I love the idea of making my own stamps. I’ve already tried a couple of things, such as shaping the rubber on the end of a pencil to make a bunting stamp. I also made stamps from craft foam and old bottle tops. This weeks’ effort involved recycling styrofoam sheets, we used the ones from ready-made pizzas, and printing hearts with styrofoam. Equipment needed to make hearts with Styrofoam: pointed end of a ballpoint pen lid wooden heart styrofoam sheet (we used one from a pizza box) red paint white paper I pressed quite heavily and made sure I went…
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Our recycling box was overflowing so we had a look through it to see if we could use anything for crafting. There were lots of bottles of all shapes and sizes and I knew they would be perfect for printing our own flowers. Printing flowers with a bottle We love any craft which has instant results and this was great for my 4 year old. He chose his favourite paint colour, covered the base of the bottle with paint then pressed it on to a sheet of paper. It’s a lovely way to create flowers although the bottle we chose…
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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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We still have a plethora of toilet rolls in our recycling drawer so I thought it was about time we used them. Halloween is fast approaching so what better than a Halloween pumpkin. Yes, it is possible! Simple toilet roll pumpkins First of all my 3 year old painted a couple of toilet rolls with orange paint. We left them to dry and I cut out leaves from coloured paper. We used our fab Ralph the Dog to stick the leaves to the tube. Ralph is the new fun Scotch Magic Tape Dispenser Dog from Scotch 3M. My son loves…
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I have a very special make to show you today, I’m quite proud of this one! The toddler is really interested in telling the time and we bought him his first digital watch last week. We’re in the process of re-decorating his room so when I saw a colourful clock made with Playmobil people on Pinterest (pinned here) I knew I had to try making it myself. Equipment needed to make a Playmobil clock: Vintage Playmobil figures pegboard painted white clock mechanism glue gun and glue How to make an upcycled Playmobil clock Playmobil is very popular in our house…
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I know we haven’t had Halloween yet but I’ve been itching to show you our wooden Christmas tree. I’ve seen lots of variations of wooden Christmas trees using driftwood so every time we were at the seaside I would scour the beach for suitable pieces. After months of looking and not finding I gave up and decided small branches from the local woods would do just as well! I also found a piece of scaffolding wood outside our house so knew this project was meant to be. How to make a wooden Christmas tree You will need: a selection of…
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My most recent thrifted find was this lovely little vintage suitcase. I can’t imagine why anyone would make, let along buy, such a small suitcase. Perhaps it’s just me who can’t leave home without the kitchen sink! Anyway, it’s made of cardboard and lined with paper and I thought it would be a perfect backdrop for my photographs which I’m really trying to improve this year. It needed a bit of cheering up though so I purchased some Orla Kiely wrapping paper, featuring my favourite colourful stem print. The paper is reversible – small stem print on one side and…
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Edward is used to boats as we often travel by car ferry or catamaran to visit family on the Isle of Wight. Last week we managed a couple of trips by boat which Edward loved. He really enjoyed holding on to the side of the boat and looking over the side. He’s always loved water play and our weekly swim sessions so this was a great crafty project for us. Looking around the house we had limited supplies so I thought we would make a cork sail boat, reminiscent of the boat in which Julia sails to the island. Sadly…
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Just before Christmas I was lucky enough to take part in a workshop with Julie Arkell. If you haven’t heard of her, where have you been! She’s a London-based contemporary artist who is well known for her papier mache dolls and I was really excited to find she was running a workshop at Sally Bourne Interiors. I spent all day with Julie and a group of like-minded women and it was fantastic. I don’t think I’ve ever spent a whole day sewing but it was amazing, lovely to sit around a table, sew and chat. Julie’s recent work reflects vintage…
