Clay Doily Hearts

For Valentine's day this year we have made a clay heart garland which has been printed to look like a vintage doily. I really loved the pine cone garland we made at Christmas and have to say I really quite miss it, so we have decided to have a seasonal garland throughout the year filled with craft items and memories.

We rolled our clay out and pressed an old plastic doily that used to belong to my grandmother into it to give us the wonderful pattern. We used a cookie cutter to give us the heart shapes, put a hole in the top for the string and left them to dry.

We also made a larger one as a gift for my eldest daughter who has had heart surgery this week.

We gave them a red undercoat and left them to dry for a little longer.

To pick out the highlights in a lighter colour gives the heart a vintage doily look, and we have lightly brushed over the red hearts with a white paint. Then finished with a coat of varnish to give it shine and a little durability.

So after threading onto a rustic natural string this is what our Valentine garland looks like. Hopefully it's a lovely keepsake that we can bring out year after year and enjoy. The special one for my daughter was finished off with a red ribbon.

We wish you a speedy recovery and hope you are soon feeling much better xx

Goodbye 2014... Hello 2015

Just a short post to wish you all a Happy new year and to say goodbye to 2014. We have put quite a few things off recently due to a death in the family, blogging has been one of those things but we have still been muddling through in a quiet way and we are now very much looking forward to 2015 and all the new challenges it may bring.

We still made some Christmas decorations for our home, but this year things seem to have taken a simple, more natural approach. Both my husband and I have made some Christmas baubles, complete with pyrography, from a section of an old branch.

I made this pine cone garland, another very simple, natural craft that looked so beautiful on the fireplace. I am definitely thinking of making some more of these next year.

Another one of my favourite additions this year was the snowflake mobile. My husband hung a twisted willow branch, that had been sprayed slightly with silver glitter to give it a frosty feel, in the window. We then hung snowflake decorations and crystals from it to give a feel of snow. It was very difficult to get good photos of this but it looked amazingly magical.

My husband helped the children to make these wooden snowmen using offcuts of wood, which they chose to paint. So most of the decorations we made this year had a wooden feel to them.

Well that's some of the things we have been doing at this very busy time, all that's left to do is wish you all a very Happy new year!

Quick Paper Garlands

A recent celebration had us reaching for the scrap paper to make some very quick and cheap party decorations. We try to live very thriftily here and spending money on party decorations which could be used for extra presents seems a little strange and the children have a huge amount of fun in the process.

As we didn't have much time and the children are small, we went for the simplest garlands possible. The top one is just a simple bunting garland made with paper, cut, folded and glued over the string or ribbon. Any paper or card can be used and it can be highly personalised to suit the birthday girl or boy, you can use letters or numbers if you choose, my son is hoping for a dinosaur one on his birthday. As you are making this yourself you can choose the exact length and design.

The butterfly one is another very simple one and takes just a few minutes, I have used a shape cutter and a scrap sheet of sticky paper. The butterflies were just stamped out and stuck back to back over some gold string. We made heart ones like these on valentines day, very pretty, my daughter is planning on having these in her room.

The spring blossom garland continues a craft idea we had a few years ago spring blossom craft.

Each flower is made up of three or four cut out tissue paper flower shapes, stacked and twisted together.

These are then threaded onto your chosen string or wool to make the garland.

You can make these garlands out of anything you choose and what's more, it saves you money and it's a wonderful craft idea to get children involved in the decorating.

We have garlands hanging in the house at quite a few times in the year, mostly made by the children who are quite proud of their creations. A couple of recent, very pretty, seasonal ones have been the Autumn leaf garland and the paper snowflake one.

I am hoping to eventually get round to sewing some more permanent garlands in felt and fabric to keep forever, it's just finding the time, it seems to be in short supply here.