Children’s Easter Craft

I help out st our local Op Shop during the school holidays with craft lessons
Next Tuesday I have 5-10 year olds and we will be making these cute cotton ball cards.
Aren’t they adorable

The idea for these cards came from Pinterest.

Hope the children have fun making them 

Enjoy your day

Judy

Banana Dolphins

My niece and I made some Banana Dolphins for a mid morning "healthy" snack.  Well they would have been healthy if we had not put ice cream on the bottom of the dish

Half a banana and grapes, yummy.  Only a photo of one we made, as the others left the table very quickly.  This idea was found on the internet, but I am not sure of the source.

My family all like fruit, so this was just a new way of presenting it, fun for all ages

Judy

Crafty Afternoon

It has been awhile, since I have posted anything on my blog, apologies.

My nieces and nephew are home for a quick visit this weekend, so of course we had to do some craft.  My craft studio is an absolute shambles, so we sat outside to make some little items.

First on the list was a beaded dragonfly, using the instructions from "I heart crafty things" - then we made some little Christmas tree ornaments.

The photos are not great, but you can see what the kids made.

Dragonfly and then a cute little Christmas tree ornament with a piece of left over chenille stick.

Two dragonflies, a couple of jingle bell reindeers, and a bottle cap reindeer.  We also tried writing our name on a piece of bark with the glue gun.  I think once painted this will look great.

Dragonfly, jingle bell reindeer, bottle cap reindeer and a stick reindeer.  All very cute.

Quick and easy fun

Until next time

Judy

Children's Weekend Craft

Another fun craft weekend with my family.  We made this little wallet and card holder keyring for her favourite Aunty Janet (I am relegated to 2nd favourite, he he) as well as a pin cushion for her own use.

Next she made this stuffed owl to sit in her bookcase .. I loved the colours she chose, she has a great eye for colour combinations.  Unfortunately it was a little smaller than she wanted, however I still think it is extremely cute.

Boy stuff next.  He had already made a list of things he wanted to make - slingshot, catapult.  He certainly takes me out of my comfort zone, but the internet is such a help to get ideas.

His dad had already helped preparing the twig required for the slingshot, so he just needed to put it together.  Elastic for the sling, with a little leather pouch to hold the missile.

Next the catapult - popsicle sticks, tape, bottlecap and rubber bands was all that was needed

As we still had a little time left, we used some coloured popsicle sticks to make some lizards.

Lastly, a quick and easy bookmark - he just glued a felt bird to the top of a popsicle stick.  It looked great and he is going to use it in his craft book ... where he puts photos of all his projects that he has made with me.  How sweet.

This is all I achieved over the weekend.  I cut out an owl and card holder keyring to sew... and that is as far as I got.  Maybe next weekend?

At least some craft was achieved in my studio, it has been quite a long dry spell

Judy

Thomas's Yabby

Last weekend, I had my nieces and nephew for a quick craft lesson, however I neglected to take photos.

My brother sent a photo of the yabby that Thomas made while he was with me - he had been fishing in the morning and wanted to make a yabby as he had caught some fresh ones.

We were both quite pleased with how it turned out.

I have been trying to update my blog for a few days, and have been having heaps of problems.  Firstly it took forever to load, and then would not allow me to upload photos, agh ... my default browser is Internet Explorer, however I also tried Firefox, but with the same results.  This morning, I "bit the bullet" and installed Google Chrome and it immediately uploaded the photo for me, Go Figure!

I will have another post later in the day, when I show the great things that the children made this weekend. That is assuming that Blogger will behave.

Till then

Judy

Where have I been?

Unfortunately the answer to that question, is no-where!  Life has just got in the way of any craft at the moment.  I am having a huge reduction of stock in my online store, so just trying to mark everything down is taking more time than I thought.

The only craft I have been playing with is the loom bands with my nieces and nephews

Here is a photo of the loom bracelets I have made:

A couple to trial for pink ribbon gifts

Another showing how to use a scrapbook tag

Such good fun

Judy

Australia Day Crafting

I have used the Australia Day celebration as the theme for our crafts.


First up - a Australian Themed Fabric Box

 

The buttons used are available in store - Australia Destinations pack from Dress it Up.

Next - we painted a wooden Australia Mobile which consisted of a map of Australia, 2 x koalas and 2 x kangaroos.  This is what it looked like before we begun.

 

 

It was hard to take a photo of the finished item, as it kept on blowing in the wind.

Next, and my favourite, was a Cockatoo tin, this can be used to hold your pens & pencils, or scissors or just about anything.  We did not have any white feathers, and for one tin (RHS) we cut a set of Angel Feather wings in half.  My little cockatoo on the left, only has his little gold wings.

The instructions for making these really cute tins can be found here 

Lastly using a toilet roll and free printable we made this koala.  Super easy, check out the site as there are a lot of animals and characters you can use to decorate your toilet paper roll.

 

Nearly forgot - we also made a couple of gumnut  babies. 

 

 

A very creative afternoon, which resulted in one very tired Auntie.  

Have a good week

Judy

Reindeer Craft

I managed to get a little craft making into the day, especially with my nephew.

Firstly we made some "Twig Reindeers" - as my brother lives on a property there was no shortage of branches / twigs to choose from.

Just choose some that are a "Y" shape and this is the result after adding a couple of google eyes and a pom pom nose.

Next we gathered up some more twigs and toilets rolls and made these two reindeers - they look so good!

 

Both the above ideas were sourced from Pinterest.

All the children participated in  making the Christmas Tree decorations, however I was too busy to take photos.  By far the favourite was the "bird in the wreath" - see here for the original post.

