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!

Wooden Hearts

It is nearly Valentines day and we have been doing a few heart related crafts, many of these seem to involve sticks this year. This first heart was made with bendy twigs and copper wire, any wire or string would do here but if you are interested in getting some free copper wire from broken electrical things there is a guide here (you may need to scroll down).

This photograph shows what I started with, first pick two large sticks and bend into a heart shape, wrapping the ends with the wire to get the basic shape.

Then to create the interior design, sticks were bent and wired in place where they touched another stick, I went for a swirly pattern.

To add a finishing touch I have wired some wooden beads into the pattern and added a hanging ribbon. Here it is hanging on the wall, although I may end up putting this in the garden as a tree hanging or small garden trellis, copper ages well outdoors and goes a lovely verdigris colour.

I also tried another heart using the sticks that were left over from drying eucalyptus leaves, these sticks had an interesting colour but were much harder to work with as they weren't very flexible.

This time I started by bending some garden wire to the shape of a heart and used a hot glue gun to stick small pieces of the twigs into the shape of the heart.

I haven't quite achieved the woven twig look that I was aiming for as the stick was very brittle but it is very simple to make. I also have to show you the wooden heart my husband made. It is gorgeous and you can see how he made it here.

That's it for now although I will be back soon to show you the hearts the children made.