Favourite Brands & Shops A-H

  

 

I wanted to take my packaging & logo to a more professional level, after much research I found the perfect product AVERY. I purchased the Avery Printable Bag Toppers with Bags & Oval Labels which made it easy to create and customise my packaging adding my logo and product information.

Quick and easy to assemble, the pack includes clear, self-closing bags and self-adhesive toppers that you can print right to the edge using any desktop printer. FREE design templates are available online. The bag toppers also have pre-cut holes for shop displays. After looking at how the online design tool worked, I designed a simple floral print which I uploaded to the online design tool, I then added in my logo. The online tool is easy to use and there are plenty of design and font options. Then I simply printed out the labels, filled the bags & sealed the bags using the self adhesive tops. Peeled the self-adhesive toppers from the printed sheet and attached it to the top of the bags.

The oval stickers were treated the same and I used them to seal my little treat bags.

I love the Avery Bag Toppers with Bags, they are so quick and easy to use and really gave my products  a professional finish.
 Great for all  crafters, home bakers and retailers...

 

One of the shops I wanted to share with you is Amanda Mercer. A designer and maker of handcrafted ceramics inspired by memories and nostalgia. Her range consists of a collection of delicate porcelain buttons, jewellery, pretty home wear and decoration all individually handcrafted and created from her studio in the heart of the city centre in Carlisle, Cumbria.
I have a love for vintage and nostalgic memorabilia such as vintage buttons found in my Grandma's button box, scraps of lace, black and white photographs, stamps and letters, which I then like to translate through my pieces, exploring surface decoration and form. I use many different techniques to achieve this such as imprinting, screen printing and the use of decal transfers which are produced through my own drawings and collages of postage markings and letters. Each piece i create is individual therefore will always slightly vary to the next.

 
I absolutely love Bombay duck products I see them as my little treats and have to   buy at least a couple of their pieces every so often.
These were my last purchases
Miss Woodhouse Butterfly Mini Teacups and Saucers Set of 2

 

 

This is their story

 

Once upon a time two shopping-obsessed sisters with a huge sense of adventure were born. Inspired by their travels around the world and British style, bombay Duck was created in 1993. Designed in london, the unmistakable Bombay Duck style mixes playful patterns, bright colours, detailed finishing, and an element of surprise. Bombay Duck is now a global brand but still very much a sisterly business.

 

 

There are a few UK stores that sell Bungalow products, I found Roots Living , The Avenue Ascot Berkshire, check them out on line. I purchased a notebook which has a lovely leath
Bungalow was started in the summer of 2004 after many years of fiddling with the idea of my own business. I have travelled throughout India and South Asia for the past 14 years and I have lived and studied in the Himalayas as part of my Bachelors Degree in Indian Filologi from the University of Aarhus.

Today India is literally my second home – my husband is from the beautiful state of Kerala in South India, where we keep our second home and spend our holidays.

I have always been fascinated by the beauty and colours of India and intrigued by the traditional crafts, which are still very much alive. I like the fact that the products I present have a story and has been created by real people rather than mere machinery.

My real passion is the Indian patterns of paisleys, florals, borders and repetition of motifs, and the art of block-printing was a “love at first sight” for me. My collections of block-printed home textiles are of the best quality block-printing available in India today and have been designed and produced in collaboration with the finest craftsmen.

The art of block-printing is thousands of years old and has always been a source of inspiration for textile designers around the world. Provencal prints, for example, is directly influenced by Indian block-prints.

It is my aim to create contemporary designs by combining the Indian inspiration with modern colours and aesthetics.
I hope that my products will bring colour and joy to your own bungalow !

Minna Hildebrandt




Catherine Tough established her company in 2000 following a number of commissions from her Royal College of Art final show and hasn’t stopped knitting since.

Her lambswool hotwater bottle covers launched her commercial range which has now broadened to include doorstops, cushion, bed socks and delightful lavender filled animals.

Catherine designs her collection from her Hackney studio an, along with her talented team knits, felts, hand-cuts, sews and finishes the majority of the products in house.

Catherine has built a market for her product by combining clean bold lines, understated attention to detail and an innate sense of colour.
John Lewis is a stockist.
 

             

Deck-The-Halls was started by Paula on the kitchen table 10 years ago. In her words: "It was a weird start as my father died unexpectedly on Christmas day, only 6 weeks after my son was born so we did not really celebrate Christmas and I found it hard to put it away that year. I started making Christmas decorations and friends were asking me for them. I decided to see if they were just being nice by taking them to local shops, who then placed orders. I started exhibiting at Country Living Christmas 2005 where we won the editor's choice for the best stand and the rest is history!"
Paula now works full time on designing and making the collection with her husband and sells to shops including Liberty’s.

