Getting my creativity on - Crochet

Despite the burning desire to be a writer rarely do I think of myself as brimming with creativity. Truth be told it is only on the odd occasion (especially of late) when I even think I may actually have a way with words. I just keep plodding along here because a) I am an eternal optimist and b) writing helps to clear my mind. But enough of my self doubt and low self esteem, while they may quite possibly make for some great blog posts, they are not the topic of conversation today.

Today is all about creativity.

The lovely Deb over at Inner Compass Designs has launched a brand new linky this week called The Creativity Tree and while I may not always be able to see my creativity in the best light I do like to try and create whenever possible.

Most nights see me sitting down and crocheting. Much like writing I find it soothes my soul and clears my mind. Though again like writing I often doubt my ability and whether it really counts as being creative.

I currently have two projects on the go.

The first is a blanket made with these squares

I also have a lovely navy blue that I will make alternate squares out of. Actually the navy will be the main feature as I have more navy than purple wool but so far this is all I have made.

The other project I am working on is this

A chevron granny. I had no idea that this was even possible until I came across a how two by the awesome Mikey over at the Crochet Crowd. If you are in anyway interesting in crochet this is the place to go. By far the easiest to follow tutorials I have come across. The video for the granny ripple can be found here

While this final project is actually finished it is one I hope to repeat sooner rather than later because I want to look at more of them hanging around on every window.

Flower garlands. This one I whipped up while we were in the Sterling Rangers on #ouradventureofalifetime

To see what other creative juices people have flowing head on over to Deb's

Giveaway - Nana Dot Handmade Baby Goods

Today I am super excited to introduce to you a wonderful new handmade stay at home mum venture.

Nana Dot Handmade Baby Goods

I know that it is not the most wonderful of photo and you are probably wondering exactly what they are, but there were just to many beautiful necklaces for me to choice just one to take a photo of.

Actually even choosing which photo to use once I narrowed down to just three necklaces still wasn't an easy task. Nor was taking the photos for that matter, as seen by the horrible light reflection on the table.

These necklaces are made from BPA free, food grade silicon beads. Which makes them a-ok for your baby to be putting in their mouth (as babies want to do). Making them not only incredibly fashionable but incredibly useful when you are out and about with a teething baby that you would prefer not to drop their teething toys on the ground. 

Yes more dodgy photos of far from dodgy necklaces.
Necklaces that are great for mothers of teething babies to be wearing I might add. Though just between you and me I think they are far to funky to be purely teething necklaces. 

But wait there is more.

I know this may look a little like a bracelet it is not. It is however a sensory necklace for a little person on the autism spectrum. Again though my terrible photography does not quite do it justice. Oh and if you were wondering bracelets can be ordered.

All the necklaces are knotted on a nylon cord with a breakaway clasp used. The necklaces are designed to be worn by mum and as with all teething products should be closely supervised. Care and cleaning of the necklaces is as easy as washing in warm soapy water.

But wait there is still even more!

Nana Dot Handmade Baby Goods is more than just silicone beads. There are also burp clothes, bibs, bandana bibs (great for teething dribble), taggies and even more to come. Though if you want to see those little beauties you will have to head on over to the Nana Dot Handmade Baby Goods Facebook page and check it out yourself. 

What I do have for you though, is the ability to win your very own necklace. Or if you were feeling generous a necklace that you could pass on to a new mum. They do make super cool presents after all.

All you have to do to enter is like the Nana Dot Handmade Baby Goods and click a few buttons on the rafflecopter entry below. Nana Dot is still super new to the land of Facebook so it would be great to give her some loving.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Joining in IBOT   fun with Essentially Jess

Oh and for those that like disclaimers, Nana Dot is very good friend of mine who has decided to try a home based business in the hope she won't have to return to traditional employment and instead be able to stay at home and enjoy more time with her three beautiful children. She asked me if I would be interested in hosting a giveaway in a bid to gain her some exposure and help her venture grow. (Just quietly I was tickled pink that she thought I had the ability to help expose her - because that is not some you get asked everyday - Can you help expose me?) Needless to say no payment was sought or given, just lots of love spreading.

