Little Bear Wooden Pin Badge Brooch.

What to do with five wooden bear head embellishments, part of a pack of 15 also containing cats and lions bought from B & M Bargains for about £1 a while back? What about some badges ……. I think they work?

I took some 1in MDF squares, scraps of a spotty print paper and a (posh) brown silk fabric paper, googly eyes, black flat back gems, tiny bows pulled tight to make then even smaller plus five small brooch backs.

I’ll let the pictures do the talking ……..

I used E8000 glue as I wanted a really tight bond so there is no risk of eyes and noses being prised off by inquisitive fingers.

I think all the added embellishment on the faces really helped build the characters of the bears. 

The tiny faux stitching round the edges, using a black fine liner pen, helped draw the completed idea together.

To make them look more professional I thought I would put them on a small doodled presentation card to finish.

The lion heads in the pack of embellishments won’t work with this idea, they were more mane than face and the features were just too small, however, I think the cat faces might, so watch this space …………

Easter Bunny Pin Badges

I feel like I have been working really hard on Easter, but my box of ancient wooden Easter embellishments doesn’t look as if I have made a single dent in it, in fact I think they are be breeding.

However, today at least seven large bob-tailed bunnies are on the hop in the form of very simple pin badges, probably destined for the staff at Iris and Bertie’s school as fairing gifts with a few sweets if they are open by then.

They are no great shakes, I have just covered one side of a 3cm MDF square with scraps of paper to create a basic landscape, added a few clusters of three dots and faux stitching round the edges using a black fine liner pen …….

…… and then plonked a bunny right in the middle.

On the back I have then stuck a small 1.5cm brooch back using extra strong glue and again edged the back with faux stitching.  Simples!

Little Bird Easter Tags –Twig Tree Decorations

Following on from last week, another set of Easter tags or twig tree decorations in an effort to finally use up all my ancient, wooden, Easter embellishments.

As you can see I experimented with a green Dymo label sentiment, they look OK, but I have to admit to much preferring the black version if I’m honest.

The front of the tags were covered with scraps of patterned paper to create a basic background scene.  I have so many paper pads, but I also have a HUGE soft spot for gingham, which really does lend itself to Easter, so I confess to ordering a couple of new gingham paper pads from eBay, as these scraps were the very last I had and I know I will use the gingham more than any of the other papers I have whatever the theme or season.

I faux stitched the edges on the front and back of the tags using a fine liner pen, before adding the Dymo sentiments, which were trimmed down to fit and then the birds.

I love the fact that the birds are painted on both sides which means that they can face both directions.  It’s always been such a frustration to me that most embellishments can only be used facing the one way!

The tiny weeny, plastic, nail art flowers came from China (eBay), they really are tiny and look like nothing from a far, so I was chuffed with their detail when pictured really close up.

I added a little wooden ladybird to the back of the tags, because they might be used as decorations on an Easter twig tree and if so it’s always best to have something of interest to show on the back as well.  I have added a silver coloured, spring bail finding over the tag holes for a thread or narrow ribbon once I decide what I am going to do with them.

Little Bird Easter Decoration

Sometimes things just don’t come together, which is why “the bones” (below) of this decoration lingered in my unfinished pot for a couple of months.

I started it when I was in the middle of doing all my Christmas and Halloween house tranklements using small, coloured craft sticks (Hobbycraft £1 pack of 50) and was wondering what to do the colours I had left over……. once started I soon realised it didn’t look right, the green shelf served no purpose with the one bird stuck up against the wall, but I couldn’t for the life of me think how to fix it, so I left it, going back to it whenever I saw it alone and forlorn in the drawer.

I know I have a real thing about proportion and nothing sat well with the two birds and house and I never really considered adding another bird as I thought it would look too much, but as I became more and more desperate I tried it and low and behold because they were all on different levels and layers it worked, doh ……..

But then …… what to do with all that “empty space”? It still needed something else, I thought flowers, but resisted paper as I thought it might be too easily torn, sometimes I think I over think things! However in the absence of anything else, I again tried it. I think they work OK with a tiny 4mm button in the middle.  A 3mm button might be a little better, so I have a few on order from eBay for the decorations I now plan to make.

The final touch were the four, tiny yellow, nail art roses stuck around the side of the shelf.  Finally happy, I now plan to put together another ten or so which, fingers crossed, will be given as fairing gifts to Iris and Bertie’s teaching staff at Easter, if the schools are back by then!

Fine Tip Glue Applicators – Similar, If Not The Same As The Original Anne Peak Bottles.

I had an e-mail out of the blue from a gentlemen, formerly from Manchester, now living in Arizona, USA, who had found me through a post I had written in way back in 2012 http://itsallfiddlefart.blogspot.com/2010/12/fine-tip-glue-applicators-by-anne-peak.html praising Anne Peak’s Fine Tip Glue Applicator. He too was a fan but sadly they are no longer available and was asking if I had found/used anything that could compare.

Sadly, at first, I was unable to help him, I too am clinging on to my last four bottles for grim death as nothing I have tried comes anywhere close to the originals. All my treated pins that came with them are all bent and misshapen, but I can’t let them go, in fact in the good old days Anne even sold the spare pins as well, of which I bought many.

