Alice with a twist and another fairy door

First of all, HAPPY NEW YEAR to everyone and I hope you are all looking forward to the coming year with new ideas and inspirations.  My Live Learn Laugh ideas book has numerous scraps of paper stuffed inside it with ideas, things to do, things to blog about and all it needs now is for me to write these things down in a nice and neat way and keep on track of them all and so have given myself a deadline of 3 January 2012!!!

Lottie has also made a start on her organising and scheduling list, the first one is to design and make a cushion with her new sewing machine that she received for Christmas  - glad to say she loved it!! (Post on this coming up).

I thought I would share with you today 2 of Lottie's Christmas presents that I made for her.  A couple of blogs ago I shared with you the fairy door I made for my friend and the organiser for her daughter, well Lottie loved both of them soooooo much that I decided to make her one of each as a surprise.

FAIRY DOOR

With the organiser, this time my inspiration was from a water bottle label and a sheet of wrap from Paperchase which has a modern Alice theme on it - I have had these items since early November and I knew I wanted to do something nice with them.  I also had 4 traditional Alice cards packed away from about 8 years ago and thought I would mix the traditional with the modern along with a few other embellishments, the blank canvas and empty boxes I had made this wonderful organiser, which Lottie absolutely loves!!!

Added Lottie's Initials

Lottie has made use of it already and put all her important stationary bits and bobs into the holders and it looks lovely in her room along with her felt cutie, which she called Razzle and her 'Lottie Likes' frame and the fairy door - and today she hit upon an idea to expand the fairy door with a garden so that's another project to do - now where did I put my ideas book!!!!

I am really looking forward to 2012 and sharing much more of our makes with you x

Live, Learn, Laugh and Be HAPPY x x 

NB. please excuse the poor quality pics as they were taken via my mobile.

Christmas Wishes x x x x

I would just like to wish everyone a very Happy Christmas and hope you get some time to relax with all your crafting pursuits.  I am hoping to get stuck into some of the many things I've been putting off and I'm looking forward to teaching Lottie how to use her first sewing machine that's happily sitting under the tree until tomorrow.

Live, Learn, Laugh and Be HAPPY x x

Another Present Made

Wowsa!! Where is the time going, nearly the end of November and still scratching the surface of my 'To Make List'.  Well I have managed to finish another Christmas Present, a girly organiser, and I really hope the gift is well received.  The recipient is my friends 12 year old daughter who is mad about Rihanna.  My idea for this came when I saw in a magazine a wall tidy with various shapes of boxes, plain white and a ridiculaous price tag of £193.00 EEEEK!  I thought I'm sure I could make something similar and then I thought of my friends daughter liking Rihanna and put the two together.

I started with a canvas, which we have had for ages, and dug out a couple of different shaped boxes from our recycling box and started to cover the boxes in lovely paper (free form a magazine).  I painted the canvas with a delicious glitter paint and the inside of the boxes plain and printed some images onto the paper.  The silver bracelet thingys in the picture are off Lottie's worn shoes and the one and only thing I actually purchased for this project was the pack of badges for £4.00.

I then attached all the decorated boxes onto the canvas and continued to embellish the whole piece with the left over scraps of paper and added a couple of pegs at the bottom. 

Just have to coat in PVA and voila a unique organiser for a 12 year old Rihanna fan! Hope she likes it :)

Live, Learn, Laugh and Be HAPPY x x

Children in Need & Hiding from Lottie

That time of the year again - Children in Need.  Me and Lottie are attending a fundraising event tomorrow with members of our home education group, so we thought she could decorate one of her old t-shirts with fabric pens. We used a stencil for the spots and then I hand-wrote a poem, which Lottie wrote by herself, on the back.  We will put this away in her memory box afterwards so she can look at it always.

Also in this post I wanted to share with you a couple of Christmas gifts I have made in secret for Lottie (so she wont be viewing this post!).  The first gift is something I've seen all over the place this year and that is a 'Like' picture.  So I sat in front of the PC and wrote Lottie's favourite things in life, printed it off, added a bit of glitter, painted a pine frame and then made a bead embellishment and added that to the front of the frame.

And added a label on the back.

This little cutie I saw in one of my magazines and decided to give it a go.  It's the first time I've worked with felt and stitching, and I'm really pleased with it.  I'm going to glue a little magnet on the back so she can put it on a magnet surface in her bedroom.

I just hope she likes them as much as me!!

Live, Learn, Laugh and Be HAPPY x x

It's a wrap

A selection of my Christmas stamps that I have had for about 8 years and have never used them, until now....

I have come to the conclusion that I really am starting to dislike waste and Christmas cards and wrap are two of my feared products at this time of the year as I can't bear the thought of them going straight into the bin afterwards, unless everyone is like me and recycles it!  So I was looking around my hobby room this week and I found some rolls of unused brown packaging paper (from my Ebay days) and have decided, with Lottie's help, to make our own wrap.  Brown paper I don't mind going into the bin as it is still a cheaper alternative.  So we dug out the stamps and rolled out the paper and stamped away and this is what our finished wrap looks like - Lottie even asked for some of her presents to be wrapped in it!!!

