Cath Kidston Makeup Bags

You must be sick of the sight of these by now, but here are more makeup bags! These are made from Cath Kidston cotton Duck in Spray Flowers:

I added a little beaded embellishment with a silver bit in the middle, I think it looks a bit like an angel.

Obviously I made two at the same time as I just can't help myself. This one looks a bit wonky but honestly it's not.


I made this for my husband's beautiful, stylish and just all round lovely Aunt who was 70 years young a couple of weeks ago. She was after M&S vouchers to have a shopping blow out but I couldn't just do vouchers I just had to make her something so this is what she got, I added a few M&S toiletries to it and it went down well. I made the other for Nadine as I mentioned the other day.

Please feel free to ignore me I am just self indulging as I really love making these and I love having them. I was sorting through my toiletries and makeup last week (in preparation for my hols) and came across a small mountain of makeup bags that I have on the go, not ones I have made but ones I have bought over the years. I think I love making these as you need a relatively small amount of fabric and you get to use and carry around with you some of your favourite fabrics all the time without looking odd!

~ ♥ Back Soon (no doubt with more makup bags) ♥ ~

Pay it Forward

It may appear that I have been a lazy girl and not been making much recently, but I have been busy I promise. I have been making stuff to give away so couldn’t post about it before now.

I joined in the pay it forward and promised to make gifts for three people, expecting nothing in return, in the hope that they will also send on three gifts to three people thus spreading a web of happiness!

I tried to make them something I thought they might like and asked if they wanted anything specific, none of them did so I made surprises. As I have posted them now I can show you what I made.

This was for Alex, her only guidelines were nothing pink!

I know she loves green and reading so I made her this green charm bookmark, I made her a bracelet from the same beads and a little keyring with her name on.

Hope you liked it Alex.

For Sue, I made a little Tilda button bag, from Tilda cotton and hand embroidered with ‘Sue’s Buttons’, the bag is full of a mixture of new and vintage buttons to hang on her lovely new peg rack. I made her a little coin purse too from CK fabric and added some CK smellies in there. I recieved a wonderful present from Sue yesterday, I will show you what she made me soon, thanks so much you clever thing xx

For Nadine, I made a good sized makeup bag from CK Candy Flowers Cotton Duck, I embellished it with lace, ribbons and glass beads and added some CK smellies to that too.

I know I had 365 days to send something but I got excited and was afraid I would forget and then I would have felt terrible!

Hope you liked your little gifts ladies; don’t forget to Pay It Forward.

p.s. I knitted a cotton dishcloth to send to the lovely Annie as a small thank you (as I know she likes them).

I managed to crochet a little flower to add to it, this was a great achivement for me and took some patience but I was pleased as punch with myself, thanks for the guidance Amanada. x

~ ♥ Back Soon ♥ ~

~ ♥ 100 Followers Giveaway ♥ ~

~ ♥ NOW CLOSED ♥ ~
Well lovely ladies, the time has come for another giveaway, I love doing these!

This giveaway is to celebrate my 100 followers, and is a little thank you to all of you for following and commenting on my little blog and for the encouragement that you give me to get off my bum and make things.

As I have been obsessed with Cath Kidston recently, I thought that my giveaway could be CK themed; with that in mind I give you my little pile of goodies:

This includes:
A Cath Kidston shopper bag made for Easy Living Magazine,
Cath Kidston Wild Rose shower gel and body lotion, (I have had these before and they smell divine),
A handcrafted Kandipandi padded mini cushion in CK Spray Flowers cotton duck,
A handcrafted Kandipandi bookmark made with CK fabric,
A handcrafted Kandipandi Makeup Bag in CK Spray Flowers cotton duck (I made this yesterday especially for this giveaway).

I will obviously add some chocolates in there too, but I can’t buy them yet as I will eat them and have to replace them (probably several times over).