 

docrafts is the UK's leading craft supplier. Pronounced 'do crafts'. You may know some of their brands such as Craft Planet, Anita's and the award winning Papermania range.

They produce craft products for stamping, cardmaking, papercrafts, scrapbooking, kids crafts, soft crafts, jewellery making, cake decorating and more.

"It is our mission to develop exciting and innovative craft products and to inspire crafters to share their ideas and through our different mediums (magazine, website, galleries etc.) make social connections to facilitate the sharing of ideas and experiences to benefit all. To everyone here at docrafts, crafting is much more than just making things; it's extremely valuable leisure time in what is for many, very busy lives. "

Check out their website for thousands of inspiring projects, sneak peeks, prize draws and other useful crafty links.
The last items I purchased was their acrylic paint which is one of my favourite brands for paint, perfect coverage every time for all my crafting projects.

 

 

           

   
Another brand I discovered at Top Drawer, Dots and Spots, purveyor of all sorts of great dots and spots goodies. From decorative tape adorned with cute beach huts and bunting, to spotty ribbons, stickers and magnets. They also do a range of gorgeous prints including cute personalized washing lines.

On my wish list is some pretty decorative tape.

 

Emma Bridgewater is a British ceramics manufacturer founded in 1985, owned and run by Emma Bridgewater and her husband Matthew Rice. Well renowned for her colourful polka dot, Union Jack, starry skies, pink hearts and figs designs among others, Emma Bridgewater specialises in cream earthenware pottery drawing on expertise and traditional techniques stretching back over 200 years. The company is entirely based in England and all of their products are made in their factory in the city of Stoke-on-Trent using locally sourced materials.

 

Eric Bur is a French brand. I immediately fell in love with all the pretty sprinkles they make and the beautiful glass jars they come in. In fact they are the only sprinkles I don't decant into pretty glass jars, because they already some in pretty pink labelled glass jars! Not going to Paris anytime soon, don't worry, I have brought them in TK MAX
 

 

GreenGate is a Copenhagen-based interior company, centered around a cottage theme. They sell stoneware, kitchen linens, fabrics, bedspreads and lampshades, amongst other things very similar to Cath Kidston I first discovered GreenGate in 2008, whilst browsing on web,  I wanted to find stockists in the UK. Fortunately, the Greengate website has a full list of them. I also found their online catalogue, from which I bought a salad bowl with matching salad servers, dinner plates and side plates.

 

House Doctor is a Danish brand that was formed in 1999 by two sisters, Rikke Juhl Jensen and Gitte Juhl Capel, along with their brother, Klaus Juhl Pedersen. The product range is very wide, ranging from kitchen utensils, vases and furniture to an exclusive assortment of interior design accessories. Their online catalogue is a dream to flick through for it is beautifully styled and shot, my favourites being the open shelving in the kitchen and that large glass jar full of ribbons.

 

 

 

 

Hemline is an Australian brand who makes haberdashery supplies, they started in 1987 with a range of some 80 popular sewing necessities. Hemline is now one of the best-known and largest haberdashery ranges in the world today and the range now features over 1,000 sewing and craft items, produced in eight different languages and sold the world over.
I love their water soluble marker pens and pencils and the ever so cute polka dot scissors!

 

 

 

 

Book Review Evening..... Giftwrapped

Those who know me, understand my fetish for paper & fabric, my collection of both is vast, and whilst I love to hoard collect I hesitate to use it, but this has changed.
I stumbled on this book in the nick of time before I drowned in a sea of  paper, fabric & gifts to wrap. This little gem... may I call it a bible?
 About The Author
Jane Means is a professional gift wrapper to many high end clients, including British Royalty, Harrods, American Express and several high end couture fashion houses as well as various celebrities. Jane is known as Britain's gift wrapping expert and runs a gift wrapping school up and down the country, appearing on television and featuring in many glossy magazines and national newspapers.
She also designs her own ribbon collections and decorations, which are featured regularly in the press and are sold online and wholesale.

