Halloween 2012 - Day of the Dead

This year we went to a halloween party, which was the perfect opportunity to go all out with the day of the dead theme. I even had nail art done to match my outfit.

October week 2 - little man turns 3

Construction/dirt cake, inspired by Pinterest.

October week 1: handmade gifts

Gift tag set in box & polymer clay heart pendant on velvet necklace in box.

Shoppe Update

If you have a look on the side bar of my blog, you will see that my shop has had a bit of a makeover. I also have new products listed, like some of the embellishments I made a while ago. Please go check it out, tell me what you think, give me some feed back, and feel free to buy something while you are there :)

Crafty Update

Not a lot of crafting is getting done lately, or more accurately, not a lot of projects are getting finished lately. During the day I am pretty busy trying to keep my immobile Little Man happy, and at night I am usually too tired to do anything. But I have finished I few things that I wanted to share.

Most of my crafting is done on a spur of the moment sudden inspirational motivation buzz, so it has to be easy, quick and done using stuff I already have, or I will lose interest. I got a sudden urge to try designing and making a mermaid dress one day, and it turned out pretty awesome, except it is too small for Little Princess. She has had a growth spurt, and all of a sudden she's got some chub on her usually stick thin frame, which is great, but very inconvenient. The dress I made fits her, just, but its a little bit too tight and movement is near impossible, so not very practical.

 I've recently become a little bit obsessed with polymer clay, and watching video tutorials on YouTube. I made these two pendants last night, and the interchangeable necklace was made from bits of a necklace and a bracelet out of my junque stash. There are about a million videos on how to make a polymer clay robot, so I didn't follow any particular one, just took ideas from them and made it up as I went along. For the steam punk heart I used this awesome two part video tutorial. The heart locket in the middle actually opens, but I haven't put anything inside it yet. Tonight I am going to make an owl and maybe a crown.

This little shadow box was another random spur of the moment idea. I saw these dice in a dollar store, and I thought they would make cool feet for some kind of games themed box. When I got home I had a look around for a box or something and found this shadow box I got from a thrift store a while ago. It was pretty ugly, painted a gross yellow/green with some ugly flower thing inside. So I pulled it apart, painted it with a few coats of black acrylic paint, sanded it back a bit to make it look distressed, and filled it with game themed bits and pieces out of my stash. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

Nature Explorer Kit

I put together this kit for on of Little Princess's friends, who is turning 5 soon. I got the idea from here, but didn't have the time to make the bag, so I thought I would just put the kit together with a bag I already had.

My kit includes:

> A compass.

> A dynamo torch.

> Five little specimen jars with holes in the lids.

> A magnifying glass.

> Binoculars.

> A sketch pad.

> A note pad.

> A set of coloured pencils.

> A mutlicoloured pen.

> Two fabric drawstring bags.

> A small tin.

> Homemade flower & leaf press 

> Khaki shoulder bag with pockets.

It was lots of fun to put this kit together, and at some stage I will do one for Little Princess as well, but I will have to make a bag for hers.

The labels on the note pad, sketch pad, tin and drawstring bags were from the original tutorial above. I printed directly onto the fabric for the little drawstring bags, then used this tutorial to make the bags. The label on the front of the shoulder bag I made using clip art from MS Word, also printed on fabric.

How to Make a Flower & Leaf Press

I'm working on another gift for a daycare friend, a Nature Explorer Kit, which I will share when it's finished. One of the things I wanted to include in the kit was a flower press, so I had a look around the net to find a tutorial to make one. I only found a couple of tutorials which involved using power tools (danger danger), so I decided to make it up, and I thought I would share how I did it.

If you know me, or have been following my blog for a while, you will know that I love to repurpose coasters, and I have a huge collection of them. So when I was looking at my old flower press from when I was a kid, it occurred to me that it is about the same size as a coaster, and the idea was born.

1. Take two coasters that are not particularly attractive or useful, but make sure they are the same size. 

2. Cover the top of the coasters with whatever paper you choose. I used some pictures of leaves and flowers out of an old children's encyclopaedia. Use a thin layer of mod podge to stick the paper onto the coaster. 

3. Decorate the coaster that will be the top of your flower press. I used stamps to put the words 'Flower and Leaf Press' onto it, then glued on a pressed flower and leaf.

4. Smooth the edges of the coaster using a nail file or fine sandpaper. Once the edges are smooth, put a coat or two of mod podge over the top of both (being careful not to smudge your ink like I did).

5. Layer some pieces of paper between the two coasters. I used a sheet of printer paper, cut to size to fit.

6. Clip on some binder clips or bulldog clips to hold it all together.

To use the press, layer your flowers and leaves between pieces of paper, like a sandwich, making sure there is a layer of paper on the top and bottom, so your nature finds don't get stuck to your coasters. Press it all together and hold tight with the clips. Put in your hot water cupboard, or some other dry, warm spot, for about a week. Pop open and admire your preserved pieces of nature.

Latest Craft addiction

For Christmas my Wonderful Mum gave me a voucher to a local craft store, which I finally got a chance to use last week. The most favourite thing I bought has been a pack of Tim Holtz Fragments - charms, because they are just so awesome!

