Hello Everyone
We decided to have a Secret Santa again this year at A Vintage Journey, it was such fun last year and who doesn't like to get a lovely surprise at Christmas?!
I was so lucky to receive my gift from my lovely friend and talented teamie, Julia of Create With Me. Julia made me a mini book which is gorgeous and a beautifully decorated box (one of Eileen Hull's Artist Trading Block dies) to keep it in! I absolutely love it.
The little book is adorable and is packed with Tim Holtz goodness! How clever and thoughtful of Julia to combine two of my favourite Designers, Tim Holtz and Eileen Hull too!
I cannot believe how much Julia packed into this beautiful little book, I will treasure it always and it will take pride of place amongst my Christmas decorations! Thank you so much Julia!
The recipient for my gift is my wonderful teamie Nikki of Addicted to Art. I wanted to make something for Nikki that was a little different to my usual papercraft projects. As I have a lovely stash of Tim Holtz fabric and I saw a pattern in a magazine, I knew I wanted to make one of these make up purses for Nikki as her Secret Santa gift. I really enjoyed doing some sewing again and thanks to Nikki, I will be doing a lot more! I am pleased to say that Nikki loved her gift, I hope you will too!
This is my favourite of all of Tim's Eclectic Element fabrics, it is wonderful quality and so easy to use, either for hand or machine sewing. I used a bit of each to make this purse.
The clasp at the top is sewn on by hand with a linen thread in a coordinating colour and using a back stitch. This was the trickiest part but I was not keen to glue the fabric in place.
I lined the inside with some soft cream fabric that had a thin batting already fused to it, which saved me from trying to sew through three layers of fabric. I also lined around the inside with some gorgeous lace to hide the hand stitching around the top. There is a way to do it without the stitches showing but I have not mastered that technique yet.
To finish off I added a couple of Idea-ology typed tokens, hanging from one of Tim's Idea-ology swivel clasps.
Christmas really is THE most wonderful time of year, a time for sharing with family and friends, I have really enjoyed doing Secret Santa again with my teamies at A Vintage Journey and I hope you have enjoyed seeing our gifts.
It would be lovely to see you join in our current 'Vintage Christmas' challenge, details of which you can find HERE.
As always, thanks for looking, I hope to see you again soon.
Hugs, Anne xx
