Upcycled shoe rack

I've made one of these before and you can see it here. But this time, we went one step further and used the paintings that Lil Miss J makes at nursery to decorate the A4 paper boxes.  A fun afternoon activity and her shoes are all nice and tidy. 

DIY fairy princess wand

I sat surrounded by all my craft stuff after ages today and it felt so good!!! Little Miss J has to dress up like a princess  for a charity fundraiser they're doing at nursery.  Now I don't have a princess outfit for her but I do have a fairy outfit with wings so she's going as a fairy princess.  Since no self-respecting fairy can go without a wand, I set about to fashion her one from stuff I had lying around the house.  It had to be pink to match her dress and of course there had to be glitter!!!  The rest of it was a piece of cardboard for the star, some pink paper, a bubble wand that she no longer plays with, some kitchen foil and some mod podge.

I love how it turned out! Thrifty DIY rocks!

DIY Notice Board

My friend Ro, who blogs over at Jellyhead's Finished Projects wanted to make our friend, Claire at work a birthday present.  We are both into crafting and wanted to create something from scratch.  Claire is well liked by her clients and receives loads of thank you cards, so we decided to give her a board she could pin them all up on!

Ro's hubby kindly got us a piece of plywood from his workplace.  I then used some lovely material that my brother had bought me from Thailand ages ago (it was just sat in my stash  - I guess this was its purpose!!) and used Fabri - Tac to glue it down to the back of the board.

Ro then added some pegs she found in the craft section.  She also used normal clothes pegs, but these seemed too big so she ended up with more of these little ones. 

And ta da - this is what we came up with.  We were really happy with the result.

DIY kiddie shoe rack

I loved this shoe showcase post here. So I decided to tweak it a little bit to create a shoe rack for Llittle Miss J's shoes.

I picked up a couple of boxes in which our A4 paper arrives at work.


I cut the edges off the lid to create a "shelf".


I painted the box black. Excuse the shoddy look in the photo - I did touch it up later! I hot glued one box on top of the other.



I covered up the edges with some tissue paper flowers and a piece of felt.


And ta da - I'm so proud of this - it turned out great!





This post was featured on:-
Confessions of a Stay at Home Mommy
J&Ms Eye Candy

Felt flower choker necklace

I was working on a few flower pins to give as presents the other day, when I fancied making myself a quick choker necklace - the glue gun was hot! You can't let that go to waste! Now since I don't dabble in jewellery - I didn't have anything like a clasp or jump rings. But I really fancied this necklace, so here's what I did for a quick fix. I apologise for the quality of my pictures - I was more excited about the outcome and the pictures were a rushed affair!

I picked out some ribbon, a strip of felt and some velcro dots.

I cut the felt strip through all the way like so and then rolled it into a flower. A full tutorial of the felt flower can be found here.

I cut the ribbon to the size of my neck and then added velcro dots to the end.


I hot glued my felt flower to the ribbon.

And ta da - I had my quick fix choker necklace. Obviously this would keep better if made with a clasp, but for now this will do! Isn't purple the best colour ever????

Bird feeder - killing time one afternoon

This was an afternoon project with little Miss J. She was very excited with the idea of creating something to eat for the birds - I swear she is obsessed with food in all forms!

You will need:

Stale bread (cut into circles) or if you're in my house, the crumpets that Mr. J bought and forgot to eat!!!!

Some bird seed (I just used a mix of seeds I had at home)
Peanut butter
Twine



If you're using bread, cut out a circle of bread. Stick a straw in to make a tiny hole and put the twine through and tie a knot. You will want to leave the bread out for a day or two so that it gets hardened.

Since my crumpets were already stale - I didn't have to leave it out to harden.

I got Little Miss J to spread the peanut butter on to the crumpet.....this took the most time and kept her busy!!!

Then she sprinkled on the seeds over the crumpet.



Give it a little knock to drop the excess seeds and ta da! You have your very own bird feeder!

Tie it somewhere the birds can perch and peck at it! We're now keeping a watch closely to see whether we actually can get any to come into our tiny garden!!!!

I'm linking this up at:
Fingerprints on the fridge
Sun Scholars
504 main Tickled Pink
Cherished treasures
Craft Envy
I am only 1 woman
I heart naptime
Flamingo Toes

Sugar and spice and all things nice!

Just recently I was using varnish on one of my other craft projects and got some of it on my hands, which was a disaster. I didn't have enough nail polish remover at home to get rid of it, so i had to depend on good old google for a solution. Cooking oil & Sugar - said google - and guess what, it worked and not only did it work, but I had the smoothest hands right after! :) So I looked up handscrubs and found loads of them in blogland. This is my version made with whatever I had in the kitchen.

