Christmas Carrot Decorations

Carrot tree decorations????  Well, I suppose it was Aldi's Kevin The Carrot that was probably the inspiration for this silly idea!

There is a charity shop on the corner as I come home in the evenings that occasionally leaves a box of unsold bits and pieces outside ...... and well, it would be rude not to have a little mooch, and it was after one said mooch I found these two plastic carrots most probably from a food play set left abandoned and unloved........

I immediately thought of Bertie and how, when he was a baby used to sleep cuddled up to a giant Ikea soft toy carrot (?????) and decided then and there that I needed to rescue them to hopefully give them a completely new life as Christmas tree decorations, one each for Iris and Bertie to go into the bag of tree decorations I make them each year.

The first thing I did was drill a hole in the top of each carrot (using my model makers drill) in order  to fit a screw eye hook to hang them by.  I coloured the top with a red Sharpie pen to create a Santa hat, adding 3D snow effect and a little iridescent micro glitter for extra sparkle to make a fur trim and bobble.   

I decorated the hats with a punched holly leaf and three, red, flat backed red pearls.

The face was next using googly eyes and a black Sharpie pen smile, followed then by arms and hands.  

Close up photos take no prisoners, so before these two are wrapped in tissue I need to give them a quick brush down to remove all the surplus glitter. I know it's a really daft idea but who says carrots are only meant for the festive dinner table, especially ones that  were originally destined to end up for all eternity somewhere under a landfill site.  Happy days!

Monkey Christmas Card For 2019

I don't think I have ever been so well organised as far as this years Mum's Monkey cards is concerned, as they were all done and dusted back in June!  OMG!

Each year I rack my brains for a new theme for them ......... and as I was about to pack away my festive bed linen for another year the idea of "God rest you merry gentlemen" sprang to mind, so a last minute photo shoot was called and the perfect shot secured. I then sat on the picture until around May when I had them printed for just 5p per copy from Aldi.

In June I decided to put them together.  The hats and bobbles were glittered over using white micro glitter and embellished with holly confetti and small, flat back, red pearls.

There was also a lot of mat and layering to be done to pick out the blue of their pjamas and red of the bedding........... with a little faux stitching on the pale blue layer thrown in for good measure.

I created the sentiment in two parts and again these were mat and layered on red.

The final touches came with the addition of  silver snowflake confetti (please forgive the blobs of wet glue in the picture), with red flat back pearl centres and a few clusters of three red dots here and there.

With The Towers now festooned in all it's festive gaiety and The Boyz once more donned in their gay apparel, I guess it is the perfect opportunity to be thinking of next years card, any and all suggestions gratefully received .......  happy days!

Little Peg Doll Christmas Snow Scene Decorations.

I just don't have a clue what to call these little things other than "peg doll Christmas scene decorations"??!!

I got the idea after seeing examples of peg dolls with acorn cup hats on Pinterest.  I've had a box of acorns, cups and twigs for about two years now, after collecting them during a weekend in Wells and so many times I was almost about to either chuck them or give them to nursery, but I am so glad I didn't now.

The peg dolls, sold as wooden counters, were from The Works, the small bristle Christmas trees, which are really lovely and I am praying that I can find some more were from Poundland (6 for £1), and the tiny Christmas dominoes were a charity shop find from years ago.

I coloured the "dolls" bodies with Sharpie pens, then glued on the acorn cup hat, adding a tiny punched holly leaf with three equally tiny flat backed red pearls for the berries. I then covered the picture side of the dominos with 3D effect snow, before changing the original circular, flat base of the trees for a natural coloured bead to give a little more space to work with. I added a few small, iridescent, polystyrene balls and tiny silver balls to fill the space around the peg doll and tree and give extra texture.

I foolishly used a fine liner pen for the eyes and mouth ..... when I really should have known from experience that they would bleed into the wood, doh, doh, doh  ...... however in this case I was able to salvage a near disaster by covering the original pen eyes with tiny black nail art studs, but lesson learnt, next time I will either use a black Biro or glossy enamel accents to do it.

That said, I think these will be the only three I make this Christmas because what I really wanted to do was make them into tree decorations but no matter where I put a screw eye hook (or pair) the blessed thing just turned upside down, it's a physics/balance type problem I know but I just couldn't work it out and after over an hour trying I gave up.  Any suggestions would be gratefully recieved because at the moment I am completely stumped.

As they are I can see them put among Christmas cards and/or other decorations on a shelf and if I had a few more I could perhaps even see them as place settings at the Christmas table.

Two "Crafty" Charity Shop Finds

I am always on the look out for bits and pieces I can use for crafting in any charity shop I visit, in particular games that use letters and numbers and as it happened I found both these games on the same day, in different shops for just 50p each.

