if you've created either the eye patch or the sword using my tutorials, so please feel free to send them to simmi@gracesfavours.co.uk

Enjoy!

How to Make a Felt DIY Pirate Eye Patch Tutorial

In honour of tomorrow being my favourite celebration day, International Talk Like a Pirate Day I thought I'd share a tutorial with you today, ready for your little Pirates to wear tomorrow (or any time if your kids are like mine!)

A Felt Pirate Eye Patch

You will need:

Black Felt
White Felt
Black Elastic
Scissors
White & Black embroidery thread
A pencil or tailors pen
The pattern (which can be found at the end of the tutorial)

Step One:

Cut out 2 black eye patch pieces and 1 white skull & cross bones piece

Then using the skull & cross bones template as a guide mark on the white felt the position of the eyes and the nose and using sharp embroidery scissors cut out the eye sockets and the nose

Then using either a sharp pencil or a tailor's pen (which has disappearing ink) draw on your mouth and teeth:

Then using the black embroidery thread (2 strands) and using a back stitch, embroider on your mouth and teeth. You should now have a finished skull

Next using the white embroidery thread (again 2 strands) with a simple running stitch, sew on the skull and cross bones to the top layer of the eye patch

Once you've gone all the way round, your eye patch will look like this

Next using your black embroidery thread sew the elastic onto the back piece of the eye patch, securely going over it a number of times

Then repeat for the other end

Then pin your front eye patch piece to the back and sew round the edges, using your black embroidery thread and using a simple running stitch, but making sure you go over the elastic bits 2 or 3 times to ensure they're secure

And tie off your thread neatly at the back.

You now have an eye patch fit for a real Pirate, me hearty! Arrrrrrr!

And here is my little Pirate modelling her eye patch

I'm afraid (as is always the way!) that my printer/scanner has just decided to play up, so I've taken a photo of the template page and will get my husband to scan it in for me from work tomorrow, so it should be available as a printable sheet then! Why do printers always go wrong at just the most inconvenient moment?!

Please feel free to make as many of these eye patches as you'd like for personal use, but please do not sell the finished articles or the instructions.

I'd love to see any pictures of anything that you make using any of my tutorials, so please do feel free to email me a picture at simmi@gracesfavours.co.uk

Enjoy and Arrrrrrrrrrr!

Another felt tutorial will be available tomorrow.