You will need:

White Sugar
Brown Sugar
Olive oil (You could use another cooking oil, like vegetable oil or corn oil)
Lemon zest
Essential oil (you can use whatever scent you like)
A container for the final product (I recycled a scented candle container)



First add equal amounts of white sugar and brown sugar in a bowl and whisk together till all lumps are removed.



Spoon the sugar into the container until about 3/4 full.

Gradually pour in the oil. This step needs to be done slowly. Allow the oil to seep through the sugar and keep adding oil slowly until the sugar is well covered with oil. You want just enough so that its not floating on top.

If you have poured in too much oil, you can top up the sugar now.

Add about 7-8 drops of your essential oil.



I added the zest of a lemon.

Mixed it all up together and ta da! Its ready! Try some now - you won't be disappointed. While sugar is an excellent exfoliant, it can be a bit abrasive, so if you are using on an area other than your hands, please do so carefully as your skin may redden. But you will have wonderfully soft skin after you've used this, as I found out accidentally!!!!

I dressed it up with some ribbon and a felt flower I made. Doesn't it look lovely? Perfect handmade gift.


Let me know what you think!


This post is being linked up at:
Sugar and spice
Someday Crafts
My girlish whims
Sugar and dots
Polka Dots on Parade
Sweet Peas & Bumblebees
Momnivore's Dilemma
Delightful Order
SYS blog link party
Sassy sites
I am only 1 woman
Be different act normal

Lolly stick bracelet

Having recently gotten into crafting thanks to my friend Marisa (you can find her here), I came across these bracelets created from popsicle sticks or lolly sticks as we know them here. Now the very idea of using a lolly stick and bending it to create a bracelet was very intriguing so I just had to try it! I found the tutorial here and have finally managed to do it, although my finished product is no where near as lovely as the bracelets in the original post.

The lolly sticks can be bent by soaking them in hot water and then shaping them by warming the wood through with your fingers. Then insert them into a glass so they hold a circular shape. You will find full details in the tutorial link above.

I did use coloured lolly sticks but the colour comes off when you boil them, so you will need to paint them again.



Once mine had dried, I painted them all, but as you can see they did open out a bit due to the wetness of the paint.



So just as the paint was drying I inserted them into the glasses again and they came back to the bracelet shape quite easily.


Once they had dried overnight, I painted some designs on each one. I have not painted in a long long time so you can see the result of an unsteady hand!!



I then added some decorative shiny bits I had lying around to add a bit of sparkle and some good old silver glitter glue.



And ta da! I love how these turned out!







Now all I need to do is buy some sealant/lacquer tomorrow and seal them with a protective coat. I was so excited, I couldn't wait until I'd done that to share this with you!
Let me know what you think - I'd love to hear your comments!

This post is linked up at:
Smile Monsters
Sun Scholars
Sassy Sites
Be different act normal
Along for the ride
Cherished Treasures
Flamingo Toes
Making the world cuter
Craft O Maniac
Sew Happy Geek

Tutu Time

I've been wanting to make little Miss J a tutu for a while now. Since sewing is not up my alley at all, I decided to scour the web for a no sew one. I used a combo of two tutorials which you can find here and here.

I bought one meter of tulle in purple, which in hindsight was too little and next time around I would buy more. So what I have is a short tutu but who cares - it looks lovely anyway :)

You need some tulle in a colour of your choice, some elastic, measuring tape, scissors and a craft mat if you have one.

Measure your child's waist and then subtract 3 inches - that is the amount of elastic you need. For e.g little Miss J's waist measured 19.5 inches and I used 16.5 inches of elastic. Sew the end of the elastic together to create a hoop.

Pull the elastic up to your thigh like a girdle. This makes it easy to loop the strips of tulle and tie knots tightly together until the whole elastic is filled up. You can refer to the tutorial links for how to make the knots....both tutorials show different knots and you can choose whichever one you prefer.

And the end result was this.



Doesn't it look lovely? Let me know what you think :)

Easter - my first proper craft project!

So I popped into to pick up the little monster at nursery last week and got a little note saying there is an 'Easter Bonnet' parade for the kids in 10 days time...Now while ignorance is bliss, it isn't always so as I had no idea what an Easter bonnet was. A few questions sorted that out and then the jitters set in as I have always thought of myself as not having a single arty bone in my body!

My first reaction was to go and buy her one from the store! But then my lovely friend Carla, who is very skilled and you can find her here, helped me to get into doing something on my own and this is the result!

I bought a plain bonnet at the store for £2.00.



Made a few things from stuff I had lying around - although I did buy the little chicks! I'm not that clever! Oh, and I had the pink flowers lying around from a card making bag I had bought a few years ago. Everything else I made from scratch!



And this was the end result! Ta da!




So not only did my crafting skills get a kick start, but also managed to recycle stuff which I had around which always feels good rather than it just going to the tip. I think I'm hooked now!