Would you like to make Frugal and Environmentally friendly Wine bottle bag?

Well look no further here is an easy tutorial to make these. I would allow about an hour in total to complete this project. Skill level required is low and you can hand sew if you do not have a machine :)

Materials Required:

• Sheet of fabric from a sample book (They sell them off for between 50p and £1 in my local fabric shop)
• A length of ribbon 50-70cm (I used left over from other projects so cost £Nil)
• Needle and some Thread
• Sewing Machine (Optional)

Step 1:
You need to remove the strengthening paper from the samples.

If its tacked you will need to remove these with seem-ripper first

Now heat gently with an iron and the paper should come away fairly easily

 

Step 2:

Layout the bottle on the fabric and roll it over the bottle to see where to cut away the excess. Remember to leave a small seem allowance I used approx 2cm. 

 

 

Step 3:

Using the offcut you need to draw around the bottle and add a seem allowance I added approx 1.5cm to all sides. (I did this by eye it does not have to be exact.)

 

Step 4:

Next work out how tall you would like the holder and fold over the top twice (To conceal raw edges)

and hem either with the machine or by hand

 

Step 5:

Now put right sides together and sew down the length to create the tube.

Step 6:

Now we need to either pin or tack in the bottle cirle. I find tacking easier personally if you hand sew you will need to tack it first.

Step 7:

Sew on the bottom either by hand or with the machine. Remember to back stitch the start/end for strenght.

 

Step 8:

Now cut of all threads and turn in the right way. Check the bottle fits.

 Step 9:

Finish it by tying on a bow.

Exciting News we have a spoonflower shop!!!

Sorry we have been missing I had 2 poorly girls last week :(

We have also been busy deciding which products we sell that need revamping in our shop www.etsy.com/shop/generationinpiration ! We are slowly getting there and hope to launch the website soon so watch this space :)

More exciting News we have opened a Spoonflower shop, yay! We only have one item at the moment a panel that would be an excellent addition to a memory quilt just add your own embroidered family name couldn't be easier. Please check out our shop here, more designs to follow soon!

http://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/generation_inspiration

Tax Filing Deadline in the UK...

Sorry I have been a little quiet January is tax filing month and my day job gets in the way!
I thought I would share a few of the projects we completed this month at Generation Inspiration! We hope you like please leave comments we love hearing them :)

 These were all created with my Nan and Gramps 30th Wedding anniversary in mind they love them we hope you do too

Leanne & Michelle xxx

Pearl Anniversary Cake!

Hi Everyone yesterday with the help of the kids we made this! 

When I say they helped my eldest rolled 2 pearls for the base then ate the fondant and the youngest lets just say hygiene would not allow me to use hers ;)

This was the easiest cake ever thanks to me discovering by accident that the silver cake spray I bought actually make white icing pearl coloured. I hope my Nan & Gramp will love it!  

Cold Day Warming Hot Chocolate :)

It's very cold here today but we have none of the promised snow Boo!!!
We all spent the morning sorting out the kids clothes, a bag for the bin, bag for charity and more for the memory quilts so I am happy.
After all that effort we have just sat down together to enjoy a lovely mug of homemade hot chocolate with cream and marshmallows yum!!!

This is so easy to make

75g of chocolate (I used Galaxy)
2 cups of milk
1tsp vanilla extract
Cream
Marshmallows

Melt the chocolate in the milk over a low heat whisk until fully melted add vanilla pour into cups and add cream and mashmallows enjoy!

D-I-Y Giraffe Nursery Art Christening gift

Hi everyone I have been making a gift for a friend's baby and I thought it would make an excellent tutorial to share with you all so here goes my first craft tutorial :)

Tools Needed...

They are not necessary, but some items will make the job a little easier.

