Festive Make: Handmade Wrapping Paper

Hi everyone!

Whether you have done your Christmas shopping yet or not, you may be wondering how to make your presents stand out with a sprinkle of uniqueness, how to make the finishing touches of your gifts reflect your style and creativeness, and how to make a pile of presents a little less expensive than last year... Well why not make your own wrapping paper?

The paper itself is cheap and goes a long way, the stamps can be used again and again, it is quick and easy to do... and no one else will have the same wrapping paper as you!

For this you will need:

• A roll of brown parcel wrap
• Christmas stamps and ink - the stamps shown below are from The English Stamp Company. You can choose from hundreds of different high quality stamps in many different sizes, along with a variety of coloured ink.
• Some raffia twine in red or green

 

Firstly, cut out the amount of brown parcel wrap needed for the present and lay on a flat surface. You may need to hold it down with a heavy item in each corner to prevent it from rolling.

Then choose your stamp and coloured ink. Press the stamp gently into the ink and start stamping! You can stamp randomly, in a pattern, in a line - whatever you like. The great thing about this is that each present is wrapped in individually decorated paper, so each one is unique.

 

Leave the ink to dry for a few minutes and then wrap up the gift. Finally, use a piece of raffia twine to tie around the present: this can match or contrast with the colour you have printed with.

If you want to, you can use a luggage label as a tag and print this as well so that you have a matching label. Just print the label as you did for the paper, replace the string with some more raffia, and tie to the present.

So, as you can see, this is a super easy project to do - and it is ever so effective! Plus you can keep the wrapping paper when presents have been opened to recycle into homemade cards, crackers or paper chains in the future!

Helen xx

Festive Make: Hanging Advent Calendar!

Hi everyone!

Wow! It's nearly December - hasn't this year gone so quickly?

With Christmas just round the corner, I thought I would show you this idea for the first festive make this winter - a hanging advent calendar.

 

For this I used some red gingham cotton fabric, some Christmassy ribbon and green embroidery thread, but you can use whatever fabric you like in whatever colour you like!

You will need:

• 1.73 metres of ribbon, about 1.5cm thick
• About a metre of cotton fabric
• Green embroidery thread
• White sewing cotton
• Sewing machine and/or needle
• Iron
• Fabric scissors
• Embroidery needle

Firstly, make a template for the pockets and use this to cut out 48 'U' shapes out of the cotton fabric. Put 24 of these to one side - these will be the back pieces of the pockets.

 

 

Using some tailors chalk or a pencil, draw the numbers on 24 of the pockets, from one to twenty-four, making sure that they are central.

Using a couple of threads of the embroidery thread, embroider over the top of the numbers that you have drawn on each pocket, using backstitch.

With the right sides facing, pin the back piece to the front piece ('U' shaped piece with embroidered number). Repeat with each embroidered piece.

 

Sew the two sides together with a 5mm seam allowance. For this you can use a sewing machine or needle with the white cotton thread. Turn the pockets right-side out and iron.

Fold down a 1cm hem and press - you may wish to sew this down, but I find that just pressing it is fine.

Hold the ribbon horizontally and place the first pocket (embroidered as number one) about 12cm away from the left end on against the bottom edge of the ribbon. Sew in place using whip stitch on the back edge of the pocket only so that you can put things in and out of it (see drawing below for help).

Sew the other pockets next to each other in the same way, so that the numbers go up in chronological order from the left to the right.For each end of the ribbon, fold the end over once by 1cm and then again by 5cm. Backstitch this about 4.5cm in from the end so that you have loops to hang your advent calendar on the wall.
 

Don't forget to put a chocolate in each pocket! I hope that this is something that you will enjoy making (and using!) - I would love to know how you get on so please do comment below!

More festive makes coming up soon...

Helen xx