Crafty Details from my Hen Parties

I blogged about my Papered Parlour Hen Party back in August. Here is a little reminder of the bags we made.

I really wanted to add some fabric and stitch detail to my design but was out of action following my hand operation at the time. The wedding then took over and I didn't have the spare time. I have now finally finished my bag by adding some appliquéd fabric bunting flags to my printed ones, some appliquéd fabric leaves on the tree and some simple stitch lines. I have also stitched some text and the date on the reverse.

With two of my bridesmaids being children (aged 5 years and 20 months) I felt I had the perfect excuse for a second hen party! I therefore organised a Bridesmaid's Tea Party and invited all three of my bridesmaids and their families. We had a wonderful time playing in the garden, eating cakes and ice lollies and making imaginary cups of tea with our new tea set!

(Handmade mini muffins - we soon polished these off between us!)

I handmade the invitations for this tea party based on our sage green and chocolate colour theme adding lots of pink and flowers to make them suitably girly. The images below show details of the face and reverse. I hand-embroidered the design and added appliqué detail before scanning it in to the computer and creating a design for the reverse. The final invitations had a printed version of this embroidered design on the face and a personalised reverse all mounted on a chocolate card base. My finishing touch was to hand-stitch tiny buttons on as the cherries on the cupcakes.

(Face)

(Reverse - Fanchesca's Mum had her own invitation as my chief Bridesmaid!)

Back to Blogging and Lots to Share

I am back! Sorry for staying away so long. It has taken me a little while to get back into the swing of things and to get photographs ready for sharing with you.


In the time I have been absent from my blog I have got married! (so happy - we had such a beautiful day). I have also been on honeymoon to St. Lucia. Now back to reality and normal crafting life I have been preparing products for Christmas.


I shall try and blog about all of the handmade details of our wedding in as close to chronological order as I can. These wedding posts will be interspersed with details of new products and Christmas preparations. 


Right now I am going to leave you with one of my favourite sunset photographs from our honeymoon (I took rather a lot!). The colours of the skies were amazing and we spent a long time each evening, cocktail in hand, looking out to sea and watching the sun go down. 

Yep, it has definitely been busy round here!

Gosh, things really have been busy here at Claire Hurd Design these last few weeks. And as if I needed proof, look how many cotton reels I have got through recently! I have been collecting them so I can make chunky necklaces with my little Niece. They really do serve as a good indicator of exactly how much sewing I have been doing.


I am a little torn at the moment. I have so much I want to share with you but also so many surprises that I cannot spoil by revealing things too early. I want to keep you all updated straight away with what I am working on but am just going to have to be patient.


Alongside my design work I have also been creating lots of handmade details for our wedding. Again, I have really had to restrain myself from posting everything straight away but I do want these details to be a surprise for my family and friends on the day so they will have to wait. I shall be busy relaunching some of my most popular items and doing some work on my shops soon so once that is all done I shall schedule a series of wedding posts for you (currently pencilled in for the first week in October when I can really spend time picking the best images).


In the meantime, something I can show you..........

I have finally finished my little bridesmaids' handmade silk roses! They are a combination of ivory silk, dusky pink silk and ivory satin (matching the little bridesmaids' dresses). They all have tiny bead detail and half of the roses have fine netting detail layered in and half have been left plain. I am certainly glad to finally have these finished!

Shops now Open!

I am pleased to announce that my online shops have re-opened and I am ready to begin making again. Thank you for your patience whilst I recovered from my operation.


I am also pleased to let you know that my wedding cupcake card is featured on page 22 of the UK Handmade Wedding Gift Guide. Do take a look at the guide as there are some really lovely handmade products featured.

Fabric Roses Update

Remember back in April when I showed you my attempts at making fabric roses? Well, since then I have been tinkering with them whenever I have had time. Now, with my deadline looming, I am trying to get them just right.

The idea is that they become a small posy for my young bridesmaids to carry at my wedding. They are only little (the youngest will be coming up to 20 months) and it doesn't seem fair to give them fresh flowers to carry and then have them spend the afternoon being told to be careful! I wanted to give them something that they can fiddle with, can hold any which-way and can drop without doing any harm. They can also have them afterwards as a little keepsake.

I have now added a stem and additional leaves to my rose. The fabric I went for in the end is a raw silk and I have added tiny beads to the rose centre for a little bit of sparkle.

I shall share pictures with you again when I have completed the posies - this could take some time! Cx

Handmade Wedding Cards

With my mind very much on weddings at the moment and having just gone through the arduous task of cupcake tasting (someone had to do it!) I thought it was about time I introduced a wedding version of my cupcake greetings card.

This card is blank inside making it suitable for wedding congratulations, wedding acceptance and also wedding invitations.


It is now available to purchase from my online shops including my new Facebook shop.


If you would be interested in me designing and making a personalised version of this card for you as wedding invitations then please email me at studio@clairehurd.co.uk and we can discuss your requirements.


Cx

Fabric Roses

I have been experimenting with making fabric roses with the idea of using them as decorations at my wedding. The roses I have made are based on a pattern from the book 'Sew Pretty Homestyle' (ISBN-13:978-0-7153-2749-4) which I have tweaked slightly.

I have been experimenting using fabric scraps from my stash to help me decide what quality I want to use for the final flowers. The cream roses above look nice but are rather tough to sew by hand. The roses below are softer but the fabric frays badly making the seams less secure. I think I need to try a softer fabric with a fine Vilene backing and see how that looks. I altered the pattern more for these silver roses making them easier to gather and giving the leaves a more rounded appearance.

I have added brooch backs to these samples. The silver rose will be appearing on my grey jacket very soon!


I am rather enjoying creating these and think I may be listing fabric rose brooches in my online shops very soon!