Monday Mini Make

I love those pretty tape measures you see in John Lewis and Cath Kidston, but when I looked on Saturday they were £8 - yes £8!!! So I decided to make one for myself, well actually I made two.

mini tape measures

I bought, from my local friendly haberdashery shop, a little tape measure for £1.20. I cut out two circles of felt (mine were 7cm wide), I decorated them with pretty buttons and then I roughly stitched them together. I did this by sewing a running stitch around the edge of the circles and pulling it up round the edge.I did that for the second circle and then sewed them together. The coral measure was made first, but I decided I wanted it a little plumper, so the blue one had a little wadding between the tape measure and the felt, to pad it out a little.


I left a small slit for the tape to go through



sewn together

notice how my felt and buttons co-ordinate with the ribbon!

Then I carefully stitched some button ribbon around the outside to hide the join. I started and finished at the small gap I'd left for the end of the tape measure.


Finally, a small piece of ribbon with a button detail to add to the end of the measure.
I love them, and I can see these appearing in Christmas stockings this year - now how's that for organised!!!

b... b... b....

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B is for Bloglovin and as Google reader is saying good-bye in the summer, Bloglovin seems to be the one to be on now. It was very easy to 'import' the blogs I currently follow, and I do like the daily email of all the new posts on the blogs that arrives in my inbox. I had to paste the code in at the top to 'claim' my blog.


Beach hut key rings



 B is also for beach huts!
Finally the weather has improved enough for me to think about warmer and sunnier days and I ended up creating beach huts!
I really like the red, white and blue bright colours together, and I'm thinking about a more 'girlie' colour scheme next.
Brave ... I'm going to go and peg my washing out for the first time this year, because knowing my luck it'll rain!!!

Three Little Maids

Dolly Mixtures

This week I have been busy cleaning - and feeling very virtuous. We didn't use the oven until today as I was determined to keep it clean for as long as possible!
I've also made some Dolly Mixtures, but with a difference as they now come with a teeny tote bag each, and in that tote ...

Cherry, Blueberry and Rosehip

a pretty dress!
I've had a lovely time making these, as I've been exploring the embroidery stitches on my machine to decorate the dresses (which can also be worn as a long skirt!). So they really are mixtures now, as they can mix up their clothes!

Blueberry

Making these has made my feel like spring might be on its way! I shall enjoy reading everyone elses blog over on Handmade Monday - I wonder if spring will have crept in there as well?
I shall leave you with a picture of work in progress - I'm loving these as well! You might spot someone's feet in the corner!