living on the crafty side of life

christmas ideas [day 1] : advent calendars

From now until Christmas Mel and I will be sharing some inspirational crafty Christmas projects and ideas. We'll be posting every Tuesday and Friday until Christmas.

In preparation for the silly season, I created a Christmas-y blog banner, just to get me in the festive mood.

Mel and I thought we'd start our festive ideas with a post about Advent Calendars. I wanted to find out a little about the history of the Advent Calendar. I knew it was a way of counting down the days to Christmas, but I wanted more.... Wikipedia to the rescue, this was one place that appeared in my search. A brief history can be found HERE.

Since having children I (and my girls) have a tradition of choosing a chocolate filled calendar from the supermarket. My girls love opening their calendars every morning through December. Its the only time of the year they are allowed to eat chocolate before breakfast!

And since having children I always had grand plans of making a calendar for each of them, something that would become a "long term" tradition. Last year I finally made two calendars. . I did share photos of these last year, but I didn't go into detail of how they were made, so here's a little more information (not a tutorial, but a few tips to making them).

Emily's Advent Calendar

 
I didn't measure any pieces of fabric for Emily's calendar. The larger background pieces (front and back) are the size of fat quarters. I did machine quilt fabric I used in this project, but you can leave this step out, or just use a light batting to give the calendar a little substance.

I created 4 large strips of fabric to go across the calendar background fabric. These were embellished with ribbons and rick rack. I sewed them to the front base piece only. I then sewed lines from top to bottom to create the smaller pockets. Six pockets were created across each of the four rows. The flowers and buttons were then added to the calendar.

 

Now is the time to consider how you would like to hang the calendar. I made some fabric tabs and sewed them to the top of the calendar, leaving the tabs facing inwards before finishing off the project.

The back of the calendar is sewn in place at the end... with the right side (pockets side) of the calendar and the right side of the back fabric together, sew around the edge, leaving a small hole to turn the calendar right side out. Stitch the hole closed.

And your calendar is ready to be filled with little treats. Now I didn't add number to this calendar, we used a little decorative peg last year to show the number, and moved it along to each pocket.

Phoebe's Stockings Advent Calendar

 
Phoebe and I made 24 quilted, fully lined stockings for her calendar. Phoebe did alot of the quilting herself. Now this seems alot of work, but set up a little production line to make the stockings and it's not such a huge task.

The stocking pattern I used was from Martha Stewart. Any stocking pattern can be used, just ad adjust the size to what you require. Martha Stewart's stocking template can be found HERE. Her original project was made using felt which was very cute. There are good instructions there for making the stockings.

Here's a few tips for making fabric stockings.... Cut out 48 stocking pieces (if making unlined stockings or using felt), cut out 96 stocking pieces if making lined stockings.

 
Fix 48 of these to a fusible webbing and quilt (only the outside stocking pieces were quilted, not the lining pieces). Below is a photo of the pieces once quilted, we quilted the whole wadding piece, not each individual stocking:

 
Cut out the stockings (from the wadding) and embellish with ribbon and rick rack across the top. I only sewed ribbon to the front piece of the stock not the back:

 

Sew the stockings together. I sewed a front (quilted) piece to a front lining, then back piece to back lining. Then right sides together and sewed around the whole edge, leaving a small hole in the lining (near the heel of the stocking) to turn the stocking to the right side. Stitch the hole closed and stuff the lining back inside the stocking. I hope that makes sense, if not ask any questions. Unfortunately I don't have any photos of that step.

 
Once finished, we pegged them up on string.

 
Now all I have to do is fill them all with goodies and we're ready to another year of our Christmas tradition.

I have found many more calendars on the web. Some favourite handmade advent calendars from other crafters are below. Please click on the links to visit their blogs and instructions to creating their calendars.

Cathe Holden's Simple Spool Advent Calendars:

 

Roxy Creations advent calendar:

Miss Gioia's Frankincense Advent uses buttons for the numbers:

Full Circle handmade advent:

Pink Chalk Studio's quilted advent:

And lastly, one great place for creative inspiration is Flickr, one group to look through is the Creative Advent Calendars group. So many ideas all in one place!

If you have a favourite advent calender idea, please share a link in the comments, I'd love to take a peek.

Thanks for visiting, see you on Friday for our next installment of our Crafty Christmas ideas.

Cheers

Fiona x

poor neglected blog...

... I've just checked and it's been over 2 months since my last blog post. The days, weeks and (dare I say) months have just flown by.

In October we took a trip overseas to our beautiful neighbour, New Zealand. We had a fabulous time staying in Christchurch, Lake Tekapo and Queenstown and driving through the most gorgeous countryside in between.

 
I've finally uploaded our holiday snaps to Flickr, if you are interested you can take a look at them HERE.

The family have kept us busy. Sport and music fill our lives. Phoebe's representative basketball season has come to an end, as has her regional soccer development squad .

 
Emily's school rock concert was fabulous, they prepare for this concert all year, it is such an entertaining production, so much talent in one school. Em's still playing the drums...

I have a new camera. I upgrated my Canon 300D to the Canon 500D. I'm loving it. It got a good workout when we went to New Zealand and I'm really happy with the results.

The silly season has started over at Ribbons Galore. I sold some baubles and pouches at a school fair recently. The baubles will filled with ribbons and hung from tree branches. They looked so pretty. Unfortunately I have now SOLD OUT of the baubles for 2009.

 
That's about all for now. Thanks for visiting. I'll be back with some festive news very soon, so stay tuned.

Fiona x

ribbons galore news...

