Felt Holly Garland - 50 makes of Christmas 3/50

I have accumulated bits and pieces of green felt in various shades and I think I have found the ideal project for using some of them up.

Felt Holly Garland

This is my kind of projects, simple to make but adds great impact.

I used felt in 3 different shades of green, but one shade would work well too

A holly leaf template taken from this blog post by Wild Olive, some of mine were a little mishapen but that just adds to the charm, if I wanted perfect i wouldn't be making my own!

Green thread to sew it all together, I used up the end of two different shades from my vintage stash

Red buttons to represent berries, these were raided from my vintage collection.

Adding Vintage Buttons

The amount of leaves you need will depend on the finished length of your garland as a rough guide I cut about 45 leaves and when put end to end they measured a little over 10 feet! I did lose a couple that got eaten up by the sewing machine.

I used my sewing machine but I think you could also sew by hand although it would take quite some time. Aiming for the centre of the leaf sew along, leave a few stitches before attaching a new leaf to the end of the previous one the short space between the leaves is to help with the "hang"

Holly Garland

I raided my vintage button collection for some nice shiny red buttons for a final flourish.

Vintage button stash

While I had no qualms about getting ahead and making this in July it did feel a little odd to be hanging it up but I wanted to give you an idea of what it looks like.

Hanging Holly Garland

I have stored it on one of my old industrial bobbins and I have tucked it away in the spare room ready to be hung a lot nearer to Christmas.

Vintage Industrial Bobbin

So that is 3 Makes for Christmas in the bag and just 47 left to make.

How are you getting on with your advanced preparations? or are you waiting until later in the year?

Easter is on the way

While I plan for Christmas all year round Easter is one of those holidays that always seems to creep up on me and catch me unawares.  I have been percolating a few ideas but not all of them came to fruition as my time seems to be just evaporating at the moment.

 You might recognise the tea cup from this winter whites post, I taped a couple of pipe cleaners on the back for ears, the eyes are  two 0's and the nose is two no1's from some glass tape I brought from Cox and Cox a few years ago.

A repurposed jam jar decorated with washi tape filled with daffs, I will be sorry when the season is over, they are one of my favorite flowers.

I put together a few bits and bobs to create a kind of Easter mood board, I will twiddle with this a bit more as I am not completely satisfied yet.

The crocus bulbs are just hanging in there for a final splash of colour and I swear the daffodils were open in front of the camera as I was taking the pictures.

I used a flyer from Lidl as well as cards, napkins and buttons in spring shades all held down with industrial quantities of washi tape,

I hope you enjoy your Easter break and remember that Easter Egg chocolate has no calories :)

What plans do you have for Easter? will you be making anything?

having a catch up

For those of you who didn't follow the pictures on Instagram here are some pics of the daffs I planted in china teacups here now they are in full bloom.  I am classicmini66 on Instagram if you want to see a day by day progression.

Update no 2 - do you remember the rag rug wrote about here that I was going to start?  I did a test patch and was really not enthused by the process so the carefully collected bag of T shirts has been donated to Hubby for use in the garage and I will be listing the kit on e-bay where hopefully it will get some use. This is the first page to be deleted from my little notebook, I have a nagging voice in the back of my head that thinks that the WIP pile could turn into a "too be e-bayed" pile!

Have you made any progress with your WIP projects since the beginning of the year  or are they destined for e-bay too?

Winter whites

I have been visiting quite a few charity shops over the last week, but with my magpie tendencies this can sometimes lead to impulse purchases and they in turn can feed my imagination.  So when these classic white bone china tea cups and saucers caught my eye for just £2.99 I couldn't get my purse out fast enough!  it is only when I got them home and examined them that I realised that the cups and saucers are not from the same set, all the cups are from one set and all the saucers are from another! well they are a jolly good match and I love them.

I was thinking of popping a budding hyacinth bulb in each one, but when I went to Lidl this week they had little pots of tete a tete daffodils on special offer for just 50p a pot. Being a bit of a tight wad I thought that I could buy just one and put a single bulb in each cup but when I got it home and stood the pot inside the tea cup I knew that I would have to return for two more.

Inspired by this post from Vibek Design I wanted to create a display on my mantle piece that is predominantly white, although a bit of green was need for balance in the end. I went on a treasure hunt around my house in search of suitable bits and bobs, piled them on the dining table then tried to make a bit of sense out of them, who knew how many shades of white, off white and cream there are!

Not a freebie this time but at a total cost of £4.49 it won't break the bank.  I am pleased with the outcome and you can expect to see the tea cups in some future posts. I will get some shots of the daffs as they progress and put them on Instagram I am classicmini66 if you want follow.


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It was another chance to use the bleached pine cones I talked about here, it is a very simple process to do but it does require a little time for the bleach to take effect.

You can probably tell from the photos that I am still moving things around in different spaces and combinations and I will continue to have a look for a few other bits to go on there, I am thinking that playing cards might fit in somehow,but that is one to ponder for later.

I think that the black and white postcard was tried in almost every place and seemed to work nicely wherever it was placed. I have had it for a couple of years, it was brought in the sale from Paperchase because I loved the skirt.

Have you used any household pots to put flowers in or have you had any inspiring bargain buy ? I would love to know all about them, please leave a comment to let us know or a link to your blog if you are a fellow blogger.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend