• clay gift tags
    crafts - handmade - Handmade gifts - tutorial

    Easy personalised clay tags

    December 21, 2014 - By 

    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…

  • Christmas - crafts - handmade - tutorial

    Brown paper packages tied up with string

    December 19, 2014 - By 

    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…

  • Liberty scrap baubles
    Christmas - crafts - handmade - tutorial

    Stash buster Liberty scrap baubles

    December 18, 2014 - By 

    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.…

  • felt busy bag gingerbread house
    Christmas - gingerbread house - Handmade gifts - Kids crafts

    Felt busy bag gingerbread house

    November 20, 2014 - By 

    I’m sure you’ve noticed my obsession with gingerbread house but it really comes to life at this time of year. In the last week we’ve made a gingerbread tree, gingerbread biscuits, the gingerbread man story stones and today I wanted to share our felt busy bag gingerbread house. The gingerbread house appears in the well-known fairy tale, Hansel and Gretel. Hansel and Gretel are a young brother and sister threatened by a witch living in the deep dark forest in a house constructed of gingerbread and sweets. The two children survive by outwitting her. Aspects of the story are a…

  • Christmas - crafts - days out

    Our Summer holiday round up – Week 5

    August 27, 2014 - By 

    Week 5 has gone past in a bit of a flash, we’ve enjoyed entertaining the family but unfortunately been ill too. An extra pair of hands with the children meant I was able to go to Camden for the DryNites Mums crafting event with Tamara Melvin and parenting expert Emma Kenny which was fab. I still need to put my upcycled lamp together and share it with you. My husband and I had a rare date night at our local Miller & Carter restaurant. I’ve been spending loads of time making things with the children which we love doing. It’s…

  • easy handmade flower pot snowpeople
    Christmas - crafts - garden crafts - handmade - tutorial - upcycling

    Winter activities for small people

    December 27, 2013 - By 

    I hope you’ve all had a lovely Christmas. Not that our winter holiday is over but I have let out a small sigh of relief that presents have been opened and enjoyed and several big meals have been cooked and eaten. My two little people have not let Christmas get in their way and have been wanting to be crafty regardless of their piles of presents. We’ve had playdough, practising our writing, colouring and stamping as well as outdoor family activities including a couple of walks, a trip to the park with their scooters and taking my son’s model boat…

  • Christmas - crafts - handmade

    Making handmade gifts for Christmas

    December 19, 2013 - By 

    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…

  • Christmas - crafts - gingerbread - handmade - Recycled crafts - tutorial

    Crafting with lightbulbs

    December 17, 2013 - By 

    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…

  • Christmas - crafts - gingerbread house - handmade

    Hand stencilled gifts for Christmas

    December 13, 2013 - By 

    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…