The Campervan Bag

This campervan bag has been a long time in the planning!  Most of that time it was simply in my head, bouncing around (as ideas do).

I've been taking part in the monthly challenge set by Abakhan where I make something for under £15 (they very kindly supply the fabrics) and this bag is part of that.  I say "monthly challenge" but it would seem my months are quite a bit further apart than anyone else's!  

This bag is a pretty good size for a handbag/tote bag and fits all the basics in.  I made sure my Kindle would fit (for me, that's probably more essential than anything!)

It has lots of pockets...

which are always useful, of course.

It 's always difficult to photograph the inside of a bag!  The magnetic closure you can just see in the photo below was recycled from a tired old bag destined for the scrap heap (that could describe me as well as the bag - stop laughing! - it's really not that funny!).  Magnetic closures are easy to rescue as the metal prongs holding them in place just fold out ready to be re-used.

My version has a fixed length shoulder strap, but it could be adapted to have an adjustable strap.

The fabrics I used from Abakhan were this gorgeous starry pale blue cotton (they have it in other colours too - the red looks lovely)

and the stripey ticking-style lightweight cotton for the lining

Abakhan also supplied me with a large bag of orange buttons - ideal to rummage through to find the perfect size for indicator lights.  The grey buttons I used for headlights came from an old cardigan!

I also used a few scraps from my stash.  The retro style floral (on the bumper, on the centre of the front wheel, and on the pockets inside) was left over from a previous Abakhan challenge - it's one of those fabrics I've used in so many projects now.  It's been much more versatile than I ever imagined and seems to go with pretty much everything!

Being fabric, it's completely machine washable and I think it would make a fabulous holiday bag.  Let's hope for some sunshine this summer!  If you are thinking of flying to the sun instead of waiting for it to come to you (could be a wise move if you are UK-based) it's a lightweight and packable bag - or good as a cross-body bag for passports and stuff.

I'll be creating a pattern for this bag as soon as I can.  It always seems to take me forever to get a pattern together, even when the bag has already been made and pattern pieces drafted, so don't hold your breath (but do please check back at some point in the semi-distant future!).

Updated to add: sorry it's taking so long to get round to making this pattern, but I'm getting started on it now (May 2014).  It's all gone a bit mad recently on Pinterest and getting a lot of interest!  I'm hoping the pattern will be ready in a couple of weeks - mid-June, maybe.

Thanks so much everyone for all your interest!

Pinterest Pin-it Button for your Blog Images

You may have noticed the images on this blog now have a Pinterest pin-it button when you hover over them. If you haven't noticed, then hover your mouse over this owl pincushion....

If you want to do the same thing on your own blog, head over to Blogger Sentral for the easy-to-follow instructions (there's a version for Blogger and one for Wordpress).  I'm not a techie type at all, but it probably took me less than a minute to get it done.

I quite like it - what do you think?

PS: the owl pincushion has a thread catcher pocket on the end of his legs.  He'll be available as a pattern, if I can get my pattern-writing act together soon.

Handmade Monday 118

How can it be that time again already?  These weeks fly past far too quickly! Or is that just me?  Anyway, welcome to Handmade Monday.  Click the link for more info.

This week, I did finally get round to making up my design project for Sewing World magazine...

I love beach huts (you probably know that already) and I really enjoyed this project.

Understandably, magazines aren't keen on you showing a finished project on your blog before it appears in the magazine, but I am allowed to show you snippets...

And I think it's probably OK to tell you that it's a pair of placemats for picnics.  I think these could make picnics really special and memorable - and you'd have no excuses for forgetting to take the cutlery as there is a special place for it!

OK, I'm going to stop there as I may have said too much already...

What have you been making this week?

Cardmaking: Adding Texture with Fabric and Stitching

I've quite enjoying getting back into making cards recently and my sewing machine made an appearance for these latest cards...

I needed to send a couple of cards to my friend in Australia.  I recently decided to make all my own cards wherever possible (it fits in so well with designing digital stamps!) so these two were designed with my friend in mind (hello, Ros!).  She sews, so I wanted a sewing theme... (that bit wasn't difficult!)

I designed the stamps myself (these are from prints of the original stamps) - they'll be available on my new digital stamps website when it's up and running properly (3rd June, if you are interested).  Edited to add:look at this link for the sewing machine thank you digi stamp and this one for the happy birthday quilt digi stamp.

I printed the images onto 160gsm card - it's a thin enough weight for my printer to handle it easily, but heavy enough to be substantial enough for sewing.

I always enjoy getting the ProMarkers* out, don't you?(*insert colouring device of choice here!)  There's something incredibly relaxing about adding colour to an image.

