Summer Holiday Crafts - Day 9

Todays craft was something I had been looking forward to for ages and I knew Lara would love it too. I found a video tutorial for 'Popcorn Tie Dye' on http://www.craftychica.com (via Pinterest) and I bought some dye and a white T-shirt.

Lara started by pinching small balls of the t-shirt fabric and securing them with elastic bands.....

Lots of elastic bands! The t-shirt ended up looking very bubbly like this. This is where the name popcorn technique gets it's name

We then took the t-shirt outside for the messy bit. We put the t-shirt into a bucket of Ocean Blue Dylon hand wash dye.

Lara stirred the t-shirt in the dye for 15 minutes and then we left it for a further 45 minutes, stirring occasionally.

When the 45 minutes were up the t-shirt was removed and it was a gorgeous blue colour. I have to admit we were a little nervous at this stage because until the elastic bands were removed we wouldn't know if the tie dye had worked. We hoped we wouldn't end up with a plain blue t-shirt.

Before removing the elastic bands the t-shirt was rinsed in cold water until the water ran clear.

When the elastic bands were removed we were thrilled to see that the circular shapes were clearly there. Hooray !

And here's the finished t-shirt after it had dried and been ironed. Lara loves it!

Summer Holiday Craft - Day 8

Todays Summer Holiday Craft came from www.paper-toy.fr . I downloaded some free finger puppets which we printed onto white card and Lara made up.

Summer Holiday Craft - Day 7

Today Lara and I both made Glass Pendant Necklaces from an idea on the sabbyinsuburbia blog originally found via Pinterest.

All the materials were bought on Ebay apart from the papers which came from my stash.

I bought transparent glass cabochons 20mm x 20mm squares,

glue on silver bales,

ball chain

and ball chain connectors.

We chose some scrapbook papers. I chose quite organic designs (leaves and flowers) whilst Lara chose animals (Cats, Dogs and Elephants), The glass squares were glued onto the front of the paper with Diamond Glaze.

 When the glue had dries we cut out the squares.

We then coated the back of the squares with more Diamond Glaze to seal them.

When the squares were once again dry, we glued the bales onto the back of the squares.

All that was left then was to thread the ball chain through the bales.

Summer Holiday Craft - Day 6

Today was Decopatch day. I gave Lara a large paper mache letter 'C' and some smaller letters spelling out the word 'HOME' and she covered them with white and gold tissue. Unfortunately I haven't got any work in progress photos and the HOME letters still need some more work on them, but the letter 'C' was finished and now stands on our window ledge.

Summer Holiday Craft - Day 5

On Friday Lara made some 'Origami Winking Eyes' using instructions found on krokotak.com (Found on Pinterest).

These were really easy to fold and colour and Lara made several.

Summer Holiday Crafts - Day 4

On Thursday we used a tutorial on craftpassion.com (found via Pinterest) for a zip-itself purse. Lara has a pencil case and a bag which zip-into themselves so we were keen to try and make one our self. The tutorial is not for the faint hearted! Boy did we stress over making this and will NOT be making another!

We used a 20" zip and a 20" piece of animal print patterned ribbon.

All was going well until the last step where we had to finish it off. The purse should have been a tetrahedron but we decided to make it rectangular instead. Lara's please with the finished purse and it works. It can be unzipped to form one long strip or zipped up to make a cute purse. We decided not to line the purse.

Summer Holiday Crafts - Day 3

Wednesday's craft came from Crafty Kids 101 blog (found on Pinterest) Lara made tubular bracelets from clear acrylic tube and beads.

I bought clear acrylic tubing in two different diameters (8mm and 5mm) from Ebay and we raided Lara's bead box for some beads that would fit inside the 8mm tube. 1m of each diameter of tubing on Ebay cost approx £1.99 pm and made 4 bracelets.

Beads were fed into the 8mm tube and then the ends were joined by pushing a 1" piece of the 5mm tube into each end. We could have filled the tube with beads or hundreds and thousands or glitter or anything small enough to fit inside.

Summer Holiday Crafts - Day 2

On Tuesday we used another kit from The Works - Robot Bobble-Heads. The kit contained everything needed to build 8 robot Bobble-Heads and at just £1.99 (RRP £6.00) I think it would be an ideal stocking filler. 

Lara simply Cut out the shapes, folded, glued and assembled them - easy as that. 

Summer Holiday Crafts - Day 1

Regular readers of my blog will know that each summer I try and come up with craft projects to keep Lara occupied. Because of our holidays we weren't able to start the projects until this week, But, better late than never!

On Monday we used a £1.49 'Create Your Own Bunting' kit from The Works. The Works is a place where I have bought craft kits and supplies in past years and this year I was able to pick up a couple more kits. 

Lara glued the bunting shapes to some of my older scrapbooking papers and then cut them out.

When the 25 shapes were all cut out she decorated them with letters and shapes cut from scraps of card stock on the Craft Robo and then strung them all together to hang in her room.

Scrapology - August Card Challenge

Last week the August Card Challenge went live on Scrapology.  Design team member Sandra challenges everyone to create a card this month with a 'Milestones' theme - a special birthday, anniversary, etc. 

The design team usually know several months in advance what the monthly challenges are so for this months challenge I was able to make an Emerald Wedding Anniversary card for my parents anniversary in June,.

I decided to only just the colours white and emerald green on my card and found some gorgeous green glittery card from Dovecraft and a scrap of green ribbon in my ribbon box. 

From white card I die cut a beautifully intricate tree shape on the Craft Robo and made this sparkly with white ultra fine glitter. The tree was stuck onto a piece of white card which I had already printed my greeting onto. I them punched hearts from the green glitter card to decorate the tree and glued a ribbon bow on the tree trunk. The whole thing was then matted on more green glitter card then onto a white card blank.

I was pleased with the simplicity of the card and my Mum & Dad really liked it too.

Please pop on over to Scrapology to see the rest of the teams cards and for full details of the challenge.

Scrapology - August Layout Challenge

We've been away on holiday for the last two weeks but whilst away the August Layout Challenge went live on Scrapology. The team decided to take inspiration from a layout by French scrapbooker Sandrine Dawes and as an added challenge the team created 'Shabby Chic' layouts.

For my layout I chose to use a photo of my grandparents on my mothers side. The original photo taken in the early 1930s was really small - about 3"x2". I had the original photo scanned and reprinted larger several years ago and so I was able to use a much larger copy of the photo. I don't know the story behind the photo but given the way they are sitting together and my Nan is holding her left hand I wonder whether the photo was taken on the occasion of their engagement.

I used papers from Prima's 'Lyric' Collection. The papers had a Shabby Chic feel to them and I thought they were perfect for the layout.

The white flowers were from Wild Orchid Crafts but I made some of them larger by adding some extra petals  punched from some scraps of cream paper.  I also used some antique trim which I inherited from my grandmother. She was a crafter too and when she passed away I was given a huge box of ribbon and lace and trimmings. A few antique buttons, pins and some lettering cut on the Craft Robo completed the layout.

Here's Sandrine's original layout ......

..... and the sketch

Please pop over to Scrapology to see all the teams layouts and to find full details of the challenge.