Thanks kiddio and One Crafty Place

Thanks, kiddio, for hosting the first Kid Craft Jamboree! It was fun to be a part of and I enjoyed finding (yet more) fun blogs to browse through...

Also thanks to One Crafty Place for featuring our woven basket after seeing me on Kiddio. Miss E got such a thrill out of seeing her basket on someone else's blog!

Flower headband tutorial

Yay for a quiet day at home. It was lovely, even with David home with 'man flu' (ie. a normal cold that is so, so much worse when you are a man...). After our very busy last few days of socialising, easter egg hunts, playgroup, circus etc. we were all happy to stay home and chill.

I even managed to squeeze in one crafty accomplishment. I love making these little flowers and normally I only make them out of felt but decided to use some fabric and yarn this time too just for something different. Here is a quick tutorial on how to do it.

This is not an exact science as to the size of the petals so I just cut the first one out in the general shape I am thinking of and then copy that for the remaining petals. I cut five for the first layer in fabric and three slightly smaller petals in felt for the second layer. Obviously this part is open to any interpretation so just have fun with it!

After cutting them all out I used a long running stitch on the base of the fabric petals. You do not need to knot the end of the thread.

After they are all on the thread you simply tie the thread and knot it, gathering the petals into the middle as the thread is pulled and you end up with the flower shape. Knot this a couple of times.






Repeat for the felt petals.



Put the felt petals on top. I then just bunched up a short'ish length of orange yarn and plonked that on top of the petals then finished with a cute button. Then I stitched through all layers to attach the button and to hold it all together. Does that all make sense??





This is before I had stitched through all the layers.

I then stitched it all onto a little stretchy elastic headband of Miss E's. You can easily attach these to hair clips, fabric hairbands, safety pins (to make a brooch), hair bands etc.





Have fun!

More easter crafty fun

This will be a quick one because it is 10.30pm, I still have the dreaded lurgy and I really should be in bed but wanted to do a post today and only just finished everything else. Well, finishing stuff and uploading easter egg hunt and circus photos on Facebook.....


So, with school holidays here and easter looming we managed an egg craft. That is to say, we used the lovely little hollow plastic eggs that were given out at the easter egg hunt for a fun craft. Not necessarily an easter themed craft, what with aliens and all.....you get the picture.


Anyway, after getting a bunch of these cool hollow eggs I was wondering what to do with them when the lovely Mister Maker just happened to come on TV with this little idea. Serendipity! We did them straight away.




I don't think instructions are really needed here. We just cut out various features and appendages and glued them on as well as googly eyes. Oh, you just need to put a little ball of modelling clay inside to help them stay up. That's it really. Miss E had a ball doing them though.


This one is Miss E and A's 'bug box'. I just used a really sturdy shoe box I had lying around (hard to believe that I would have one of those, isn't it Lynette?). I cut a big hole in the lid and glued some clear plastic to the inside frame for the window. A little grasshopper lived happily in there for at least, oh, 2 hours before they couldn't help but set him free. Oh well, it is ready for the next bug invasion!



This is the easiest dress up costume I have ever done! Miss E wanted to be a fox, we had fuzzy orange pipecleaners lying there so I wrapped a couple around her headband and voila! She played fox happily for quite awhile. Mind you, she keeps asking for a tail and I am running thin on ideas of how to do a nice big fluffy tail when I don't have access to any orange faux fur. Thinking, thinking......



This cute crown was inspired by this over at WhiMSy love. I just made mine bigger to fit on their heads and I didn't have any jewels or sparkly pipecleaners so pink and orange it had to be! I couldn't get one of them to stand still so I could get a picture of it on one of their heads.



Well, that's it for the last few days. Not sure when my next post will be as I need new batteries for my camera. I am hoping I won't have a hard time buying lithium ones here....

Kid Craft Jamboree at kiddio

I have just submitted my previous post over at the Kid Craft Jamboree being hosted by kiddio and Flipflops and Applesauce. Can't wait to see everyone's entries! Go and have a look and, if I had any readers, I would recommend you go and post something too (the deadline is April 5)! :-)

Easter basket

Miss E and I were brainstorming ideas for some Easter craft today. She came up with this idea because she has a lovely easter basket but we didn't have one for A and she was very concerned about where the easter bunny would put his eggs. Anyway, we had a lot of fun putting this together and are thrilled with the finished item. We had already done similar weaving on a tiny scale so I just had to modify it for a larger project by adding the card base.

Here is the tutorial.

Firstly, cut a circle of paper from a paper plate or stiff card and put an odd number of dots around the perimeter (it is important that it is an odd number otherwise the weaving won't work).

Next, I just used the pointy end of the scissors to make a little hole where each pencilled dot is.

