Tutorial- How to make a fabric flower

Hello everyone,

I hope that you all have had a great week. I have spent mine preparing for a craft fair, catching up with old friends who I had not seen for a long time, going for a walk and then fish and chips on the seaside and trying to enjoy every second of sunshine as the weather is still a bit up and down!

Today I am very excited to have my first ever guest post which has been written by Ariella who runs the blog Haus of Ariella and also an Etsy shop. She has written a fabulous tutorial on how to make a fabric flower for you all to enjoy.

The Dorothy Days Xx

How to make a fabric flower  (great for putting on bags, hair clips etc)

One of the ways in which the fabric flower can be used

Materials:
-Fabric - light to medium weight fabrics work best; I used satin for this tutorial
-Needle and matching thread
-Large button for the center
-Hot glue gun
-Scissors
-Paper for the template



Step 1:

Step 1

Decide what size you would like your flower to be. The one I made was about 4 inches across and the inner petals were about 2.5 inches across. Measure two circles - one for the large petals and one for the smaller ones - on a piece of paper with the diameter you'd like your flower to be as the large petal template and about 60% of that size for the diameter of the small petal template. Cut them out.

Step 2:

Step 2

Step 2

Fold one of your templates in half over your fabric and cut around the template so that you end up with a circle of fabric. Cut 5 of the large circles and 4 of the small ones.

Step 3:

Step 3

Step 3

Take one of the circles and fold it in half with the right side of the fabric (the side you want showing) on the outside. Thread your needle and put a knot in one end of the thread. Make a line of fairly small stitches close to the rounded edges of your circle, going through both layers. Pull the thread tight to gather the fabric and tie off the other end of the thread as well. Repeat with all of the circles.

Step 4:

Step 4

Take your 5 large petals and sew them together in a circle with the petals slightly overlapping. Do the same thing for the small petals.

After completing step 4 your flower should look like this

Step 5:

Step 5

Take your circle of small petals and sew it on top of your circle of large petals.

Step 6: 

Step 6- The final finished piece!

Take your button (which should be large enough to cover the hole in the middle of the petals) and put hot glue on the edges, then place it in the middle of the flower.

Congratulations! You now have a cool fabric flower to put on purses, hair clips, or whatever else your heart desires!

By the seaside- Brighton Beach

Hello everyone :),

I have been featured in a beautiful treasury of Etsy sellers from Brighton which, because we are a seaside town, has a seaside theme. The treasury made me smile so I thought I would share it with you all. We have been having lots of rain here in Britain at the moment so as Freya (the lady who made it) says the sea is "a bit stormy at the moment but these will remind us of those beautiful days on the south coast". Please take a look at the different items featured, there are some beautiful items and all are from sellers in Brighton


The Dorothy Days

Wordless Wednesday- Adventures in the Landrover!

 

Hope you had a wonderful day :) 

The Dorothy Days Xx

Feature Friday- Kendra from House of Heirlooms

Hi everyone,

After yesterday's beautiful sunny day and clear blue skies we are back to pouring rain here in England and apparently it is here to stay for at least a few days! Yesterday I grabbed the opportunity and got outside and photographing some of my new stock for my Etsy site. My shop is now the fullest it has ever been and I have the most items I have ever had listed in my shop, exciting stuff!!

My new English Rose earrings please click here to view

 There is now a mixture of new handmade items and also some beautiful vintage treasures. Please take a look at my new stock here. This week has been a really great one as not only have I got the most items in my shop that I have ever had, I also reached my 40th online sale and my 400th twitter follower! I think I squealed for delight at each one!!

A massive thank you to everyone who has supported me whether that be by following me on twitter or facebook, reading my blog and being one of my blog followers, buying from me, featuring me, retweeting something I have written, favouriting some of my work, leaving a comment on my blog or telling someone about my little site, it all is really appreciated :) . I really feel so lucky to be able to do what I love doing so much and have the support of so many people and I hope that my little business will continue to grow :). Thank you!!!!

