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.

Flapjack Recipe

A few years ago I found a recipe on the MSE forums for Hob Nob Biscuits.  I wrote it down and I've used it ever since.  Sadly I can't remember the name of the poster, but needless to say I'm very grateful for this recipe as it works for me every time and I nearly always have the ingredients available.

Recipe:

8oz Butter
2 tbsp hot water
2 tbsp golden syrup (I've used honey in the past if I've run out of golden syrup)
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

I melt the butter in a pan, and add the golden syrup and hot water, when it is all melted together I add the bicarbonate of soda.  It froths up quite a lot.  

While it is melting I get the dry ingredients ready:

8oz Porridge Oats
8oz Self Raising Flour
5oz Sugar (the original recipe suggests 8oz, but I find 5oz is plenty)

Once the pan of melted ingredients is ready I add it to the dry mixture, stir until combined and then I put the delicious (you've been warned) uncooked mixture spread out onto a fairly high sided baking tray and bake at about 180 degrees for about 10 minutes until golden on top.  Let it cool for while and then cut into flapjack slices (the original recipe suggests making this into individual biscuits, but I find this easier).

This recipe is delicious as it is, but I do like to try and add fruit/other good stuff to as many of the sweet recipes that I can, so I've made a number of variations to this recipe that I think work very well.  Below are some Chocolate Orange Flapjacks:

• Chocolate Orange - swap 1oz of Self Raising flour for cocoa powder and use orange juice instead of hot water
• Raisins - I've found you can just add these into the mixture, up to about 2-3oz or a couple of handfuls without it affecting the recipe at all.
• Seeded Flapjacks - again I've discovered you can pretty much add whatever seeds you have to the mixture without it having an impact on the structure of the flapjack
• Chocolate Cranberry - swap 1oz of self raising flour for cocoa powder and add dried cranberries to the mixture
• Spiced Orange - add a tsp-ish of mixed spice to the dry ingredients and the zest of 1 orange to the melted ingredients, this is my current favourite.
• Ginger - add a tsp+ ground ginger to the dry ingredients
• Lemon, Poppy Seed and Coconut - add the zest of a lemon, swap the hot water for the juice of a lemon and add 2+tbsp of poppy seeds and 2tbsp of dessicated coconut.

Here are the Lemon, Poppy Seed and Coconut Flapjacks:

A while ago I can remember seeing a coconut mocha combination somewhere and thinking I must have a try of those flavours together someday.  I'm sure nuts would work well too, ground, chopped or I think you'd get away with peanut butter instead of the syrup, but I use these for packed lunches a lot and due to allergies in school you can't have anything with nuts in a packed lunch.

And here are some Orange Spiced Flapjacks with the Lemon Poppy Seed and Coconut Flapjacks:

Yum.

And just because Valentines Day is coming up, here is a simple little heart craft too.  Draw a heart (I drew around a cookie cutter) and then use the eraser on the end of a pencil to stamp on the circles.  I used a variety of ink pads I had hanging around.

You can see I was still in orange, red and pink mode after making my Mixed Stitch Cushion Cover.

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.