A jewellery box for Hope

My granddaughter Hope is three years old and loves sparkly jewellery. When I was thinking about what to give her for her birthday I decided to make a jewellery box for her with her name on it. I used to have an old oval box covered in material with a padded top and that was what I first thought of adapting but I found that I had disposed of it before we moved house. Back to the drawing board - so I toured the charity shops of Skipton looking for a replacement.

This is what I found - a denim handbag with pink embroidered flowers on the side, a pink lining and a flat top - for which I paid £1.75.

The top was the obvious place for her name so I traced the shape and added simple rounded letters to it. I tacked this to some sturdy shiny pale blue material from my stash using a contrasting green that I would be able to see and remove later. I then tacked round each letter and carefully removed the tracing paper.

 

  I decided that I would work each letter in a different colour to both match and compliment the bag. I went for red, pink, blue and white/silver and looked at my store of buttons and beads to see what I had that might be suitable - a delightful task! Unsurprisingly, as I am not a pink person myself, that was the colour that was lacking so I had to go shopping and spent about £7.

For each letter I began by sewing on a selection of buttons in the base colour. I then filled in the spaces around and under them with beads, which I added in runs of a few at a time and then couched firmly into  place. I also added some more beads or sequins to the centres of some of the buttons.

H O and P completed, E in progress

E in progress, closeup.

When the beading was finished I trimmed the material and hemmed it. I then covered the edge with some dark red rick-rack to neaten the edge.

Finally I pinned the finished embellishment on to the top of the bag and sewed it in place round the edge, easing it to fit. Here is the finished jewellry bag (into which I placed an oval pink cardboard box to stiffen the sides). I hope that Hope will enjoy her upcycled, repurposed and very glittery jewellery box!