However, my curiosity piqued I decided to do a bit of Googling myself, just in case and that’s when I found these …………

…….. http://www.worldofmyownminiatures.co.uk/finetipglueapplicator.html, apart from the design on the bottles they look identical, even down to the distinctive pin.  They have the same capacity 30mls and cost £3.35 each plus P & P.

I got in contact and subsequently ordered four for me and four to send to Ernie in the USA.  I will let you know how I get on with them when they arrive, but I thought it might be worth a heads up to others who might feel the same about these bottles.  World of Miniatures tell me that they don’t have an endless supply and when they are gone, they are gone and that they can supply small orders but not large numbers.  I think with care, my four new bottles will last for as long as I craft and the pins, in particular, will be soooooooo carefully looked after.

NB: Ernie had a copy of the original instructions, the bottles should be kept upside down, so that’s something else I will seriously take to heart.  Happy days!

Easter Bunny Tags –Tree Decorations

I don’t know why, but Easter with all it’s bunnies, chicks, eggs and the odd carrot or two, plus the generally pastel palette of colours doesn’t inspire me that much ………

…… however, with a tub of assorted wooden shapes that I seem to have had forever I really need to get them all used up, so perhaps this will be the year that they are finally off my hands!

I started off with the wooden 5.5 x 3.5 x 0.2cm tags (below) from The Works……

….. which I covered with scraps of blue and green patterned paper, adding faux stitching round the edges of the front and back using a black, fine liner pen.

I’m sorry I don’t have a clue where I got the painted wooden rabbits with their cute fluffy tails from, I’ve had them for that long, perhaps Paperchase, a shop now sadly gone from our High Streets, but I could be wrong …..

….. I stuck a large and small one to the front of each tag, with a punched yellow sun to fill the empty space and add colour.

Because I couldn’t really access the tag hole any more I stuck a silver, spring bail over the hole for a thin ribbon to be added at a later stage.

I am not sure yet whether what I have made will actually be used as gift tags, I always like the idea of an Easter tree made from twigs with little Eastery fairings hanging from them, so for good measure I’ve added a little wooden ladybird (The Works 30 for £1, I think) on the back for a bit of added interest and colour should I decide to hang them instead.

Guest Crafter–Once Again, My Auntie Beth

My Auntie Beth in Bude was given a old/new surf board to decoupage at the start of the year  ………

It took an awful lot of elbow grease and flash to get it clean and remove all the varnish.

…….. but it was all worth it in the end.

I believe that this one is destined to become a coffee table, with the edition of four short hair pin legs, I can’t wait to see it when it’s finished.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/4X-Hairpin-Table-Legs-10mm-Steel-Furniture-Legs-Length-10cm-86cm-For-Table-Bench-/293548755443

A Wonderful Gift From Karen – My Very Own Knitted Nativity

Sometimes when the blogging gets tough something happens completely out of the blue that gives you such a boost and pick me up that you wonder what you’d been finding so hard ………

…….. which is exactly what happened to me a couple of weeks ago when I was contacted by Karen a lovely, lovely, long term follower of both Fiddle Fart and Mums Monkey. She’d recently moved to the sea after years of longing and had something Nigel and Nigel might like, since her family had all grown up and she no longer had a place to display it at Christmas ……… only a knitted Nativity!

She remembered every Christmas reading  posts of Nigel gazing longingly at the Nativity scene in Motorworld, back in Wolverhampton each year and how ever since we’d moved he’s been constantly looking for that same awe and wonder factor in Evesham but without much success ………and she wondered whether I/we might like hers.  Well, it would have been rude not to have said a mahooooooosive YES PLEASE wouldn’t it?

Let’s just say a huge box arrived last week, that not only contained the nativity, but also a wooden stable with a mercury glass star, a background scene and two knitted carol singer mice and a knitting pattern to go with them plus a card and note that told the story of each and every piece ……… I hope you can read them despite my wonky photos as I really want Karen to tell the stories herself.

What can I say, except that it was emotional. Iris and Bertie were with me as I opened the box and their little faces were a picture, with Bertie proclaiming that we could make a play with them!

After reading each beautiful story I felt humbled and honoured that Karen had felt I was the one had she trusted with so many memories and in turn start new ones of my own. I have never meant THANK YOU so much in my life.

The Nativity and mice have now been safely put away until December 1st when the Nativity will be set out on my lounge window sill to sit in front of, in my minds eye, the window which will be painted like a starry sky.  The mice will go into the guest bedroom, under a bristle brush Christmas tree for Iris and Bertie to look at and play with very carefully after I have told them the story behind them.

As for the stable, I have left that out as I think I might be able to start it’s new journey at Easter, minus the star  ……..

…….. as I can see my Sylvanian Families Chocolate Rabbit family (£3, brand new from a charity shop in Weymouth) taking up residence for the holidays, a splash of bunting, a sprinkling of mini eggs, some Fimo carrots and a few daffodils and we’ll be away ………. so watch this space!

I can’t believe how thoughtful and kind Karen has been to me (and Nigel),  I won’t let her down ………. and wait until I tell Marc, he loves all things of a knitted type nature, he’s going to be sooooooooooooooooooooooo jealous.

XXXXX THANK YOU SO MUCH KAREN XXXXX