Button Brooch Making

I like badge/brooches but can never find quite the right one for me.  I had been looking at jewellery making and had got a couple of books from the library.  The book that most appealed to me was ‘How to Make Jewellery With Tatty Devine’ their jewellery ideas are very quirky and  I like the idea of making things out of stuff you might have around the house or pick up from junk/charity shops.

I bought some brooch backs, you can get them in different sizes (I got mine from Ebay).  We have a jam jar full of colourful buttons at home and I wanted to use these as a base for my badges.

The first one I made I used a lovely large wooden button (approx 4cm wide), I rub the back surface where the brooch back will be positioned with an emery board and this will make the glue adhere better to the button.  I mixed a little bit of epoxy glue with a wooden cocktail stick, you can use the stick to spread the glue too, (this can be quite smelly, take care and always read the health and safety info).  I usually mix this on a bit of foil or old plastic covered card packaging, then you can just throw it away once done, you don’t need a lot.  The most important part that I learnt was to position the brooch back at the top of the button (I had always stuck it in the middle),  positioning it at the top makes the brooch hang better on your clothes.  Leave overnight to dry, laying it flat so that the brooch back doesn’t slide.

I did the same with the bird badge but remember, before gluing, to rub the back of the bird with a file and the top of the button (remembering to rub only the parts that the bird will cover).  The birds were bought on Ebay too – search ‘resin swallows’. You will need to glue the bird to the front one day and the brooch back the next day.

In this photo you can see the different size brooch backs.

I love the colours and you can make them to suit your own style.

I have also sewn a little cat brooch that measures 2.5cm x 2.5cm approx.  A little bit tricky but worth it, I’ve put him on a tote bag I have.

 

Enjoy! x

Sew Simple Sampler

The other weekend I fancied sewing something that wouldn’t take too long, as I am a bit impatient when I make things and want to see the results fast!  I had seen some china plates that on each plate had a different letter on them that spelt out the word HOME.  This was my inspiration.

I knew I had an embroidery hoop which measures 7″ in size.  Embroidery hoops are very cheap and I think mine didn’t cost much more than £2 tops.  I decided I wanted the background to be quite plain so used the fabric from a cotton tote bag that I no longer wanted, the fabric on this was unbleached so had a more natural tone.  I cut this to a rough size for the hoop, leaving a fair amount of excess at the back.  I put the plain fabric in the hoop to get an idea of position. If you position your sampler so that the tightening screw is at the top you can use this to hang it up by.

I wrote the letters out onto paper first – making sure I got a similar width and height , mine measured approximately 2.5″ tall by 2″ wide.  I then placed and pinned these onto some patterned fabric and cut them out.  I then pinned the fabric letters onto some Bondaweb (it has double-sided adhesion) cut round and ironed them together.  I peeled the backing off of the Bondaweb, positioned the letters in place on the plain fabric and made some guideline marks for where the letters would go and then removed the plain fabric from the hoop and ironed it in place.

I put the fabric back into the hoop and then stitched around the letters, with 2 strands of embroidery floss, in blanket stitch.  I then added a few cross stitch kisses and added a little wooden button heart to it and stitched a little heart in back-stitch.

After completing it all and feeling pretty pleased with myself my daughter advised me I should have made the ‘O’ into a heart shape!  Of course she was right – maybe next time 🙂

I cut the excess fabric off at the back leaving enough fabric so that I could do a running stitch around the back to gather the excess fabric in.

I was really pleased with the results in a short amount of time!

I’d love to know if anyone has had a go at any of the makes on my blog, it would be great to hear from you.

Thank you to all of you who have signed up to follow my blog too!

Jubilee!

My daughter had to make some flags for the end of half term to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.  She was asked to make them A4 size and out of material so that the school could sew them onto bunting tape.

I said keep things simple, but she ignored me 🙂 and made a Union Jack flag all by herself out of felt.  At 7.30am the next morning, the day they needed to be handed in to school, she asked to make the flag I had suggested!!  With very little time I helped her put it together and she did all the sewing on her machine.  This was a blue patterned piece of A4 poly cotton fabric, which we simply cut a little larger than A4 and hemmed around the edges.  I then cut out a silhouette of the Queens head from some white cotton fabric and attached it with double-sided Bondaweb, it has adhesion on both sides so is great for applique.  She then stitched around it on the sewing machine to help keep it in place.

We have also had to make cakes for a ‘Bake Off’ at school and of course made our cakes from the ‘Chocolate Brownie’ recipe that you can find in a previous post, but we put them in cake cases this time.  My daughter iced on a bunting design and added some Jubilee bits and pieces to her cake board.  Cakes fit for a Queen! 🙂

I wonder if anyone else has had to create things for school and the Jubilee?  How will you be celebrating?

Enjoy! x

Sewing Bits

Below are a few pictures of some lovely sewing bits my daughter was lucky enough to get for Christmas from her Auntie.   Originally her Auntie’s Grandmothers, who was obviously an enthusiastic sewer.   I just loved the look of all the old packaging, the pictures, the text and how lovely the buttons were.  I thought that these old buttons look so lovely preserved on their cards, kept for what looks like many years, it was going to be difficult to disturb them from their backings and use them, but use them we will. 

I wanted to preserve their look  in a scrapbook kind of way and thought the best place for this would be my blog.  I was very pleased how lovely the photos looked, and will now feel happy to use them.  We will have fun using all these bits and making some lovely cushions and bags etc out of them together.