family craft ideas (guest post)

Posted on 16/05/2013 by Rhiannon

I have a great guest poster for you today! Eva’s going to share some fab ideas to make family crafts that you’ll love to display:

Craft and Decor Ideas for All Ages

Do you find that your creativity is being stifled? Are you too busy looking after the family and working at your day job to find time for your favorite crafts and activities? There is a solution – steal a weekend! Ban electronic goodies for a day while the family all works on various craft and décor projects! Do not worry if the family thinks that they are not very skilled or talented – there are plenty of quick and easy projects that are suitable for all.

Seasonal wreaths for year round greenery and fun

Wreaths add a touch of warmth to a blank door or wall and are often thought of as being only for Christmas but this is not so. Change your wreaths with the season to enjoy a sense of freshness – sadly, good weather does not last forever, but you can make it last another week or two by delaying the change to the autumn wreath!

Spring wreaths can feature soft pinks and blues with soft bright green ferns and vines, while summer ones can make the most of your flourishing flower bed with vibrant yellows and red with luxuriant shiny green leaves.

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Autumn gives scope to use brilliant flame notes with wonderful warm earth shades to create a lively piece.

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Winter would be trickier were it not for the opportunity to get festive with lavish amounts of silver glitter to simulate snow in creating beautiful and delicate looking wreaths to brighten up the dullest space. Enjoy some beautiful seasonal and occasional wreath by Williams Sonoma.

Paint on glass for a wonderful effect

Recreate a favourite photo by rendering it onto glass using translucent paints to create a gorgeous stained glass effect. Trace over the photo to create an attractive picture using just a few bold lines. Then paint in the colours with a sparse palate until you have a very simple yet striking effect that, while not an exact copy, is strongly reminiscent of that scene or person.

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Another idea for unique and attractive painting on glass is to turn old wine glasses into flowers! Paint the base and the stems in green and position the petals around the bulb of the glass. Depending on the paint you use these glasses can be ornamental or functional, perfect for using at barbecues for a splash of summer colour. Chole of Ranibow & Honeysuckle shares a cool idea to paint glass. Do check it out.

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If you love the look of coloured glass displays but cannot afford to buy some of the ruinously expensive pieces available on the market you can make your own very quickly and easily – even fairly young children can have a go, but be careful of enamel paint as it is not child-friendly, especially when caught in hair!

Find an unusual and attractive plain glass vase or jar and purchase a quantity of enamel paint in your chosen colour. Apply the paint generously inside the jar or vase, using brushes or sponges to ensure an even covering. Curves may make it a little awkward to reach deep inside the vessel, but you can always tilt and turn it so the paint runs into every crevice. Keep turning and moving it until the surface is fully covered then invert the jar for a short time – be careful to place it on something absorbent as a surprising amount of paint will run out.

Please do not use these vases or jars for living plants or anything edible, they are solely decorative! These creations are opaque and look absolutely stunning on an elegant sideboard or bookcase. A contemporary collection of book case is displayed at Shop 4 Furniture. Must visit.

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Once each family member has completed a beautiful objet d’art and has seen it take pride of place in the home you may find that you have awakened their creative genius, paving the way for many days filled with trimmings and glitter while you satisfy your inner artist.

Thanks Eva, I’m definitely trying the wreath one with our littlies!

chevron pieced cushion

Posted on 24/02/2013 by Rhiannon

While on Pinterest I saw a pieced chevron blanket which looked basically a square cut in half and pieced in a particular way. Much cheaper than buying expensive fabric, and it meant I could make mine as large as I wanted, and be as cheap as I wanted too ;)

I used a tee and a jumper for the cushion front. Good for my pocket, the environment, plus it’s soft too!

Then you end up with some pretty piles of triangles. I made a template from paper and pinned it each time to cut, normally cutting through both sides of the top at a time.

Then I laid it out to check I’d worked out how to piece it right. (nice sigh of relief when I discovered I had!)

You can see that it’s just two different coloured triangles to make squares and put together to make a large chevron pattern.

Pin each two triangles together and sew down the longest edge.

Repeat for the remaining triangles so you end up with squares.

I kept putting mine back in the pattern as I was paranoid about ruining it!

Iron the seam towards the side of your darkest colour. Please excuse my ironing board. I used it when I stamped some fabric. It’s now very unique!

Repeat for the rest of your squares and lay them out in order again.