This week for my Feature Friday I am featuring Kendra who runs a wonderful shop called

Kenda lives is Oregon in the U.S which is where she was raised and sells all things vintage, from jewellery to typewriters and from clothing to games. Kendra lived with her grandparents until she moved away for college and therefore she grew up being mature for her age and is still kindly described as an 'old soul'! By living with people who were raised through the Depression, Kendra gained an appreciation for the high level craftsmanship of most vintage goods. She feels that selling them on her Etsy site is not only a wonderful example of re-using and recycling but also about appreciating quality from another era and I couldn't agree more.

For this feature Kendra also gave me a beautiful quote which she feels sums up her motivation and enthusiasm for running her vintage shop and also her closeness to her grandparents:

"It's one of nature's ways that we often feel closer to distant generations than to the generation immediately preceding us." - Igor Stravinsky





Here are some of my favourite items in Kendra's shop:

When speaking to Kendra for this feature she spoke of how she is a keen writer (which is reflected in her beautifully written product descriptions). It therefore made me smile to see a vintage typewriter listed on her site as writing is clearly such a passion of hers that it seeps through to all parts of her life including her business! Please click here to view

Vintage 'LIFE' magazine with John F. Kennedy just after he won the election.

"Vintage eyeglasses are an easy way to make a style statement. Eyewear shouldn't be boring and this pair certainly isn't."Take a look at these beautiful 80's glasses.

I hope that you enjoyed this feature, another shop shall be featured next week for my Feature Friday :)

Have a wonderful weekend

Rachel from The Dorothy Days

(Vintage and Handmade) Xxx

Renovating vintage furniture with 20sixltd

Hi everyone :),

Does anyone else love vintage furniture ?! If you are anything like me, somewhere in your house will be a vintage piece which you adore! The weather here in England has been so bad (rain, wind, more rain and more rain again) that I have been unable to get out in the garden and get working on some of my vintage pieces of furniture which need a little bit of tender love and care and the weather certainly has not allowed for any upcycling projects! However, I am forever the optimist that this weather is on the way out and we will have blue skies and sunshine soon so I have been speaking to the team at Brighton based fit out company, 20six, about restoring, upcycling and reworking vintage pieces of furniture.

The team recently put a question to their Twitter followers; “What do you prefer, original or reworked pieces?” It wasn’t a shock to hear that the answer seemed to be largely in favour of original, vintage pieces.

Of course, sometimes renovating a piece is unavoidable, so the 20six design team have put together a few tips to for anyone looking to refresh or up cycle existing furniture:

“As part of a large PFI public library refurbishment, we were asked to try and retain and recondition as many original interior features as possible to play homage to the original 1960 Basil Spence modernist building. 

Part of the original furniture specification was the Fritz Hansen Series 7™ chair designed by Arne Jacobsen. The Series 7™ chair is by far the most sold chair in the history of Fritz Hansen and perhaps also in furniture history. The pressure molded veneer chair is a further development of the classic  Ant™ chair.

In embarking on this project, we realised how difficult it can be to find the balance between keeping the classic touch of the original design whilst refurbishing it to make it more usable in the modern day.

After a lot of different attempts, that included re-upholstering even painting artwork onto the chair, we settled on re-lacquering the designs - but not before we learnt a few lessons from the whole experience!

So here are our top tips:

1) Keep it as simple. The old design saying of "Less is more" applies here. Whilst some ways of reconditioning make items more suitable for new purposes, when dealing with iconic classics - try not to undermine the integrity of the design.

2) Test first. If trying out a new decorative colour of design finish - try and get a small sample of a similar material to test out your ideas on first. This could potentially save you a lot of time and money in the future!

3) Ask questions. If in doubt there is a phone book full of professionals and craftsmen with a wealth of experience ready to tap in to.  Alternatively you could always look online in design forums and websites for advice.”

Thank you to the team at 20six for sharing their knowledge and tips.

I hope you all enjoyed the article and fingers crossed for some sunshine so we can get outside and start our furniture projects! 

Has anyone from other, sunnier,parts of the world started a furniture project? If so I would love to hear about it, please leave me a comment in the comment section below :)

Thanks!

The Dorothy Days  

Wordless Wednesday- Fire

To warm up after all this cold weather....