Papaver loves....Little Bundles Bunting

2012-03-04T08:51:00.007Z

A Sunday morning post for you all to enjoy.

Little Bundles Bunting makes the most fabulous bunting in all sorts of lovely colours, materials and can even personalised it with words and names. Emma From Little Bundles is a wonderful lady and helped out with styling the photo shoot that I did.

Emma is also running an event to celebrate Oxfam's International Women's Day, and is hosting a 'get together' at La Bodega Tapas Bar, Morpeth on Thursday 8th March. There will be lots of stalls and activities on offer, plus tea, cakes and tapas and a fantastic raffle! All profits will go towards Oxfam - who are helping change the lives of women living in poverty around the world. Details of the event can be found on this Facebook page.

I will let Emma tell you the rest about Little Bundles:

Little Bundles, set up by owner Emma after making a bunting for her daughter Charlotte, has been designing and creating unique and utterly charming bunting since 2004. Little Bundles not only creates personalised bunting for children, but creates bunting for weddings, corporate clients and has a hire service for parties, charitable events and photo shoots.

We pride ourselves in offering a completely bespoke service, designing and creating products that are completely handmade, with attention to detail being of paramount importance. We want to achieve something that is unique, yet crafted to suit specific needs and style tastes. Our prices are reflective of the hand-made quality of our bespoke products. We try as much as possible to use British manufactured fabrics, upcycled or vintage.

Papaver Designs loves...links

website: little-bundles.co.uk

Facebook

Twitter: @LittleBBunting

Vote for Emma here for the Great Exhibition.

Wednesday's Wonder - No. 9 - Recycling old books

2012-02-28T16:56:00.016Z

I was tidying up the other day and came across a book that was falling apart, it did cross my mind to throw it in the recycling box, but I thought that was such a waste when there are so many pretty things that can be made from the pages of an old book.

This week's Wednesday's Wonder does just that, turning an old book into a work of art. I feel this may be a marmite make, you will either love it or think it is sacrilege to do this to a book.

I wasn't sure what to make, so after a good hour or so searching online I found something quite cute but adapted it to make it my own.

First though I thought I would share some of the other amazing things that you can do with old books.

www.familycorner.com, judykitsune.wordpress.com, www.shelterness.com, osmlibrary.blogspot.com, www.lushlee.com, www.blog.designsquish.com, thewitcontinuum.wordpress.com, www.feltandwire.com, www.glueguncrafts.com, www.channel4.com

What you will need:

- Cardboard (for template)
- pencil
- compass
- scissors
- craft knife
- glue
-coffee/tea in a small amount of water
- cotton wool ball
- ribbon
- oh and an old book
- bulldog clip

Step One:

Draw and cut your template onto the cardboard

Step Two:

Here is my old book (yes it is 'New Moon' by Stephenie Meyer) some of the pages have come away from the spine. I have bought its replacement.

You don't need the whole book to do this about 1.5cm is enough, but the choice is yours. You don't need the covers including what is on the spine.

Step Three:

Place the template so the edge is on the spine of the book, holding it in place. Start cutting around the template using a craft knife. You will only be able to do a few pages at a time. Move the cut pages out of the way to cut the rest.

Once your circle is cut, mix a small amount of water with some coffee of a teabag. Using a cotton wool ball run it around the edges of the semi-circle. This will give your book an older feel, you won’t need to do every page as the coffee will touch each page when you do the edges

Step Four:

While your 'book' is drying, use the scrap from what you have just done. Either make another smaller template or use something circular to cut around. I managed to get 1 more larger circle from this.

Step Five:

I also have a large hole punch which is great to make small paper 'beads'.

-To make them you need about 10 circles of the same size.
-Fold them all in half
-Place glue on one half, stick it to another half of a circle.
- Glue one half again and add another circle to this, repeat this about 10 times.
- Glue the ends together.

Step Six:

-Glue some ribbon to down the spine of your 'book' leave to dry.

-Once it's dry you need to bend the 'book' as if you are reading it this will help to make a circle the more you manipulate it at this stage the better the finished product will look.

- Glue around the edge of the first page, stick it to the last page. Hold in place using bulldog clips. I added a few more pages to the bulldog clip to help it bend more.

Now you have your first one you can add the others to the ribbon. Play around with your positioning and have fun.

Try using dyes instead of coffee for a different effect, play around with sizes and thickness of beads.

This is my final outcome. It is not my favourite make, it was an experiment that I wanted to share. It is hanging in my studio in front of my mood board where I feel it fits in quite well.