Flowers for a Wedding

Not real flower arranging mind, I always seem to struggle with that effortless look some people can achieve.  No, I was asked to make some crochet flowers as napkin holders for my youngest brother's wedding.  I did know they were having a few guests, but it certainly felt like a lot when I had finished this little bundle:

I had fun playing around with which colours to put where, which ones went well together.

On the day each table different colour flower (and herb).  It was a lovely day, I'm sure my brother would say that it was totally down to the crochet flowers!!!

On the day I totally forgot to take any pictures of them in situ.  Duh.  Luckily my son obviously thought they looked nice and took a couple of photos of them for me. Excuse the lack of focus.

I created the flower pattern a while ago, it was based on a couple of others, and different things I liked about them.  My pattern uses different stitches which I think makes it look quite interesting, it also has quite wide petals because I like that too!  Flowers and hearts were some of the first patterns I learned when I started to crochet, because I wanted to put them on cards. I also wanted something quick to see if I could do it.  So I hope that this isn't too tricky for beginners out there and that you enjoy making some quick  flowers. 

Easy Flower Pattern - UK terms

R1:    Magic Circle (or Chain 4 and slip stitch into a circle)

R2:    Chain 2, 9 treble crochet into the centre, slip stitch to join (you should have 10 stitches)

R3:    Chain 1, 2 double crochet into each treble crochet from the row before slip stitch to join (there                 should be 20 stitiches now)

R4:    Chain 2, 3 treble crochet into the 1st stitch, slip stitch into the next 2 stitches, then *4 treble                     crochet into next stitch anfd slip stitch into the next 2 stitches to the end

You should end up with 7 petals and everything working fine, but if you weren't concentrating on your counting and either have too many or too few stitches don't worry these will work with 6 petals or 8 petals too!  If you look carefully you can definitely see a 6 petal flower in this bunch!

Some Easy Birthday Cards

I mentioned here that I have a supply of patterned paper that could do with trimming down a little so I knew from the moment that I saw these on Sum Of Their Stories that I would have to try them soon.

It took me a little longer, because I don't use Windows, so I needed the technical expertise of the Husband to show me where to find some speech bubbles I could use on my computer.  He made it look embarrassingly easy, we used the LibreOffice presentation software and it had the speech bubbles as part of one its menus. I used various fonts, some standard ones, some I'd (ok - the Husband) had downloaded for me over time, and just kept the message to "Happy Birthday".  I do love the idea of personalising them though, and may do that in the future.

Then they wouldn't print for me, the Husband once again saved the day.  I asked what he had done, apparently the same as me (selected a printer and pressed print).  Honestly it is like the technology knows it is me and hides.

At least my laminator loves me, although it can be temperamental with other people!  So the laminating process went smoothly.

After that it was just a matter of sticking and cutting the patterned paper onto the card blanks I had to hand.  I was a little worried they would be too small, but I'm pleased with how they look.  We had to use one immediately because my son was about to attend a party and he hadn't made a card, and didn't want to once he'd seen that there were a few going spare!  So there was another one that isn't photographed.

Such an easy and effective card to make and I really like them.  We'll be using this method a lot in the future I think.

Crafts Fair Buys and Fun with Molds

My parents and I went to a craft fair recently.  I figured that this year I would write a list of the things I planned to buy.  Normally I'm a bit of a magpie - ooh I like that, or ooh I need that.  So the plan was to buy the following:

• Some big sharp scissors for cutting fabric.  I will turn that duvet cover I've kept for 3 years into a crochet rug;
• Ring blanks.  Both my daughter and I want to make some rings;
• Clip On Earring findings;
• Coloured paper.  I love finding pretty patterned paper, but when I come to make cards I struggle to figure out which patterns I can use with what, and besides I have a bit of a stockpile of patterned paper.  Oops.
• pretty flower beads like these.  I saw these bracelets and fell in love immediately,  I now need some similar beads!
• Good value yarn, lots of balls in the same colour.  I want to make something for me.
• Little gems - because you always need these;
• Double sided sticky tape;
• Black/dark coloured embroidery thread

I did manage to find everything on my list, well actually the flower beads I found weren't actually beads, but they were still pretty and perfect for adding to the ring blanks.

Oh, and the earring findings.

And I'm sure they'll look beautiful on cards too, if I can bear to part with them.  I made some cards for friends with my lovely new paper and some of the gems got a look in too.  The bird stamp set is also new.

The yarn and scissors were for more long term projects, so hopefully you'll get to read about the amazing crocheted rug from an old duvet cover sometime in the not too distant future.  I have a couple of projects I have to finish before I can find the patterns I want to use for the yarn.  And yes, I know I should probably find the pattern first and buy the yarn next, but I don't seem to work that way!

