A girls night-in

Last week was one of the best weeks I have ever had in my ‘craft-life’. I had a lot of fun, inspiration, laughter and joy. I will tell you more about the ‘professional’ side of that adventure later in the week. However all that excitement was crowned at the weekend by a wonderful craft evening with some of my favourite girls.

Ella and Bea are very special – gorgeous young women, we love them dearly. They are even immortalized in my design work, having their very own Fairy Dolls created for them.

For a while we have plotted and discussed an Aunty Emma craft evening. Both girls have received knitting and crochet books as gifts and wanted first hand instruction to get them started. So we settled on a crafty sleepover. The girls arrived raring to go in the late afternoon and we set about listing some ‘objectives’ and planning our available time, just to make sure we could fit it all in.

They were both keen to cover some note books which they could then give to friends for Christmas. Great idea! Inspired by two tutorials from my favourite craft blogs, we set about making some hairclips. Look at the concentration.

These are from the wonderful Ruffles and Stuff. I love this pattern and look how effective the clips look. Both girls chose navy to match their school uniform.

We then moved on to make little felt roses. What hilarious fiddly fun this was! This tutorial was inspired by the great Alicia Paulson. I wasn’t able to find the crocodile clips she uses in the pattern. So instead we covered the clip to make a leaf and then used the pinking shears to finish it off.  The finished product looks so pretty. As everything was allowed to dry, it was time to snuggle up in front of ‘Strictly’ and start our crochet tutorial. (I know this sounds like craft boot camp!) Both girls did brilliantly well at their first crochet tutorial. Admittedly we were all fairly distracted by the dancing and sequins on the telly.

Next morning we had a working breakfast. We covered the little notebooks with felt and then the girls chose to make another felt rose to decorate.

Pretty impressive stuff. I also love their colour choices. All their own and completely distinct from each other. I cannot deny that I had so much fun sitting, chatting and working with these young women.

The joy of making together was a gift they gave me. Now that’s what I call a girly night-in.