Crafting weekend: pretty handmade rubber stamps.

Hello, happy Sunday! :) I hope you've been enjoying this afternoon! We went on a walk through the snow (yes, last night is has been snowing a bit...) and ate fresh cake Flo made yesterday. I also look tons of photos of the new stamps I made yesterday evening (and I also took new photos of the old ones). I haven't been making stamps for quite a while, but maybe some of those who have been reading my blog for quite a while remember my first tries to make some about two years ago (the posts are here, here and here :)).
In case you need a tutorial for how to make those extremely pretty rubber stamps, check out Gennine's blog, there you can find lots of helpful, easy and aesthetic tutorials! :)
Most designs were my own idea, but I found inspiration for the little arrows, the apple and the Chevron pattern on Pinterest on Claire's inspiring rubber stamp pinboard.

My absolute favourite one is the owl I carved into the rubber stamp, using my own owl design as a pattern. I have been storing this huge rubber inside my drawer for a few months, waiting for the perfect idea which design to use it for and yesterday I had the idea to use to owl and then to use the stamp for envelopes, gift cards and so own. :)
Which is your favourite stamp?
I've got sooo many ideas for new designs, I made lots of sketches and can't wait to buy some new rubbers. :)
Wish you a happy evening and don't forget to enter the 400 followers giveaway in order to win a gift card for my online shop! :)
Lu

Thank you for reading my blog!

Dear readers, wow, I have (constantly) been wriiting this blog for about two years and today I got follower number 400! :) It's amazing, I feel so honoured that you regularly read (and sometimes comment on :)) my posts and I appreciate your feedback so much! :) I love being part of the blogger community. <3

To thank you and to show you my appreciation, I'm now hosting my 6th giveaway.
You can win a gift certificate of 25€ for my shop on DaWanda, which means that you can chose any item - or several different handmade items from my shop - which you want for a total of 25€. :)
The giveaway is not limited to German readers, you can take park no matter where you live.

The only things you have to do is to comment on this post why you should win, leaving you e-mail address so that I can contact you and you have to be a follower of my blog (if you aren't a follower, yet :)).

What is more, you can also leave additional comments, each comment is an extra chance to win:
- A link to a post on your own blog which is about this giveaway.
- Follow me on twitter and leave a comment with you twitter name.
- Like Luloveshandmade on Facebook and leave a comment with your Facebook name.
- Follow me on Pinterest and also leave a comment with your nickname.

The giveaway will be open until Friday, February 2, 6 p.m. (Central European Time). I will then randomly chose a winner. :)
Wish you good luck! <3
Lu

Sewing DIY.

Dear readers! :) As I got to know, here a few readers who are interest in a tutorial for how to sew a zipper, so I decided to make a few illustrations to make clear how this works. :) Hopefully this will help you! :)



> Sew the fabric scraps onto the endings of the zipper. Each end of the zipper has to be between to layers of fabric and will thus be covered.

> Now iron the fabric scraps. The seam to attach them to the zipper is now hidden.

> Put the fabric right side up and pin the zipper face down onto it. Use a zipper foot for basting (therefore, use a straight stitch for sewing the zipper onto the fabric).

> Now you need to pin one piece of lining onto the front pieces (right sides together), the zipper is in between. Using a zipper foot, stitch the upper edges together. The dotted lines in the illustration indicate how it looks between the layers of fabric.

> The front piece of fabric is now turned inside out. Press the layers together and iron. Next, topstitch the upper edge of the front, attaching the fabric to the zipper.

> Do the same with the back and the back lining. After you are done with it, it should now look like on the illustration above.

> Now you only need to put the right sides of the outer fabric onto each other. Therefore, the zipper has to be open and you need to fold the pouch in half. Pin the sides and bottom edges together and stitch the two layers together. Don't forget to stitch back and forth over the zipper and on the ends in order to close your seam. Then use a zigzag stitch to sew the raw edges together.
Finally, do the same with the two layers of the lining. The lining's right sides have to face each other, then you can pin them together and sew the sides and the bottoms onto each other, leaving a small seam allowance. This time when sewing the layers onto each other, you need to leave out an opening so that you can turn the bag right side out after you've finished sewing. Later close that opening by hand, using a blind stitch.

In case you have any questions, just let me know, I hope this tutorial is useful for some of you! :)
Lu

Where you can also find me...

Hello! :) Is anyone of you registered on Pinterest? In case you don't know that site, it's like a virtual pinboard where you can share inspiration and I really love it. :) To find me, either click on the photo above or on this link. :)