I am looking forward to covering my presents in this, adding some lovely ribbon and tag - I would love to receive a gift wrapped like that.

I thought I would share a picture of the new addition to our family, his name is Archie and he is a cross Jack Russell / Shiatsu. He is approx. 11 months and we rescued him from our local stray dogs home.  We are looking forward to our first Christmas with him - I can't imagine the chaos on Christmas Day!

Live, Learn, Laugh and Be Happy x x

Good to be back!!!

Hello everyone, well it seems like ages since I have posted anything.  Myself and Lottie have managed to get back into the swing of things and have started to enjoy our hobby room again, just in time for Christmas makes to adorn our home over this festive period.

I have made a few Christmassy things for my own home and my inspiration for this is to make inexpensive things that I have seen overpriced in the shops.  I am increasingly becoming bored with overpriced items when I can try and tackle it myself and have something more personalised.  I have an ever-increasing 'To Make' list and it gives me so much satisfaction to produce my own product.

The first thing myself and Lottie made was a few simple heart decorations for the tree - I saw this idea in one of my magazines and we gave it a go.  All we used was scraps of paper and ribbon.

Then we went on to air-clay again - after seeing so many 'keys' as decorations in the shops with prices ranging from £1.99 - £7.50 each, we made a selection out of clay, painted them and adorned them with embellishments/ribbon ready to hang on our tree.

Then I saw a really lovely tartan wreath at M&S for £17.50 and thought I would make my own.  I had some tartan ribbon and a red Christmas ribbon packed away from the sales in January, which I paid 20p each for and a plain red ribbon in my scrap ribbon box.  I already had a some thick wire and the red buttons.  In less than 30 minutes and for considerably less than £17.50 I had made my own Christmas wreath and I can't wait to put it up on our front door.

Live, Learn, Laugh and Be HAPPY x x

Painted air clay and an award

Well I can't believe the weeks are just wizzing by! I have had a few changes to contend with at home as my husband and I made the decision to not send Lottie back to school at the beginning of September and I now home educate her myself.  Although it was quite a task to get the lesson plans, books, activities, class-room and things in place to carry this out, it has been, so far, good all round.  The only thing I don't have much time for now is our making things but hopefully once we have got into a solid routine we will have more time for our hobby room again.

So today I am finally getting round to putting the painted air clay pics on here for you all to enjoy.

As I said in my previous post, I found this to be such an enjoyable craft and I look forward to working more with air clay.

I was pleasantly surprised a couple of days ago to be awarded 'The Versatile Blogger' Award from another great blogger Twinkle Star which I appreciate very much.

Now that I have this great award I have to award it to 2 more bloggers and tell you all 7 facts about myself.  So the bloggers I would like to award this to are:

Just for Fun because that's exactly what I think life should all be about and

The Scrapbook Garden because she uploads a great post every day.

My 7 facts are:

1. Beauty and the Beast is my favourite Disney Princess film

2. My favourite flower is Lillies

3. I love watching all the 'Carry On' films and use the phrase "Oooh Matron" nearly every day

4. My favourite dinner is a lamb roast with all the trimmings, then extras

5. I always tell my husband off for snoring, when I know mine is worse

6. My guilty pleasure in music is Barry Manilow

7. Morgan Freeman is one of my favourite actors

Live, Learn, Laugh and Be HAPPY x x

Air Clay

Monday already and mid-way through September! Busy as usual and today I thought Id' post a few pictures of mine and Lottie's air clay makes - these pics are in their unpainted form.

Lottie's Fairy

 I love the way she has got the fairy holding on to the flowers in each hand and the fairy's lovely smile :)

Lottie's Elves

 These are really cute and look fabulous all painted!

The pieces of a fairy door I made for my friend's Christmas present

This is the first time I've experimented with air clay and I must admit I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it - the fairy door is all assembled now and I am really happy with the result - Lottie's has said that she wants it so  I think I will have to work on a surprise one for her over the coming months!

Live, Learn, Laugh and Be HAPPY x x

Fun things for the kids

This is our welcome message when entering the hobby room.

We have been rather busy bees in the hobby room and I thought we'd share a few of the things we have made as demonstrations for the children I work with at the afterschool creative club (ages 4-6) and I'm pleased to say they are all achievable in the 45 minutes I have as allotted time.

This is just a simple 'toss the ring' game made out of stiff card, decorated and empty glitter pots glued on and played using some cheap bangles - we have played a lot with this one these last few days.

 Simple spider - I will make these in black with the children ready for Halloween.

 Made out of a piece of wood, painted white with a cut-off sock for a hat and scrap material for a dress.

