Harry Potter backpack

Whatabout ye folks, it's Lee here.  I'm back with a real quick make and it is so super easy to make.  I followed a tutorial from Debbie Shore on YouTube and I modified it to work with what I had.  It was so super quick and easy to make and I highly recommend Debbie's tutorials.  I made this for my wee sister, although I have a feeling that her wee daughter might be claiming this one.  My sister has put in a request for another one for her, lol....so the next one will probably be Disney themed. 

A little side view of the backpack, using a Harry Potter fat quarter bundle.  I bought it on Ebay

The backpack has adjustable straps that can fit any size child or adult.  I bought the webbing straps on Ebay and can be purchased here

Debbie used a magnetic clasp on her tutorial, but I went with this toggle instead as I felt it would be a bit more secure.  I bought the toggle clasp on Ebay, if you want to buy your own.  When I make the next one, I'll sew the toggle into the backpack flap, so the black part of the toggle is not on the outside of the fabric....but this was my first attempt....we live, we learn.

For the hardware, I used these 1 inch Metal sliding bars along with the 1 inch Metal D rings also

The backpack has 2 expanding pockets on each side of the pack for more storage.

I love how the backpack has the pull tie on it.  It makes the backpack more secure and you are less likely to lose the contents of your bag.

I made 2 wee inner pockets in the lining of the bag for all the little bits and pieces that are needed.

Although it has the clasp to close it, I added this backpack piping cord.  Debbie used ribbon in her tutorial, but I thought as this would be constantly used to open and close the backpack, I decided this cord would be much more durable.  It can be purchased here on ebay, if you want some.

And that's it from me folks.  I'm sure I'll be back soon with something else to share.

Toodles Noodles.....Lee aka Crafty Loops xx

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Carpenter's wheel Patchwork Quilt

So, here I am with my 3rd quilt.....I think it's my third, lol.  It's another Donna Jordan, from Jordan Fabrics pattern.  Here instructions and YouTube videos really are amazing.  They make a new sewer like me feel confident enough to make a quilt like this.  Although, maybe this is easy for most people....but as I said, I'm still pretty new to all this sewing business.  

This quilt is for my almost 21 year old wee bro who is studying for his Masters in AeroSpace Engineering at Queen's University in Belfast.....the kid is a bloody genius, I tell ya!  Did I say he got his pilots license when he was only 19 years old!?  He was the youngest person to get his license in the shortest amount of time.  To say I am incredibly proud of him, is an understatement.  He's so incredibly smart but is such a kind and humble person.....unlike his big sister, when it comes to bragging about him, teehee.  But I'm his big sister...I'm allowed to brag about him.  And when I say I'm his big sister....did I say there is 21 years between us?  So, probably more of an OLD big sister, teehee.  He's my "wee Minkete" (my pet name for him, lol)....even if he towers over his old, big sister and can fly a plane.

So, as this was for my brother, I decided to go with a dark background with really bright pops of contrasting, colourful fabrics.  The fabric is cotton marbled blenders from Fiddlesticks Fabrics on Ebay.  They are based in Ballymena, here in Northern Ireland and also have a website HERE.  I'm not being paid or affiliated with Fiddlesticks, I just love their fabric and they got my order to me in super quick time.  I thought the star type design of this quilt would be perfect for my little star gazer.  So, here it is.

The bright colours really pop with the dark background

And I love the diagonal style border.

I made my own bias binding for the edging just using the same black fabric that I used for the background.

I love the star image in the middle.  And as my wee bro is studying aerospace engineering, I thought the star was a perfect idea for him.

I just need to give it a good iron now and then it will be winging its way to my wee brother.  Fingers crossed, he'll like it.

That's it from me folks.  I think my next project might be a bit more crafty related, than sewing.  But who knows with me.....as someone who changes her mind a hundred times a day, just to keep things interesting, goodness knows what I'll be making next.

