Lachie's first Christmas tree

My precious Lachie is 3.5 and is now old enough to have a Christmas tree without destroying it. Unfortunately Adele is too young so we are not putting up a big Christmas tree this year. We didn't want Lachie to miss out though, so we went out last Saturday and bought him a super cheap small tree to put on top of his toy cupboard in his room. He was super excited to decorate it because we had been making our own decorations the week before. So... here it is...

Lachie's very first Christmas tree. :) I absolutely love it! It's jam packed full of special stuff that he has made and chosen. LOVE my boy! :)

These are pipe cleaner and bead wreaths... super easy to make.

Laminated Christmas trees 'decorated' with paper baubles. :)

laminated stars. Tip: before laminating write your child's name and the year on the back so that you have a record in years to come of which child made the ornament and how old they were. :)

We let Lachie choose a few decorations from Kmart. He chose these cute little mushroom ornaments. :)

He also chose this super fantastic tinsel!!

Lachie and Tim decorating the tree

Look at the concentration on his face. :)

I wanted lachie to make a star for the top of the tree. So I bought a gorgeous cardboard star ornament from a craft store for him to paint...

Then he added some star sequins on one side and some cut up tinsel (I didn't have any glitter so cut up tinsel was my best option ;) on the other side. I cut off the cord and poked a hole in the bottom so that I could stick some wire into the star. I used a wire coat hanger...

... I left a straight section that was long enough to go from my hole all the way to the top of the star and then used two pairs of pliers to bend the wire into a spiral.

Tada!! A little 'rustic' but it serves our purpose perfectly!

And here it is!! :)

And the reverse side. :)

 I am so loving sharing the joy of Christmas with Lachie this year. We've got stacks more ornaments to make, I'll post some pics when they're done. :)

Ok, that's all for today...

Kerryn

Handmake Christmas 2011 - fingerprint cufflinks

Hi!! I love making gifts for people with my kids. I would love to teach them the art of gift making and gift giving. So each birthday/Mother's day/Father's Day/Christmas we get stuck in to the gift making. Yesterday we made some little fingerprint discs out of polymer clay (PC or fimo here in Australia). I had been planning on making these for a while and attaching them to some cuff link bases that I had bought from Etsy. Well they arrived and so we pulled out the PC and got going. I took a few photos of the process so thought I'd write a quick tutorial in case you'd like to make them with your kids. :) The kids will be giving them to some of the special men in their lives as little Christmas gifts. :)

So... here they are...





So, start by mixing your favourite colour polymer clay (PC) with some white. In the past I have found that if you do not mix it with white then it cracks and loses definition when you bake it. Perhaps that's just that brand I use??? Anyway, I always mix my coloured PC with white. It's pretty tough to start off with, so it'll take some time to make it malleable. When I'm making multiple finger pint discs I start off with a large ball of PC and divide into even portions so that all the discs are the same colour.

Once you've completely mixed the colours together divide evenly into the number of discs you need and roll them into balls.

Now place the balls in between 2 layers of baking paper and use a book to press flat. Using the baking paper and book make sure the disc is even and smooth with none of your fingerprints all over it.
Next step is to get your little one's finger and firmly press it into the PC disc. You will need to use a bit of pressure as the PC is still quite firm.

Now get out your cake skewer and etch your child's name into the PC along with the year. Don't be too picky... the etching can look a bit 'rustic' ;). Next pop them in the oven for the time mentioned on your PC pack. Mine is 130 deg Celsius for 30min.

Now get out you cuff link bases and hot glue gun.

I found the best way was to glue directly onto the back of the disc and then quickly attach it to the cuff link base.

TADA...

Such a cute little gift. Yes the etching is a little rustic but hey... I think they're cute. :)



Have fun!

Kerryn

Bubble Painting and trying out some new crafty goods

I'm in the middle of a thousand different projects (you can thank my Mum for my gift of exaggeration) at the moment so don't have a whole lot of finished projects to show you. But I was able to put together a quick card for a friend of mine today. I was so excited to finally get some ink on a new stamp set I had bought from the new Stampin' Up! catalogue. As a quick aside... If you don't know, I am a Stampin' Up! demonstrator, so if there's anything you want to purchase or if you'd like to have a workshop then let me know. :)

Anyway, I love making cards specifically with someone in mind. It makes it a whole lot more personal. So, here it is...

It's a bit hard to tell but I've stamped the envelope with the same stamp as the silhouette background stamp for some matching goodness.

Yes, I cut the "hello" out by hand. It's a bit rough in places but I was happy with it for a first attempt. :)

A few days ago I decided on a whim to do some bubble painting with Lachie. I haven't done it since I was a kid so there was a whole lot of trial and error involved.

