As we enter November I wanted to share a peek at a few festive projects from my book Modern Brush Lettering. Inspired by the festive season the Winter chapter focuses on the joy of a handmade christmas whether that’s gifting, decorating, hosting or wrapping. Here’s a peek below…

Following on from sharing this wreath on Instagram this week I wanted to pop a little tutorial here for anyone who fancied getting crafty but didn’t know where to start to making paper wreaths. I often use my Cricut machine for paper cutting but this week I taught a papercut workshop at a local school and remembered how fun and relaxing it is to actually cut the paper, we also used scissors rather than craft knives and mats.

The other day I fancied making something to add some festive spirit to my studio so decided to illustrate some eucalyptus & berry shapes and make my own paper cut wreath. You only need a couple of materials for this make: an embroidery hoop, glue stick, card and either a cricut machine or craft knife and cutting mat. I used my Cricut machine to cut out the shapes before sticking them around the embroidery hoop pointing in the same direction, overlapping them to make it look full and wild. If you fancy making one I’ve popped the templates I illustrated below so you can use them in your cricut design space or to cut by hand.

So at the beginning of Autumn I sent out a Autumn bucket list on my newsletter for people to print and fill in with autumnal activities, lots of people sent me photos of their lists and said how much they liked it so I thought I’d do a festive one too. I sometimes find the darker days a bit hard so it’s nice to try and make things as exciting as possible and you don’t have to fill your list with extravagant things just fill it with ideas of things that will make you happy… You can see on mine I’ve got little things like watching certain films, walking to see the village christmas lights and making mince pies and then bigger ideas like going to the christmas tree farm to pick a tree and decorating it, I’ve never had a real one since being an adult so I’m so excited to do this.

Last friday I spent the day working on making wreaths for a local charity shop window display and thought I’d pop a quick DIY here for some whimsical faux wreaths perfect if you want to get crafting early this year or you are creating a display that has to last a few weeks.

Get spooky this halloween with my free templates for your own paper cut garland, there’s a brush lettered spooky and mini ghosties to download for free below! If you have a Cricut machine you can import the templates straight onto the design space or if you are cutting by hand make sure you print the templates at 100% for the same size garland as mine.