Simple Rules:
1). To enter the giveaway you don't have to be a follower but I do need to be able to contact you, just leave a comment here and I will add you to the list.
2). If you have your own blog and if you wish; please feel free to copy my giveaway button for your sidebar and I will give you an additional entry (please let me know if you do so I can add you twice)!

~ I will draw the winner in two weeks time on the 28th June 2010.
That's it I think, please spread the word ~ and be lucky x

Edited to add: for those that have asked this is how to add buttons to your blog;

First copy the button from the blog, (right click, save picture as)and save it on your computer.

Then in your blogger account, from the dashboard,

~ click into layout,

~ on the right hand side about half way down select add a gadget,

~ scroll down to the one that says picture and click on the +

~ browse from your computer to add the photo,

~ copy and paste the blog address (from the top address bar) that the button is from into the link box (delete the http:// that is already there first)

~ save and you should be done.
You can then rearrange where the button sits on your sidebar by moving that box down to where you want it, preview to check you are happy, then save.

I hope that is some help, it may not be the easiest way but it's how I do it.

~ ♥ Back Soon ♥ ~

Giveaways & Cupcakes

Well I thought I should mention that Victoria Plum's 200th Post Giveaway is now closed and the winner was announced yesterday, hand picked by Mr Plum (hope you don't mind me borrowing your pic):


















That's right ~ it's ME!! ~ *Mmweepppp*


I'm rather excited at this, my first ever entry into a giveaway and I won, I will let you in on my prize when it arrives. Thanks Mr & Mrs Plum and of course Baby Plum bump (that sounds a bit like a fabulous homemade jam) x

I have joined another giveaway hosted by sixty one A, for the chance to win this lovely item:

Ain't that beautiful? It is worth a look at her blog and Folksy store as there are lots of lovely bits for sale.

Well after all the spending this weekend I got back to making and produced yet another makeup bag - can you see a trend here? I wanted to use up some little cupcake felty bits I had cut out a few weeks ago, but this was a bit of a pain in the neck to do as each little bit of cupcake had to be bonded individually and machine sewing them to the bag was not easy due to the tiny seed beads sewn to the icing. Anyhoo lessons were learned and this was the result:

Work in progress:

The lovely lining:

My little zip pull embellishment (wrapped loops again, I am getting better!)

The finished bag almost fills an A5 cutting mat so you can see it's quite big. I think I will make more in this size as they will be quite useful. Each time I make a bag I think 'could I get my face powder in there' and 'will it be long enough to fit my eyeliner and mascara', but I am aware that some people take their whole collection about with them, so therefore need a bigger bag.

p.s. for you eagled eyed girls out there, yes my profile photo is new. That is my new haircut in the updated profile picture, I had it cut a couple of weeks ago but only just got used to the new shorter haired version of me, so I now feel brave enough to share it.

Back Soon

Shabby Makeup Bags

I have got my sewing head back on for the minute, I think it's the shame of having a mountain of fabric staring at me begging to be made into something.

I am mad for bags and makeup bags and I think they are a nice easy thing to make and if I end up with a mountain of them they are good to give away as gifts. Delving into my fabric stash I found these materials, these particular ones were swatches sent to me be by a sofa company, so I turned them into little makeup bags.

The fabric is upholstery fabric and they are lined with plain cream cotton, so I didn't bother to interface or use wadding so these were ultra quick and easy to make. I only stopped as I ran out of co-ordinating zips. Cutting the materials and gathering the supplies took longer than it did to run them up on the machine.

The lace and ribbon were added from my stash and the lace was preciously the neckline and petticoat bottom of a child's vintage dress.

Once finished I added little beaded zip pulls.

It was my intention last year to learn how to make jewellery so that I could add little embellishments to my sewing things, like zip pulls and bag charms, but the pesky jewellery making embedded itself into my head and it took over the sewing!

Now I am back to where I intended to be, lots of sewing, little bit of jewellery, let's see how long that lasts :)

Back Soon.