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Thursday, April 28, 2011

My Creative Space...

I have enjoyed visiting your creative spaces and now finally have a blog of my own, so thought I would play along:)

I have been trying to actualize my vision for a mermaid tail as requested by my youngest daughter (age 3) for her birthday. The first hurdle was color. Initially, she requested a pink tail. Hmm... Luckily, the fickleness of being a toddler prevailed and blue became the color of choice:)

So blue it was and in search of fabrics we went. I ended up choosing a couple of different colors of tulle, including one that had sparkles on it to use for the scales and some poly cotton and lining fabrics to use as the base in blues and greens.


I am pleased with the progress to date, but now I am on to the trickier part of how she will be able to wear the tail. I think I have an vision for it. I am keeping my fingers crossed, as the project needs to be completed ASAP. Wish me luck - I will post pictures when it's all finished:)

For more creative spaces you can visit here. Cyndy


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Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Anzac Day and Felt Food

As part of our Anzac day activities the kids and I made Anzac biscuits using a friend's family recipe - yummy! I've been working on another batch of Anzac biscuits - felt ones!


I have become a little bit obsessed with felt food. It's so easy to make and it's a great project to bring along when I know there will be wait time (e.g. swimming lessons, doctors appointments). In researching felt food on the internet I have been struck though by how homogenized it is - I haven't seen much that takes into account some of our Aussie favorites, hence my attempt to make Anzac biscuits and pavlova...


and tim tams...


and lamingtons...


Are you sensing a theme here? Why is it that desserts/sweets make the best felt food? OK, I have made a salad sandwich which is a little generic, but I did put beetroot on it:)



If you are thinking about making felt food there is lots of help and inspiration on the internet here and here  and a flickr pool here. I also just read a  review of a new book  (haven't see the actual book) called Big Little Felt Universe at Feeling Stitchy that looks like it has lots of great info. Cyndy
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Saturday, April 23, 2011

Last Minute Easter Crafts with the Children

With Easter only days away and the children still on school holidays yesterday we did a couple of Easter crafts, including decorating Easter eggs. Decorating eggs is a tradition in my family. I can remember my mom carefully blowing out eggs instead of cracking them in the weeks leading up to Easter and making a stockpot full of boiled eggs for us to decorate. My mom would cover the kitchen table with newspapers and make bowls of dye using hot water, vinegar and food coloring. We would use a variety of methods to decorate our eggs, including wax, crayons, string, and rubber bands. The blown out eggs would be used to adorn our Easter egg tree (a branch from a tree in our yard) and the boiled eggs would be used in our Hungarian Easter food (this is a cold dish of meats, hard boiled eggs and homemade cheese).

Getting white/light colored eggs is difficult here, so only about two dozen eggs for us to decorate. The kids tried using rubber bands, but found them a little hard to keep on the eggs. They seemed to favor using crayons (before dying) and using markers and stencils (after the dying). I made punches out of masking tape to make my eggs (for our Easter egg tree)




My middle daughter (age 7) also tried her hand at making a couple of "spool" bunnies from a printable we found here. After cutting them out and gluing them together, she added some cotton wool to their fronts and tails. She also decided they needed a home so she created this little woodland setting for them.


Hope you have a happy Easter! Cyndy Pin It

Friday, April 22, 2011

Easter Goodie Bags

I was feeling the need to make something for Easter and decided to make goodie bags for the kids and some of their friends. In my head I could see these cute bags with little bunnies on the front with flowered fabric. Here's what I ended up with:


So how did I do it? To create the bunnies I found a cute graphic over at the Graphics Fairy. While I thought about using the citra solv method to transfer the image, I decided I wanted something a little darker, so I turned the graphic into a freezer paper stencil. Note, when creating a stencil, especially a small one, it's often best to only utilise key elements of the original graphic. I was able to use the same stencil multiple times (wasn't sure if I could do that with a freezer paper stencil).


I then stencilled the basic bunny graphic onto pieces of scrap fabric using black fabric paint.


I then added detail (nose and whiskers) to the stencilled bunnies using embroidery thread (I did have to add some interfacing to stiffen up the fabric a little). I thought the embroidered elements added dimension and interest to the bunnies.


I then made a simple drawstring bag using white cotton fabric on the outside and the same fabric I stencilled each bunny on for the lining. Finally, I hand-sewed each stencilled bunny onto the white cotton fabric side of the drawstring bag that had the matching fabric lining. See here and here for some tutorials on how to make a drawstring bag if you don't know how to make one.

And viola, cute little bunny goodie bags! Cyndy


I am linking this up to:


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Thursday, April 14, 2011

Birthdays

It's birthday day for my middle daughter. So lots of cake making/decorating, present wrapping etc... going on. My birthday was months ago, but I received a gift yesterday from one of my friends...a crochet hook and yarn! I have been wanting to learn how to crochet for ages. Now I have no excuses. Anyone know of some great how to crochet resources on the net?


Cyndy Pin It

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Sewing Basket

My middle child (age 7) loves to make. She's never been a dolly girl or barbie girl. When people ask me what they can get her, I invariably say "something crafty." Over the last year she has started to become interested in sewing. I thought about making her a sewing basket/kit at Christmas, but just couldn't get it together in time, so I decided I would make it for her birthday. I am pleased to say I have managed to actually do it and just in time- tomorrow's her birthday!

The theme I chose was mushrooms. I was thinking the red with white polka dot variety and found this really cute fabric. I added some cooridnating dot fabric. Then I remembered I had this riboon that I got from Ribbons Galore.


I found a wooden box at a local art store that seemed the right size. I put batting on the lid and covered the lid and the rest of the box with the fabrics. I lined the inside of the box with cooridinating felt. I used the ribbon on the lid and to embellish pockets I sewed into the inside of the lid.


In addition to the actual sewing basket, I made a mushroom pin cushion and needle case using some of the main fabrics, as well as some coordinating scraps and felt.




I found the pattern for the pin cushion here. (There are three different patterns, I made the small button cap with small stem).

There are other bits and bobs in the basket/kit: a seam ripper, scissors, thread, tape measure, etc... I hope she likes it - if not I will be happy to keep it for myself!

Cyndy Pin It

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

My Inspiration

My youngest (age 3) is currently obssessed with mermaids and has been asking for a "mermaid tail." Since her birthday is coming up I have decided to try and create her one. I have a picture in my head of what it should look like, but I decided to do some looking on the internet for some inspiration. Here are a couple of images I found:



Aren't theses images gorgeous? Three of them are from one of my favorite blogs The Graphics Fairy. If you haven't been there you need to visit! I love how the images feel so whimsical. I also love the blue/green colors in some of them.

Well, I hope I can do them and my daughter justice:) Come back to see what I come up with!

Cyndy
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Sunday, April 10, 2011

My Mama always said...

if you don't know what to write, then just write what you can. I have been thinking about starting a blog where I can share my experiences for quite some time, but writing the first post has been a bit of a barrier for me. Today I decided I just need to get over it and post something, anything. So here it is, my first blog post.

So what can you look forward to in the future (I promise other posts will be more entertaining or informative than this one)?

Posts about my crafting self; I am not a singularly focused crafter. No, I am one of those I will try anything crafters. These will probably be the informative ones:)

Posts about my family; I have three children under the age of 9, so plenty of fodder there. These will probably be the entertaining ones:)

So thanks for the words of wisdom mom. I did it. I wrote what I could.

Cyndy Pin It
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