And then I hunted around for some fabric.  I decided to sew together the coloured stamps, the fabric and some heavyweight interfacing as a backing.

I used black thread and what seems to be turning into my trademark sketchy stitching.  The stitching echoes the sketchy lines in my drawings rather well I think...but I wouldn't recommend sewing over the same line more than once when card or paper is involved - I kept the stitching on the paper to one line with quite a long stitch length.

And a close up peek... you can see the stitching on the edge has repeated sketchy lines, but the stitching on the inside (which goes through the paper too) is just one line of stitching.

It worked beautifully, and a few buttons finished off each card 

I then added some sticky pads at the back of the stitched piece, to stick to a card blank.

There's something quite lovely about a lot of texture (fabric, ribbon, stitching and buttons) on a card - oh, and handmade, of course...

You can't really beat handmade, can you?

Cupcake digital stamps

People have told me they are enjoying the little sneaky peeks I've shared so far of digital stamps...

so I thought I'd share a few more... I'm sure you've noticed that these are all cupcakes!

These cupcake images will all be available on the Handmade Harbour website from 3rd June onwards as digital stamps and they'll all be available as an instant download, so you can get your hands on any images immediately after purchase.

I always think cupcakes are such fun to draw and craft with.  And they work well for so many occasions, don't they?

And if you don't need to eat gluten free (like me) then they're fun to eat too!   But when you buy them as digital images, they are totally calorie free as well as gluten free!

PS: if you are wondering what a digital stamp is, I explain it here.

Handmade Monday 117

Welcome to another Handmade Monday!

This week I've been mostly glued to my laptop, uploading image after image onto my new Handmade Harbour website!  I've set myself targets of how many I need to upload per day and I'm slightly ahead (for now, anyway!) which makes me happy!

OK, so it's posed by someone younger than me 

(my youngest daughter, who doesn't mind the odd modelling assignment for me)

I've also gathered together some fabrics but not done much else anything else with them yet.  These are in readiness for a project for Sewing World.  Hopefully I'll find some time this week for sewing because time is marching rather quickly towards my deadline! It's something I'm looking forward to making, because it's got beach huts in it (and I'm a sucker for beach hut imagery!).

just waiting to be cut and sewn

I've kind of tried to restrain myself from doing too many beach huts on my digital stamp images, but there are  a few in there...

Now I have a range of images, I need to get more organised and concentrate on specific occasions for card sending because I've noticed some of my categories are much emptier than others!  Still, that's something I can keep building on after the site is launched.

It's over to you now.  What's your handmade week been like?

What is a Digital Stamp?

Digital stamps have been new to everyone at some point and I know some of my readers haven't been completely sure what I've been wittering on about when I've mentioned my new digi stamp designs on here!  I remember discovering digi stamps only a few years back and I got very excited by the possibilities of creating them!

Keryn made my caravan digi into a gorgeous new home card!

But, for those of you who aren't sure - what exactly is a digital stamp?

OK, so maybe digital stamp is a slightly misleading term.  It came about simply because they are a digital version of a rubber stamp (the illustrative stamps used by card makers).  Digital stamps aren't really stamps at all, but are used in pretty much the same way (with a few differences and benefits!) as those rubber stamps.

Basically, digi stamps are just a downloadable, printable image - designed with card makers and paper crafters in mind and saved at a high resolution so you get a good image.  They mostly come as black and white line drawings (although you can get them in colour, too) and one of the main benefits is that they can be resized really easily on your computer before printing - there's an excellent You-Tube video that explains the easiest way of doing this for anyone new to using digi stamps.

this candy floss cart is one of my new digi stamps

As well as being able to resize, rotate and flip, you get a few other benefits with digis:

• They're downloaded in a high-resolution format, so the image stays good even if you make it bigger.

• They can be printed off as many times as you like, without any wear and tear or inky mess, both of which can happen with rubber stamps.

• You don't need anywhere except a computer hard drive (or flash drive) to store all your digi images - perfect for those of us a little short on space! 

• Because they are digital, they usually work out much cheaper than rubber stamps

• You get your download instantly with most suppliers (you will with Handmade Harbour, as soon as the website's up and running!)

one of my sewing machine images 

(I think there'll end up being quite a few of these!)

I'm going to be sharing some of my images as digital stamps on the brand new Handmade Harbour website, which launches on the 3rd June 2013.  Watch out for it!  I'm very excited, but also a little apprehensive as it's a brand new venture for me!  There's a lot of work going into this, but I am enjoying every minute, so I do hope there are some people out there who like them!

And with my brain feeling frazzled with all this website-building (not a natural strength of mine, I don't mind admitting!) I am hoping I don't make any major mistakes along the way.  Feel free to point them out if I do!

