I love getting crafty for Christmas. I have relatively low crafting standards at home, I’m content to make cotton wool snowmen with my 4 year old and other such delights. Sometimes it’s nice to do something for myself, so one rainy Sunday afternoon I found myself braced against the elements and heading to another wonderful Ministry of Craft event, this time in conjunction with Laura Ashley.

We were in the cosy upstairs of Rosylee Tearooms, 25 bloggers gathered for some Christmas crafting, or Craftmas if you will. We spilt into two groups and I started by making a large origami box. Using large squares of beautiful Laura Ashley wallpaper, intricately folded into a large-ish gift box with lid. We then created a large bow to top the box with, again out of strips of wallpaper. I chose a contrasting paper to my box. It’s really rather effective and I’ll be recreating this at home with some nice thick wrapping paper.

Once we’d completed our first craft task we were treated to a selection of canapés, my favourite were the mini tomato bruschetta, but there was something for everyone, even gluten free options.

Suitably fortified we moved on to the sewing machines, a personal fear of mine. I’ve not used one since school and even then I wasn’t known for my skills. I am a nervous machinist, hand sewing is fine though. Thankfully I was under the expert guidance of Jeanette from the Ministry of Craft and I was sat near Hollybobs who really knows her way around a sewing machine.

We were set to work making little drawstring bags to put presents in. Using Laura Ashley fabric we made little red sacks and decorated them with cute bunting. Jeanette soon got the measure of me and entrusted me with her unpicker, which was just as well as I managed to sew all the wrong things together. It was easy to use the machine, my problem was more a lack of care, attention and confidence. Regardless I managed to make a pretty attractive looking bag.

I was really pleased with my efforts, they may lack finesse but they’re not terrible. Spending another afternoon with the Ministry of Craft has done wonders for improving my crafting confidence, which is so important when crafting with the small boy. My New Years resolution is to find more crafting me time and to learn how to use my sewing machine!

You can read more about our craftmas afternoon on the Laura Ashley blog. I think a lovely time was had by all, thank you to Laura Ashley, the Ministry of Craft and Joe’s Bloggers for arranging it. It’s amazing what can be created from wallpaper and upholstery fabric!