I've always said that things in life are cyclic and trends certainly seem to go that way. Years and years ago women (and it was mainly women back then) used to gather together and craft as a group. This wasn't only done for social reasons, but so that skills could be shared between generations, as well as the practical issues like sharing childcare and saving fuel by only heating the one venue where people were meeting. After years in which crafters seemed to work at home on their own it now appears to me to have gone full circle with more and more people (of all ages, and both male and ... read more
Christmas Crafting with Bostik
We started our Christmas crafting early here this year, and by the time our Bostik Blogger box of goodies arrived from CraftMerrily we'd already made angels, cards and gift tags. It was therefore with a bit of hesitation that I gave Little Miss C what was possibly the best early Christmas present she'd ever had - completely free rein to do whatever she wanted with the box of craft goodies. Normally I'm a complete control freak when it comes to the boxes of goodies that arrive from CraftMerrily, planning out everything we can make before she gets a look in. I then left her and Mr C alone at the ... read more
Owl Advent Calendar
As anyone who knows me in real life will tell you, I'm brilliant at starting craft projects, but when it comes to finishing them it's another story entirely. The house (and cabin at the bottom of the garden) are full of unfinished projects (over 41 at the last count - but shhhh don't tell my husband) and the situation has been getting a bit out of hand lately. And I daren't even count how many project I've got everything for, but haven't yet started. It's not that I don't want to finish them, it's just that I either run out of time or something more exciting comes along and they're ... read more
Christmas Craft: Toilet Roll Angels
Sometimes Christmas crafts just need to be as simple as possible, especially when small children are involved and that's what I hope I've achieved with this simple toilet roll angel project. What you need: Toilet roll White paint Cardboard - a cereal box is ideal Scissors Pipe cleaners - silver or gold ideally Glue Glitter - silver or gold, or glitter glue Sticky tape Pink or flesh coloured paper Felt tip pens Something round to draw round Start off by painting the outside of your toilet roll white. You may need two coats of paint for this. Draw a circle on ... read more
Washi Tape Christmas Gift Tags
The Christmas crafting is continuing at speed here and if you thought last week's washi tape Christmas cards were a bit too taxing then this is definitely the craft for you - washi tape Christmas gift tags. All you need are plain gift tags (any will do, but I happened to have a box of these lovely vintage style ones from East of India) and some festive washi tape. As an added extra you could also use any Christmas themed rubber stamps that you may have too. You can obviously decorate the tags however you want with the washi tape, but I decided to keep it relatively simple with a ... read more
Easy Washi Tape Christmas Cards
It may not be the trendy thing to say, but I love Christmas and I particularly love all the build up excitement. I see nothing wrong with starting off all the Christmas crafts and activities as soon as Halloween is out of the way and that's certainly what we're doing here this year. I'm trying to come up with activities that the children can get involved in which are not only fun, but also have an educational value. If they also produce something that can be used as a Christmas decoration or gift then even better. To kick off all my festive crafting I came up with a washi tape Christmas ... read more
Washi Tape decorated Vintage Maps Storage
My mum is about to move house, and as she's downsizing she's spent the last few months having a huge clear out of all the stuff that the family has accumulated over the years. It's fair to say that I think none of us had any idea just how much stuff there was in her house, garages and outbuildings. As part of this my sister and I have been helping where we can by taking a few things off her hands, especially things that we have fond childhood memories of. I've always been a huge fan of maps, vintage ones in particular (and that passion was reawakened by the relevant vintage Ladybird ... read more
Review: Little Princess Hama Bead Gift Box
Well the Halloween Hama beading may be over for another year, but the Hama love is not waning! CraftMerrily recently sent us a couple of Hama Bead gift boxes to review and the first of these has proved to be such a favourite with Little Miss C that I have to admit that we're yet to properly tackle the second one. The Little Princess Hama Bead gift box comes with one princess shaped peg board, 3000 beads, and instruction sheet and a piece of the required ironing paper that you use when fixing your designs. Being a typical four year old girl (and one that happens to be a huge Frozen ... read more
Halloween Hama Beads
You can read all about my Halloween Hama Bead Creations over on Penny Blogs. ... read more
Autumn Inspired Venetian Mask
I've blogged many times now about how much I love my WI group here in St Albans. I look forward to our monthly meetings and really enjoy having that couple of hours to concentrate on something completely different - and often to try my hand at something new in the process. This last month - slightly inspired by Halloween - we had a short talk on Venetian Masks and then had a go at making our own ones. I went to Venice with my family years ago and still remember vividly the masks hung up outside so many of the shops we came across in the streets of the city. They were gorgeous and the ... read more