craftyguider – Page 13

School Craft Club – Plate Weaving

I have a board on Pinterest for kids craft ideas for craft club. One of the ideas that I put on there was paper plate weaving which originated from the aesthetic outburst blog. I modified it a bit for our 5-9 year old crafters and came up with the following.

I cut 19 notches around the edge of the plate and wrapped some wool around it evenly. I chose an odd number so the weaving would alternate the unders and overs. I knotted it off so there was a small end in the middle to start the weaving with. Doing this 30 times got a bit repetitive, but because our crafters are young, it was necessary to make it slightly easier for them.

The parent leaders of the club had lots of wool to play with, thanks to the donation of a huge stash by the lovely @meanyjar. We cut lengths of various colours for the kids to choose from, and tied in one strand at a time for lots of over and under work. This activity lasted three 30 minute sessions, and even then, most children took home some wool to carry on with.

These are a couple of works in progress. There were some which were ‘less neat’, but the children all worked really hard on them and were really proud when they took them home.

And this one is my 4 year old’s effort (with some help from mummy). She is at nursery and finishes school midway through the lunch break, and the lovely teaching assistants deliver her to craft club on their way to lunch. She doesn’t always get the chance to do a full project so we did this at home. I gave her a large needle threaded with wool to make it easier to do the weaving.

Time to trawl Pinterest for more ideas for after half term!

Meal Planning Monday 20.5 13

Last week’s menu went well and most things went to plan. I even made a veggie chilli which I batched up for the freezer for the days when the meat eaters are having the main meal.

What didn’t go to plan was my diet. One of my Rainbows moved up to Brownies and presented me with a big box of Celebrations. Well, it would be rude not to! And watching Eurovision is always better with Baileys!

When I’m planning my menu for the week, I use a pad from Organised Mum.

The left hand side is for planning out the week’s menu, and as I go through, I work out what ingredients I need to buy and add them in sections – frozen, dairy, drinks etc. The shopping list detaches via perforation for you to take to the supermarket. The pad has a magnetic strip at the back for attaching to the fridge, or there is a hole at the top for hanging on a hook. There is also a clip for a pencil at the bottom, so as long as your kids don’t run off with it like mine do, you always have one to hand when you want to jot down something midweek.

Monday – Fish Pie

Tuesday – Sausage Casserole (and veggie chilli for me)

Wednesday – Pie or Chicken Nuggets

Thursday – Spaghetti Bolognese

Friday – Ham, Egg and Chips

Saturday and Sunday – Flexible days in case of eating out, takeaways or using stuff up

I am also using up some of the contents of the fridge to make some pasta sauces for freezing, and I’ll also be doing one of my regular stock checks. Perhaps next week will just be freezer dive week!

I am linking to Mrs M’s Meal Planning Monday blog. Pop along to see what everyone else has planned.

Lino Printing Workshop

I’ve been holding a weekend free in my diary for a few months. It was originally destined for a tweet up with a few crafty twitter friends, but unfortunately it was not to be. Faced with this weekend where I had already arranged for hubby to be free to look after the girls, I decided to make the most of it and tweeted the talented (and busy!) @meanyjar to see if she’d like to do something.

Using the Craft Candy app, I managed to find a couple of workshops just to see what was out there, and we both thought lino printing would be different and fun to try.

We met up in London and found the Knit With Attitude shop in Stoke Newington High Street (via a crafty shop and lunch – priorities darlings!). There were two others on our course, and we went to the back of the shop where we were kitted out with pencil, paper, a piece of lino to sit on (warm lino is easier to cut), tools, inks and a roller.

My 6 year old Craftyguidelet suggested I do a twitter bird as she knows Meanyjar is one of my twitter friends, so I tried two birds sitting on a branch. I then transferred the basic design on paper to the lino and got hacking.

With lino printing, it is important to realise that your design will print in reverse, and that the bits you cut out won’t take the ink and will be white on the fabric. When I was at school, I learnt the main rule of lino cutting – cut away from you so that stray, sharp tools don’t cut through your thumb nail and take weeks to grow out and heal.

I wanted to put some texture into my design which took a lot of thinking about, but I came up with this as my test print.

The acrylic ink was mixed with a medium to make it set on fabric, and I then plucked up courage to put ink to tea towel and came up with this.

It was such a good skill to learn with others to bounce ideas off of, hints and tips from the instructor, and a table that didn’t mind a bit of spilt ink or an accidental gouge from a cutting tool. Anyone who normally gets an anniversary card from me may see this design on their card soon, and my Christmas cards may be lino printed.