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Toodles Noodles.....Lee aka Crafty Loops xx

How to make a book - Kettle Stitch Bookbinding

 A number of year ago......In fact.......over 9 years ago (SHOCK!!!) I made a series of bookbinding tutorials, showing how I make a book from start to finish.  I divided the videos up into different sections which meant the viewer had to click onto the next video.  I thought this would be a simpler way of doing the videos however, I have been asked over the years if I could make the series into one continuous video, so the viewer doesn't have to click out of the video onto the next one.

So, it's only taken me almost a decade and quite a few hours of editing, but I edited the videos into one continuous format and deleted some of my waffling....boy I can talk.  It is almost 90 mins long, so please be aware of that.  I am making a book completely from scratch.

I do realise that if you watched the initial series of tutorials, this video is just a repeat and not for you.  But this is for those people who prefer to have all the videos in one place.

That's it from me for now.

Toodles Noodles....Lee aka Crafty Loops xx

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Handmade DIY Wedding Invitations, place cards, favours, menu's etc., etc

I made Wedding Stationery for a family member yearssssss ago and I just realised that I never actually showed anything I made!  And I did all this in 2013!  Shame on you Loops....shame!  Now, when it came to actually taking photos of everything I made, muggins here wasn't the greatest at keeping my blog in mind.  I was so busy and snowed under making it all, that most of the time I forgot to take proper, decent photos.....but I'll share what little (and dodgy) photos I did manage to take.

My instructions were.....simple, modern and elegant.  The Bride didn't want anything too fussy, cluttered, girlie or vintagy.  Bless her.....but she pretty much trusted me and left me to my own creative devices.....which was so trusting and brave of her, lol. I wanted to have everything made using the same style of font, colours, papers, embellishments, embossing etc., for total consistency throughout the wedding.  Being a Crafter, I would know if it was a mis-mash of fonts, embellishments etc., regardless of whether anyone else would notice or not, heehee.  So I was very particular to ensure that all the different bits and pieces I made, matched perfectly.  Anywhoodles, the wedding colours were a Deep Purple with gold and cream accents.  

WARNING:  THIS POST IS VERY PHOTO HEAVY AND DETAILED.  I TRIED TO LINK OR MENTION ALL THE PRODUCTS USED AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST.

Unfortunately, a lot of the items that I bought back in 2013 are from shops and sellers that are no longer open or available.  So if you see something I've mentioned and it's link is not below, it is because the shop is no longer operating.  I have tried to find alternatives for you.  I wasn't sponsored by anyone or given anything for free.  I bought EVERYTHING myself.  In fact, the stationery was my gift to the couple.  I'm merely listing the craft items used in case you want them yourself.  

Here is just a couple of the boxed invitations I made...there were a lot more, lol

I made all the boxes myself, no template.  I used my good old Hougie Board for all the box making.  The purple and gold ribbon was wrapped all the way around the box and was the closure.  The label is from Spellbinders, details below.  Seriously though, making all this stationery would have been impossible without my Hougie scoring board.  It was an invaluable bit of kit that was used pretty much in most of the stationery making process.

Sorry the photos are bad.  The ribbon is in fact a deep purple and then a gold ribbon under it.  The recipient simply had to make a little cut along the bottom of the seam where the box lid and base overlapped, to open it without damaging anything. 

To be a tad more frugal with supplies, the top part of the box is made using pearlescent cardstock and the base was using plain cream linen cardstock.  This helped keep me to keep the cost down...ever so slightly.... and made the box a smidge lighter for posting.  When you opened the box up you were greeted with the invitation neatly protected in a piece of tissue paper.  I added this tissue paper in case the invitation got wet or damaged in the post somehow.  I wanted to protect the actual invitation as much as possible.  So this extra tissue paper might seem a bit overkill, but I needed to make sure the invite was protected.