There are so many new ribbons now available at Ribbons Galore.

Above is the retro owls on brown ribbon (15mm wide). Also available with a red, turquoise and lilac background.

The little hedgehog family ribbon is available in three colour ways.

And the deer love ribbon is available in four colourways.

Another fun ribbon is the flying chickens ribbon:

There is a new range of German double sided flower ribbons:

One of our popular ribbons, Little Red Riding Hood, is now available with a pink background:

Other ribbon collections with new ribbons and re-stocks are:

• Fancy stitched grosgrain (new ribbons)

• Tiny cakes jacquards (re-stock)

• Funky jacquards (re-stock)

• Oh Christmas (re-stock of designer jacquards)

Ribbons Galore has also made an appearance in the latest Australian Homespun (Vol 10.9). The little birdies on yellow ribbon is pictured on page 12 in the pretty Window Shopping feature on Cherries.

Sarah Fielke also featured Ribbons Galore in her "Favourite Things" section of her new website, SEWN. Thanks Sarah.

Thanks for visiting.

Cheers

Fiona x

paper lanterns

Just thought I'd show a photo of some paper lanterns I made recently.

 

Each lantern is made from a sheet of 12" x 12" paper. I made them up in about half an hour to decorate our family room for Emily's birthday recently. They looked very pretty, and Emily's friends were suitably impressed!

So my beautiful girl is now 14! I don't get too many photos of her these days, but here is one I managed to take of her a few weeks ago. My gorgeous and talented girl... working hard at school and her music (yes, she's still drumming and has taken up singing as well).

 

My other gorgeous girl has been keeping us busy too. One of her acheivements from last week was winning the 11 year old age champion trophy at the PSSA Sydney North zone athletics carnival. A couple of weeks ago, she won her school 11 year old age champion, so she now has a matching pair of trophies. We're now off to regionals soon, there she'll be competing in the 800 metres, long jump and shot put.

 

That's about all for now. Thanks for dropping by.

Cheers

Fiona x

quilt top is finished...

here it is...

 

with my gorgeous Prints Charming fabrics.

 

I'll be sending it off to be quilted soon, so will show it again when that's finished.

I have one more lesson to go, and I'm making a couple of cusion covers from my left over materials.

Cheers

Fiona x

patchwork class

Last week I went to the first of my patchwork classes over at Prints Charming.

 

It was a nice day surrounded by fabric.

After trying a few different combinations of fabrics, I finally chose some fabric which I'm really happy with. The fabrics I picked are actually quite different from what I thought I'd pick, more earthy than the usual brights I'm attracked to.

 

All my pieces are cut, I just need to start some sewing now. I'll show more as I get to work on my quilt.

Cheers

Fiona x

maya road projects

Just wanted to share my last Maya Road projects which went to CHA recently.

This is a tabbed chipboard binder mini book, covered with some of my favourite fabric, Park Slope by Erin McMorris:

Some new cute stamps which I used for some card making:

This was a small coaster chipboard album coloured with some Maya Mist. This book contained some photos of Phoebe's fundraising efforts recently:

Thanks for visiting.

Cheers

Fiona x

prints charming embroidery class

Last night Emily and I went to an embroidery class over at the Prints Charming studio at Annandale. We had a lovely evening stitching and chatting with a lovely group of ladies. Here's our stitching pieces in progress, we both need a little more stitching to finish off our pieces. I'm very pleased to say I have finally learnt how to sew french knots correctly.

 

Below is Emily's piece. Her chain stitch was so neat and even (as was all her stitching)...

 

Any my funky flower piece (which is actually a bindhi design). I came home last night and continued sewing while having my cuppa tea.

 

The little hand printed motifs used in the class can be seen/purchased HERE.

The girls at Prints Charming are holding some fabulous classes over the next few months. Join their mailing list to be kept up to date. I so happy as I've booked into one of their patchwork/quilting set of classes for next term, so looking forward to that.

Hope you have a good weekend. Thanks for visiting.

Cheers

Fiona x

australian homesewn update

It seems the magazine is now available.

Ro has just emailed me to say she's spotted AUSTRALIAN HOMESEWN in the newsagency in the Queen Victoria Building in Sydney today. It arrived this morning apparently. Thanks for your email Ro.

Cheers

Fiona x

a phoebe for my phoebe

 

During one of my recent visits to the Central Coast (Phoebe's sports have been taking us far and wide of late) I managed to sneak away for a short time to visit Blueberries. [Yes, any opportunity to surround myself in crafty stuff when I should be watching sport I will take.] My goodness, Blueberries is such a beautiful store. I wish it was located closer to me with it's gorgeous selection of fabrics, although that could be very dangerous to my budgeting. I did buy a couple of Melly & Me softy patterns which I'd been wanting for a while now.

One pattern I bought is Phoebe the Elephant. As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to have this patten. It's very, very cute. I showed it to my Phoebe. I told her I'd make one for her birthday. I let her loose on my fabric stash. She picked out some blue fabric and I started making and stitching.

 

I quilted the little blanket and edged it with rick rack.

 

I usually hand sew little details, but I wanted to try using the blanket stitch on my sewing machine. I need to practice a bit more, but liked the machine stitched look.

 

Phoebe is a very cute elephant. And my Phoebe loves her.

 

Fabrics used (all from Hello Betty by Chloe's Closet for Moda Fabrics):

• Berry Blossom Blue

• Order Up Blue

• Order Up Yellow

Thanks for vising my blog.

Still no news on the release of Australian Homesewn magazine, will keep stalking the stores.

Cheers

Fiona x