If you're keen on doing it we used...

paint (water soluble)
water
detergent
straw
paper
containers
enthusiastic parent (this is not essential but is desirable ;)

Now I did have a bit of a problem... no straws!... I had a very excited Lachie and couldn't bear disappointing him so... I used a piece of paper wrapped it round a knitting needle and taped it together! Huzzah!! Problem solved!

Ok, mix together paint water and a bit of detergent in a container with a wide top, we used a clean yogurt container. Stick the straw in and blow until you get lots of lovely colourful bubbles out the top. Take the paper and gently place it over the bubbles so you get the pattern of the bubbles on the paper.

And there you have it... one happy child! We only did one colour because it was late in the day, but next time we'll do a few more to make it a bit more exciting.

Supplies (minus enthusiastic parent)

Love this guy!!

Have fun bubbling...

Kerryn xx


 


 





Father's Day 2011 good times complete with a towelling hat

Yesterday was Father's day 2011. I am blessed to have a wonderful father, a wonderful father-in-law and wonderful father to my kids. I would not swap any of them! Truly!!

Yesterday we celebrated father's day with my family and also celebrated my Uncle's 60th birthday. It was a really lovely day!! I had been looking forward to it for weeks because I had made Dad a really special present. My Dad LOVES towelling hats! They are not the most attractive or fashionable things in the world but hey, whatever, he loves them! They are not available anymore and he has been using one for years that is pretty much dead now. So, I decided to try and make him one. And... it worked!!! :)

Here's a pic of his old towelling hat and yes, that is my sisters finger through a hole in the top. :)

To make his hat I took very precise measurements from this hat and drew them onto paper to make the pattern. I kinda just 'winged it'. I've made a few hat fails before and have learnt to be very precise when measuring hats and making patterns! :)

Here are some more pics from Father's day...

Dad with Adele. She was wearing her new dress that I made. :)

Tim and Lachie cracking open the pinata for my Uncle's 60th

My brother trying to crack open the pinata with a bow and arrow

Looking hot!!! :)

Lachie made some cards for Father's day.

Ok, that's all for today!

I've been busily working on Adele's party stuff. Lots more to do... :)

Kerryn

rainy day good-times

Over the last week Sydney has been very, very rainy!! I have tried a few fun things over the week to try and keep 'cabin fever' at bay. I'm not sure if I was overly successful, but we did have a bit of fun.

Lachie LOVES to cook and since he is on an elimination diet at the moment (trying to work out his food allergies/intolerance's) he is quite restricted in the food that he can eat. We can make cupcakes though and so we cook them fairly regularly. I decided this week that we would try and make him a man shaped cake with a gingerbread man cookie cutter. I greased the cookie cutter and baking dish very well so that all the little arms and legs would come out as easily as possible. And guess what?!?!? It worked!! Hoorah!

Here is my little man... we iced him but i didn't take a pic of that...

 has anyone heard of the little kids book "go dogs go"??. It's such a cute book, Lachie loves it. At the end of the book all the dogs climb up a massive tree and have a party with hats on. So, Lachie and I made some party hats. Lachie really wanted to have a party up a tree with the hats on... so... why not?!?! We got some cupcakes & our party hats, called in Daddy and Adele then climbed our tree... :)

Towel trunk, table cloth and napkin foliage

Precious Lachie with his party hat and cake. Please ignore half chewed cake in his mouth. :)

Sweet Adele.

Ok... that's all for now.

Till next time,

K xx

Crayon goodness

Marbled crayons!! I guess they've been around a while but I have just stumbled across the idea (cannot remember where). I nearly fell off my chair with excitement when I first saw them and had to make them immediately!! Unfortunately I did not have any broken ones to use so I went out and bought some. :) We also bought some bug and train silicone moulds. unfortunately the train moulds were a bit big so we only used the bug ones.

After peeling what seemed like a billion bits of paper off the tiny little cheap crayons we melted them in the oven. I found they took a lot longer than the tutorials I saw. I put the oven on 150 deg Celsius and checked them every few minutes. It took at least 15mins. My oven is pretty old so maybe that's why we needed longer... Hmmm...

So here's how they turned out...

Ok... that's all for now.

Happy crafting,

Kerryn xx

Lachie-loo, I love you!

I love my boy!! He is smart, cheeky, full of life, inventive, focused, generous, drives me crazy, makes me laugh!! I love creating for him. There are so many fun projects you can do for boys. Here are a few of my favourites...

We call this his 'jumper full of pockets'. I started out by making a basic jumper then used up some scrap fabric and made lots of pockets for him to fill with his treasures.

We also made sock puppets that day. Affectionately named Pup and Nun.

I made matching Lachie and Nana aprons for my Mum for as a Mother's day gift.



See you next time.

Kerryn