• Template you can use mine or draw your own
• 3 different contrasting Fabric's (I used old clothes I like to upcycle)
• Dressmaking scissors
• Kitchen scissors (So not to blunt the other when cutting paper)
• pins or safety pins
• Iron
• Fusible Web Applique paper
• Needle and embroidery thread in you choice of colour 
• Box frame (I used a 10 x 10 inch box frame)
• Pen/pencil
• Printer
• Sewing Machine & Thread

Step by step Instructions

• First off print out my template or draw your own (Sorry I did not photograph this stage as I had not decided to do the tutorial :( yet)
• Trace the design onto the fusible web (Remember if you are drawing your own it will be revered in my template the giraffe is already reversed for you)
• now cut around the design leaving a small border (put the leaf to the side we will use that later)
• Select the fabric for the giraffe's body and lay the fusible paper on the back you will now need to iron it for a few seconds and the paper will bond.
• Now cut neatly around the design
• Next choose your backing fabric cut this 1 inch all around bigger than the size of your frame.
• Peel of the backing paper on the giraffe and position on the backing fabric and iron into place
• Next we need to embroider the words write the word onto the leaf that you have printed or drawn.

• Now pin this onto your leaf fabric
• Take the embroidery thread (I used 3 threads from the 6 but use as many as you like)
• Tie and knot on the end and stitch over the words into the fabric perforating the paper as you go. I used backstitch and kept my stitches about 1mm long but again you can use whatever stitch you like.

• When you have stitched over all the words cut away any excess paper with the kitchen scissors.   

• Now cut a piece of the fusible interface bigger than the leaf and iron onto the back now cut out the leaf

• Carefully peel away the paper (you can moisten if its hard to remove)

• Remove leaf backing paper and iron into position. 
• You can leave the design as it is now and frame
• OR you can use a sewing machine to sew around the design which I what I have done I used zigzag stitch length 1.5 and width 2. 

Chicken, coconut & Sweet Potato curry!

I made this for the first time over the Christmas break and the kids loved it so I though I would share. Its my own recipe based on a curry recipe my dad gave me. The quantities are not exact as I do not measure as a rule. Its very mild and sweet why not add/ remove ingredients as you wish.

Ingredients
1 tbsp sunflower oil
1 small onion diced
1 clove crushed garlic or tsp of pureed garlic
1 large carrot peeled and diced
2 medium-sized sweet potatoes , peeled and cut into bite-size pieces
Cooked Chicken I cook a whole chicken and use legs, wings and fillets (keep breasts for another meal)
1 tbsp plain flour
1tbsp of mild curry powder (alter according to your taste)
300ml chicken stock
400ml can coconut milk
175g frozen peas

Method
1. Heat the oil in a deep frying pan or wok, add the onion, garlic, carrot and sweet potato. Cook until tender about 10 mins. Add the four and curry paste and fry for 1 minute. Next slowly add stock stirring to stop lumps forming. Add coconut milk and stir bring to the boil, then simmer for 10-15 minutes. Finally add the Chicken & peas, bring back to the boil and simmer for a further 4-5 minutes.

My girls love this curry with plain basmati rice but you can also serve with rice noodles, popadoms or chappati breads and introduce your kids to curry!

Hello... To blog or not to blog?

That is the question we have been asking ourselves since April when I signed up for blogger. For 9 months we have asked ourselves Should I, shouldn’t I?

I will start with a little bit of background on us:

We are a mother (Michelle) and Daughter (Leanne). We will both blog on here and share with you tutorials we think are helpful. 

My life (Leanne) had drastically changed over the previous few years, I left work as an accountant to have my eldest daughter Caitlin in 2008, adjusting to stay at home motherhood was lets say different. 2 years later Amber came along to complete the brood. I now stay at home full time looking after Amber (Caitlin is in reception at school). I do work some evenings doing book keeping (Boring!) and a business I setup with my mum in July this year. 

Generation Inspiration was born as we both love to create and craft, we really wanted to share our designs with the rest of the world. We are still new but we have had a great first period and Christmas was great. If you would like to have a look at the shop and our designs please visit our etsy shop http://www.etsy.com/shop/GenerationInpiration. We would love to hear your comments.
Initially we painted personalised watercolours but decided to take the leap into digital design, its been a steep learning curve but great fun.

So back to the original question to blog or not to blog? 

As creative people we love to cook, craft, paint design, you name it we have probably tried it. We often use blogs as a source of inspiration so we thought why not share what we have learned on our creative journeys. So we decided YES we would give it a go and see where this journey takes us. 

Thank you for starting this journey with us, hopefully we will all enjoy the ride!

Leanne & Michelle xxx