Vintage style monogram brooch, hanky tissue case, and Ninni WIPs

Hey! How have you been? I have been lazy. Very, very lazy. Even though I am *finally* getting over this flu thing all I want to do is read and eat cherries. Neither of which are bad things, of course, but I was *meant* to be finishing a pair of gloves for my Nana's Christmas present.

As you've probably guessed, I haven't done that. >_< So, because I'm seeing her (and the rest of my family) tomorrow for the gift exchange, and there is no way I was going to finish the gloves in one day, I made her some other gifts. *Fast* gifts!

First up: a pretty vintage style brooch made entirely with stash components.  I love it when my hoarding tendencies actually come in useful! ~_^

Here's how I made it:

1. I drew a fancy "A" (for "Alma" in this instance) onto a piece of calico, making sure that it was going to be small enough to fit into the ... setting? (I'm not really sure of the proper term. It is meant to be used as a pendant, once a cameo or something similar is attached to the middle of it, but I turned it upside down for this project.)

2. Using tiny stitches and only one strand of DMC, I embroidered the A. 

3. As mentioned before, I used a necklace setting (if anyone knows the proper term, please tell me!) turned upside down; I attached a bead and pearl teardrop where a jump ring would normally be attached. The bead and pearl teardrop are from an old earring. See what I mean about hoarding? ~_^

4. I had some epoxy stickers which I hadn't used before; I stuck one over the embroidery and then trimmed the edges. I was pretty nervous that it would ruin the stitches, but it turned out fine and also magnifies the image somewhat. To give you an idea of how small this is, the epoxy stickers are about 1.5 cm high.

5. Then I used E6000 to glue the embroidery into the setting. This had the added bonus of ensuring my stitches will never come loose ~_^

6. To finish, I used the E6000 again, this time to add a brooch clasp to the back of the setting.

Hurray! One present done!

For the second present, I was inspired by this tutorial, but I wanted to make it smaller to fit those little packs of travel tissues and thus make this more of a "keep in your handbag" kinda gift.

To make this, I used one handkerchief, cut into quarters (cutting it was the scariest part for me, and this isn't even a real vintage hanky, it just looks like one). I used fray-stop on the raw edges, then I just stitched the ends closed. Very easy, but check out the link if you want to see more detailed instructions.

It fits a travel sized pack of tissues perfectly, and is pretty cute too ^_^

I used a piece of baker's twine to make it look a little more fancy; it is a gift after all ^_^ 

Now, with Nana's gifts ready for tomorrow, I can get back to the *other* project I've been procrastinating on ... making Ninni Monsters! ^_^

I hope you had a great weekend! Have you been making any Christmas gifts?

- Lisa x