Handmade Monday 116

Welcome to Handmade Monday.  Click the link to find out how to join in!

Well, the big news from me this week is that the Handmade Harbour website is now live on the internet!  At the moment it's just a holding page, while I work away behind the scenes to create a proper, functioning website where people can browse and maybe, just maybe, even buy things...

one of my digi stamps, inspired my my daughter's cat!

You can visit the holding page at HandmadeHarbour.com or HandmadeHarbour.co.uk -  both addresses should take you to the same place.

For now, I'm using the same banner as on my blog - but I think maybe I need a banner that reflects more what I'm planning to do.  Something that includes my hand-drawn images and card making (as well as sewing).   I have an idea in my head of how I'd like it to look, but it may be some time before I find the time to bring that idea into the real (or online) world!

cat at the rough sketch stage

I'm busy creating printable images for the website, as well as building the actual website, but it feels like I can't create fast enough at the moment.  It's a lot of fun though!

I'm still working hard on the personalised gifts too, which - as always - does take up a lot of my time.  I can't complain though, as it's rather a nice way to earn a living - just a little tying when you make everything to order!

making art hangers

It's time to hand over to you, now - I'm looking forward to seeing what's going on in your handmade world!

The Walled Garden

If you live in the UK, you won't have failed to notice the recent sunshine - particularly notable because the sun showed its face on a bank holiday!  We decided on an afternoon out (I worked through the morning) and we discovered something we didn't know existed!

It was behind this rather lovely gate...

Would you like a little peek?

It's Grappenhall Heys walled garden.  It's only open from 1-4pm and we arrived at noon.  It was worth the walk around the outside of the walled garden too, because there's gorgeous woodland to explore.

The walled garden itself was like a little oasis - in the middle of a (rather nice) housing estate, it was calm and tranquil, with ponds and trees

and a separate formal walled vegetable and fruit garden.  Isn't this box hedging just so well kept?

the soil in the background is full of seedlings

The garden is maintained by one full-time gardener and a team of volunteers.

 espaliered apple trees with lots of blossom

I take my camera everywhere with me these days - photos aren't just good for memories or illustrating my blogs, they're perfect for design inspiration and I think I captured plenty of that - but I've discovered that you don't need to look far for inspiration!

inspiration under your feet

look - even the grid covers are pretty!

We'll be going back to the walled garden, there's no doubt at all.  It's the perfect place for a picnic (they have closed the cafe until the greenhouses and other buildings are refurbished) and to gently while away a warm sunny afternoon.

they sell the honey, fruit and vegetables

OK, back to reality now.  The sky is grey, today is much cooler and the rain is... well, doing what rain does best.  The perfect weather for a little crafting, I think...

Handmade Monday 115

Hello! It's Handmade Monday time again!

The countdown is on for me.  I am planning to launch my new website on 3rd June 2013! I'm still frantically trying to get a good collection of printables together, but I'm getting there, and I'm steadily building the site day by day too.  I have to remind myself that it will continue to grow after launching.  It's just a beginning!

I've had some really amazing help from people testing my stamps - and I'm so, so grateful to everyone who's helped me.  It's been great to see similar opinions and suggestions coming up from more than one person, but pretty much everything the testers have said has been really useful.

I'll put together a post (or posts!) soon with some of the cards (and tags) the testers have made.  It's so lovely to see them transformed!  The images, not the testers...

Meanwhile, I did a little testing myself - I figured it was only right that I should!  It's been a good few years since I made cards, but I always enjoyed it.  It was my dad's 85th birthday yesterday - I thought that would be as good a place to start as any.

So, I designed a digi stamp with a racing cyclist on (my dad's lifelong passion - he was still cycling long distances well into his seventies) and went from there...

I have already started designing some of my own craft papers, too, which come ready to print in colour (although I think I may also do some in black and white!) and I decided to use these two

but I also used the red polka dot from this month's Craftseller magazine (have you seen the new look magazine yet? It's in the shops on Tuesday).  I also threw into the mix some sky blue paper from an old copy of Simply Homemade magazine.

In fact, it was these Emma Ball papers that made me realise people just might buy hand-drawn/painted craft papers and digi stamps and that my Photoshop skills (or lack thereof, to be much more accurate) didn't have to hold me back!  Pop over to Emma's website, if you have a minute - it's very inspiring and she does lots of seasidey stuff, which I love!  I've admired her artwork for a long while, so it's actually really lovely that seeing her craft papers was a kind of catalyst for me.

My dad loved his card and said it was his favourite.  Sometimes, it's the little things that make a big difference, isn't it?

OK, over to you...