LOVELY LINKS 08.

Loving the hand drawn love series on Design Love Fest.

A sweet diy ribbon weaving from Ann-Marie Loves and a teeny, tiny diy woven necklace from

Say Yes.

14 creative ideas for pegboard, #12 has stole my heart.

How good is this diy stamped metal jewelry?

I always look forward to the 10 second shop tours on Design Sponge but I particularly loved this one.

Some thoughts on business and blogging I read this week and enjoyed. Elise rambles on a friday (about blogging, obviously) // 9 ways to build a business as an introvert // A day in the life of a craft blogger.

Chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate. Chocolate and toasted hazelnut milk // cookie butter pretzel chocolate balls // chocolate pecan brioche bread pudding with caramel sauce.

My dream shop and a dream space.

And finally some beautiful illustrations.

DIY Paper Bows (No Template)

DIY Paper Bows.

Today I wanted to show you how to make these cute diy paper bows that you can use to decorate any origami gift boxes you may make.

I made these using a template I sketched out but if this isn't something you feel confident doing you can use my DIY Bow Template.

Supplies:

• Scrapbook Paper

• Printer Paper

• Pencil

• Something Round to draw around

How To Make Paper Bows.

1. Sketch out your template.

To make the bow start by drawing two circles. Join them together in the middle and add a tail at each end.

2. To make the base of your bow draw another two circles but this time you need to make them slightly closer together. Join them in the middle again like in the photo above.

Make sure the middle parts of each piece are roughly the same size so when you glue them together they will fit nicely together and not stick out.

3. This is the part where you might need to do some tweaking.

To make sure your pieces are evenly matched fold them in half, trace around the edge and trim away any excess.

4. To finish the base piece of your bow, fold it in half again and this time cut a 'V' shape into the end.

5. Once you're happy with your paper template trace around it onto some thick cardstock and cut it out.

6. Take your scrapbook paper (this is great for using up all those leftover pieces from other projects) and trace around your templates.

7. Cut out all your pieces.

Making The Bow.

1. Take the bigger piece (the piece with the tails), lay it pattern side down and fold the ends in. Secure with some double-sided tape.

2. To finish the bow I used some thin strips of paper I had left over, stuck some more double-sided tape to the back of the strip and wrapped it around to hold the two pieces together.

6. Attach your finished bow to an origami gift box or bag.

I really love how these turned out and the great thing about them is there are so many ways you could use them.

You could string them together to make a pretty garland, add some ribbon to the top of each one and hang from your tree or even press them flat and use them to embellish cards or scrapbook pages.

Want more DIY Paper Bows? You can find them below:

• DIY Paper Bow - Free Template

• Origami Paper Box

• Easy Origami Bow Ties

THREE THINGS I LOVE - PAPER BOXES.

Ever since making these I've had homemade paper boxes on the brain and I've been scouring the web for more. Here's three of my favourites so far.

1. Sweet printable geometric heart favor boxes from Mr Printables.

2.  Vitamini Handmade shows us how to make these clever diy origami gift boxes.

3. And you can find these summery citrus treat boxes over on Damask Love.

I'll be having a go at making number 2 tonight.

AROUND HERE - SEPTEMBER.

We spotted this mystery creature last saturday afternoon. We tried to take it's picture but it moved pretty quickly so it's a bit of a blur. In profile it looked like a tiny bird, it hovered and fed like a hummingbird but from the back it looked like a moth. After much discussion (is it a bird? No, I think it's a moth, no wait, maybe it is a bird, can you even get hummingbirds in the uk? I don't think so.) a quick google revealed it to be a hummingbird moth. So a moth that looks like a bird then.

I've been reading Made at Home by Lisa Stickley. I have a sewing machine I've used at the most 10 times and definitely not in the last 12 months, shame on me. I think it's time to change that. This book is full of 'simple' sewing projects, hopefully that means I can't go wrong.

Loving this magnet I bought at a craft fair last week. It's some kind of photo transfer on a stone tile. Does anybody have any idea how you do this? I've tried googling but I can't find anything where it ends up looking as bright as this. Tissue paper, maybe?

I've been busy making paper bows out of scrapbook paper to go with my origami gift boxes. It's a great project to do sitting in front of the tv.

Sunday was spent outside sanding and painting the fireplace a pale grey. It dried much lighter that I thought it would but that's ok. I think I prefer it this way.

THE DIANA PHOTO APP.

Has anyone else tried the Diana Photo app? It's an app that combines 2 of your photos to make these really clever double exposures. You can either pick your own photos or let it randomly pair 2 photos together and then swipe through the various filters until you're happy with the effect. I've been playing with it all week and absolutely love it.

Below are a few of my favourites so far. The photos are from a day trip to Portmeirion last week.

If you want to see more of the amazing things you can do with this app check out #dianaphotoapp on instagram.