Iris’s Christmas Tree Door Wreath

Iris sat for hours with me patiently making this wreath to give to her Mum and Dad on 1st December.  From past experience I knew that it would take a lot more ribbon than you’d expect, but that gal stayed with it ‘till the bitter end!

The frame came from the Hobbycraft January sale this year, I think it would have only have cost about £2, it was a bit different and cheap, which is why I bought it,

An awful lot of the ribbons came from the rolls left over from Tom and Laura’s wedding decorations ten years ago now.  It’s lovely to think that after all those years their little girl would also go on to make something wonderful using them

I cut the ribbons into about 3 to 4 inch lengths and then it was a matter of just knotting for your life, while nattering about this and that and young Master Bertie played Minecraft.

I think it must have taken us, on and off, about three/four hours of knotting before finally deciding that if there were any more gaps, we’d simply spread out the ribbon a bit more and then fluff them up as much as we could.

It looked more than alright, the tied ribbons needed trimming a little to get them roughly all the same length, but I also thought that it needed perhaps a bow on the bottom and a star on the top to really finish it off, so if Iris left it with me, I would see what I could pick up in the charity shops, because, unbelievably, I had nothing suitable in my huge stash!

It took a while, but I eventually found an unopened pack of original 70’s (??) decorative bows in the local salvation Army shop for £1. Some might regard it as sacrilege that I opened the pack as they would have been worth quite a bit on eBay, but they were also perfect for the wreath, as the proportions were just right and that’s all that mattered.

The star took me a little longer to find, but out of the 50p bucket, it was a no brainer.  I stuck it securely in position using a glue gun glue .

The last thing to do was to add a loop on the back to hang the wreath up from.

Et voila ………

…… two generations of memories in, hopefully, something that perhaps Iris, in years to come, will hang in her home with her own family, sharing the memories of making it with a new generation ……..  long after Great Nanny Nell has gone! You never know ………

Class Christmas Card 2023 – A Sneaky Preview

The teacher of one of the classes I listen to read asked if I would like to help with their Christmas cards this year and if I had any ideas ………. this is what I came up with, the card blank measuring 15cm x 15cm.

It had to be simple, something I could break up into small stages for all abilities, so I found a basic reindeer head template, erasing the antlers using paint and then printed them off on various shades of brown paper.  The children will then cut them out.

https://mondaymandala.com/reindeer-templates/

I also punched lots of different patterned red paper for the noses and cut lots of different background squares, to allow the children to make all their own choices, including hats and various sized googly eyes to help make their card more individual, hopefully, although using the same basic template, the reindeers will develop their own personalities, as the children put them together, adding drawn antlers and faux stitching etc. 

To finish off, there are sentiment tags and snowflakes to put wherever the mood takes the little ones.

What I’d like to avoid is 30, perfectly identical cards, that look like they’ve just been churned out on a conveyor belt, it’s a time for the little ones to chill and enjoy being creative.

Hopefully, when the time comes, I’ll take lots of pictures of all the cards to share on a glorious post to help us all in the mood for Christmas!

2023 Elizabeth Shaw Mint Favours

It’s a bit of a tradition that I make Marc a box of Elizabeth Shaw Mint favours for Christmas ……. and 2023 is no exception.

I’ve featured them almost every year now, since seeing them demonstrated on a Stampin Up stand at a craft show at the NEC, Birmingham, many, many moons ago …….. and there’s no great shakes to them.

My ancient Stampin-Up punches, after all these years, owe me nothing,  but when I started to punch with them this year, they were very creaky and the cuts weren’t as sharp as they could have been, so I thought that they’d finally given up the ghost, but after a quick spray with WD40, they were soon cutting like young ‘uns again.

I decided to use plain red and green papers this year and as many of the small, leftover stickers I’ve gathered over the years, that really needed using up.

