Fifth Day of the First Week of the School Summer Holidays - Felt Cats

Todays craft idea came from a photo on Flickr. These cats were so cute but at the same time quirky and I thought Lara would like trying to make some.

So we assembled a few scraps of black felt, some bright sewing threads, buttons and stuffing and after cutting a template from some paper away she went.

By the end of this afternoon four little moggies had been made.

Fouth Day of the First Week of the School Summer Holidays - Butterfly Canvas

Today's craft idea came from Meg Duerksen's Whatever Blog. I love that blog - lots of great ideas.

First Lara painted a cheap canvas from The Works (I think it cost £1.99) with acrylic paint. Lara chose pale blue.

Then, she painted patches of coloured acrylic paint onto a sheet of A4 copier paper.

The canvas and the sheet of paper were then left in the sun for a hour or so to completely dry.

Then, using the same butterfly punch which Lara used on Monday to make her garland, she punched lots of butterflies from the sheet of paper. Some were two tone and some just a single colour.

These were then randomly struck onto the canvas using hot glue.

The result, a pretty butterfly canvas for one little girl's bedroom wall.

Not sure which way it will be hung - portrait or landscape. I think it looks cute either way.

Third Day of the First Week of the School Summer Holidays - Page Corner Bookmarks

Today with the help of a tutorial and template on the I Could Make That blog Lara made Page Corner Bookmarks.

With just scraps of card stock and patterned paper she made bookmarks for the whole family plus one extra.

I think she has now cottoned on to the idea that I may have some craft projects planned for the holidays because this morning when she woke up she asked 'What can we make today?'.

Second Day of the First Week of the School Summer Holidays - Beanie Buddies

Many years ago I picked up the following book from a discount book shop. It has sat in the cupboard ever since.

Last month however, after much searching, I managed to buy from Ebay (at a fairly good price) a bag of fleece fabric offcuts and some plastic beans. So, this afternoon we decided to have a go at making a beanie toy from the book. The only proviso was that it had to be simple!

Lara choose an alien which we made from some bright red fleece. I did the sewing on the machine and Lara turned the toy the right way out and filled it.

That should have been the end of our craft time today but somehow I was persuaded to also make an octopus! So as well as the red alien we also made a blue Octopus.

And.............. because Lara knows how to wrap me round her finger..... we also made a rather cute pink cat.

Couple of hours of sewing = one happy girl.

First Day of the First Week of the School Summer Holidays - Butterfly Garlands

Today is the first proper day of the school summer holidays (if you don't count the weekend) and for the last month or so leading up to the holidays I have secretly been scouring the internet for crafty projects to keep Lara busy when she has a 'Mum..... I'm bored moment' and I've been buying little bits and pieces to complete those projects.

I wasn't expecting to have to produce one such project so early in the holidays but when at lunch time Lara said 'Mum .... I want to make something. What can I make?', I felt the time was right

So for today's project was to make a garland using paint chips free from the DIY store. The idea came from the Grace and Light website.

I had already collected lots of paint chips in a rainbow of colours.

Using my Tonic Studio Butterfly Punch, Lara punched lots and lots of butterflies from the different coloured paint chips. We found that by lining the punch up with the end of the paint chip we could punch out butterflies with white bodies and coloured wings.

She was then left with lots of these ............

........... but more importantly lots of these ...........

The good thing about the Tonic Studio Punch is that the punched butterflies have lots of detail including holes on each wing which are perfect for threading onto thread. Lara used gold thread to make her garlands.

We've hung them across the patio doors. Impossible to photograph but I'm sure you get the idea.

Scrapology - July Card Challenge

This month's card challenge on Scrapology is set by S-J creator of Little Musings. The challenge is to make a card which is any shape except square. The Design Team used images created by S-J which are available from the link above.

For my card I used 'Whoo Me?' images.

I also used papers and embelishments from a Little Leaves Cardmaking Kit which I was given as a gift a few months ago.

To create the card I printed three copies of the chosen image onto sheets of three different patterned papers.

I then cut the individual pieces of the image out ........

............. and then layered them together to create the finished owl which I embelished with chipboard flowers and gems and mounted onto a round easel card.

Please do go and see all the cards created by the design team. The card challenge will run until the 15th August and the winner will be announced shortly after. S-J has kindly offered the winner of the challenge three of the digital stamp sets of their choice from her shop.

Book Review - The Desperate Diary of a Country Housewife by Daisy Waugh

Fantastic Fiction Review: If you've ever dreamt of a new life in the country, this highly entertaining and candid account of country living might make you think again...Fresh air, rolling fields, Cath Kidston tea towels and home-baked cake -- isn't that what Martha's new life will be? Apparently not. Having upped sticks and moved her young family from the gritty city to Paradise, she discovers things aren't quite that easy. Collapsing kitchen ceilings; a plague of slugs; coffee mornings with Stepford mums and garden warfare with the neighbours are just a few of the trials. And with her husband away working in London, Martha just can't stop thinking about the sexy builder who's meant to be turning the house into her dream home!

I found this book on the shelves of the library and it was the first by book Daisy Waugh that I had read. I have mixed feelings abut the book. I found the format of the book hard to get used to. The book is written in a diary style but is interspersed with newspaper columns written by the main character Martha.

Whilst in some ways I enjoyed the story, as a reader who her self is a country housewife and has always lived in the countryside, I found the picture it painted of country life somewhat unrealistic and rather patronising. Yes, I could relate to some parts but others were alien to the countryside I know.

Probably not an author I would read again.

Layered Card Stock Embelishments at The Works

Look at these beauties that I picked up at The Works the other day. Packs of layered card stock, glittered embelishments for just 99p. How much would they have cost if they had been branded by one of the big scrapbook manufacturers? £2? £3? More? A real bargain and I think they will be just perfect on cards or scrapbook pages. I do love a bargain.

Scrapology July Layout Challenge - M is for Masks

The July layout challenge on Scrapology has now been revealed. This months challenge is all about using masks and the design team choose to scraplift a layout by Liz Qualman.

This is my layout of my gorgeous puddy tat - Tux (Tuxie).

To create my layout I used two different shades of Cosmic Shimmer Mist - Golden Mint and Aqua Lagoon...........

......... a sheet of yellow and a sheet of black card stock ................

........ some die cut flowers ..............

......... and some scraps of patterned paper from Echo Park, October Afternoon (I think) and Fancy Pant, ribbon, a fancy metal brad, Flower Spacer, Thickers from American Crafts and some other very, very old alphabet stickers which I recoloured with ProMarkers.

I started by placing my yellow card stock in a pizza box to act as a spray studio and arranged the die cut flowers randomly on the yellow card stock to act as a mask.

I then sprayed both shades of Shimmer Mist over the yellow card stock. Obviously where the flowers were laid the mist didn't colour the card stock leaving yellow flowers on a green/blue misted background.

When putting together my layout I decided to use the previously white die cuts (now a nice green/blue colour) as embelishments on my layout and fixed them to the page with a fancy metal brad and Extra Large Flower Spacer from The Hobby House.

This was the first time I had used masks and mists and I was a little nervous about using them but I actually quite enjoyed putting this layout together and was pleased with how it turned out.

Here is Liz's original layout..............

......... and the sketch.

Do pop over to Scrapology and see all the layout and perhaps join in with the challenge too.