Weekend craftiness - gift tags

Recently I bought a huge pile of cute blank white gift tags with the intention of decorating them to use as gift tags for Xmas and beyond.

So when the kids asked to paint on Sunday morning I brought out these and my watercolours.

It was so interesting to see what they came up with their first time with watercolours.

Some experimenting with blowing the paint around with water and really getting into the beauty of watercolour, I think...

Testing out what happens to the paint the more water you add...

And the little girl didn't really get the whole water idea but still loved it...

And came up with some interesting designs...

I love seeing what kids do when given freedom to create whatever they like. They're not so constrained by convention and I think it's a nice reminder to us grown-ups to loosen up and go with what feels right.

Now on to the wrapping paper ;-) ...

 

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A weekend away

Last weekend we had a few days away with some old friends, one of which had just celebrated her birthday.

 

We enjoyed staying at a great house again. I wish I lived here for all the great photo backdrops!

And we enjoyed cooking and eating some great food, including this naan made by birthday girl. Note the many uses for a wine bottle :-)

We also enjoyed some of our favourite beverages, including champagne (birthday girl's favourite), great wines (wisely chosen by birthday girl's guitar playing other half) and great coffee - our friends are as obsessed by good coffee as we are so we always take the coffee machine, grinder and fresh beans with us ;-) And last but not least we had this amazing ginger beer that I've been dreaming of ever since, made with birthday girl's favourite cooking gadget.

Of course there was also time for some crafting by the kids and us big girls.

 

Including a new addition to my ever expanding array of polymer clay necklaces, this one using a metallic grey clay.

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Has anyone else been having troubles with the new Blogger interface? The formatting is doing my head in... arghh!

Weekend craftiness

After falling in love with the Sev[en] Circle recently I spent far too much time researching it and daydreaming about it, and finally yesterday got my act together and bought supplies for it.

They're not great, but they'll do. Very average yarn and not quite up to scratch needles (blast that Spotlight, I wanted the pretty metal ones!), but if I'd not taken this step I'd still be daydreaming - sometimes I just have to push myself to actually start... then it's all OK - know what I mean?



So after starting (this pic), I couldn't stop and went to bed way too late last night but happily got the first ring done!

The pattern is not feeling so much like another language to me now that I've tried all the stitches and it's starting to take shape. I wanted to do this as my second proper knitting project (remember the first one?) because:
A. I love the design
B. I thought I would learn a lot on the journey
and
C. It's such an organic shape that I thought any mistakes would be less likely to show

So far all three are happening. Can't wait to see how it grows ;-)

Weekend craftiness: part 2

OK, I'll admit it - this one is a mummy craft, something I've been wanting to try ;-)

I first spied this tutorial for mandarin lantern at the Lucy Patterson Hands-on blog a while ago and fell in love with it. But of course we had to wait for mandarin season, and you also need those lovely specimens with the thick but slightly detached from the flesh skins, if you know what I mean!



So you basically carefully cut around the middle of the mandarin, and gently remove the skin from the flesh, leaving two pieces. Then cut a hole in the top section (to act as a chimney).

Using what's left of the 'stalk' of white pith attached to the base, squeeze and trim it to act as a wick, put some vegetable oil in the base, light it and place the top section on.



It took us a couple of goes to firstly get the flesh away from the skin without breaking it, and then to get the 'wick' the right size/shape to burn, but it was lots of (nerdy) fun and great when it worked. We lit up our mantle in the lounge room with the beautiful orange glow.

Do check out Lucy Patterson's tutorial, she say it all much more eloquently than I do, has full instructions, lots of pretty pictures and a mandarin-eating dog :-)



Now I just wish we had mandarins available at halloween and Christmas... but we'll have to leave that up to you Northern Hemisphere dwellers out there!

Weekend craftiness: part 1

We've had a long weekend here with lots of rain, perfect for a couple of craft projects...

I've noticed lately some groovy machine stitched brooches around made from several layers of fabrics and have been looking forward to making one myself. So I thought it might be a nice project to do with the kids. They seem to like playing around with bits of fabric (wonder where they get that from!) and I always find it interesting to see what they put together without the preconceived notions of what works and what doesn't that we adults have.


My big girl decided to make a flower shape. She chose denim as the base and I machine sewed it to the circle beneath. She then hand stitched a couple of circles and a button on. I used the hot glue gun to stick on the small spots she'd chosen to sit on each of the petals.


I then stitched a safety pin onto the back and it was done.

She quickly had an idea for another brooch... She traced a circle onto felt, cut it out and asked me to stitch it onto a backing fabric. I had fun doing this little spiral...



And she then started sewing on a selection of buttons that she'd taken time choosing from my button stash.


Then we finished it off with a backing piece of felt to hide all the stitching and a safety pin.


It was great seeing her sense of achievement and her unique design ideas.
Yep, I think she's getting indoctrinated into the crafty life!

Thank you for all of your kind words and support about my mother guilt and anxiety in my last post - it helps to hear I'm not alone

Weekend craftiness

The weekend's just been.. lets not talk about the chaotic house, ignored housework, the sibling arguments and tantrums, that's no fun. Let's talk weekend crafting...



We did some stamp making (good tutorial here) and printing with this fantastic chalky white ink onto kraft paper...



to make some wrapping paper and gift tags for xmas (trying not to do everything at the last minute again this year)



And used some rainbow wool for finger pom pom practice. Always fun. I'm dreaming of using snowy white soft wool to make small perfect pom poms to adorn presents wrapped with the above.



And also I guess in the creative field, though not strictly craft, making some mango frozen yoghurt, using homemade vanilla yoghurt and following Fi's recipe.