Melted Fabric Flowers

Over the Winter I have been trying out a few crafts and I thought I would share a couple of photographs here with you quickly. Melted fabric flowers are something I have been wanting to try for a few years, and kept putting off, but as it turns out they are quite simple.

I have cut out a few circles of man-made fabric decreasing in size towards the middle and snipped the edges where the petals should go. Then you slowly lower the edges towards a candle flame...I started quite high above the candle you will notice when the fabric starts to melt probably about 4 to 6 inches above the flame, you need a gentle approach here and never get low enough to touch the flame.

Man made fabric melts whereas natural fabric would probably burn, I took safety precautions here and had a bowl of water close by just in case but nothing has ever caught fire. As you can see in the photo when the edges melt they curl inward like flower petals. I have stacked together a few colours and glued beads in the center to give the flower an anemone look.

I used one of the flowers on this hand made card for my daughter. I also sewed one on the crochet hat I made for my youngest daughter.

This hat was very simply worked without a pattern just increasing from a ring until it was the right size. I made the flower to go on the side of the hat as seen in the above photo but my daughter had other ideas and always wore it on the front of her head like a little mini pink Dalek.

Happy 3rd Birthday

Just a quick post to wish my beautiful daughter a happy 3rd birthday, it seems that all I've been doing the last few weeks is celebrate something or other, we have had three birthdays and an anniversary, but this is the last one for a while...phew. We have had a lovely day, it really doesn't seem three years ago that we came home from hospital with this little bundle...she looked just like a little angel.

This is one of my favourite photographs of her... so peaceful. Although I expect she will be spending more time the other side of the lens as she asked for her first camera for her birthday. Amongst her current favourite things are hello kitty and the colour pink so we had a go at making a hello kitty cake.

Some of the cards we made are below... happy birthday little one.

7th Birthday

Today is my son's 7th birthday, so this is just a quick post to wish him a very happy birthday and to show you the cake we made. It really doesn't seem like 7 years ago that we came home from the hospital with him.

He is very rarely this quiet now, a very special little boy with a very different way of looking at things and he has inspired us to view the world differently too.

So here is the cake! As my son is extremely dinosaur obsessed, we thought a dinosaur cake would be quite exciting for him. It is my first go at making a themed cake like this, usually my cakes are round. I think he was quite impressed although I do remember him bringing up some anatomical inconsistencies. Happy 7th Birthday.

Nearly forgot to add the birthday cards we made for him, my youngest daughter had so much fun with her card... glitter really is her thing.

Happy Birthday!

Today is the 19th birthday of my eldest daughter... wow 19 years! so this is just a short post to wish her a very happy birthday and to hope that she has a truly wonderful year.

We made our own gift baskets for her presents, two of which can be seen above, we made them using the same design as we used for the Easter baskets seen here, if you chose to make some of your own. But back to the birthday girl...

Here she is aged just five, she has grown from a shy tomboy into the beautiful young woman that she is today... an engineering student hoping to follow her dreams and work in formula 1.

This is the cake we made for her birthday, the younger children helped, we chose chocolate stars as the decoration.

Of course the cards were hand made too... with much glitter!

So Happy Birthday once again... enjoy your day x x x x x

Origami Tree cards

Just a quick post to show you what I made last night, we are making all our Yule / Christmas cards this year and we are going to be trying out many different styles, some for us and some for the children.

 Last night I made this card for someone, it had to be posted so I wanted to get it done quickly, it was my first attempt at an origami card, those of you who follow me on twitter will know I failed miserably to make an origami paper crane for my husband on our 1st wedding anniversary (paper). So although this is quite easy I am still very pleased with it. If you would like to try out this card there are many guides on line.  Happy folding.