Some festive makes

It's that pre Christmas fortnight when you suddenly find yourself with too much to do in too little time, the weekends are fast running out for seeing people or delivering gifts and I inevitably reach the point of chaos and "is it over yet!" And that's just me, I have no kids to worry about, I only have a small circle of friends, I only have 2 people to prepare a feast for. Goodness knows what the stress is like for some people.

I haven't been as productive making new festive things this year, I think because I've been trying to keep up with the demand for textile brooches but here are a couple of things I made.

These had been intended as auction gifts for my East Riding Artists festive gathering but I had to pull out at the last minute due to travel complications which would've meant I had a long way to walk to the venue with a bad foot and carrying plates of food, not good if it had been an icy evening.

Anyway I made a festive can wrap for a pencil pot. There's a bit of doodle embroidery on here and some embellished rubber stamped bits.

The next thing is a mini pin cushion and trinket jar made from one of those mini Bon Maman jam jars. They are so cute it really leant itself for making a mini Christmas pud to go on the top for a pin cushion.

I used felt to make a red disc for the base and the pudding is just a circle stitched around and drawn up into a ball before stuffing tightly.

I decorated the pudding and then it is stitched to the red base and that is glued onto the jar lid and that's it.

Tomorrow I will post details of my festive blog giveaway.

Recycled Pencil Pot with Has Bean bags

Continuing my occasional series of things to make by recycling Has Bean coffee bags, see here for the wallet idea

http://poppycockcreative.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/make-wallet-from-recycled-has-bean.html

I now present the Has Bean Coffee Bag Pencil Pot.

This is recycling at it's best, you need a clean baked bean can for your pencil pot.

A few old Has Bean coffee bags. 

A rectangle of felt cut to 23.5cm x 10.3cm (make sure it's Has Bean Red for maximum impact!), and a small piece of elastic to fasten with a button or stud.

Having cut your piece of felt to size, to fit around the can, you then cut bits of coffee bag and stitch them into whatever pattern you want directly onto the felt.

Once you've covered the piece of felt, trim off any overhanging edges so you have a nice neat rectangle again, see below.

Next you can have some fun by embellishing bits 'n' bobs onto the can wrap. I've cut some fabric coffee beans and stitched some other fabriccy bits on too.

Time to do the fastener. make a small loop with your elastic and stitch in the middle at one end but on the back of the design. To make it neat I've put a square of felt over the loose ends of the elastic.

Then attach your button or stud to the opposite end for the elastic to loop around, I found some heart shaped paper fasteners, very appropriate for the coffee we love!

Et voila! that's it, your wrap is all ready to pop around that old recycled can and make a lovely new pencil pot. Or coffee tool pot!