I stuck the plain circles in the middle of the scalloped ones, these would then go either side of the mint, using double sided tape to keep them all together, once decorated.  On one side I put one inch, transparent, gold sentiment stickers from Temu, that cost just £2.98 for 500, so should last me for flipping years …….

…… and on the other side, I used all manner of stickers, including puffy, 3D, and flat ones, adding dots and faux stitches using a white, fine tipped, chalk paint pen on the scallops and plain edges of the centre circle.

Et voila, 44 mint favours duly made …….. and not a single one nibbled, which must be some sort of record!

Sorry, about the darkness of the pictures, I was trying to save electricity re: the lighting,  but the results are terrible, so lesson learned, put the lights on when taking photos!

Temu Game Changer

I need to uninstall the Temu app from my phone because when I get a bit bored of an evening I get scrolling and then it becomes dangerous  ……….  

However, these little darlings may turn out to be quite the game changer for my Christmas tree ornaments and other hanging bits and pieces. They are listed as, among other things “Christmas ornaments hanger string ornament hook ropes pre-cut ribbon with snap locking”, you get the idea.

They are all the same length and simply click together once you’ve threaded them onto your ornament/bauble, so no fiddly cutting and knotting!  They come in packs of 100 in metallic green, red, silver or gold.  This set of silver ones cost me £1.79, but it’s worth shopping around as I also got a set of gold ones for £1.07.  Happy days!

Small Christmas Pin Badges

This year I have bought a variety of snowman and Christmas tree brooches from either Temu or Ali Express for the lady members of staff at I & B’s school to wear throughout the month of December, but what to do for the gentlemen?

It took me a little while, but then it hit me to make some small pin badges to stick on their lanyards ……..

…… then it was a doddle!  Marc sent me the small, plastic embellishments a couple of years ago. The reindeer  measure around 3cm tall and the tree and snowman just a little bit smaller.

I’ve also had the butterfly(?) clips for ages too, so all I really had to do was marry them together a little E7000 glue.

To present them in a more professional looking manner, I then made a simple card to put them on.

A small, no great shakes present, with most of the time spent waiting for the glue to set.

I’m well chuffed with how they turned out and now have more ideas as to how I can and will repeat the idea with all manner of other seasonal embellishments throughout next year. Happy days!

Toy Wreath

I’ve promised to make a toy wreath for Rick (Marc’s partner) for ages ………

……… but I’ll be honest, I was a little nervous, despite making quite a few jewellery mirrors and wreaths in my time, I knew that this would be a different kettle of fish, toys don’t usually have flat backs, sizes vary and filling the gaps between them might be difficult …….. but I have finally bitten the bullet!

As I didn’t have a large enough solid, wooden frame amongst my stash,  I decided to cover a 12in diameter, metal, wreath frame from Hobbycraft wrapping cotton binding round it, to give something on which to glue an assortment of toys. 

I secured the binding with a glue gun at intervals of about an inch or two, all the way round the frame.

I was nervous about my choice of glue, going for a glue gun in the end, despite having mixed results when sticking plastic on plastic, so I hoped that the first layer of toys would adhere more securely to the binding, before also using E6000 as good measure, to glue toy on toy as I added layers.

The toys came from various 10p baskets and oddment bags from local charity shops. I started by gluing down the four biggest toys to give a very rough symmetry to the wreath ………

…… however, as gaps began to fill, I found that a large area of these toys disappeared under all the layers, but I think it still worked and the glue seems to be holding up, but I did use a lot!

When the wreath was more or less filled, I left it to settle and then had another go, filling even smaller gaps with increasingly smaller toys.

Once happy and reasonably stable, I was able to turn the whole thing over and sew a thread through the binding on the back to hang the wreath by.

I “think” I am happy with the finished item, however, I’m keeping it out, so that I can keep an eye on the glue and will continue to carefully fill in spaces with the glue gun and E6000 until I am ready to hand it over …….

….. though I think it will always be on the fragile side. Would I make another?  Let’s just say, not in a hurry!  Now to remove all those annoying threads of glue, I swear they breed!