Christmas is closer than many of us would like to admit, but happily it’s also still far enough away for us to take a little time to make something handmade for special people in our lives. We start a new series this week, showcasing gift ideas that you can make or mend to give away this Christmas replacing the need to spend quite so much time in the bustle of the busy shopping season!
We would love you to join us. If you are planning to, or already have, handmade any gifts we would be thrilled to share them in our posts. We have structured the series so that each week, a different ‘recipient’ is targeted. So if you are looking for ideas for dads, pop back next week. If you have made a cool gift for a dad for example, email us a picture of it with a few words of explanation on or before next Tuesday 1st November and we’d love to include it in our post.
Today, we focus on often times the most neglected one.. the mum! She can be a new mum, a harrassed working mum or a grand-mum.. our design team and our finds around the internet cover them all!
We start off with a beautiful project from new design team member Georgia Keays..
When Georgia's Nana passed away her mother discovered some birthday postcards her Nana had saved from her childhood. Her mother wanted a way to display them without damaging them as they were fragile, some dating back as far as 1918. Georgia decided to create an album without using any adhesives on the cards, instead using pockets and tabs. To let people read the salutations without having to handle the cards Georgia photocopied the backs onto canvas paper.
The talented Louise Williams has made this extraordinary exploding box for her mother which becomes a ‘grandmothers’ brag book in two ways. Firstly, as you’d expect it shows off her gorgeous grandchildren, but it also shows off the tremendous talents of her daughter!
Louise loved the Generations kit from Simple Stories and and quickly created the box from scratch using three pieces of paper and a scoring board before assembling it and adding a decorated band that slides up over the sides and holds the box together.
Stand by for some new gorgeousness from BasicGrey – these Samplers come unadorned with just the outline design printed onto canvas – and then it’s up to you to choose papers, fabrics, stitiching if you wish, and embellishments to make up the perfect home decor piece for your mum (or of course, for you!) Twin Fibres Jennifer and Jessica created the above designs and we were thrilled to be able to share them with you here.
Julie Comstock from Cosmo Cricket is forever wowing us with inspirational ideas, and we’re thinking a little collection of these would be just delightful for the granny in your life who already has everything! Julie has used the Clementine line for the ‘wrappers’, matching printed fabric for the tops and of course fabulous Glubers for the emebellishments - if you wanted to make some, you can find the tutorial here.
Chris wanted to create something unique for her sister who is due for her first baby in January. When she saw the new wooden frames by Prima she knew straight away she would create something for the nursery wall. These frames are just begging to be adorned with gorgeous Prima flowers, but alas, her sister is expecting a baby boy.
So Chris set about creating a fabulous piece of wall art using the Martha Stewart Tropical Fish embossing punch, Echo Park 'splash' papers and the title is of course from the famous Dr Seuss book!
Finally, we found this little piece of deliciousness from Rachel Tucker here on the Fancy Pants blog. Rachel has used the gorgeous Fancy Pants ‘Be Mine’ collection to create a delicious little album perfect for a new mum to record memories in.
And remember, if you are making any gifts this Christmas, we would love to be able to see and share them in our handmade series. There might even be a little gift for yourself in it as we pick our favourite each week! Email your images at [email protected].