Another new craft skill to add to the list! Have you tried anything new recently?

Linking to the Handmade Harbour Handmade Monday blog.

Meal Planning Monday 13.5.13

After my first Meal Planning Monday two weeks ago, last week was a non-starter because of May Fair and cake.

I baked this lot on Sunday for the school and WI stalls, and on Monday itself, I was on my craft stall from 9.30-5.30 so the last thing I wanted to do was blog about food!

This week is another week of being a busy mum and Guide leader, and I need to get back on the straight and narrow with my Slimming World diet.

Monday – freezer dive

Tuesday – sun-dried tomato and chicken pilaf (and quorn korma and rice)

Wednesday – sausages, mash and beans

Thursday – slow braised pork and ratatouille with mash

Friday – pasta bolognese

Saturday – ham, egg and chips

Sunday – use up whatever is left!

Pop over to Mrs M’s blog to see what everyone else has planned this week.

Glue Guns and Buttons

I love buttons. Aren’t they just so pretty? I keep mine carefully sorted by colour in a clear box and have far more than I will probably ever use. I’ve hacked them off of old clothes, bought in bulk at craft fairs, inherited them, and just bought them because they are gorgeous.

I have also accumulated lots of findings too. And I now have the missing link to unite the two; a hot melt glue gun from Hobbycraft which was one of those “put it in the basket and you can have it for your birthday” presents.

With the stall at May Fair needing stock, and my craft stash needing using, I set about crafting.

I made two brooches from large buttons I’d collected, but ran out of time to make the covered button brooches I’d planned.

I also made some rings, which involved using some of the scrabble tiles I’d bought.

These are all I have left after May Fair. The brooches and rings will be listed on the website soon.

What are now listed on the website are my hair clips (at least those that I didn’t sell already!). My girls keep wanting to claim them though so I’ve had to pack them away. These are a few of my favourites.

May Fair – Craft, fudge and lots of cake

Yesterday was the annual Standon May Fair. As usual I had my Craftyguider stall to raise funds for my Guide group. As well as this, I am a mum of two girls at a school that has a cake stall there every year that parents donate cakes to, a WI Vice President with our group running a stall with free cake and some sideshow games, and a Rainbow Guider of a unit which sells fudge.

I’ve been rebuilding my stocks of craft items that sell well at this event, so over the last few weeks I’ve been getting to grips with my hot melt glue gun, making badges and fabric mirrors, and getting some new greetings card designs made. I’ve also got new point of sale materials, organised the float, and made sure the string and sellotape were packed.

I think it turned out very well, and we definitely had a successful trading day. Two of my Assistant Guiders helped me during the day, one staying from set up to shut down, and two of my 30 Guides helped sell at points during the day. Other Guides passing the stall were made to come and spend money!

The WI were doing a Guess the Weight of the Cake, Guess the Number of Buttons in the Jar (one of our secretaries counted over 3000 buttons into a jar!), and Guess Where Jess the Cat Is game for the kids. They made a fabulous job of making the stall look gorgeous, talked to passers by and got quite a few women to sign up. Members also contributed cake to be handed out free.

As I love baking, I made a couple of tray bakes for the WI stall. The other 4 cakes in the picture went to the school stall. I had a text from a mum saying that they may be abandoning the stall as the number of cakes donated at school were really down. I bought a few extra ingredients and doubled my donation to 4 cakes. I hope they did well.

The 4th stall I contributed to was the Rainbow stall. As the Rainbow leader couldn’t cut fudge this year, I organised some mums to come round to mine to chop it up and weigh it into individual 100g bags.

After 2 hours, we had it all finished, and the fudge sold out in record time.

Thank goodness for the lovely British bank holiday weather!

#prettyflowersallinarow Swap

The fabulous @sazybsarah on Instagram (@sazyb123 on twitter) started up a swap on IG with the hashtag #prettyflowersallinarow to try and bring some floral loveliness to instagram when the weather was anything but lovely.

I was paired with Christina @applecrispcraft who states on IG that she is a ‘lover and maker of all things fabric’. This proved to be a bit of a challenge as we were tasked with providing our swap partners with a craft other than the one our partner does. As sewing is my standard trade, I ventured back to papercrafting as my main craft.

These cards were decoupaged using Anna Griffin papers and definitely fulfilled the floral brief.

I had to use some fabric though so I included a handmade Cath Kidston fabric mirror and a patchwork lavender sachet.

My bought gifts were a couple of fat quarters picked up from my local habby and a vintage embroidered brooch from my local dress agency and vintage treasures shop.