The clockwork birdie charm was also bought in the same shopping trip, I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it. I didn't want to make it into a necklace because it just didn't quite seem right, so I got some Kilt pins from Spotlight to make it into a brooch. I also got these and these bottle cap images, so I used the pocket watch image inside of one of the charms.

 Then I had to make another kilt pin brooch. I used another charm and a vintage bird image (which I think is from The Graphics Fairy). I did a little mini mixed media collage inside a watch face (inspired by ones found here). Then I added a little polka dot bow, some lace, and a pearl/bead/chain dangle off an old necklace.

I used a larger round charm, some vintage sheet music and another bottle cap image to make a pendant.

And I still have 45 charms left to use, just imagine how much jewellery I can make!

On a completely different subject, Little Princess has finally decided to start wearing headbands!! So of course I had to make her a couple, because I have been dying to do this for 4 years now. The crown was made using a cuttlebug die, some self-adhesive glitter craft foam and some felt. The yellow and blue one was made to go with her "fancy clothes", which is a frilly blue skirt and a yellow top with a cute tulle bow.

MPAY: GREEN!!

When I saw the theme for this weeks MPAY Meme over at Vic's, I knew I had to join in due to my latest favourite discoveries.

Isn't she lovely?!? My latest op-shop find is this beautiful green jug. Who knew a jug could be so perfectly beautiful, and that I could be so passionately in love with an inanimate object.

The other new discovery is the best camping spot in the world. It's so beautiful, and green, and totally unspoiled. We spent a weekend there, and loved it. We really didn't want to leave, and can't wait for the next time we can go. But Little Man is going into hospital this week to have surgery on his legs, so we won't be going camping again any time soon.

Child's Baby Doll Sling - A Mini Tutorial

Today little princess asked me to make her something, and I was a bit shocked that I hadn't already thought to make her one before. She goes through phases of playing with baby dolls then barbie dolls, and for quite a while it has been all about the barbie dolls. But today she was playing with her baby doll stuff, and NEEDED a sling to carry her baby while they were shopping. I am more than happy to make her something that encourages imaginitive play, and will keep her occupied for more than 5 minutes, so I set to it. I knew it had to be a quick project, because if I took too long she would lose interest while waiting, so I came up with a 5 minute baby doll sling. I am sharing it in case there are other mums out there reading this, in need of something quick to occupy bored children.

 1. Cut a piece of fabric 105 x 50 cm.

 2. Fold in half lengthwise, right sides together. Sew along the open long side.

 3. Turn fabric tube right side out. Feel free to iron at this point, and you could even top stitch along the long sides (with an impatient 4 year old standing at my side the whole time, I kinda had to leave out these steps).

 4. On one end, fold the sides of the tube in so they meet in the middle, pin in place.

 5. On the other end of the tube, fold in the raw edges about 1cm.

 6. Place the folded end inside the open end so that they overlap by a couple of cm.

 7. Fold the sides under and pin.

8. This is what it should look like underneath. Sew a couple of times across the overlapping part.

9. Put it over your little prince or princess's shoulder, add a baby doll (or a bright blue doll called Ponyo) and watch hours of happy family imaginative play :)

Happy New Year....

A bit late, I know, but you know how it gets over Christmas/new year. With the whole family on holiday from work and daycare at the moment, my days are filled with family time, and constantly working against the forces determined to make my house look like a bomb hit it.

I have managed to fit in some crafting time, but the weather has been shocking so taking decent photos has been a challenge.

 Some last minute Christmas gifts I made for my cousin's children. She has 4 children under 4, two of each, so I just made them something little, because with 4 small kids you are bound to have way too much toys and junk in your house already, right? For the oldest girl I made some hairclips (pinwheels made using this tutorial), and for the youngest, who is only a few months old, I made a taggie square. For the two boys, who are in between, I made lizard hand puppets using this tutorial.

Yesterday we had a 4th birthday party to go to, for a girl who is a bit of a tom boy. I wanted to make something that is still kinda girly, but not all pink or purple or overly girly. A while ago I found a bag of half finished, or started and forgotten about, hexies. Since finding them I have seen a few bags on Pinterest that incorporated hexies or some other similar quilted shape (here, here & here). My version is a denim shoulder tote bag, with a hexy pocket on the front, lined with red polkadot fabric. I also made a little zip purse with hexy decoration on the front (first time I have sewed a zip, so proud!), and an I-spy bottle inspired by this one.

I offered to make cupcakes for the party, but then my cupcakes didn't rise, so I had the idea to turn them into cakepops, by putting them onto iceblock sticks, and they were a big hit. A happy accident that I will try to repeat one day. With the left over melted white chocolate and sprinkles I made chocolate freckles, and together with the cakepops they looked so cool.
The party was supposed to be kind of strawberry shortcake themed, but it was put together quite last minute, so a lot of the planned decorations and things didn't get put up. But I never miss an opportunity to dress up, so I put together a Raspberry Torte costume for me, and Little Princess was dressed as Strawberry Shortcake. I don't have photo's, but one day hopefully we will get to dress up in our costumes again.