Christmas stars

You may have seen the plastic canvas hearts on my blog recently which I have been sewing to sell at fairs. I also bought some stars as I thought these would be good for Christmas. Not wanting to leave them all until later in the year to make I have been sewing a few of these as a change from hearts and here are three of them. I like making the patterns up as I go along and I added some tiny buttons to the bottom one. I would like to enter these into the anything but a card challenge at Winter Wonderland.

Have you entered my candy yet? See my candy page.

Gifts

Today I thought I would share a few of my latest gifts which I shall have on my stall on Wednesday at the hospital craft fair. I am starting with one of my gift boxes. Hubby paints these for me. The best paint we have found, and we have tried several is Rusteeze chalk paint. I imagine it is similar to Annie Sloane, another one we want to try but I don't think you can buy it in Norwich. I add ribbon and lace mainly from Crafty Ribbons, flowers from Wild Orchid and sparkly butterflies.

These are magnetic pegs. I actually bought these in America but usually I cover pegs with washi tape. I add magnetic tape to the back and wooden embellishments to the front, some of them coloured with Wink of Stella pens. I use a simple scallop border punch by Martha Stewart and the put them in cello bags.

Finally some more of the plastic canvas hearts I have been sewing. I love sewing these as I can do it whilst watching TV provided it isn't something which demands my full attention like Call the Midwife or a movie. I have made several in different colour combos and patterns. I add a ribbon loop and back with felt.

Something new

I used to do a lot of embroidery and cross stitch many years ago and after sewing the two reindeer just before Christmas which you may have seen on my blog I realised I wanted to get back into sewing.  I saw Kirstie Allsop sewing plastic canvas on her pre Christmas show and thought that looked interesting so did some research. I found that you can buy hearts and stars as well as circles and squares and of course like most crafts it is cheaper to buy these products in America. So when we were in Florida I bought some hearts and stars, needles and yarn and had a go at making some.

I used different stitches and made it up as I went along. I stitched the ribbon loop to the back and then cut a heart out of white felt and sewed that to the back to give a neat finish. 

I am selling my crafts at the hospital shop today and these will be on my stall. I hope the customer like them as much as I enjoyed making them. It is good to have something to sew whilst watching TV. Some programmes demand my full attention but others I can watch whilst sewing. I thought the hearts would be suitable for any occasion whereas the stars are really more for Christmas decorations.

My candy ends on Saturday.