'Gift wrapped, Practical and inventive ideas for all occasions' is a beautiful hardback book that is both an inspirational visual feast and an expert master class for wrapping everything from a champagne bottle to awkward shapes
The book is split into five chapters, after an introduction it starts with "The Material World" where Jane share with you her vast knowledge about wrapping paper, flexible wrappings, ribbons and trims and embellishments. This is followed by lovely inspirational mood boards from pretty pastels to brights, Earthy tones to monochrome.
Chapter two, titled "The Art of Wrapping" is where Jane shows you how to wrap simple boxes, roof style boxes, add stylish pleats to your wrapping, wrap using two different styled papers and how to line a box with tissue paper to enhance our gifts. Jane follows this up by sharing how to wrap awkward shapes with ease and style from circular tins to bottles.
From there we go on to chapter three "The Art of Tying", where Jane shows us how to tie all kinds of bows from simple bows to crossover bows, corner bows to beautiful tailored bows and flamboyant bush bows. Also included in this section is some great inspirational labelling and tag ideas.
In chapter 4 "Special Occasions" Jane shares some beautiful wrapped gifts for Festive occasions, Gentlemen, ladies, children and wedding favours and gifts.
Chapter five, "Tools and Equipment" covers all you need to know about arming yourself with a basic tool kit so you can recreate all the projects in the book.
At a recommended retail price of £20.00, it is a great inspirational yet practical book that I think you will use time and time again so that your gifts are always beautifully presented in a
thoughtful manner.



 

 

Gluten Free Mince Pies

 

Marzipan topped Mince pies



Ingredients

18 Gluten free mince pies

200g gluten free plain flour

1 tsp xantham gum

2 tbsp icing sugar

75g almonds (ground)

1 pinch salt

125g butter

1 large eggs (lightly beaten with 1 tbsp water)

359g mincemeat filling

marzipan

1 tbsp icing sugar (for dusting)

Method

Gluten free mince pies


Place all the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl, add butter and use your hands to mix until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Or, use a food processor to save a bit of time!

Make a well in the centre of your dry ingredients and add the egg and water.

Combine mixture with a wooden spoon, then knead by hand to form a ball of dough.

Cover with cling film (saran wrap) and place in a refrigerator for at least an hour before continuing.

Roll out marzipan to 5mm thick

Cut out marzipan snowflakes and leave to one side. If you let your marzipan snowflakes dry for a while, they spread out less whilst cooking and you are left with a clearer looking snowflake

Preheat oven to 160-180 deg C (325-350 deg F)

Lightly grease a 12 hole cupcake tin with butter.

Roll out the pastry so it is about 2mm thick. The dough will hold together if well mixed and rolled between two sheets of baking paper.

Cut out circles using a round or fluted pastry cutter.

Now line the cupcake tray with pastry, and gently press into each hole.

Spoon a heaped teaspoon of mincemeat into each case.

Place snowflake marzipan on top and lightly press

Cook in pre-heated oven for 10-15 mins

Take out of tray and leave to cool slightly before placing mince pies on a baking rack to cool

Dust with icing sugar.

Christmas Treats

 

 

The houses are made out of coloured roll-on icing using square and triangle cutters. The tree was made using star cutters.
Ingredients

Gluten free 20cm fruit cake
450g currants
200g sultanas
200g raisins
100g cherries (glace, chopped)
100g cut mixed peel
3 tbsp brandy
75g almonds (chopped)
350g gluten free plain flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp mixed spice
0.5 tsp salt
275g butter (unsalted, at room temperature)
225g brown sugar (soft)
5 medium eggs
1 lemons (grated zest)
1 oranges (grated zest)
3 tbsp brandy

Method

Gluten free 20cm fruit cake

Place all dried fruit and mixed peel in a bowl, pour in sherry and mix well. Cover with a clean cloth. Leave for 12 hours or overnight so fruit can absorb the sherry
Preheat oven to 150 deg C (300 deg F)
Grease and line tin with baking parchment
Wrap newspaper/brown paper around tin and secure with baker's twine
Beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer on high speed until the mixture turns a pale colour
Beat in eggs slowly on medium speed
Sieve flour, salt and spices into the mixture and mix slowly on low speed
Fold in soaked fruit, almonds, lemon & orange zest until well mixed
Pour mixture into tin, level with spatula
Place sheet of grease proof paper on top, and make sure to leave a small circle missing from centre
Bake for 3 hours and 15 minutes on middle shelf
Place cake on a wire rack to cool
When cake is completely cool, remove cake from tin
Pierce cake several times with skewer
Pour 3 tsp of brandy over the top of the cake (feeding)
Wrap in baking parchment
Wrap in foil or store in an airtight container
Feed at regular intervals over the next few weeks


To Decorate
ready to roll icing (white)
marzipan
apricot jam
royal icing
 The houses out of coloured roll-on icing using square and triangle cutters. The tree was made using star cutters
                                                                                  

 



Close up of decoration

 This cake is simple to bake and fun to decorate and its Gluten free.

