My children take a real pleasure from books and I love that they are excited by our Book Advent. A Book Advent is a Christmas themed book-a-day during December, much better for you than chocolate! This year we’ve had a whopping 29 books, so nearly 1 for every day of December. We’ve taken out some from last year and passed them to our local charity shop. We’ve also picked up a few more along the way. This year we have stored our Advent books in a Children’s Cardboard Bedside Table Kit from The Cardboard Man. It comes as flatpack but…
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Earlier this month I made some no sew Christmas pudding decorations to sell at the school Christmas Fayre. They were quick and easy to make and look great on a Christmas tree so I thought I’d share a little tutorial with you. Equipment needed to make no sew Christmas pudding ornament: ping pong balls silicone glue brown wool green and white felt red sequins scissors How to make no sew Christmas pudding ornament: Wrap your ping pong ball completely with brown wool, make sure there are no gaps. When you’ve finished leave a small loop to hang your ornament and…
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As we’re hosting a family Christmas I really wanted to add as many handmade touches as I could. This year I’ve made some super sweet clay tags to hang on everyone’s cracker. When they’ve finished with the cracker they can remove and keep their tag and hang it on the tree. Equipment needed to make easy personalised clay tags: Sculpey oven-bake clay Small cookie cutters Acrylic paint and brush Small letter stamps How to make easy personalised clay tags: Roll out your Sculpey clay until it is 2-3mm thick. I rolled it between two sheets of greaseproof paper so it…
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A couple of weeks ago I was asked to take part in a collaborative quilt with some other crafty bloggers. The idea was that we each made a quilt block which would get sent to the next blogger via InPost. They would then attach their block to the quilt and send it on to the next person. I made a couple of blocks as I couldn’t decide what to make. This morning I received a text message to say our #CraftTheParcel was waiting to be collected at the locker I designated. I scanned the QR code I had been sent…
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This evening I’ve been playing around trying to pretty up some Christmas presents. I love wrapping my presents with simple brown paper but they are not always well received. I remember last year my father in law looking a little puzzled when I handed over our presents, he asked if we had run out of wrapping paper! This year I made sure to wrap his presents in the brightest Christmas paper I could find. I wanted to re-visit my idea of simple brown paper for some gifts but I thought I would embellish them to show I’d put some effort…
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Last night I was searching for some online inspiration for decorating ideas. I came across a post on the Multiyork blog about making a handmade countdown for the 12 Days of Christmas. I love the idea of making a festive keepsake, especially one that the family love to bring out each year. Throughout November and December my focus is on Christmas Day and I feel a little deflated on Boxing Day. So this year I have found 12 sweet crafts, each connected to one of the 12 days of Christmas in the song. Next year I hope to be a little…
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I love crafting with styrofoam baubles. We’ve made a styrofoam snowman, styrfoam pumpkin, and even a styrofoam spider. I have lots of them so am always trying to think of different uses for them. Today I’m sharing my tutorial for stash buster Liberty scrap baubles. This is the perfect activity if you have any left over fabric scraps, but I think Liberty fabrics are exceptionally pretty. Equipment needed to make Liberty scrap baubles: scraps of Liberty fabrics PVA glue water bowl and brush styrofoam balls How to make Liberty scrap baubles: Cut the scraps into small pieces about 1cm square.…
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Did you watch any episodes of the Great Interior Design Challenge? I love that programme and watched every episode. I love seeing how the different designers met the brief and how they transformed the different styles of houses. I was waiting for them to design a 1990s house but funnily enough that didn’t happen. We are really struggling with ideas for our house. I’m not sure if these programmes are a good idea or not. On the one hand they inspire me to want to have a beautiful home. On the other hand, they make me feel inadequate that I…
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I was hoping to make some seasonal doll quilts for my quilt gallery wall but I’ve only managed to make one. However it’s one I’m really pleased with. A few weeks ago I finished the final seasonal stitching club from Mollie Johanson – the Winter Stitching Club. As usual each week a new embroidery pattern was introduced. They were all fun seasonal patterns like this sweet thermos flask. I enjoyed stitching them so they came together really quickly. Each hexagon became a puffy hexie. I used fabric from Moda’s “In From the Cold” which is so pretty. There was plenty…