And, as if one layer of tissue paper wasn't enough, the actual invitation was wrapped in the most beautiful deep purple mulberry tissue paper and sealed with a little "Our Wedding" sticker

I am so disappointed that the deep purple colour is not showing in my photos.  Again, I was so swamped, I barely had time to take these photos.  The purple colour was very hard to photograph and tended to look like black on the photos....but I assure you, it is a deep purple colour

When you finally get inside to the invitation, this is what you see.  I think the colour is a bit clearer here.  I used dark purple cardstock.  I stamped decorative hearts all over the invite in a deliberate random pattern ( I hope that makes sense, lol) using a clear embossing ink pad.  I then dusted over all the stamped images with gold mica powder.  I used an acrylic ribbon slider and glued a flatback pearl into the centre, as the closure.  I also added flatback pearls along the ribbon front.  Product details below

I designed these invitations myself, so there is no template for it.  It all came from my wee noggin, lol.   In fact, this design shape is the same one that I made for my own wedding, although these invitations turned out nicer than my own, teehee. This was the personal invitation I gave to the Bride and Groom so the layout is a little different to the actual invites.  I used gold pearlescent paper and printed the wedding invite details onto it using my laptop and printer.  

I embossed some lovely swirly heart details along the edge.  I think it set it off just perfectly.  Product details below.

Unfortunately, in this photo, I forgot to add the wee pearls along the ribbon on the inside..Doh!  But wee flatback pearls were added along the inside ribbon too, just like the outside.  This bottom half of the invite housed the RSVP, Menu, Wedding itinerary, directions to the venue and Gift details.  It worked so great.

I also made these pretty little favours boxes for all the guests.  Again, the photo is terrible and not showing the beautiful purple cardstock....Grrrrrr!

I made the gift boxes using a Bigz die from Sizzix.  Using the same purple cardstock, I embossed it with the Sizzix Embossing Folder, the same one used on the wedding invitation embossing.  I used gold ribbon with gold and diamonte ribbon sliders.

I made 2 Wedding Photo albums using, as usual, the purple card stock, gold and purple ribbon and flatback pearls.  The lettering is gold peel-off's.  I covered it with textured bookbinding Skivertex and it was bound using my Zutter Bind It All and Antique Gold coloured 3/4 inch O-wires. .  The little label is a Spellbinders die.  If you want to see more details about the album, go to my post here and for a video tutorial showing how I made the album, click here

Here are the menu's I made, sorry its a wonky photo and shiny cutlery glare, lol.  As I'm sure you can imagine, Wedding tables have a lot of stuff on them. So I didn't want to clutter the tables by having loads of menus on it.  So instead, I made a triangle shaped menu with menu's on all 3 sides.  I used the purple card to make a triangle shaped dome.  The frames on the menu matched those on the Seating Arrangements Canvas too.  Details of the die and products used are at the bottom of this post.

Here is the menu from the side view.  Obviously there were 3 sides...but that's impossible to photograph.  Each of the gold frame sides actually touched, like they were holding hands.  They turned out so lovely.  It all looked so much prettier in real life, lol.  But I was in such a rush, that taking photos was the last thing on my mind.  Sorry the photos are a bit rubbish!

The beautiful table layout.  You can just about see the Table Name Cards I made for each table.  Numpty here forgot to take photos of the Table Names when they were just made!!  But you can just about see the wee Table Name card beside the candelabra. 

Here was how I made the Seating Arrangements Board.  The couple wanted the table names to be named after Cocktails, rather than just numbered tables.  The colouring is awful on this photo, I'm so sorry again.  But the purple card was used, with pearlescent cream paper and then the frames were cut from gold pearlescent paper (same paper from the invitations) using the Ornate Oval Sizzix thinlit die.  I used wee flat back gems on each corner.

This was the layout we went for.  Sorry the photo is such a disaster (you're gonna hear that a lot!).  The actual layout was not wonky at all....but my photography definitely was, lol.  I bought a large canvas from The Works, and laid the names and tables out onto the canvas. The Wedding Venue provided the beautiful gold stand for the canvas.

The placecards were again made using the purple cardstock, that was embossed with the same embossing folder used throughout.  The same gold ribbon and gold and diamante ribbon slider was used here too.

