First Sewing - Felt Heart

My youngest children have been asking quite a lot lately for me to teach them how to sew, knit and crochet. They are very young so I thought I would begin by making some threading cards so they could practice the actions of sewing before moving on to making the felt hearts with real needles.

As it was coming up to Valentine's day we made our threading cards out of red paper hearts which were then laminated. Any picture could be laminated for the budding sewing enthusiast, it could be something that sparks their interest or even a drawing of their own. If you don't have a way to laminate paper, any plastic or stiff card could be used like a box or a picture from an old board book. Holes were then punched all around the outside for the stitches.

Shoelaces would be the ideal thing to use for the stitches, the rigid ends make a good needle substitute but we didn't have any colourful ones to hand so we have used wool instead. I wound a piece of sticky tape around the end of the wool tightly to try to imitate the end of a shoelace and to make it stiff for easy threading. If you look at the end of the pink wool in the above picture you will see what I mean. They played around with these cards for a while, getting a feel for how the stitches looked and made many different patterns.

Then we moved on to the 'real sewing', a cookie cutter was used to draw the heart shapes in the felt and two hearts were cut out and put together for each child. Using quite large chunky needles and wool as  thread, they both managed to do a simple running stitch all the way around the heart. Each heart was stuffed and had a piece of ribbon stitched to the top to finish off.

The children were so excited about this project and very pleased with the results, I have to say I love them as much as they do. A perfect first sewing project to keep forever, very simple and very beautiful.

They are now hanging in pride of place on our pin board for all to see.

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.

Natural Deodorant

Since reading an article a couple of years ago about the hundreds of chemicals we have in our lives, many of these we liberally apply to our skin every day, I have been on a quest to get rid of as many as I can. The latest change has been deodorant, you have probably read a lot about the dangers of these chemicals (a quick search will tell you all you need to know) and I have decided to try a more natural approach. So I have given up wearing deodorant.... I saw you all take a large step back, but it has been a pleasant surprise. I collected quite a few home made recipes but decided to try the crystal deodorant first as one was on offer.

Here it is... it is made from natural mineral salts, the one above has been shaped to fit into a roll on container and it also comes in a natural crystal shaped form, which I am tempted to try next as it will look good on the window ledge. I have been using it for six months and it has barely got any smaller, maybe just half a centimetre so the five pounds I spent will last a long time. You have to apply it very liberally to a wet armpit but it really works well for me, much better than any conventional deodorant that I have tried.

I know it sounds weird... and believe me it still sounds weird to me, but I am never going back. My nose is very sensitive and with normal deodorant, I didn't smell that fresh even after short periods of time, plus it left me sneezing and with rashes. The crystal doesn't make you smell all pretty like exotic flowers, in fact it doesn't make you smell of anything... my armpit now smells and feels exactly like the rest of my skin. It works by stopping the bacteria growth which causes the smell, it doesn't stop you sweating.

I have also tested this whilst working out to give it a bit of a challenge, I got my poor husband to smell my armpits after cycling 40 kilometres at quite a fast pace and he agreed, no smell. A double win as not only have I managed to get rid of the chemicals but saved a lot of money in the process.

Doll's House Furniture

I promised some of you a look at the doll's house that my lovely husband made for my daughter for Christmas. The soft furnishings have all been hand made by me, and as yet the house has only had a basic finish but we are hoping to add to it as time goes by and my daughter's tastes change. You will find some photographs of the beautiful house here, go on have a quick look... I'll wait.

This is the attic room of the house, it has been decorated as a children's bedroom and play room, I think it is my daughter's favourite room so far. The pretty wall stickers were a chance find in a local pound shop, the bunting fits exactly into the space. My husband made all the furniture in a chunky but durable style to make sure that they survive vigorous toddler play, and again those handy stickers were added to the ends of the beds for cuteness. All the bedding was hand stitched, foam was covered with old candy stripe sheet material to make the mattress and the pillows and bench pad are made with checked gingham. The quilt covers have been made so that they are double sided in case she feels like a change, quite simply by sewing two squares of fabric together and stuffing them. One side is purple checked gingham and the reverse side from a different fabric, you may notice this on the bed with the doll in more clearly. The little rug was just a knitted square using very small needles and fuzzy wool so that the effect is that of a rag rug.