And this is what I got in return! Look at the beautiful wrapping paper.

The gifts inside are gorgeous.

A fabulous handmade cushion embellished with buttons and ribbon, some Cath Kidston soaps, a pretty floral tin with flower buttons inside, a floral mug and some cottage garden seeds to plant. Such a thoughtful gift.

Apple Crisp Craft sells lovely fabric goodies on Etsy. Go and have a look.

Summer Swap

Whilst browsing Instagram, I spotted that Emma @lemonadeyarns (@lemonade_yarns on twitter) was having a summer swap. I definitely didn’t feel summery at the time so it was a fabulous idea.

It was a ‘secret santa’ style swap so our partners didn’t know who was going to send them gifts, and someone different received what we sent. I was given @veggiechicken to send gifts to. Her profile states that she is a vegetarian and animal lover (especially spaniels and chickens), and stalking her IG feed, I spotted that she crocheted.

I had this strawberry fabric in my stash and added a pretty polka dot lining to make a crochet hook case. I’ve just noticed that I put my label on it so hardly secret Santa when she opens it!

What could be more summery than strawberries and cream? This is a fabric covered mirror I made using a remnant I picked up some time ago.

My final craft was two cocker spaniel notecards that I made with flowery kraft and gingham papers. It was a bit of a stretch to connect with the summer theme, but I thought summer flowers and picnic baskets were vaguely right in order to get the gorgeous dogs in the swap.

My bought gifts were some ice cream flavoured lollies, a strawberry scented fragrance diffuser and some summery coloured muffin cases. I hope she bakes!

Meal Planning Monday 29.4.13

I am a fairly regular meal planner, but today is my first ‘Meal Planning Monday’.

Meal planning in our house is always tricky. I am a demi-vegetarian which means I don’t eat anything more intelligent than a halibut. I am also about 8 weeks into Slimming World and need to factor this in too. Husband on the other hand loves his meat. He is gluten intolerant though, and also can’t eat onions (or anything related to onions like garlic or leeks), or spicy food, all of which I love. Youngest has an intolerance to anything that comes out of the slow cooker unless it comes with pasta, and eldest will eat most things.

As well as being a mum, I am also a volunteer, so I spend a lot of my time doing school runs, swimming lessons, running Guides and Rainbows and the school craft club, attending WI and committee meetings, Guiders meetings and school meetings. This means that I have to carefully plan what I am cooking, how long it will take me, will I be there to cook or do I need to use the slow cooker or leave instructions for someone to bung some pasta on.

This week we are sticking with tried and tested recipes as I have a manic week with meetings, volunteering and preparing for May Fair when I am running one stall and baking and preparing food for 3 others.

Monday – Fish pie

Tuesday – Vegetable goulash

Wednesday – Ham, egg and chips (or double egg and chips)

Thursday – Creamy pesto chicken and pasta (or quorn bolognese from the freezer)

Friday – Cottage pie (or quorn korma and rice)

Saturday – Macaroni cheese

Sunday- who knows! I’ll be baking cakes all day for May Fair on Monday so hopefully it’ll be takeaway or freezer diving!

Pop over to Mrs M’s blog to see what everyone else has planned for this week.

Handmade Cards

One of the first crafts I did on a large scale was card making. I designed and made all my wedding invitations and acceptance cards, not as a cost saving exercise, but because I wanted the challenge.

I spend a lot of my time on my sewing machine, but I do have paper crafting sessions where the sewing machine gets relegated to the floor (shock, horror!) and I cover everything in ink, glue and bits of paper. I always send handmade cards to friends and relatives, and my girls always hand make any cards for close relatives and their friends’ birthdays.

With May Day approaching which means a stall at the local fair, I’ve been making cards.

I downloaded the designs to make this card from Printable Heaven some time ago as men’s cards are always tricky to think up. The elements are combined on a sheet for you to print, cut out, and in this case fold, before assembling them on the card.

This card was made using a die cutting plate from Hobbycraft. I love the design, but it is a pain to use in my Sizzix Big Shot. I just can’t get it to cut cleanly yet.

Another Printable Heaven selection. These 12 toppers will become cards tomorrow specifically for Craftyguider stock. The dogs are adorable, and hopefully lots of dog lovers will visit my stall!

These two are also Printable Heaven designs based on the old cigarette card collections. The muted backgrounds are really effective with the cards on top.

And I still have some way to go. I’ve unearthed my stash of toppers I’ve made up but never used. It’s time to use them!

Linking to Handmade Harbour’s Handmade Monday.