Simply Shabby Gift Packaging

This Christmas why not go for a different look when you wrap your gifts? Don't go for glitzy finishes but aim for a homespun look with brown paper and cotton ribbon.

Use simple embellishments to take your gifts from this:

Add some cotton spotty ribbon and a small piece of mini pom pom and achieve this:















Finally add a paper rose to really make your gifts stand out.

New Day, New Blog

Today is the start of a new blog. I have decided that this blog is not just going to be dedicated to craft, but is going to have some cooking on it too. Life after all is not just about paper, felt, beads and so on. You gotta have a little sustenance as well.

So. lets kick off with some food.

I spend a lot of my time in Italy where I can get some fabulous ingredients for cooking. The downside of this is that I don't have a good internet connection so I have to save all of the cooking and crafting posts up till I get back to the UK and a high speed connection. I tend to get a bit creative while I'm away and if I am fast enough I can photograph all of my cooking before it gets snaffled by my family. What a lot of posting I have to do. I won't put it all on at once though.

The first recipe that I am going to share is this one for stuffed onions.

How to make a ribbon butterfly

I seem to have time on my hands at the moment. It is probably the lull before the storm, but I don't intend to sit down and do nothing as I will only fall asleep and sleeping in the day is not allowed. So, with this in mind I intend to create a series of videos on ways to use ribbon. I have already started with this video on using ribbon to create a beautiful butterfly. It seems to be meeting with a lot of success as it has had nearly 15,000 views in just over 6 months. How cool is that. My most successful video to date. Why not watch it and leave a comment.