I did find something to buy that wasn't on my list at all, but I am so pleased I did!  I saw some molds like these and these.  I couldn't decide which ones to buy, I wanted them all!  I ended up with 3 different packs of molds, with a variety of shapes, flowers, butterflies, owls, birds, cupcakes,strawberries and bows.  I wanted to play straight away, but sadly the air drying clay in the house belongs to my daughter, so I had to wait until she came home from school.  Luckily she loved the idea as much as I did and we had already made a whole load of shapes before tea time!

I decided to have a go with the home made air drying clay I had used before and then my son wanted a go too, so I made another batch.  It definitely does work with the home made air drying clay, but it doesn't have such a pretty finish on it afterwards - it feels quite rough whereas the clay feels lovely and smooth.

For jewellery I think you'd need the bought clay although you might get away with it for ear rings.  I want to try it with hot glue and fimo too to see if I get different finishes.  So far it has been super easy to use these molds and I'm so pleased I bought them.

Paper Bunnies

Getting ready for Easter I was thinking about what crafts we could do and what we have done in the past.  We have made some lovely bunny paper punch art a couple of years ago.  For this one I used 2 different sized circle punches and then cut out a couple of ear shapes and used some cotton wool for the tail and drew on the whiskers.  It is an easy Easter card to recreate.

Another bunny paper punch art, but this time no bottoms!  We used an egg/oval shaped hole punch and then added a couple of cut out ear shapes and a little paper punched heart.  Googly eyes and some whiskers and you're done!

Whilst looking for rabbit related crafts, I came across this on the Crafty Crow blog. Sadly when I followed the link, this particular cut out was no longer available.  So I have created my own and thought I would share.

I designed it to fit on a piece of A5 paper.  Print it out landscape onto A4, cut off the large blank expanse, fold in half and then cut out the shaded bits to create the rabbit in the frame.  I hope you like it. :o)

Rabbit Template PDF

If You Teach Your Kids to Craft...

It is only to be expected that they will get better than you.  My daughter's cards are looking good.  I love her lego card, Pinterest inspired, naturally:

Here is the link to where we got the idea.  My daughter was 6 years old when she made this card. I think I  punched out the spots, because they are the ones from the Stampin Up Owl Punch, so we would have had 100 owls punched out otherwise!  My daughter picked the colours and decided to have three big blocks.  The spots are slightly raised using padded double sided sticky tape from Poundland.  Honestly I don't work there, but I love the fact that you can get reasonable crafty bits from there.  It is probably the first place I go when trying to source bits for a new project.

The next year we finally discovered Harry Potter, and became fans.  Well the Husband and I had been fans for a while, but the kids got in on the act too.  As did some of their friends.  I think this card that my daughter made is pretty cool too: 

The idea for this came from here, obviously we just freehanded it and didn't use the template.  I found paper as close to Gryfindor colours as I could.  I'm sure we'd have used felt tips if I didn't have a sheet or two or the correct colours.

All this crafting is not so much of a problem when we are only sending one card, but when we're both sending to the same person its a little embarrassing when hers are better.  Here are the cards we made for my brother's wedding.

Mine:

I was so pleased with this card, inspired by this one, but then my daughter created her own design, which I think is simple, but so effective:

Though it isn't all bad, at least now we're getting even more use out of my many hole punches!

Marbling on Paper

So, I explained how much fun I was having with the marbling technique on the glass gems on the last post here.  It occurred to me, that as people use this method to do their nails and it had worked on the glass, that it might work on paper.  And it does:

I had lots of fun playing with nail varnish and water.  I found that you can create a couple of different styles, very little polish will create a much lighter marbling effect that is easier to handle.

Obviously you can't wrap up paper in sticky tape - as per the tutorial for marbling on glass beads.  So I just dropped it on the section I wanted to use and then carefully picked it up again. I had already used my paper punch to create the heart shaped pieces of paper, but I'm sure you could marble first and then cut the paper to the shape you wished, well once it had dried anyway.

It is tricky not to get it messy with the polish around the outside, so I would recommend moving that out of the way to the side of the cup while you take out the paper.  I also think a pair of tweezers would allow you to be more accurate, but I was too lazy to go find mine at the time.

The kids had a go too and they had a lot of fun.  We did discover that certain kinds of polish will eat through the plastic cups if left long enough.  This only really happened when the amount of polish dropped into the water was so big it didn't stay on the surface, but dropped to the bottom.  We ended up with water everywhere!  I was pleased it was only water and by that stage I'd put newspaper under the plastic cups so that any polish spillage was caught on that.

I think I'll be using this technique for all sorts - cards and jewellery making, I think it would be great for scrap booking too.  I wonder if you could do a whole sheet if you had a bigger tub to do it in, or whether it would dry too quick.  That might be an experiment for another day!

Card Making and Creepers

I rarely buy cards now, normally I make them.  Sadly this doesn't take me any less time.  However, it does mean that I can create one fairly quickly even when the shops are shut.  Handy if you need one for a birthday right away.

