Garden box cushions…

Continuing the garden theme, I decided to make Trace a set of garden cushions for her birthday.

I bought the fabric ages ago, intending to make a dress or something, but it was really thick (being curtains) and I thought it would be perfect for these cushions. I made them narrower than normal so they would fit on her pickernick benches.

You’ll probably know by now that I like bright colours, so I raided my stash of bias binding to make contrasting piping. Is there anything more boring than sewing metres and metres of piping?

I had the pink and yellow bias in stash but I had to make the red and green myself. I even covered plain old white plastic buttons with scraps of bias to make them matching.

Nothing from these is newly bought – even the stuffing is some I saved from the cushions of our old sofa (there’s forward thinking! Who says hoarding is bad?)

There is something extra nice about giving gifts you’ve made to people who truly appreciate them. I know Trace’s first thought wasn’t, “they have machines to do that nowadays you know” and that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.

Beccy

Nature will find a way…

… is what my friend Trace always says. Something about Jurassic Park, or something. She has a uniquely ad-hoc style of gardening as a result, simply chucking handfuls of annual seeds around the flowerbed and letting nature do it’s stuff. If it grows, it grows – if it doesn’t, it doesn’t. It works though. Sure, sometimes things die and others get out of hand but the result is a bit like manicured nature. Clouds of pretty things left to their own devices.

It was her birthday last week, so mum decided to make her a plaque for her garden.

After choosing a gardeny font, mum printed it out to the appropriate size.

The base of the plaque is an old drawer front, taken from our (ever growing) stash of Interesting Things.

Mum placed the print out over the drawer front, holding it up to the light to make sure the lettering was in the right place, and used a pen to draw over the letters making sure she pushed into the wood slightly.

This created a template that she simply filled with white acrylic paint. It’s a lot easier if you work from left to right, doing all the letters on the left before moving over. Use a tiny brush and don’t overload it (mum says). She also says curves come out better if you move the wood, rather than the brush.

Two suitably old screws were added to the top to attach a bit of wire for hanging and it was done!

Doesn’t it look great?

I’ll show you what I made tomorrow,

Beccy