Lottie's favourite thing she made the old 'cup and ball' made using a plastic cup a scrunched up piece of paper wrapped in tape attached to string and a wooden skewer.

These were all very simple to make and Lottie enjoyed every minute - she is quite addicted to the the 'cup and ball' game - beats the DS all the time I think!

Live, Learn, Laugh and Be HAPPY x x

I won and a little update

I have just received in the mail today my lovely goodies that I won in the 'Blog Candy Giveaway' from The Scrapbook Garden on 1st September.  It was a really nice surprise to be the winner and creates such a nice feeling that sets you up for the rest of the day.  This is the link that shows the picture of the lovely things I have received.
http://welcometothescrapbookgarden.blogspot.com/2011/08/winner-of-julys-blog-candy-new-candy-up.html

Lottie enjoyed swooning over the goodies too when we opened the package today - I'm looking forward to putting them all to good use and will post the creations here when done.

A little update

I am busy with organising the lesson schedule for a creative afterschool club I run, which will be back on in 2 weeks and  most of the activities will need to be practised by me and Lottie so I can see whether they are viable in the amount of time I have to do it in a lesson - so there will be plenty of posts coming this way soon!

I have also started practising calligraphy again as I want to use this in lots of my forthcoming ideas and Lottie has expressed an interest in trying it.

I have a lovely idea for some Care Bear badges that I have had laying about for ages - I have drawn a sketch and worked out what I would like to achieve with them and I'm looking forward to the finished product - coming soon.

Both me and Lottie have started on Christmas (aaaargh!) we have been busy over the weekend with air dry clay and Lottie has made a lovely stocking out of material.  I will post pics soon.

So that's some of the things taking my time up and I am also busy getting organised to submit unit 1 of the Certificate in Papercraft Qualification too - so much to do, so little time, but oh so fun!

Live, Learn, Laugh and Be HAPPY x x

Garden Seed Storage

This year we decided to try our hand at 'grow your own' veg.  So myself and Lottie claimed a corner of the shed, which become our 'potting plot' and busily set about buying seeds, trays, pots etc.  We have a nice selection of tomatoes, lettuce, herbs, beans, carrots, parsnips, cucumber (to name a few) and we did have a pumpkin but unfortunately this was removed on Lottie's birthday because it was just too big in the garden!  Anyway we have seeds that will keep and I needed a nice storage box for them and this is what Lottie made

She made this out of a box from our recycling stuff and covered it with white labels I then helped her by cutting the top as a flap then she added the handle and decorated it to look like a radio. It sits nicely in our 'potting plot' and the seeds are all cosy inside.

Live, Learn, Laugh and Be HAPPY x x

The girls' sock people

Well as you may gather from comments left, Lottie's party was fab!  The weather was on our side, the garden looked wonderfully decorated, all the children turned up, and the schedule went like clock-work.  The only down side is I didn't get to take as many photos as I would have liked and the ones I did get were mainly of the children and as I have not got their parents permission to post here I will just post a picture of the sock people they made.  The girls really enjoyed making these and each one reflects their own individual personalities, which I think is brilliant.

I can now post a picture of the card I made for Lottie - I was really happy with this 'easel' style card as it is the first one I've done and Lottie loved it.

Live, Learn, Laugh and Be HAPPY x x

WOW!!!

We picked up Lottie's cake this morning and we are so pleased with it, Lottie's eyes lit up when we were shown it in the shop - I think it is more than she was expecting.
The guys at http://www.carlchristiancakes.co.uk/ have done an absolutely fantastic job, it will be a shame to eat it!

Live, Learn, Laugh and Be HAPPY x x

Today is ......

That's the intention, but I might be speaking too soon!  For today is going to be the start of organising Lottie's Birthday party - well the task of the last two months worth of work getting organised ready for Monday (roll on Monday 5pm!).  The decorations are all finished - we have made bunting (out of a roll of wallpaper), paper chains, windmills, flowers in a vase, flowers that twirl, embellished napkins and Lottie has made some fun sweet dishes for the table, that's naming just a few! - here is a tiny selection

Paper Chains

Fun Sweet Dishes

Caterpillar 

Helter Skelter (sweets can roll down this)

Table Decorations

Flowers in Vase

Windmills

All the lists of items needed for each craft project is ready to start putting the resources together i.e. the sock people box needs socks, thread, needles, ribbon, buttons etc. - the letter initials box needs paint, buttons, pens, embellishments etc. etc. etc.  The cake is being picked up tomorrow and we are looking forward to seeing our brief of an art and craft cake (will post picture tomorrow), the helium balloons are on order for Monday morning so that these can be attached to a Flowtee air balloon basket, the pass-the-parcel has been wrapped by Lottie

All that's left is to organise the food and hopes for great weather and at least 2 hours to myself over the weekend to actually have time to go and get Lottie a Birthday present!!

Live, Learn, Laugh and Be HAPPY x x