I had big ambitions for making lots of handmade gifts this year. Time seems to have run out on me though and although I made a couple of hand stencilled gifts, I have made far fewer than I would have liked. We’re giving lots of gift cards this year so I have come up with a great way of making them a little more interesting to open. By placing them in lovely hand decorated boxes! I enjoy decopatch and have been spending my evenings covering stars and hearts for our Christmas tree. It’s nice and simple which ticks all my…
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Have you ever crafted with a light bulb before? I was set a challenge from LightBulbs-Direct to redecorate an old and plain light bulb into an exciting new Christmas ‘light bulble’ bauble! Easy. I turned to Pinterest and found tons of inspiration, so much in fact it took me a while to decide exactly what to make. Lightbulbs are always burning out in our house so there was actually a couple by the back door waiting to go out with the recycling. I chose the largest one I could and gave it a light spray with a white acrylic primer to…
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A couple of weeks ago I bought a lovely book called Winter Wonderland Stencils which contains 20 reuseable festive stencils. I had grand plans of using them on the windows to make our house look really festive. The only fail was that I’ve been unable to find any cans of fake snow. Instead I started Plan B – homemade gifts! The stencils are really fun with a great vintage vibe, perfect for making a wintry wonderland with sparkly snowflakes, a smiling Santa, snowy trees, reindeer and more (window space permitting!). Whoever designed the book has been clever as each stencil…
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I love to craft with my children and since Little Sis started nursery two mornings a week those times are quickly becoming craft time with my 3 year old. He loves to craft but it’s difficult to juggle two children with different needs and abilities so now we take our opportunities by planning in advance! We spent this morning making fun glitter tree cards. They were so simple; cut out a Christmas tree shape from a piece of card, place over a sheet of paper, glue liberally and sprinkle with glitter. Oh my. It was the first time we had…
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We had the most wonderful time at Westfield Stratford City today where we were invited to a very special storytelling session of The Gruffalo. The children were sitting quite happily and listening really well. Woolly Wonderland at Westfield! And then the special guest turned up! My children’s faces were priceless 🙂 They both love The Gruffalo and The Gruffalo’s Child so it was a real treat for them to meet him. We even managed to squeeze into a photobooth with him for a cheeky snap. The event was organised by Save the Children in their pop up shop at Westfield…
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Have a plethora of toilet rolls in your house? We seem to go through lots so are always on the look out for some crafts to help use them up. Our latest one is very seasonal – toilet roll angels! Toilet roll angels craft for kids What you will need: cardboard tubes white paper silver paint scissors sticky tape yellow pipe cleaner The great thing about toilet roll crafts is that they come together really easily. The first step was to paint them silver and when they were dry we added a face. Then we drew around both children’s hands…
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We’re all very excited that Advent has started in our house. Advent calendars have been opened, Advent candles lit, and our Elf on the Shelf has taken up his position in our house. We’ll be opening the first book in our book advent today too. This year I also made a little advent garland, each one features a small activity to keep us busy during this festive month. I used brown paper bags (which I bought from Lakeland) and folded each one roughly into four equal parts, then cut them apart, turning over two corners on one side to make…
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You all know how much I love making things for the children or our home but it’s not often I make any thing for myself. I was contacted by Amanda who owns Joe’s Toes, selling felt slipper kits, slippers and felt accessories, and asked if I would like to try a kit out. I chose a gorgeous slipper kit in seasonal red. I’d love to say I slaved over the slippers but I really didn’t. The kit contained everything I needed to make a pair of slippers – outsole, midsole, insole, upper, wool and needle. Last night I sat down…
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I’ve had a small pack of oven baked clay for ages and really wanted to use it to make something for Christmas. As I’d never experimented with it before I just decided to play around with it, so set out some greaseproof paper, a small rolling pin and some cookie cutters and stamps. I divided the clay in two and warmed it up by rolling it in my hands for a couple of minutes. Then I rolled it out between two sheets of greaseproof paper until it was 2-3mm thick and cut out some shapes. I thought a little garland…
