A Twiggy Christmas Tree

Christmas is normally my favourite time of year, but this year the Christmas spirit is yet to really hit me....theres no new decorations made, kids crafts done, menus planned, or pressies organised.....and I've only got 3 weeks left before the big day...eekk!

We had an early Christmas celebration this past weekend with my family, as Mum is heading off overseas over the Christmas period.  A change of plans meant we ended up having it at my place, so out came the Christmas decorations on Friday night.  We don't have a tree yet so I had to be a bit creative to find something to hang the decorations on....I had seen twig trees around online and in magazines so thought I'd go with that idea ......luckily we have a few dead trees in the garden! 

I really love how it turned out...it adds a lovely little festive touch to the house and I think it will stay up even after we get a real tree.  I used the branches a la natural but I think they would look great painted as well. 

 

 

 

 

So what sort of Christmas tree will you have this year....real, fake or a twig or two?

Back in the land of the living

Well its been a long time since I've checked in here.....been busy moving country, moving house and getting ready for baby......busy busy busy!  There has been absolutely no crafting going on, too many other things to occupy my time.  At the moment my mind is all on getting the house organised...after living overseas for so long we have next to no furniture so I'm busy looking everywhere I can to fill all the spaces we have now and to give me something to unpack things into!  And I really need to work on getting the baby room in a state ready for the baby instead of the dumping ground for boxes that it seems to have become...less than 3 weeks to go...this big mumma needs to get her act together....feeling so disorganised and yet lacking the energy to get it all done...oh dear!

So hopefully over the next few weeks I'll share some of my inspiration and ideas for turning our new house into our home and get some more of those boxes unpacked and clearing the bombsite that is currently my house...wish me luck!!

Felt Owl picture

So we are on the final countdown to moving back to New Zealand, only 2 sleeps to go!  My days have been spent packing, packing and more packing......it has to be one of my most hated jobs...its one of those jobs that just never seems to end!!

Here's a cute little owl picture I made for my daughter last year...using my favourite material - felt. I sewed the picture together, slightly stuffing them and then hot glued them to the cardboard.    It was inspired by a birthday card that she had received....I think my favourite part is the cute little heart balloons.  I would love to make some more of these, maybe a project for me over the next month  for the baby's room.

So from New Caledonia, its au revoir from me......I could be offline for a while, we are staying with  family for the next 6 weeks until we can get into our house, so internet access will be limited......more time for me to enjoy all the pleasures that my home country has to offer....yeah so happy to finally be back at home!

In the meantime those packing boxes are calling my name again...sigh!

Paper Hanging Star

Well there's no crafting going on around here.....everything is in the process of getting packed up ready for shipping back to NZ....hooray!!

I snapped a few shots while I was packing of things I have made so thought I would share these with you over the coming posts.

I made this star last year for Miss4 - I love how this looks hanging up in her room.  I think a group of these hanging together would look great. I'm also thinking maybe a mobile for the babys room with little stars hanging at different levels would look pretty cute.  I'm not too sure if this star will survive the shift, but if it doesn't I can always make some more.....they are super easy to make and look great.....the perfect little craft project.

These would make great Christmas or party decorations as well.

I followed the tutorial at annekata, and used two sheets of scrapbook paper which is the perfect weight for making them and makes a good sized star.  I definitely recommend giving these a go.

PS: I tried out the new photo editing site PicMonkey for these pics, need to have more of a play but it looks like a good replacement for the now defunct Picnik.  Hopefully now my photos will look a bit better, they need all the help I can give them sometimes!

Island Life

I'm on the countdown to finally going home to New Zealand after 6 1/2 years away in Australia and New Caledonia - only 3 weeks to go yippee!!  For the past two years we have been in New Caledonia, a small French governed island in the Pacific, and to be honest it has been a very long 2 years, I really can't wait to leave!

Things I'm looking forward to:

• English speaking people (they speak French here and I don't, it makes everything so difficult!)
• The simple pleasure of reading a Sunday paper or magazine
• Fruit and Vege stores, where supply is plentiful and stock is fresh -some of the stuff they try to sell here is criminal!
• Shopping - ah  to have variety, choice, cheaper prices, craft stores - credit card get ready for a thrashing!
• Being closer to family and friends especially with new bubs on the way
• Living in one place longer than a couple of years - finally I can settle, nest, decorate, start a business!

