Polaroid case |

As you may have noticed (or not!) I have had a bit of a rearrange of my categories and menu. I’ve made a new category (and archive page) for posts where you could make the things yourself – like my tutorial for making a tote bag and how to make a running armband: Make It.

I thought I’d write this quick post to let you know all the ones I’ve written before, which are now in the archive. I’ll be checking through them to make sure they all have comprehensive enough instructions for you to follow. Let me know if you spot anything that needs better instructions.

I’m hoping to add new posts of crafty, and thrifty things you can make yourself. I love sharing things I’ve made, but I want to encourage other people to make things too.

You can make food shopping/ planning less painful (well, I find it less painful!) with this meal planner pinboard.

Make your very own Doc Brown costume from Back To The Future – though it might be too late now it’s not 2015 any more 😦

One of my favourite ever makes, A Beautiful Mess’s Felt Allotment, could be made for any kid in your life – and, in fact, I kinda want one myself!

Do you know a kid with a favourite show or book? Why not make them a cushion with the character on, like my Sarah and Duck cushion?

Have you set a New Year’s Resolution to take up jogging (or another kind of exercise)? Make yourself an armband to hold your phone so you can listen to chunes while you work out!

Ah, the tote bag. If you’re living in the England, then what better way to avoid the new plastic bag charge than by making up a bunch of tote bags?

I made these tea cup candles a while ago, and I plan to make more as they’re so cute!

If you know someone who recently had a baby, but don’t really know what to get them, why not applique some animals or flowers or letters or anything at all on some babygrows? Clothes are always a useful gift and this way they’re a bit more personal!

I made this Polaroid camera case for a friend of mine a while ago, and the principles could be transferred to any camera. Of course, not everyone will probably like an anatomical heart adorning it…….

This has to be one of the easiest makes ever – you just need a clock kit from ebay! And a vinyl record, of course.

For one of my many friends who likes BBC’s Sherlock I made this Kindle cover – it’s got silhouettes on one side and the purple shirt of sex and John’s cabled jumper on the other side!

If you don’t fancy making a cushion for a kiddie, you could make a wall hanging instead, like this one of Norman The Slug With A Silly Shell!

At our work Christmas drinks, I had a conversation with my very drunk friend about making a Polaroid case for her camera. I wanted to make is as a surprise because I thought she might not have remembered the conversation, but a) she did remember it and b) I had to ask her which model she had to know what size to make it. She has an sx70 which is 18cm x 10.5cm x 4cm. I added a cm to each edge for a seam allowance. I made the outside out of calico and the inside out of grey felt (both of which I had in my stash) and put 2 layers of wadding in between the 2 layers.

I decided to decorate the case with an old-fashioned drawing of an anatomical heart as my friend has been talking for a while of getting a tattoo of one – so I did this whole bit as a surprise! I picked this image:

I used the special paper that you can print on and then iron onto fabric:

Unfortunately, I’m an idiot and didn’t peel off the backing before I ironed the heart which I printed at work (because my printer is broken). This meant it was ruined…..and I was on a week off so I couldn’t just print another one. So after a long time of being full of rage at being so stupid, I had the brain wave to trace the heart onto the special paper by hand. I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out:

This is the inside:

The corners where a bit tricky, but I managed to make it all look okay. Plus this part stayed inside out, so it didn’t matter if the corners weren’t sharp when the right way around. I had to trim the seam allowances to get it small enough to get into the outside.

I hoped I would be able to sew the wadding into the seams, but my machine wouldn’t go through that many layers. So I sewed the wadding to the inner part:

I made the flap for closing the case separately, so I could then sew it into the seam between the inner and outer. I put the poppers on the grey side before I sewed it all together so you couldn’t see the stitching. They weren’t quite in a row, but I’m claiming that I did that on purpose so you’d know if was handmade!

I had to hand-sew the seam around the top of the case partly because I don’t think my machine would have sewed through 2 layers of felt, 2 layers of wadding and 2 layers of calico, but mainly because I couldn’t get it under the needle because the case is too small to fit. I forgot to take any photos of the top seam (which is a shame because I was pretty pleased with how neat it looked), so here is the finished case.

This is it with the camera inside – thank god it fit perfectly!