I decided some time ago that taking an hour to make a card was kind of pointless, so you'll notice my cards don't tend to look perfect.  That's the charm of home made stuff!

My latest fave design is very minimal:

I love it because it will work with any shape.  You could use stickers too.  I mainly use paper punch shapes - as I appear to be addicted to buying them and I have a lot!

I've been working on another project too, another cushion cover.  I've always loved the designs made by quilters, but as I cannot sew with a sewing machine at all, I've never been able to see how I could create something like that.  Then just recently it came to me, I could use crochet squares.

So I started crocheting in the colours I needed and I kept going, and soon I had enough to make a start.

I don't sew well by hand either, so it is taking me time, but slowly, slowly,it is coming together.  I add a few squares each evening, and I think eventually it will be an eight by eight square of Minecraft Creeper awesomeness.  I've already mentioned that our family is Minecraft Mad at the moment, so I don't think anyone will object to this cushion cover once completed, in fact I have a horrible feeling that requests for more of the same will be made!

Despite the slow going sewing, I already want to do something more using this technique.  You can see that I am using a traditional Granny Square for this project, but the options for textured/patterned squares are endless.  I realised that any Minecraft project would be ideal for using Granny Squares because the game is based on squares too.  Whether I stick to Minecraft related square projects or branch out to something else has yet to be decided.

I'm still slowly sewing squares together, but hopefully it won't be too long before I can share this as a completed project.

More Hearts

I've been enjoying using hearts to make more bits and bobs recently.  My Mum found some cards that weren't the traditional stand up kind of card.  Instead you hung them up.  I loved the idea, and immediately had to copy it!  The ones my parents found were owls and monkeys and butterflies I think, but I could see that it would work with a lot of different shapes.  Here it is with hearts.

I used co-ordinating paper, and a heart template.  On the back of the paper I attached the string, which is actually embroidery thread, and on the back of that I added some thin card, I embellished using some craft jewels (mainly from Poundland!).

I was really pleased with the result, and plan to do more like this in the future, I can see that it would work well with flowers, birds and stars and I'm sure many more designs.

I also love seeing what other people can create using felting techniques.  Mine never seem to turn out how I imagine them in my head, but the process is fun.

I was hoping to make this into a family project, but halfway through their first hearts, both children managed to injure themselves with the felting tool.  Normally they are very good with it and manage to keep their fingers out of the way, but not this time, and I'm not sure how long it will take me to persuade them to have another go.

So I think rather than the bunting project I had planned, I'll just do a little hanging garland thing.  I quite like these, even if I can see I've not quite managed the design I had in mind for them.

As well as being able to get involved with the felting, card making and other crafting I do I like to get my kids to create some art of their own for a "sort of" gallery we have for them.  At the moment I really want them to make me something with hearts on it for Valentines Day.  

Often I can encourage the type of art I want by finding printables online with the right subject matter, or I do love the Usbourne colouring books and sometimes I photocopy pages that I know I will want them to do more than once!

This time I created my own doodle page, and I thought that it might be fun to share it, so others could colour it in too:

Heart Art

We have done some heart artwork over the years, some stuff I thought I would share.

I loved these layered cardboard hearts from A Little Learning For Two, and I thought we would have a go.  I traced around my heart cookie cutters, the inside and the outside to make 6 hearts.  Though I'm sure most people would just be able to create their own.  I also cut the hearts out of thick cardboard, as the kids were a couple of years younger.  However, if we re-do this project the kids will be tracing and cutting their own hearts onto thinner cardboard.

They picked their own colours.  My daughter wanted pink, so we used various shades between red and white.  It is slightly more obvious in real life than in this photo (but only just, I was a bit liberal with the red paint when we started!)

My son basically picked all the colours we had at the time!  I do love it though.

We also tried printing with toilet roll insides. My daughter wanted to create hearts, so we simply bent the toilet roll inside to look heart shaped.  I don't know how she managed to pick up enough paint to fill some of the hearts, but I like it.

This isn't our art I'll admit (how amazing would that be!), but pretty nonetheless.  It is the Red Arrows performing their heart formation.  You can just see them completing it at the bottom of the picture. 

I think this is one of my favourite crafts we have ever done.  DIY air drying clay , we have done it a couple of times, I like using the little cutters we have to create toppers for cards.  Here I just used the clay as it came, but it can be painted too.  If it is rolled thin it dries pretty quick, in about 24hrs.  Thicker stuff takes a while.  It is quite brittle, so I don't think I could make it into jewellery, but it is fine for cards.  

Here is another heart related card.  I still haven't sent this one, everytime I look at it I think of the Beatles.  I guess it is the colours.

So these were some of the heart projects we have done in the past.  I'll share some of things we've been doing recently soon.