I am not sure if I will have time for any more craft before Christmas, although I should of taken photos yesterday of the inventive ways we were wrapping gift vouchers - I can tell you, that not one of the finished gifts looked like a gift voucher. Maybe it is better that I did not take photos, as family members read my blog.

Hope you are all organised for Christmas? For the first time in many years, I am not at all organised, so I had better get a wiggle on ...

Until next time, Take care

Judy

Rudolph Candy Cane Holders

Red Brolly had the template and tutorial for these Rudolph Candy Cane Holders - click here to download.

These ones are going to my family this weekend.  I sewed the eyes and mouth on rather than gluing and I also added a little piece of fake fur between his ears for that little bit of character and originality.

Minimal supplies required, felt (brown & white), red bead for nose and googly eyes.

Each one was unique so that the children will know which one is theirs, I just changed the colour of the ear inserts.

I think this pattern would be great, enlarged to be used as a utensil holder.  That may have to wait for another day/year.

I'm Looking At You!

Now, what is next?  Cath over at Bits 'n Bobs made a beautiful Button Christmas Tree in a frame yesterday - I loved how it turned out.  I may need to scrimmage through my junk supplies to find a unused picture frame.

Although first on my list for tomorrow is to make up some Christmas Decoration kits for the children.  I will definitely be adding, the beaded elves, the beaded candy canes, maybe the dolly peg angels, and lots of extras ... if it is a hot day it will be nice to do some craft indoors.

Are you ready for Christmas?

Judy

Dolly Peg Angels

I discovered a new blog this week - Sweet Tidings - she had made some sweet little dolly peg angels.  Minimal supplies required, so of course I had to try them immediately.

 

Using supplies I had on hand, dolly pegs, cupcake liners, washi tape - I started.  How simple and sweet do these look?  Of course I had to add a little extra, I gave them some hair or head dressing and painted some eyes and blushed their cheeks.  I did not have any ornament hangers, but some thin 22 gauge rusty wire, did the job just as well.

 

 

 

So sweet - thank you Sweet Tidings

I have nearly finished the Rudolph Candy Cane Holders, so hope to show you the finished items later on today

Till then

Judy

Dear Santa - I Can Explain

Have you seen this saying around at Christmas time - "Dear Santa - I Can Explain"?  Well I am going to use the same type of phrase - "Dear Blogging Friends - I Can Explain"

I fell short on my Christmas decorations every day for two weeks right at the finishing line, with only 2 days to go - I had a hiccup. We had a couple of extremely hot days and my poor old dog ( he is 13 years old) did not handle it very well ... at one stage there I thought I was going to lose him ... very scary.  However we have had a couple of cooler days, and he is back on his feet again and I have been able to get back to my craft and blogging.

The second last Christmas tree decoration that I made were these cute sandpaper gingerbread men - they were based on a idea I saw on the Sew Many Ways blog.  I used a gingerbread cookie cutter to trace the shape onto sandpaper, cut them out and decorated.   I only had fabric dimensional paint for the icing, but it worked really well, and then on this next one, I kept the white theme with a fluffy scarf made wool and tiny snowflake buttons

 

The next gingerbread man , just had tiny buttons glued down his front with a felt bowtie .. I think it is just the angle of the photo showing him a little distorted (?)

 

 

The third gingerbread man was given a bakers twine bow, and then some scrapbooking crystals stuck down the front.

 

 

The last little snowman was kept very natural with a raffia bow and laser cut wooden star buttons

 

 

If you have children this would be a very easy and inexpensive project to do with them.

 

The final decoration for my challenge were these little snowman ornaments - all I used were two different sized polystyrene balls held together with a toothpick. 

 

 

I had made some clay snowman noses, all shapes and sizes, so grabbed one of those with small black button eyes, a flannel scarf, a felt hat and star buttons, he looks quite aloof from this angle.

 

The second snowman turned out entirely different.  I gave him grapevine twig arms, with a little Christmas bulb decoration,  The star button on his tummy is a scrapbooking brad, easy to poke into the polystyrene ball.

 

 

Check out the side of view of his nose

 

 

These were the two projects I was supposed to post at the end of November, but better late than never, right?

 

I did finish off a couple of little beaded elves yesterday, and I must admit I want to make more.. I found this idea on another blog, but I did not mark it, and just had the basic idea of how to make them, I think they turned out OK, however I am still searching for the originator to give credit to.

 

 

How cute is he?  All that is needed are pipe cleaners, beads, felt and a small jingle bell.

 

The next photo shows one in the making stage, I was interrupted, so I took a photo. He doesn't look cute here, does he?

 

 

Here he is all finished

 

 

He looks better now.  I will be spending time with my nieces and nephews next weekend, so I hope to be able to make more of these decorations with them.

 

Have you seen the Rudolph Candy Cane Holder pattern over on "Red Brolly" blog, that is on my list of projects to make this weekend, although I am supposed to be laying mulch in the garden.  Let me think, Garden or Craft, tough choice!

 

Until next time

Judy

Button Ornament Tags

Another easy Christmas tag for the children to make are these Button Ornament tags

 

Go through your button jar and find some cute flat buttons.  Place them on your tag in a pleasing position and then draw a line down to the button placement.  Remove your button(s) for a moment and hand draw a little ornament hanging loop, you can just see this above the button placement.  Now glue your button on, that's it!

 

I did colour in the ring reinforcement on my shipping tag as it was "white" and looked out of place,  I just used a black marker to colour it.

 

 

I am going to use these tags on my co-workers Christmas gifts this year.  I think they are even suitable for the men's' gifts.

 

 

I think I will make some more button trees while I have the buttons out.

Did I mention I LOVE BUTTONS!

 

Judy