Pay It Forwards

At the beginning of the year I decided to take part in the Pay It Forwards my friend Lizzie put on her FB status and I had replies from Helen, Helen and Rach on the blog and Sam and Lisa on twitter. Sam moved into a new house in January and I made her a little something then and its been a long time coming but I finally got my act together and got the rest of my Pay It Forwards gifts in the post this week. Hopefully they should have arrived with their recipients by now {if not then it might not be a surprise any more, oooops}. I also popped a package over to Lizzie last weekend, just because I thought she might like it too.
I decided that I was going to put a little package together of some things I thought might be fun to receive rather than sending just one thing. Plus, this way it gave me an excuse to try out some bits I had seen and couldn’t see a reason to make otherwise.

So this is what each recipient got;

*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.

Everything was then packaged up in some tissue, tied with bakers twine and then tagged with, you guessed it, more cards from Moo, this time some ‘Handmade with Love’ cards that are made from their free business cards offer {Google it if you fancy some}, with the bit that tells you it’s a free card craft knifed off and the corners rounded {and because I cut the free bits off, I have a stack of 15% off at Moo.com codes – if you want one, leave me a message and I’ll send you a code}.

Each package is a bit of a lottery as all the bags and earrings are different and I wrapped them, sealed the envelopes and then stuck on the address labels, so I am not sure who received what but I hope they like the package they get. 

5 comments

  1. Hi Em,

    It was such a lovely end to the week that had started out not so well, to find your parcel waiting for me.

    All of the items are gorgeous and I was a little taken aback by all of them. You are certainly putting us to the test and have set a high standard.

    Speak soon, Lisa x

  2. Thanks guys.
    I am glad that you liked them.

    It was actually loads of fun making them. I am sure I should just be allowed to sit at home and craft – working just gets in the way! x

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