Easy Bookmarks

These bookmarks are very simple to make with just a few items from your craft box and a few spare minutes, my children often like to make them. So I thought I would make a special one for my husband with faux leather and little wooden hearts especially with Valentines day in mind.

First collect together the items to be used, in this case faux leather, heart shaped wooden buttons and an elastic hair tie. Any fabric or ribbons can be used here, your designs can reflect your interests or those of the person you intend to use the bookmark.

Mark out your required size of bookmark, I have made mine the width of the ruler and around 30 centimetres long... however you could make it smaller or longer depending on the size of books most commonly read. Try out a few lengths on your books to see which size you prefer and remember to take the seams into account.

Next fold the end of the fabric over the hair tie and stitch a hem as seen above, this will hold your hair tie in place. As this is faux leather it will not fray but if you are using ribbon or fabric it's best to hem each end of your bookmark.

Then stitch on your buttons, you could use just one button on the opposite side to the hair tie allowing you to hook the tie over the button to keep your page. With valentines day in mind I have sewn on two heart buttons, one on each end to symbolise our two hearts being drawn together.

As you can see it securely saves your page with no risk of it falling out like a conventional bookmark. Just to show you an alternative design....

This is my daughter's bookmark, as you can see she has used a pretty ribbon and colourful star shaped buttons for it.

She also has an added feature on her bookmark...an extra button, this allows the same bookmark to be used for many different sizes of books. Children's books vary so much in size from one to another that this gives her the choice of bookmark size.

As you can see in the photograph above the extra button allows her to securely bookmark her pages in a range of different size books. A very simple craft for your little readers to try.

Magpie Monday latest

It has been quite a while since I managed a magpie Monday post, but we do still  regularly frequent the charity shops that are nearby, even though the prices seem to have shot up in the last year or so. The first item is the most expensive thing we have ever bought from a charity shop, my husband came home with it one day and on telling me it cost £30, nearly sent me into a panic but it is now a much loved family member... a rather loud one!

The wood needs a good waxing but the clock works perfectly and chimes on the hour without fail. I had been wanting one for quite a while, since we found out it was impossible to fix my Grandfather's old one, so it was a lovely surprise from my husband... now we know what the time is from anywhere in the house without even looking.

Next is just a cheap trinket picked up for 50p but I have been looking for one of these for years, they seem to be very popular amongst the vintage collectors. I wanted to stand it on my cut glass dressing table set to keep up the Parisian faded elegance theme I seem to have going on. I now have to look for another one for my daughter who has an urge for a pink one in her room.

I seem to have so many things to pick from but I'll finish up this week showing you some of the books we have found. These old ones were 50p each, a little ragged around the edges but fascinating to read. I am a huge Agatha Christie fan and read her books with great enthusiasm in my teens but sadly I no longer have the books I had then. So I have decided to collect and read them all again, so these two will be added to my library.

This last Photograph shows some of the other books we have managed to find lately all for about 30-50p each. This is a huge bargain for us as we are home educators and the children love to read books... it's handy to have books on as many subjects as possible so that we are prepared for any eventuality. Although our library does appear to be about to burst at the seams.

This post will be linked with missielizzie from the me and my shadow blog for magpie monday.

More charity shop finds!

My very late entry for magpie Monday has had me smiling today, I have been looking for some pink transfer printed plates for absolutely ages. My daughters (and me, if I'm honest) would love to have 'proper' tea parties in a kind of romantic, bohemian/eclectic style. So we wanted a wide variety of different plates, some flowery and some like the ones below. They cost £1.00 for six plates, what a bargain!   On the back it says they are from the Constable bicentennial series.

This next item I found in a box of photograph frames, and it has my heart all a flutter, it is so romantic.... and very heavy!  It is a solid pewter frame and I'm thinking of either putting in photographs of the children or photographs of my husband and I on our wedding day and standing it on my dressing table. This also only cost £1.00.

Then I found this slightly out of season book also for £1.00 it has 200 Christmas recipes and craft ideas inside, just what we need for seasonal preparations later in the year, plenty of things for the children to try out.

Lastly today, a trivet for 50p, it needs to have a little attention paid to it but a welcome addition to the kitchen for placing hot things on and I really love the shape. So these are my finds today the first two items I'm especially excited about, can't wait to put them to good use.

to visit other magpie Monday posts click the link below.

A look at February

Well, we started the month with learning about Imbolc, Chinese new year and Valentines day and the children enjoyed making many related crafts... we were very, very busy! So for the last week or so we have been having a more relaxed time. There has still been many crafts but of a more free style, sort of a raid the craft box and glue it all on paper style.

Since we made the 'bristlebot', a small robot, last year my son has been quite interested in electronics so we got a starter kit for him and he has been learning all about circuits.

The above photograph is of some parts of the starter electronics set that my husband has been helping him with, we will probably buy a more advanced set soon as he has been enjoying it a lot. My husband wrote about the electronics in greater detail if you would like to read further here.

There has also been much gardening, my husband made some new raised beds for vegetable planting and the children were very much involved in this. They helped with digging and planting and of course the bug hunting and the excavation for treasure! My husband has also written about making raised beds in further detail if you would like to make some yourself, totally from recycled materials.

We have been on some nature walks, looking at the bare trees and for the first signs of spring, using a guide for identifying trees from their bare twigs and buds which has been very informative. I found some vintage books for sale for £1.50 by Enid Blyton and we have been reading them together to while away the winter evenings... I found the language used in these adorable and old fashioned and the children love them very much.

You may remember from previous posts that I was putting together small crafts to make a Valentines day card for my husband, I made a woven heart and some paper quilled hearts then assembled them as you can see in the photograph below, don't worry it is a close up to spare you the details.

And that was February!