Then softly fold your chenille stems (or pipecleaners as they are also known) in half and push each end up through 2 holes. Now, obviously there is an odd number of dots so you will need to put one chenille stem through halfway and secure it to the underside loop of the chenille stem next door, so to speak. Once you have wound it around or pinched it to secure you can trim the excess off.

Now, you just bend one end of a chenille stem around any of the uprights and start weaving. Miss E is nearly 7 and she had no problems with the weaving - it is nice and simple. Just keep adding chenille stems by twisting their ends together as you run out.

Once you get to a little bit less than an inch from the top you can secure the last weaving chenille stem around one of the uprights and then bend over all of the uprights to secure the top of the basket. Now, half of the uprights will have their horizontal chenille stem on the inside so you can just simply fold the upright over and pinch. The other half will have their horizontal chenille stem on the outside so I just folded the upright the other way and then pushed it through to the inside for a neat finish. The idea is to make sure the last horizontal chenille stem is secured with every upright one.

You could leave it without a handle but we also added a handle simply by winding two stems together to get a good length and then poking it through on either side and winding it back around itself to secure. I also made a little chenille bunny outline and popped that on the front so we know it is for easter. Miss E had creative control over the colours so they are not necessarily the 'spring'iest' of colour combinations but I think it looks great anyway.

The dreaded lurgy....

This is what happens when you do too much and run on too little sleep...the dreaded lurgy gets you. Miss E has been home all week with a double ear infection and a horrible cold, which she has lovingly shared with myself and A now. Ugh. Anyway, I have been only eating fresh fruit and vegetables since yesterday and am feeling a little better. I can't say the same for poor little A who coughed and spluttered most of the night. I LOVE the fact that David likes to do night duty and he let me sleep. What a man.

Well, I haven't been doing much of anything for the last couple of days except going through the hundreds (maybe thousands) of photos on my hard drive trying to weed some out, file them appropriately etc. Anyway I came across one of my favourite furniture rehabs that I did awhile ago. Well, good friend/buddy/pal Barry did most of the actual woodwork but I had the ideas and did the painting!

This is an old bookcase that I had hanging around and wanted to use it in Miss E's new 'big girl' room.



This is the bookcase after adding a new top and bottom (and some bun feet) and painting it all in gloss white (forgive the photo quality). I love it! We did this a few years ago and I still love to think about how it looked before. I think before and after shots are my favourite actually!

In that vein, I will show you Miss E's bed in progress and finished. Love it too! I designed this one (using vintage ones as inspiration obviously - this basic design has been around for a looong time) and David and Barry made it. I used instructions on how to put a bed together from Better Homes and Gardens - can't remember which issue. This photo was taken in our house in Australia before we headed off on the expat trail.



Barry also made the toy boxes under the bed - they are on castors and hold an insane amount of toys!
I may do a few posts of all our woodworking exploits - I sure do miss my power tools! Oh well, one day when we are back in Australia I can get back into it (David, that thought will make you soooo happy! :-)).

Clipboard fun and mucho baking...

I saw this great idea for a mini clipboard over at Let's Explore and made one for Miss E. She has been having great fun with such a simple idea! I love her little bird drawing. I used some old cut offs of matboard and covered it with wrapping paper and contact adhesive.

Well, I have been very busy with baking up a storm for a party for 35 last night and I was hosting my book club this morning (about 20 people). I forgot (didn't have a moment to scratch myself really...) to take any photos of the yummy food on offer but it included an orange cake, my wonderful friend, Emily's, delicious chocolate brownies (which Miss E will only call Fritz brownies now after reading the recipe title, Emily), mini baked lemon cheesecakes and Tiramisu. Not to mention all the salads, nibblies etc. All well received I believe! Phew. I am e.x.h.a.u.s.t.e.d. Note to self - never doing a party mid week again! Well, especially not the night before another function as well.....

Colour mixing and farewell Moster

Well, it has been a pretty boring week, craft wise, around here! I have been in a bit of a funk and haven't had a lot of enthusiasm for anything much - not even baking. I did manage one activity with A and E got some enjoyment out of the second half of it as well. Basically I put food colour (diluted) into 3 glasses, got out the paint palettes and an eyedropper and let A transfer the coloured water to each little indentation and then he added a different colour. I wish I had a photo of A's face when a drop of blue hit the yellow. He loved it! Then, after he finished that, we did some cotton bud painting. Always a favourite.

Apart from that, my great Aunt (we called her Moster) just passed away and I am on the other side of the planet and can't get back for the funeral. As much as I enjoy aspects of the expat way of life, these things sadden me. So, in memory of our dear beloved (and eccentric!) Moster, here is my favourite recent photo of her. She was 99 years old and would have turned 100 this November.