Sunshine Awards!

I love it when bloggers all share our fabulous craft blogs with each other. Thank you so much to wonderful bloggers Flutterby Rainbow &  A mess to be made  for nominating Make Bake & Sew for the sunshine award!

The science bit…..

On to the award acceptance process: according to the rules, nominees must (i) include a link in your blog to the blog that nominated you; (ii) answer some questions about yourself; (iii) nominate 10 fellow bloggers, linking to their blogs; and (iv) inform them that they have been nominated.

Q&A:

1. Who is your favorite philosopher? Can’t decide yet

2. What is your favorite number? 5

3. What is your favorite animal? my cats

 4. What are your Facebook and Twitter? @makebakeandsew http://www.facebook.com/pages/Make-Bake-Sew/132332563534031

5. What is your favorite time of day? 2:30pm – nap time on a day off!

6. What is your favorite holiday? a small apartment in St Ives, Cornwall

7. What is your favorite physical activity? walking or dancing

8. What is your favorite non-alcoholic drink?  Diet Coke – I know it’s rotting my insides but I don’t care

9. What is your passion?  craft and my family

10. What is your favorite flower? Hydrangea

And now our own nominations to pass the Sunshine Award on, in no particular order:

The Gingerbread Mum

English Girl at Home

Popsicles and Piñatas

Easy crafts for Children

The thimble room

Little Poppits

Time Pass Hobbies

Folk Haven

Glitter Mama

Chocoholic Knits

Happy crafting!

Barmy Origami

I’m not generally big on paper crafts.However while at work yesterday one of the Pharmacists showed me how to make my first piece of Origami – the crane (yes, I was having a really busy day. Ha).

I was instantly hooked. Obsessing over every fold. My crane now sits proudly on my Christmas Tree this morning. Oh yes – the Christmas Tree is now up. I’ll do a post on the my Nordic tree later I think.

The instructions for this Crane are this fab website Origami Fun. I plan on making some more our of some red or Christmassy paper. Check out some of these other Christmas Origami ideas from other blogs and sites….

Origami Santa

Origami Wreath

Origami Tree

Ceramic origami ornaments if you don’t feel like making them yourself

 

A Big Thank You

Just wanted to issue you all with huge great big thank you. I noticed that other day I had reached over 10,000 hits on my beloved little blog and over 1000 followers across Facebook, twitter and wordpress. I am utterly astounded that so many of you have dropped by and hope I can continue to bring you some fun and interesting posts and projects to grow my blog even further.

i love writing here and adore the gargantuous community blogging can connect you to.

I am always amazed that I have been able to create something like this I can be so proud of and hope you come back soon

 

Thank you!

 

Lego Jewellery for big kids

Lego makes me happy. Our house is full of it. And if the truth be known I play with it as much as the kids do. In fact when the olympics were on this summer, I spent an entire day building a lego olympic village ‘for the kids’ = loser?

I love all the lego jewellery I’ve been seeing around so when I visited the Crafts for Christmas show at the NEC Birmingham recently, I picked up some silver jewellery findings with making some Lego jewellery in mind. I finally got round to it Friday, just in time for my latest Christmas Fayre at ParkView Day centre in Solihull.

It did also get me thinking what else you could make out of it and how cool it would be to have actual working household items made out of lego. I’m clearly not the only person who has thought of this – check out these crazy lego items I found on other sites….

Some people have too much time on their hands!

Lego Kitchen Island & Lego DIY

For the fashionistas

Hmmm this olympic village makes mine look a bit ridiculous – Lego skill envy!

I wouldn’t want to be putting this one together at 5am on Christmas morning.

Santa’s Secret Key

When we moved house last year, my children made a very good point that the new house doesn’t have a fireplace so how in the world would santa get in to deliver the presents?! Thinking on my feet I said he has a special key – remembering seeing santa key’s in shops over the years. This year I thought i would do some extras to sell at my Christmas fayre’s. The keys where purchased in a pack from a craft store but you could use any old unused keys lying around in your kitchen drawer. I then stamped out a tag and attached some red ribbon to hang it from the tree or like us, we just hang from a nail in the wall by the door.

More felt Christmas Ornaments…..

I was really pleased with my recent rainbow felt fairy lights and had been looking around for more felt decoration ideas that I could do in the rainbow style. I Came across this fantastic blog Zakka Life with these beautiful felt decorations inspired by those classic concertina tissue paper decorations of the 70’s. Made from just circles of felt and ribbon they are easy enough for a child to do if you have some little ones to entertain for an hour or two.

And here are my rainbow ones…

 

 

Full instructions are on the Zakka Life blog here

Like me…..I’m needy

In a world where we all need a blog, twitter feed, pinterest, Facebook account, tumblr blah blah blah –  to stand a chance of surviving in the digital universe, it all leaves me feeling a little needy tbh. We are all screaming ‘Like me, like me’ in the race to get more likes/friends/followers. I don’t like begging.

However, I have made some amendments to my Facebook page to morph it into the offical page of Make Bake & Sew. So if you do like what I do then please ‘Like’ me on Facebook. I will like you too and we can all be virtual friends forever – VFF. Thank you.

Make Bake and Sew Facbook Page

Melted Snowman in a Jar

I bloody love Christmas. Anything I can add to my decorations each year that it is interesting and unusual I’ll be all over it

Check out this melted snowman in a jar which can be bought out year after year and will always be a talking point.

My jar is from Ikea and is filled with general household salt for the melted snow, felt  or card carrot nose and currants for the snowman’s eye’s and buttons. If you have a small jar you can use black peppercorns which are great as the don’t sink in the salt. If you do use currants, take them out before storing your snowman for the summer and replace them when you bring him out each holiday season to prevent them going a tad mouldy. Add a ribbon bow to your jar, striped ribbon would be great and double as the snowman’s scarf.

I made some bauble versions of these too for a Christmas fayre recently. The same principle but just fill clear glass baubles with salt and add the peppercorns and felt nose. Festive ribbon is great for hanging them from your tree.

#holidays are coming……..holidays are coming……

The Felt Gingerbread House update…..

Well I started making the gingerbread house from Jeanette Lim’s Big little felt universe a couple of weeks ago and here is the finished article. I did some adjustments as I just didn’t have the time to sew on all the individual felt sweets to the roof – I would have been there til next Christmas!

I love that the roof comes off the store your gingerbread people and any other christmas bits you fancy.

 

 

Read my review of Big little felt Universe here

Rainbow Felt Fairy Light Oranaments

Just like fashion, Christmas decorations come in and out of vogue too. Colour schemes are always a major theme whether it’s nordic red and white, traditional red and green, new brights or metallics. I tend to favour anything that makes me feel nostalgic and christmas lights really tell a story of the trends we have all followed over the last few decades.

I love the classic coloured fairy lights as the remind me of my Christmas tree growing up at home. Then came white lights, 3D rope light outdoor sculptures and anyone remember the blue fairy light trend?? Houses competing with each other and the UFOesque blue glow in living rooms across the country.

Inspired by those coloured fairy lights of my childhood I decided to recreate them in, yes you guessed it – felt! Great for the tree or to hang on some twine at the fireplace like a garland.