The Craft Fantastic
Lately I’ve been working on my wedding stock and I’m pleased to announce that I’ve got the first handmade guest books up for sale on etsy!
These have both been covered in beautiful paper, with lovely open-view hand stitching and ribbon fastenings.
These ones are A5 and are £18 each – P&P is £2.50. You can order these ones from my etsy shop, or contact me directly for custom orders if you would like a particular colour/style.
Up till now, I’ve been making simple notebooks or amending existing templates to create my own notebooks. But now I’m working for myself, I’m starting to have time to create my own designs and templates. This is the first!
Friends and family have kindly donated old leather bags for me to up-cycle; as soon as I saw this yellow leather, I knew it would work beautifully with the map print paper I bought in Amalfi a few years ago. I’d been hoarding the paper for the right project and this was definitely it.
Taking what I’ve learned over the years I’ve been making notebooks, I combined a flexible leather spine with solid boards front and back, covered in that beautiful quality map paper, finishing off the corners with leather for durability (and because it looks gorgeous!).
Hope you like it as much as I do! I’ll be making more of these and also designing new books, so keep a look out 🙂
I’m currently working to stock my online shops with my handmade notebooks, plus I’ve got some products into a shop in town – so it’s all go! Here are some samples of what I’ve been doing:
So far this year I’ve been trying out lots of new origami! Here are just a few samples of what I’ve been making:
After working my way up to doing bigger notebooks and sketchbooks over the years, I got the chance to try my hand at a wedding guestbook (yep, for the same friend I did the flowers for!). This was a great opportunity and I found working with a specific purpose made me push myself more.
I chose a song that was special to both of them for the inside cover. The cover itself was navy sewn with silver thread, to match their colour scheme. Opting for a Japanese stab-binding method, I found this fantastic tutorial for the spine. It’s not as complicated as it looks, I promise, and it’s well worth the effort. I’m incredibly grateful for the tutorial.
Here’s the result!
This fabulous event is ticket only and y’all will want to book up and get the date in your diaries, I’m sure. Yes, it’s the Northampton Christmas Sparkle Fair and it’s only just over 3 weeks away!
There are going to be loads of fabulous stalls there, music, food, festivities… and of course handmade goodies from The Craft Fantastic! I’ll be there with a stall full of festive paper creations, including gift tags, decorations, and present ideas. Please come and see me on November 29th!
Tickets are only £2.50 adult, £1.50 child and are available here.
These beautiful flowers are quite simple to make – a little time-consuming but well worth the effort. I’ve made a couple before, just because they’re so pretty, but a good friend of mine recently got engaged (whoop!) and wants a lot of things to be handmade, so I have been enlisted to help out! I’ll be making lots of paper flowers: one bridal bouquet, six bridesmaid bouquets, six buttonholes and maybe a wrist corsage or two! Oh, and being queen of notebook making, I’ll be doing the wedding guest book, too. I’m looking forward to the challenge enormously and have been practising making these origami kusudama flowers. Here’s what I’ve done so far:
Happy with my progress so far! Updates to follow.
With just less than a month to go until Christmas, things are getting busy in The Craft Fantastic workshop! Ok, it’s just me in my living room. Still, I have been quite busy planning and making things for the festive season. Over in my Folksy shop you’ll find some lovely handmade gifts and original tags to help you wrap them. Check out these miniature notebook necklaces – the perfect stocking filler for book lovers:
There’s also a few sets of my origami gift tags, all hand folded from lovely paper:
I’m also free to take commissions on any of my origami gift tag designs, past and present, including all these designs from last year:
Plus the silver printed snowflake designs:
They’re all 4 for £2 and you can mix and match as you’d like – postage will be £1 for one or two sets, £1.50 for anything more than that.
Despite the fact that this is my first post this year, I have been doing quite a bit of crafting; mainly mini notebook necklaces! I got my DIY on and made a mini book press out of old shelves (pictured above), which has really helped make the process a bit easier.
The mini journals are now being stocked in ‘Made In Northamptonshire’, a local shop for local makers, I’ve had orders for via friends, friends of friends and through work, and have just restocked on supplies so I can make more.
All in all, a good start to the year!