I thought that this blue set of capital letters will come in very handy on cards where I use different letter stickers/embellishments to spell out greetings i.e Happy Birthday. I am also wondering, taking into consideration their blue colour how they would look spelling out a complete festive phase or word on a plain white card, scattering snowflakes or stars around them for a snowy, cold feel?

...... And then, I am currently in two minds as to how to use this vintage Bingo game, initially it was the numbers I was after (all present and correct 1 - 99), perhaps using numbers 1 to 25 on a vintage style Advent Calendar, but after finding that it was complete I am now thinking that since Iris and Bertie love playing number games so much, perhaps we should (for a while at least) use it in the way it was meant to be?  Hmmmmm, lovely, lovely, lovely wooden numbers though!

Christmas Fairy Door

I have never attempted a fairy door before, but seeing as I had all the basic bits and pieces I thought it was about time I had a try .......

....... and for my first attempt I don't think I have done too bad.

The door, fence, trees and door wreath all came from The Works.  

I started off tentatively by attaching the door to a strip of spare balsa wood. I removed the original star on the door and put the little door wreath in it's place, which I later decorated with tiny weeny, silver flat backed gems.  I wish now that I had also replaced the pearl door handle with a large gold flat backed gem and gone over the black door hinges with gold 3D effect paint, but it's a lesson learnt for the next one I make!

I added the trees, which needed quite a bit of fluffing to make them presentable and covered the balsa base with 3D Snow Effect ..... at this stage it was beginning to look a lot like Christmas! 

I then got totally carried away, adding the fence to the back of the door, colouring it with a red sharpie pen. 

I filled the trees with various sized, pearl and gold effect flat backed gems with a large star on the top .......

......... followed by a"Welcome" mat using a textured brown card and an attempt at a doodled squiggly writing to look sort of "mat like", if that makes sense, using a black fine liner pen.

By this stage I decided I might as well go the whole hog, putting snow all round the door and then adding a string of little fairy lights to it, plus windswept snow on the fence. The very final touch came from the small, irredescent, polystyrere balls (Poundland) piled up to look like snowballs which I think really makes the scene. I have such a thing about proportion but with this door I think I have just about got it right, keeping it whimsical, without spoiling it with too much accuracy.

It sits very nicely on my skirting board, but when December comes I am thinking that it perhaps needs some tiny snowy footprints leading up to it, I can't wait to see Iris and Bertie's reaction when they see it for the first time. 

Poundland Paint Your Own Nutcracker

Following on from last week's "Heads Up" I have had a bash at "doing" one of my own "Paint Your Own" nutcrackers that Poundland have had amongst their Christmas craft section this year.

I knew it wasn't going to be as simple as it looked, from the start I decided that I wasn't going to use the brush and paint that it came with.  The brush was cheap and nasty and I guessed the paint wouldn't really be up to the job either and to be honest, it was just the wooden figure I was interested in when I bought it.

I left the face and hands as they were in the natural wood but used Sharpie pens to colour the rest, however I also needed to use coloured ultra fine tipped pens to work the edges first to help avoid the colours bleeding into each other and to get into all the tiny nooks and crannies. This was so fiddly.  Luckily the arms came off so I could get to the little fiddle farty bits, again using fine liner pens. I did use a tiny bit of the accompanying red and black paint in the end to colour the inside of the nutcracker as it was impossible to get even the fine liner pens in there.

When the nutcracker was dry I used tiny, gold, flat back domes for his buttons and various shapes from a metal nail art set (also from Poundland) for the buckles on his shoes, belt, the epaulets on his shoulders and buttons on his boots, this made such a difference, bring the nutcracker to life.

Nutcracker as illustrated on the packaging.

I also used the tiny black rounds from the set for his eyes, because after all the fiddle fart I didn't want to risk using a black pen only to have it bleed into the face and ruin it.  It also made them stand out a little more.

I decorated his hat using a tiny holly punch (Hobbycraft £1) and equally tiny flat back, red pearls for the berries.

On his moustache I added Ranger Glossy Accents again to help make it stand out more, plus add a different texture.

I also added a few white lines on his boots and three white dots on his shoes using a white gel pen.....

....... however I only did this lightly because at that stage I could have very easily over embellished Mr Nutcracker and then completely ruined all my efforts. That's one down, another one to go! 

Merry and Bright Christmas Card

This card uses a pre- cut and scored, smooth, white manufactured blank as its base.

I think this card may be a case of Merry and Bright overkill! I simply arranged a selection of bright and/or sparkly random letters from all the sets I have in the centre of a card blank.........

....... and then surrounded them with various sized stars, gold flat backed domes and clusters of three  doodled dots using a black fine liner pen .......

........ but I think I got a little carried away in all its randomness and sheer number of bits and pieces, if I were to repeat the card again I think it needs to have some sort of symmetry to it, because to me  your eye just doesn't have a point to settle and focus on  ......... it's just too all over the shop!