Things I'll miss:

• The food - ah the pastries, baguettes, crepes, salted butter caramel sauce, mmmmm
• The lovely mild winters - we are so going to freeze when we get back home, Miss4 has no idea what cold is, shes in for a shock!
• The beaches along with their lovely warm water
• The simple stressfree lifestyle
• My daughter will miss being able to run round in just her undies 95% of the time!

Things I wont miss:

• The humidity and the rain (just has not stopped raining here for months!)
• Shops closing for lunch - lost count of the number of times I was caught out by that one - grrrr
• The simple stressfree lifestyle - not much to do round here especially when its raining!
• Not being able to communicate with people, no more pigeon english and charades required!
• Waiting for the ship to come in - most things are imported here, and you often have shortages on the basics
• French bureaucratic red tape - they love their paperwork here.
• Cheques - they are king here, hello NZ circa 1980's - bring on the EFTPOS.
• The expense - wow this place is really expensive, and I hate being ripped off! 

Finger Puppets

I made some finger puppets ages ago for my daughter - they were a bit rough (my sewing skills totally letting me down again!) but still looked pretty cute.  I decided that I would give them another go to add  to my nieces birthday present.  This time I decided to stay well away from the sewing machine and just hand stitch them which turned out to be the right decision!

I used the templates from Handmade by Jill for the cow, pig and chicken and the crocodile.  I'm not sure where the horse came from ( I just copied what I had made previously).  So the crocodile doesn't really fit in with the rest of the farm animals but I thought it was too cute not to make - next time I'll add some teeth - snap, snap!

I then decided that I needed something to put all the animals into so I made a little felt house for them.....ideally it should have been a barn, but I started it late one night and a house was just easier...yes I do roll that way!  I just freehanded it (not really recommended, if your eye is as out as mine!) so it took a bit of trimming here and there to get it looking symetrical, and then a bit of quick stitching and a velcro flap and voila we have a cute little house for all the animals. I might try and make a barn next for my daughters animals - if so I might attempt a tutorial so then I will have to do it properly!

Front of House

Back of house - flap needs to be a bit bigger me thinks - one of the problems of freehanding it!

Ballerina Cards

Hope everyone had a great Easter....a pretty quiet one here, Good Friday is not celebrated in New Caledonia and then the boy had to work all day Saturday so it was just like a normal 2 day weekend for us......with the exception of lots of easter eggs, homemade hot cross buns, some sneaky pastries and some gorgeous sunny weather.

Last week I made a couple of birthday cards for my daughter and niece, who are both turning 4 next week.  I took my inspiration from these cards that I've had pinned for a while now - I thought they looked like great fun for kids - they're cute right?!

Pop Up Cards @ Ikat bag

Knowing how great my drawing skills are I went in search of something I could cut and paste instead - much safer that way!  I found some lovely vintage paper doll images "Betsy McCall" that looked a treat.  I printed them out and played around until I had the right size for the card.  Next I added some pretty accordian folded paper for the tutu, added some extra bits and voila a card that I am sure two little girls are going to enjoy receiving.

These are the two ballerina images I used:
Purple Ballerina
Pink Ballerina

Michelle

Hop hop hop hippety hop

There seems to have been a lot of bunnies popping up around here lately...Easter must be on its way!


Easter Bunny Finger Puppets -tutorial from the Purl Bee



Easter Bunny - tutorial & pattern from Revoluzza



Kids Toilet Roll Easter Bunnys - inspired from here



Kids Easter Bunny Cards - inspired from here



Hoopla - Hoop Love 2

So here are the first two hoops that I have made.

The first was inspired by the speckle name hoop I posted on here.....I knew as soon as I saw this that I wanted to make one, and its a perfect first hoop to do as you don't need to have any skill, just do crazy stitching everywhere around letters, easy!  I really like the way this turned out, what do you think?

The second one I made after finding a great tutorial over at Lime Riot about Felt Embroidery...I had the idea of using felt on hoops for a while but wasn't 100% sure how to do it and this tutorial showed me how!  She used fabric glue which I didn't have so I used iron on transfer paper instead.  This just helps to adhere the felt before stitching it on.  This little hoop is for my sweet niece's birthday...she received a Lala Loopsy doll at Christmas and loves it, so I decided to make a little picture for her wall.  Looks pretty cute huh?!  I'm now inspired to make other pictures using this method as its easy to do although a little fiddly, uses my favourite material felt, and turns out pretty darn cute.  I have lots of ideas floating in my head, just need to get them from there to the hoop...stay tuned!