I wasn't going to have my handmade stamp anywhere on the Stationery as I thought that might be a bit cheeky but the Bride insisted and said that I should put it somewhere so people knew who made everything, lol.  So we decided that the place cards would be the best place. For details of the products used see the section at the end of this post.

I was overjoyed with the Guest Book.  I think it turned out so well.  The Bride didn't want anything too detailed.  Just elegant and modern.  I think I achieved that ok.  After much Pinterest browsing for some inspiration, this is what I made for them.  I used my Zutter Bind-It-All to bind the book using Antique Gold coloured 3/4 inch O-wires.  

Again, the same embossed purple card (using Sizzix embossing folder) and Ivory pearlescent paper with a hint of gold in it.  I printed the purple hearts motif to either side of the "Guest Book" section from my laptop, as that motif was also a running theme throughout the Wedding Stationery.  This was covered with white Bookbinding Skivertex. See below details.

The inside page was simple and again kept to their colour scheme and heart design.  Again I'm sorry the colour is so bad on the photos.  I used the same deep purple cardstock. I decided not to add gems or pearls to the corners of the thank you note as I didn't want them restricting the albums ability to close properly, so the inside cover was not embellished at all.  All product links below.

I added this beautiful Guipure lace down the side, along with some flat backed pearl trim.  I added all the individual flat back diamontes onto the front of the book also.  Although they were self-adhesive, I was aware that this book would be handled a lot throughout the wedding day and beyond. So I didn't really trust the self adhesion on the diamontes.  Therefore, I added a little bit of Glossy Accents to them also and those gems were going nowhere, lol.

 To protect the first writing page from smudges or marks, I added a piece of light purple vellum to the book.

Again the Guest Book carried on the heart theme and the same font was used throughout the wedding.  I kept the actual book very simple with plenty of pages and lines for people to write on.  The pages are actually 300gsm super smooth cardstock that I purchased on Amazon.  I have intentionally not given a link to the cardstock supplier on Amazon simply because the price has nearly tripled from when I initially bought it and I think that is very exploitative.  I feel I cannot promote it as it appears to have fallen victim to its popularity and the seller has taken advantage of this and inflated the price dramatically, unfairly in my opinion.  

The Bride bought these wee gold boxes on Ebay and I decorated them very simply, but that was for a very good reason.....  I didn't want to add any diamontes or pearls to the box, as they were being given to the Children at the Wedding.  So I was very aware that wee hands might put said diamontes and pearls in their wee mouths.  And I didn't want that!  So I simply typed up their names, added the gold and purple ribbons.  The purple ribbon I used was not the correct width I needed, so I worked around it by adding 2 lengths of ribbon, side by side and then stuck the gold ribbon right down the middle.  This meant I got the width of ribbon I needed and the join was hidden by the gold ribbon.  Then I added the embossed purple card to matt the name layer.  The photo is making it look like the ribbon is unbalanced but its just the photo perspective.  The gold ribbon was evenly laid across the purple ribbon, lol.

I made a simple little sign for the Wedding Guest Book.  Again keeping with the Purple and Gold theme.  I used the Purple Cardstock and matted it with the beautiful Gold coloured pearlescent paper.  The font used is the same font that was used throughout the Wedding Stationery.

This is the wee sign I made for the Wedding Card Post Box.  Its such a shame you cannot see the gold pearlescent sheen from the cream paper, it really is gorgeous in real life.  But the camera just wasn't playing ball with me in any of these photos, so my sincere apologies.  Everything did look amazing....you'll just have to take my word for it, lol.

Here is a list of most of the main items I used to make everything.
Some of the item links, particularly those that I bought on Ebay, may not be the exact buyer as they are no longer listed but, I did my best to find you alternatives.

