Pay It Forwards

*I saw some super cute doorstops in a shop in Bath and though – Hmmmmm, with this new sewing machine of mine I can easily make those. So I did. Not quite as professionally as the shop. But I bought some grosgrain and some stick on Velcro, and using some samples and ends of material I had I crafted some doorstops.

I made them by turning the fabric right side in, and sewed a band at the top, wider than the Velcro is. I then sewed the edges of the bag together. Then to make them stand up I created a flat bottom. I am not sure what that is called but you can see what to do here. I then sewed on the grosgrain as a little handle and covered where this was with the stick on Velcro. Voila. Done.

They have been delivered flat, but once filled with some rice or gravel they work a treat. As they were made from samples and ends, the one above is just one of the designs I made.

* I also made some cute little button earrings from some pairs of matching buttons I had. Again, all the gifts are different as I didn’t have more than one set of matching button. I finished them off by packaging them up on one of my classic moo cards.

*Next I bottled some ‘homemade vanilla into some 100ml plastic bottles. I made some rum vanilla extract earlier in the year, but it hasn’t been quite the vanilla success I had hoped so I’ll be keeping it for me. So I had to make some afresh with a vodka batch for the Pay It Forwards. It wasn’t started quite early enough for the recipients {I didn’t check the rum one early enough} to be able to use right away, but in a couple of months it’ll be perfect. And as the vanilla matures and gets used, it can be topped up with more vodka and vanilla and left to infuse again.

*And I also added a recipe card with a recipe for my favourite banana bread recipe on it. The recipe cards are postcards I had printed from moo. As one side is a shiny postcard I had to buy a new super fine marker to write on them.