DIY | adesignforwife

Thought I would share a little DIY I did recently with you, for wedding presents for two lovely couples. I wanted to pull something special out the bag for them, but after a return to uni for a year lets say there weren’t many pennies knocking around in said bag. For some reason…not entirely sure why I came up with this, but perhaps inspired by sunshine and some slightly drunken Primrose Hill picnics (Thanks @bambilinz!) I decided to make some picnic hampers, and then to line them. What I didn’t factor in though was the fact that neither my pal Bambi (who I roped in when she was vulnerable after the drunken picnics) nor I knew how to sew…

Still after some telephone conversations with Bambi’s mum, some youtube videos and what felt like a hundred year old sewing machine, we finally made them! So here’s how we did it…

Step 1: Got some hampers, about A3 sized I think and some suitably picnicky fabric (pink gingham, which we used for the sweets table at our wedding, I liked the idea of recycling the happiness from that day into a present for another wedding and paying it forward).

Step 2: Measured the depth and width of each side of the hamper (then added on a few extra inches for leeway and a roll over the top of the hamper) and cut out four shapes of the fabric, as per the below.

Step 3: We ran a nice little seam across the top edge off each side (I say this like it didn’t take it four hours to figure out how to do that). We then flipped the sides over and sewed them all together along the base side, and then up the depth sides to join it together to make a simple basket shape. We then sewed some grey ribbon across one of the shorter sides, to make two ties to hold some plastic wine glasses in.

Step 4: The next stage (before sewing the lining in to seal the deal) was to spray the happy couples’ initials on the top of the basket, in the style of a classic Fortnum & Mason ‘F&M’ hamper. Bit unfortunate that one of the couples were called Sarah and Mark as it meant I either went with S&M and made it look a bit dodgy, or go with M&S and make it look like I bought it from Marks & Spencer!

I cut the stencil by printing large gill sans capital letters, then cutting them out with a stanley knife into some cardboard, like so.

Step 5: Got some black enamel spray paint and covered my patio in newspaper before spraying the letters on and hoping for the best.

Step 6: I sewed the lining into the hamper, just using some little stitches in the top of each corner and at the back, by looping the thread through the wicker. Then I added some plastic wine glasses and a plastic picnic set. I also added a little label that said ‘life’s a picnic’.