This has been a great month for some grown up crafting. I’ve cut back on my blogging which means lots more time for making the things that make me happy rather than hours spent staring at my laptop. I completed Wild Olive’s Winter Stitching Club pattern which made a really lovely table mat or wall hanging. I loved stitching each hexagon and making them into puffy hexies. I think my favourites are the embroidered Christmas jumper and quilt. Wild Olive’s Winter Stitching Club I’ve completed some smaller projects too, such as a cute little gingerbread man I bought from Asking…
-
-
You know by now that I love gingerbread, not just at Christmas but all year round. I’ve drawn up a little list of 10 of my favourite gingerbread foods to bake. We love making gingerbread men as much as anyone but some of these are just a little bit different and so much fun. 10 gingerbread foods to bake You can make gingerbread biscuits in any shape or size. I’ve been collecting vintage cookie cutters for years and my children love to rifle through the collection to choose their favourites. I have a never fail gingerbread recipe and sometimes the…
-
We took our tree and Christmas decorations down yesterday. It took hours but I’m quite pleased our house has now returned to normal. My son is very sad though as he adored turning off the big light “to see how pretty the tree looks”. He really ‘got’ Christmas this year and enjoyed every minute. Three Kings craft to celebrate Epiphany To cheer him up I thought we would make one last Christmas craft. January 6th is celebrated as the Epiphany, or the day the three Wise Men (or Kings) visited the infant Jesus. Our Three Kings or Epiphany craft, is…
-
Our biscuit barrel was sadly empty so I knew it was time to fill it up. I chose one of Tate & Lyle Sugar’s gorgeous Christmas recipes and made the biscuits last night. Much as my children love helping sometimes it’s really nice to concentrate and enjoy doing something on my own. I followed the recipe for the sparkly Christmas biscuits, mainly as it used cinnamon and ginger, which I just love. I adapted the recipe slightly as I forgot to buy an orange 🙂 The recipe made a lot of dough so I cut out star shapes as the…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
I can’t quite believe it’s Christmas Eve. After months of planning I must admit the only thing I hadn’t really thought about was the food, resulting in a last minute dash around the supermarket at the weekend! We’re slowly starting our own family traditions. This year the children have lovely new pyjamas to go to bed in. We’ve got a selection of Christmas films to watch and books to read. We are looking forward to the minute my husband finishes work (luckily he works from home) so we can really start Christmas. Tonight we’ll be leaving out some treats for…
