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

 

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

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.

Felt Christmas Tree Ornaments

Yes more felt. I can’t help it.

These are easy peasy green felt triangles with small amount of brown felt for the base and different coloured scraps stitched on for decorations. Just whip stitch all the way round putting some ribbon in the top for hanging and stuff with toy filler.

Super Quick Christmas Tree Angels

These pretty little tree angels are amazingly quick to make.  They are easily something a child could do if you want to give them a Christmas craft do get their teeth into while you crack on with other jobs or just sit with a Caramel Macchiato and catch up with ER re-runs. Or maybe that’s just me!

Minimal supplies needed:

1 pack of white fimo air

brown garden twine or string

an angel cookie cutter

Some baking parchment

Rolling pin

Roll out the fimo to about 3mm thick. Cut out the angels and place them onto the parchment. Before allowing them to dry, poke a small hole in the head of each one. I used a metal skewer for this. Dry overnight then thread with the garden twine. Done!

Of course you could do this with any cookie cutter you like. Snowmen or stars would be great.

 

 

Big Little Felt Universe by Jeanette Lim – Book Review

The book shelf in my lounge is currently buckling under the weight of my growing collection of craft and cookery books. It drives my husband round the bend. My solution would be to have a nice ‘craft’ room of my own that I could hibernate in, surrounding myself with fabric and wall to wall books for every type of craft. A girl can dream.

In the mean time, I can just about squeeze a couple more in and ‘Big Little Felt Universe’ by Jeanette Lim is my new muse. I have recently been looking for some felt food patterns online when I stumbled upon Jeanette’s etsy shop which is packed with fabulous looking patterns for all sorts of felt food and toys. Struggling to decide which one to buy, imagine my excitement when I realised she had also published this book with Lark Crafts.

And what a craft book it is. There is not one pattern in the collection that I do not want to make. Each project is beautifully photographed with clear instructions, although some projects are trickier than others so maybe not all will be suitable for beginners. Most of the patterns are full size and even the few that aren’t can be enlarged or even measured out yourself as all the measurements are given.

I started with the felt veg and the results are really pleasing. The patterns are sized really well and everything fits together perfectly. This really is a fun and exciting book of the felt food projects that you will really want – fruit, veg, cakes, tools, burgers and hotdogs and loads more. Great to start off in the wonderful world of felt food and then progress into Jeanette’s other etsy patterns. All will produce amazing toys that children will adore compared with the sad mass produced plastic offerings of most stores.

A must buy for any lover of felt.

Next project for me is this super cute gingerbread house for the holiday season!