Heads Up - Poundland Paint Your Own Nutcracker

The only trouble with Halloween is that you have to wait until after it's all over before Poundland really gets to put all their Christmas bits and pieces out in full. Since the middle of September we've been getting tantalising glimpses but nothing like their full range, and as such I have tended to buy things when I have seen them or look for something after someone has posted an item of interest on The Poundland Appreciation page on Facebook.

This year their Christmas craft range is looking pretty interesting, so when I found these Paint Your Own Nutcracker tree decorations in the Birmingham shop, after first seeing them on Facebook, I knew Marc already wanted a couple and I thought I would have a couple too following that age old Poundland rule, if you don't get something when you see it you might not be able to find them again after.

I don't think I will be painting mine with the paints provided, I am thinking more along the lines of using Sharpie pens instead ..... I am also thinking that I could use my nail enamel pens or 3D Effect paints to add the little details, but before I get started I need do a little Googling to get a few ideas as to how I can really "pimp" my nutcracker .....  if you'll pardon the expression, as I feel there may be an element of competition between Marc and me when we get cracking!

Guest Crafter Bertie And His Printed Nursery Christmas Card

Awwww, Bertie isn't especially keen on drawing and painting which makes this card extra special ........ plus I am just a very proud Granny, so please bear with me!

I am reliably informed that it's Santa in the middle of his "design" and one of the first "people" Bertie has drawn and I presume the background is a copy taken of one of his finger paintings.

It's all part of a fundraising idea where families can not only order Christmas cards with this design, but also gift tags, wrapping paper, notebooks, stickers and mugs, to mention a few.  It's the mugs that I have my beady eye on to give as gifts, but before I put in my order I need to stand back to see if Mum and Dad have a similar idea, but I am determined that one way or another a mug will be mine!  Did I mention how proud I am?!!??!!

Re-Blinged Rockin' Robin Christmas Cards

Is there such a thing as re-blinged?  I had an offer come through from The Works which included a festive free gift of a book, wrapping paper or pack of cards, I decided to choose the cards as I thought  Iris could make good use of them at Christmas to give to her friends.

Then.......I got to thinking, never a good thing, although the cards were plenty sparkly enough as they were, the robins would look even cuter if I gave them googly eyes ........

........ and then dear readers, I got completely carried away!  

Not only did I give said robins each a pair of googly eyes, I also decided to give their hats "woolly" trims and bobbles using 3D Snow Effect .........

....... added a little Ranger Glossy Accents to make their little rosy cheeks glow .......

....... not forgetting adding gold stars on top of the original white ones in the background and my customary scattering of three blacks dots here and there.  Talk about overkill! There's an awful lot of extra dimension and texture going on here!  I'll be honest, if the cards had been smaller I would have been very tempted to use the whole front as a topper, mat and layering it on red and silver perhaps!

Iris will be getting nine of the ten cards as I have kept one back because I think if I cut the front in two I could have two toppers to possibly work with  ...... I am not sure if the idea in my head will work out, but  watch this space!

Make A Wish Card with Pin Badge

This card measures 6ins x 6ins and uses a pre-scored, smooth, manufactured card as it's base.

I made this card for my sister-in law's 60th birthday, again, as is my want these days it is very plain and simple.

The badge came from a store called Hema (Birmingham Bull Ring) and cost just £1, as soon as I saw it I thought of Sarah and bought three (two for spares for other ideas)

I simply covered the front of the card with a paper of a suitable proportion to the badge. I then added  a scrap of white card to the back of a Works metallic gold card frame and placed the badge in the middle of it.

I then used the badge pin to pierce a hole through the card front and replaced its back.  Voila, another very simple card done!

It Was Meant To Be .........

As you know I have a HUGE thing for 1950's/60s metal frame, fish eye mirrors and I thought with the three resprayed ones in my bedroom that I was done ......

However, to be honest, in the back of my mind I have always carried the memory of ".... the one that got away", a very colourful flower covered mirror I saw and lusted over at The Malt House Emporium in Tewksbury at least eighteen months ago.  I really can't remember at the time why I didn't buy it there and then, but it was most probably because I couldn't think where it would go as all my walls were pretty much covered.

Well, Lu and I returned a couple of weeks ago and half way round I said to Lu "I wonder if that mirror was still here and if it is I'm having it!"  .......

It was, ...... obviously no one else has my hideous taste!  It was still the same price and I couldn't get it down anymore as the lady said it had already been reduced (.....but still not moved for at least 18 months???!!!!) ...... however, I still bought it anyway. I'm not saying exactly what for, but perhaps a months worth of Costa coffees?

There is no age to it at all ....... it's just pretty and I have never seen anything else like it before, as Lu says it's very me.  Finding a place for it to live was hard as I had first anticipated, especially as I wanted to be able to see it all the time, I've put it in the hall, where I can pass and admire it often.  Happy days ...... it was meant to be!