Anything but a wordless Wednesday

Last year when I did a Wordless Wednesday post I would link it in with the Aussie Wordless Wednesday, hosted by Trish over at My Little Drummer Boys. Today however I am not really all that wordless so I would feel like a bit of a fraud, so there is no linking up for me.

Though if the truth be told there is also another reason.

As much as I love joining in a good linky party I have decided that this year I need to be a bit more selective. You see if I link up I generally don't just read one or two of the posts. If it is only a small, say up to thirty linkers, I will read all the other posts. Or pretty much all of them. As you can imagine that is a lot of blog reading when you think I link up almost every single post I write.

Sadly I just can't continue in such a way. I want to be a blogger because I want to write. As lovely as reading all the other great blogs out there is, it cuts into my writing time. I am sure you understand my dilemma.

One that is only increased by the fact I have some photos that I should have shared before Christmas and never got around to it. In fact until I was taking the Christmas decorations down I hadn't even taken the photos.

My mother is a knitter. Which is lovely, except we live in the tropics and wearing knitted clothes does not bode well in the tropics. So she knits other things.

Like totally cool toys

 

For Halloween she whipped up some little ghostly creatures, complete with ball and chain. There was also a witch with her cat and a little pumpkin. The three colourful mice are amongst Miss Two's favourite toys ever and the elephants keep her company when she visits Nan.

 

The painter and the green grocer actually been hanging around home for quite a few years now. There was also a clown once I think, but mum kindly donated him as a prize for a raffle.

But wait for it there is more. In fact it is because of what is below that I am even posting any of this. My incredibly clever mother knitted us the most loveliest advent calendar ever.

Each day we hang an ornament on a special little Christmas tree. If I weren't so particular about my big tree we could hang them there but the more trees the merrier I say!

Reindeer Handprint T-shirts

Now I know yesterday when I shared my cute flower headbands I said that today would be about bunting or over the top hair clips, well guess what, since then I came across something even cooler that I just couldn't wait to share.

Today on let's get crafty special that is this week I give to you Reindeer Handprint T-shirts.

And of course they are totally easy to do.

What you will need

Fabric paints and markers
T-shirt
Cardboard
Child to supply handprints (though adults hand would of course work it is just nice to include the kids :)

What you will need to do

Being the visual kind of person that I am, Jess drew a picture to help with the planning.

Take the cardboard and place it inside the shirt. That way the paint won't seep through to the other side.
Paint child's hand and place down on the shirt. Repeat with the other hand.

The hands will form the reindeer antlers. It works a little better if you have the base of the hands tilted in towards a little more than what I have shown here.

Next paint the face. As you can see from the drawing the head is a triangle with round corners, if that makes sense.

As you can see the painting of the face is very serious business.

Using some black paint add some eyes and nose. Unless of course you want your reindeer to be Rudolf and then you should use red for the nose. And there, ladies and gentlemen is one quick and easy hand print reindeer.

Add your own personalisation to the bottom of the shirt.

Prior to washing the shirt you will need to iron the picture with a clean piece of paper over it so that the paint sets.

And if reindeers aren't your thing then you could always try your hand at a Christmas tree

What's more if you don't want to use a t-shirt the kids could make the pictures on paper instead. They would make lovely wall hangings for the festive season.

Make sure you    and share with your friends

Cute Flower Headbands

Hello and welcome to day two of Rhianna Gets Crafty. Yesterday was all about the button bracelet and today is all about cute flower headbands.

Once again they are quick and simple and highly effective. 


Tomorrow I am not sure whether to share some easy bunting or these lovely over the top hair clips.
The girls wore them to carols by candlelight the other night. Well at least they were wearing them at the start of the night.
Some how one may have ended up on my head at one point.

As Christmas quickly approaches I have the overwhelming desire to make stuff.  And with the school holidays only days away I need to find stuff to do with the kids, so it is all a win win really. Especially when you take into account my desire to blog my way to stardom. Leaving you the really winner because you get the low down on some simple things to make and do.

After all what is a mummy blogger without a bit of craft now and then?