This is the lounge set again my husband went with a simple, chunky set for now and I made the sofa cushions in my daughter's favourite colour, the fabric is actually from one of her much loved t-shirts which was recently outgrown. The little cushions are crocheted in a matching colour by simply doing a ring then one further row twice and sewing the little circles together.  The flat screen TV was made using the case of an old mp3 player, glued on a wooden stand with a cartoon photograph, laminated and stuck inside. I am quite pleased with how this turned out because it looks very realistic.

As you know, the house was a Christmas present, so it only seemed right to add some seasonal decorations. The tree is made from a cone of green felt, glued onto a stick and in turn into a wooden base, then decorated with ribbon and sequins.

A wreath for the front door was also made by twisting and gluing an old branch from an artificial tree into a circle, adding a few tiny pine cones and ribbon to hang it with. That's it for now.... what do you think?

Happy New Year 2012

Not the sort of Happy New Year photograph you usually see... but this calendula photograph was taken in my herb bed this morning, nature's fireworks bursting through. Just a quick post to wish you all a Happy New year and to thank-you for reading.  We have been so busy here that I haven't had the time to write as much as I wanted to and many things went unfinished.  So will quickly update you on some of the things we have done.

As the children really enjoyed working with clay and making the Autumn leaf bowls we decided to buy a large bag from the art shop. Some of it was put to good use making tree decorations, the children used dough cutters to cut out their shapes and these were then painted and varnished.

I also made some and stamped words on them with our metal stamps before painting them with metallic purple paint. I stamped our names on some to use on the crackers and as gift labels but totally forgot to use them in all the excitement. As shown in previous posts we made some of the tree decorations, this is something we always do to create special memories for the children. We also made all of our Christmas cards, this year we kept most of them very simple due to time limitations.

 The children had a lot of fun making our chocolate Yule log and home made sweets, this year we made marshmallow snowmen, fruit and nut chocolate bark and marzipan snowballs. A lot of time was spent making things for the doll house that my husband made for our daughter, I was in charge of interior design, will try to remember to post pictures here soon. I am a little relieved to have a calmness return to the house now that the celebrations are over and the decorations have come down.

I have made a start on my 'sort of' new year's resolutions already, by making my own toothpaste. I never make huge resolutions that are so overwhelming you fail after a couple of weeks and end up feeling bad about yourself. I only make small achievable aims and when these have been completed will then make another goal and another, right throughout the year, this way there are lots of small successes. The feel good factor from this is better and when you look back on everything you have done it is quite like a big resolution anyway just taken in small steps and without any stress.

Hope you all have a wonderful 2012.

Crochet Snowflake

Just a quick post to show you the crochet snowflake I made earlier, as you know my husband and I usually try to make some new decorations for the tree each year. This year I have already made quite a few things but I set myself the challenge of making a crochet snowflake... so here it is.

Not too bad for a first attempt... I hope anyway. It is made with metallic silver thread and I was thinking of making a garland of them for the window but I have dropped the thread in my coffee and had to wash it. Really hope it will be OK but it seems to be taking ages to dry so one hanging decoration will have to do. I got the pattern for this snowflake from pinterest, if you would like to make one I'll post the link to attic24 here.

Bark snowman

There are some trees near us that seem to shed some of their bark in Autumn every year, it's very distinctive because they look camouflaged while this is happening. This year we collected a few pieces to see if we could make something from it. The children love to work with all different materials.

It's best to cut it to shape just after you collect it as the more it dries out the more brittle it gets. This bark was only collected from the ground after it was shed, no trees were harmed. The bark was then painted, we chose white for a snowman.

Then added all the felt extras, like a scarf, hat and face. If you look closely at the snowman the texture of the bark shows through the paint, and I have been thinking that it would be a beautiful texture for an owl, so I may have to try that too.

This is our finished snowman, he will either have a ribbon to hang him from the tree or maybe he will be fixed to the front of a Christmas card.