 

 

Christmas Traditions Trees

 

One of my favorite traditions at Christmas is taking my time to decorate our Christmas tree and is always accompanied by eating homemade mince pies and maybe a glass of mulled wine or hot chocolate with little floating marshmallows. This year is no exception after foraging for the tree with Mr D & Miss D  I will set aside Sunday evening to decorate my tree.Which got me thinking I should share all my Christmas Tree decorating tips I have learnt over the years, from how to hang lights to hanging ornaments. So here are my top tips:
Norway and blue spruces are naturally symmetrical, but their branches have awkward growths that keep ornaments from hanging freely. Clean them up with a little judicious pruning. With the tree standing upright, study it from a distance to see which areas need pruning. Then, prune small growths that jut straight out from the top and bottom of the branches. The lighter sections depicted in our illustration are the ones you'd want to trim away.



How to Hang Tree Lights:
You will need roughly 100 lights for every foot of the trees height.
Match your Christmas fairy light wire to the colour of the tree.
Turn your Christmas fairy lights on and keep them turned on whilst you decorate your tree.
Visually split the tree into three triangles vertically and work on each triangle separately, starting at the base of the trunk start by wrapping each string of lights in and out of the branches up to the top and back down. Try to keep the wires as concealed as possible. This method ensures you get a lovely inner glow to your tree and not just an outer shell of light.

Step back from your tree and squint your eyes, look for dark or overly bright patches, rearrange the lights to get an even light throughout.
When you are happy with the placement of your lights, use florist wire to keep any unruly lights in place.

Hanging ornaments:
You will need roughly 20 ornaments per foot
9ft of Garland
Try sticking to a small colour palette for a cohesive look. Ideally this should relate to or compliment the decor in the room your tree sits in.
Use a few overscaled ornaments for big impact.
Before you start, arrange your decorations by size and colour.
Start with the largest ornaments in one colour, hang them on tree so you get an even spread of colour. Continue by adding the medium decorations in the same colour finishing with the smaller decorations. Remember to place some slightly back into the tree, to give it a little depth. Repeat with each colour grouping so you get a lovely even tone of colour throughout the tree.
 Suspend ornaments from tinned copper wire instead of manufacturer-provided hooks, which can slip off branches, causing breakage. To make your own hangers, thread a 5-inch piece of wire through the ornament loop; twist the wire around itself several times to secure. To hang, wrap the other end of the wire around the branch until the ornament is secure.

Make sure you keep stepping back to look at your work as you go.

Here are  few of my favorite designs....

New Wool makes everything better

I noticed a nip in the air this morning, I will put money on the fact that  winter has  arrived and hope those pesky rain clouds have blown away.
 I don't hate Winter, in fact I find the next few months quite comforting.
Wrapping up warm and cosy makes walking pleasurable, as the evening draws in, pulling down the blinds turning on the lamps and lighting candles, warming, pulling on the pj's, cosy and snuggling under a blanket..... snugly.

My  new wool

Winter is also a time  I love to sit with a milky hot chocolate a couple of cookies in a comfy chair and crotchet or knit, these are possibly my 2 favorite crafts of all, I do have a passion for wool  and love to learn new patterns.

I am so very happy today look what the postman dropped off a new shipment of wool. All projects that I started over the weekend have been put on hold I have to work with this now!
I am great at making the granny squares but lazy on the sewing in of the ends and the actual making up of the thing, now I have lots of squares of different sizes and patterns just begging to be made up, but the thrill of a new project and more wool is too appealing.
The squares will eventually be made in to blankets (promise).

 I have been designing this new blanket for weeks, after much thought I decided on "Dolly Mixture" colours  a mixture of cashmere,baby merino, superwash & cotton all super soft.
The squares will be a mixture of plain crotchet  & a flower square see the ones below and will have less tails to sew in .

My new wooI 

I always buy my wool from Wool Warehouse, they have a huge range of all the leading brands, they are competitively priced but the one thing that makes me happy is their postage is free when you spend £25.00 and swift delivery this is so helpful when your eager to start a new project.


I will post 2 tutorials 1 for making the flower and one for making the square.