Then use this tutorial to piece together the cushion front, and this one to insert the zipper and finish the cover. Then you’re done!

When I clicked on the link to the one I found it said the link could be harmful, so here’s a link to a similar tutorial.

craft drawer organisation

Posted on 15/02/2013 by Rhiannon

This is a little embarrassing. This is what my craft drawer looked like…

In my defense my kids love to play there. And I normally prefer to close the drawer than deal with what’s inside.

But I had gotten fed up of every.thing being covered in glitter. Seriously kids?!

So I completely cleared everything out. Cleaned the glitter off and got a little OCD.

I got rid of all the things that were broken and used up and rearranged according to type so that when I allow the kids in there it’s much easier for them to replace things.

One of the things I try to bear in mind when reorganising is to keep space available. Ultimately you will buy more of something, and you don’t want your system to break down because you bought one too many glue sticks :)

Is it weird how happy these punches make me? And woe to anyone who doesn’t put them back in alternating order…

This is totally my happy place to look now. I mean not that I open the drawer just to look and smile or anything like that. That would be crazy right…?

Where’s your happy place?

footstool slip cover (tutorial)

Posted on 01/02/2013 by Rhiannon

We all know I’m not a professional sewer (sewist? seamstress?), anyway I found some gorgeous fabric in Ikea this week and knew it would be perfect to recover my footstool with. It turned out to be fairly simple once I took apart the old cover!

This method would work with most anything that already had a cover, but please don’t take apart a cover that you’d still use! I’d hate you to end up with a naked chair ;)

Here’s how I made mine (which is this Ikea pouffe):

Start by laying your unpicked cover onto your fabric, I cut my largest piece on the fold and folded the main pattern piece, this way I knew I’d get both sides the same.

If you need to mark extra for seam allowances (like where I was too lazy to unpick my velcro!)

Once your new pattern pieces are cut pin together so they match edges where the original pieces did. If you have a lot of pieces, like with an armchair, it’s a good idea to number your pieces with chalk. I had three, and two were the same piece so I managed okay ;)

Use extra pins on the corners to make sure you get a nice rounded edge.

I then zig-zag stitched the pieces together, they’d been serged on the previous cover, but I’m not nearly that fancy!

Don’t worry about back stitching at this point, you’ll be making a new seam to reinforce it next.

To get a nice neat seam on top tick the long middle piece over the edge pieces and pin. Then top stitch the whole length.

This is what it’ll look like inside.

Next up reinforce the corner which will allow the cover to slide over and be velcro-ed under the footstool. The velcro means that it will stay in place and give it a really well fitted look. Zig-zag stitch the whole bottom including the triangle corners, this will stop it from fraying. Then pin the corners under about 1/4 inch and stitch on your smallest straight stitch.

On your four long edges you’ll need to add some velcro. Fold under your straight edge and pin the velcro at the same time.

I had the rough edge under my footstool so attached the soft side of velcro. If your footstool doesn’t already have velcro just staple some on the inside or underside so it won’t be visible when the cover’s on.

Stitch the whole way along the whole length and around the velcro edge.

It will look like that from the outside. Don’t worry because this will be on the underside of the footstool.

And you’re done!

Then you’ll want to just sit back and stare at it.

You know, while you’re feet are on it.

Just look at those seams!

And while I was at it, I also made a cushion cover to match.

Just two squares joined together round three edges, stuff the cushion in, pin the raw edge under and top stitch.

Still looks neat, and only takes around 10 minutes to make.

clothes pin magnets

Posted on 07/01/2013 by Rhiannon

Hope you’ve all had a great Christmas. We loved spending time as a family enjoying all our new toys. And as much as it was nice to have that time “unplugged”, I’m happy to be back to blogging again. :)

I made these magnets for my sister. I just modge-podged some scraps of fabric onto the front and sealed with another layer to keep it durable.

Then I glued on some strips of magnetic tape. It come pre-sticky so made my job easier, I just trimmed it down.

And easy as that you have something cute and functional. For which I had all the supplies on hand. Added bonus!

What hand made gifts did you give or receive this year?

I was featured on Practically Functional

My Handcrafted Home

handmade gifts, furniture, diys, cakes and a whole lot of crazy!

Category Archives: home

family craft ideas (guest post)

Craft and Decor Ideas for All Ages

chevron pieced cushion

craft drawer organisation

footstool slip cover (tutorial)

clothes pin magnets