Wedding Invitation Fonts - Algerian and Lucida Calligraphy

Wedding Invitation Gold Peel Off's - I purchased on Ebay but cant find them now.  These are similar, on Etsy
"Our Wedding Day" Envelope Seals (used to seal tissue paper on Invites) - Ebay
Hougie Board (I bought mine on ebay years ago) -  This was an integral piece of equipment when making everything for the wedding, from Invitations to favours and place cards.  It would have been very difficult to make everything without this board.

Fiskar's SureCut A3/A4 Paper Trimmer 4153 - Here Ebay

Spellbinders Label 28 die - Spellbinders

Sizzix Swirly Vines with Hearts Embossing Folder - I can't find it on Sizzix UK site, but can be found on Sizzix USA Here or try on Ebay Everything Embossed was done using this folder.  All the Invitations, place cards, favours etc.

The flatback pearls and diamontes were bought from a shop that is no longer in operation but these can definitely be found on most craft shops, Amazon and Ebay.  Here is a quick search link on Ebay

The purple ribbon and gold ribbon were again, bought from a seller that is no longer in operation.  But ribbon is a pretty easy find.  

12x12 300gsm Cardstock Colour: Aubergine (well worth the money spent, for the phenomenal quality of this card) - Here (PDA Card and Crafts)

Pearlescent Paper - Here Ebay

Ivory Pearlised Cardstock - Here (Papermill Direct) 

Wedding Boxes Lids - Ivory Pearlised Card 300gsm Cream Cardstock - Here (Papermill Direct)

 Wedding Box Bases - Rich Cream Linen Card - 255gsm - can't remember where I got it, sorry, but search the details online and I'm sure you'll find it somewhere
Heart Stamp used on Wedding Invitations - Here (Debbi Moore Designs)
Bookbinding Skivertex in Grained White, bought from Ebay - Here

Zutter Bind It All - Amazon

Zutter Antique Gold coloured 3/4 inch O-wires
Ranger Perfect Pearls Powder - Here on Ebay  I used 2 whole pots!!!
Purple Mulberry Tissue Paper (wrapped around invites) - Here on Ebay
658268 Sizzix Movers & Shapers Bigz L Die - Pillow Box W/Labels By Tim Holtz - Here on Sizzix. On a personal note: A massive Thank you to Susan from Country View Crafts for finding me this die.  I couldn't have made these favours without her incredible help and service.  Awesome Company.(Countryview Crafts) 

Gold Buckle Sliders with Diamantes, 22mm.  I couldn't find my original seller on Ebay, but I found similar ones in silver from this site, called The Button Shed

Large Canvas from The Works

Guipure lace was bought from an Etsy seller, no longer selling but I'm sure you can find the same if not similar, online.  Here is a quick search link for Ebay and for Etsy

Frame die - Sizzix Thinlits die, Frame, Ornate Oval # 658949 - Find it on Sizzix

Double Sided Tape (of which I used hundreds of metres!!)  I used both Redline tape and Scor-tape.  The Redline tape I bought at the Craft Fair in Belfast but can be bought Here at AffixItCraft. I originally bought the Scor-Tape from Blitsy in the USA but they are no longer operating.  You can probably try looking on Ebay for this adhesive, try searching under its brand name of, Sookwang tape.  Honestly, Scor Tape/Sookwang tape is THE best tape I've ever used.

And in case you want to know, my printer was AWESOME throughout this whole wedding process.  It took a lot of abuse and a crazy amount of printing to make everything perfect for the big day.  My exact model is no longer available but you'll find something similar in the Pixma range.  Its awesome.

Canon Pixma MG6150 - Here (Currys PC World).

Phew!!!!!!  Sorry that was such a big one and for taking 8 years to share it.  I'm a numpty.  I'm so cross at myself for not taking better photos, particularly when it came to showing the proper colour of the invites cardstock etc.  So frustrating.  But I do remember at the time being completely flat out, trying to get everything made on time.  So the photos were an afterthought.  Well, that's it from me folks.  Maybe I'll have something new to share on my next post or maybe it'll be some ancient old project.....you just never know with me, lol.

Toodles Noodles.....Lee aka Crafty Loops xx

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