Textiles Collection

Let's start with a confession. I HATED textiles at school. I just didn't get it. It was very dry, lots of pattern cutting, no creativity. I get that it's best to learn the basics of something before you go advanced, but honestly, I don't work that way. My working tends to be more like this:

1. Buy lots of craft stuff
2. Throw out instructions / rule book
3. Attempt craft
4. Swear
5. Attempt crafting again
6. Throw it at the cat
7. Cup of tea and a cake
8. Pick up instructions, read around stain from discarded tea bag
9. Realise the 36 mistakes I was making
10. Take a deep breath & try again....

So really, maybe its more a fault of my brain than my textiles teacher, but still! These days I love textiles, and have started to incorporate them into my work. I did a needle felting course a while ago at The Bead Shop, Nottingham, which was lots of fun, allowing me lots of creative freedom while providing lots of information & inspiration. Lately I've taken to experimenting with incorporating needlefelt into jewellery and I've come up with these pendants:

I also did a course in Freehand Machine Embroidery with the amazingly talented Emily Smalley, who is based at Long Eaton Art Rooms. This is a fantastic technique, and very addictive, but I've not really had chance to explore it thoroughly as yet. 

It did get me thinking of different hoop art designs though, I think this is my favourite so far:

I also got a commission for some 'toy tidy' bags in a similar style, which I'm pretty pleased with. Apologies for the poor photo though!

I've had loads of fun developing this textiles range, I hope you like them! I've also started some Christmassy textiles too, with glitter & jingle bells! Any orders or commission requests please drop me an email: laura@eriminidesigns.co.uk 

Rainbow Party Preparations

Later this month is my second child's 3rd birthday. We're having a party at home with a rainbow theme, and I've been pinning like mad! (See my Pinterest board here)

The party bags were inspired by this pin, using small strips of tissue paper, about 3cm in width and 20cm in length. They're laid along a strip of tape, overlapped. I then snipped the ends to make the paper move better. The tape is attached to the back of the 'cloud', cut from white card, which I then stuck onto the bag using sticky fixers to give a slight '3D' effect.

The paper bags were purchased from Ebay and will be filled with tubs of playdough in rainbow colours (the tubs I also bought from Ebay here) so the guests can make their own rainbows when they get home!

I also made these coordinating decorations, one for the door & the number '3' for inside. I'm also hoping to do something like this paper chain rainbow for our archway, and the remainder of the tissue will be made into these tissue pom poms (I won't do a tutorial for these, Martha's done one, I can't beat that!)

I'll add some pictures of everything up and in place after the big day!