Hoopla - hoop love

My latest pinning craze is embroidery hoops....I've never embroidered before but I have just seen so many gorgeous hoops around I couldn't help but start pinning.  I finally started my first hoop a couple of weeks ago and now have completed two, bar the tidying up bit at the back of them.  I'm really pleased with how they have turned out and am inspired to keep on making them. I love a craft that I can work on in front of the tv...thats my kind of multitasking!

Here are some of the gorgeous hoops that have inspired me:

A double hoop by the very talented Checkout Girl at Little Pink House

Speckle Name hoop @ Lines Across my face

Bunny by pillipilli on Etsy , her work is so gorgeous

Beautiful dandelion hoop @ SewLovelyNC

They're all so gorgeous aren't they....no wonder I had to go buy me some embroidery hoops and try it out for myself!  Next post I'll share my efforts so far, am working on a third one at the moment but not convinced its going to work...we'll see!  If you want to see more embroidery hoops check out my pinterest board here.

Crepe Flower Hanging Ball

Wow.....now this thing took some serious time to make...its relatively easy to make just time consuming!  I started this months ago {no it doesn't quite take that long - I'm not talking that serious!} and finally I  decided I needed to get the thing finished.

Lots of crepe paper, hot glue, and time and eventually I covered my stryofoam ball with beautiful purple flowers.  For anyone wanting to make one I followed the tutorial at House of Smiths. It is now hanging in my daughters room.....I did have visions of making a few of these but I think for the time being I'll stick with just the one!

Pom Pom Garland

I am slowly getting back into making things again after a very slow start to the year.  I have a couple of incentives to get things made now......we are moving back to NZ this year and will finally move into our own house in July so I can decorate away to my hearts content and we are expecting our second baby in August so now theres twice as much to be made!

I bought some wool before Christmas with the intention of making a pom pom garland for MissM for Christmas but morning sickness put all crafting on the back burner.  I finally dragged it out the other day and started making pom poms....we do have a pom pom maker but of course I couldn't find it so I just used my fingers to make them{see tutorial here for instructions on how to make}.  I had great fun making these although no matter how I wound my wool my fingers always ended up being squished together and slowly changing colour to resemble that of the wool! 

I made them in a range of purple tones...MissM's FAVOURITE colour and strung them together by simply threading a piece of wool through the middle of the garland.  I love how it turned out and it was a really easy project.

You will have to excuse the photo of them hanging up, the light was terrible and the walls look terrible {can you see all the bluetak marks on the wall - ekkk, any ideas on how I can get rid of those?}but the garland does look a lot nicer hanging up than the photo suggests.

Right I'm off to work on another purple project for the girls room....its one of those projects you almost wish you hadn't started as its very time consuming!  Hopefully will have some photos to share later in the week.

Flower Power - lovelies for the hair

Well I don't know where the last month has gone, which I guess is pretty common at this time of year.  Not great form when you have just started blogging to take a month off, but I just haven't felt like writing lately and my creativity seems to have dried up completely....not a great way to start the year but things can only get better!

Today I thought I would share some of the Christmas pressies I made for my two nieces, a little selection of hair accessories, because a girl can't have enough lovelies for their hair, now can they!

First up are these lovely little ric rac flowers, these look super cute and are really easy to make.  I followed this tutorial and then just hot glued them to some clips.

Next I made some flowers out of felt and t-shirt material using the easy to follow tutorial here, and then attached to some hairbands - easy!  You have to love the glue gun!



This flower clip was made out of felt and again armed with a pair of scissors and some hot glue was easy to make. The tutorial is here if you want to make one - I used a much simpler flower design (5 petals from memory), basically because it was easier to cut out, more petals would add more texture to the petals.  {On a side note totally love the pics for the flower on the tutorial, the baby is just too cute!}.



I had seen these rolled fabric flowers all over pinterest so of course had to give them a go!



Sew some circles together in pretty colours and you have yourself some lovely little clips.

I think this lot should keep some little girls happy for a while...now I just need find my creativity again so I can finish off making some for my own daughter!!