Mind you, just between you me and the fence post, my craft skills are somewhat lacking at times. I always seem to have dreams of grandure that are hard to fulfil. Thankfully though I am slowly discovering activities that are not only within my capabilities but also the girls. So let's get back to today's material flower headbands.
My desire to know how to make material flowers has been unfulfilled for a very long time. When I found out just how easy they were at a recent Spotlight in store demonstration I couldn't wait to get home and give it a go.

All you need are
Five circles of material.

These ones are about 8cm in diameter. It is hard to say really as we didn't measure them. Miss Eleven just traced around the inside of one of my bangles.

Clever thing that she is!

Fold a circle in half and with a needle and thread sew along the round edge of your now semi circle. Just do a loose running stitch a couple of mm long. When you get to the end pull the thread tight so that the edge pulls together. Then do the same with the next circle just adding it to your existing thread.
After the fifth petal is attached do a few little stitches into the first petal to secure it all in place. Now all you need to do is add a button to the center.

I initially sewed the button in place because I had no other alternative. However I have since come into possession of a hot glue gun.

Oh me oh my!

How I ever survived without one before I do not know. If you really don't want to fork out the $20 or so for a gun and 50 glue sticks so be it. Sew your button on, it is possible, a little tricky to ensure it is securely fastened but certainly doable. If however you are a little flush with cash and it is burning a hole in your pocket go and get one of these little beauties. I foresee much use of it in my future.

Back to the headbands though.

Once the button is on you need to attach your flower to your head band. Depending on the look you want the possibilities are almost endless.

You could measure out a piece of braided elastic as I did in the picture at the top of the page. It was prior to my glue gun ownership so I just sewed them on the elastic. As you can see I made three flowers and popped them in a row.

Alternatively you could get a pre purchased headband like this


And attach the flower to it. Made oh so easy with a glue gun and a strip of material. Attach the flower to the material and then the material to the headband.


And there you have it. A lovely new original headband.

Feel free to this to your favorite board and share with all your friends.

Joining in with Jess and the gang for #IBOT. 

Share the comment love

Quick and Easy Button Bracelets

As Christmas fast approaches I tend to avoid the shops like the plague. I love that Christmas is a time for giving gifts but where ever possible I like to give gifts that have a more personal and homemade touch than what can just be found at the shops.

For years my homemade and personal touch was a photo in a decorated frame. Some years I tried to scrapbook a page to put in a decorated frame. It wasn't long before people seemed to tire of it though and I had to look for new ideas. Which have ranged from cushion covers and coasters to plants and handmade pottery. Some of which have worked, others not so much.

One of the things I am loving this year, especially for the girls to gift to their friends at school is these button bracelets. I first saw these months ago and while I thought I had bookmarked the page, I hadn't. So using only my limited memory I got out some buttons and thick elastic and gave it a go.

The results spoke for themselves and before I knew it I had button bracelets for everyone. The first few that I made used big buttons and literally took all of fifteen minutes to make. Though with hindsight I should have spent a bit more time really securing the buttons on as the girls did manage to loosen the odd one here and there.

The next batch were a bit more adventurous and a lot more time consuming. Since they were actually going to be presents for some newly turned seven year olds though I thought it worth the extra effort

With these ones I used all sorts of different sized purple buttons. I secured them to the elastic with some rather lovely (and very strong) metallic thread that I purchased a few years ago when I tried to use it to crochet necklaces. Total failure that was. In terms of holding these buttons in place though, perfect. Mind you any old thread would do the trick as well.

So here is what you need to do.

• Grab some 20mm braided elastic and a heap of buttons. Well 10-40 depending on size of buttons and length of elastic.
• Measure the elastic to go around the wrist of the recipient. Mind you I guessed for the girls and went with about 15cm which gave me about 1.5cm over hang at the ends.
• With your needle and thread secure the two ends to form a ring.
• Begin sewing buttons on to elastic, ensuring they are secured tightly. I sewed mine very, very close together, with one button actually being under the other. Which created a nice layered effect.
• Keep adding buttons till you are back at the start and the elastic can no longer be seen.

Easy as huh?

Not only do these make great gifts, but they are a lovely activity to do with the kids during the holidays as well.

Only don't be like me and forget to bookmark this awesome page.

Make sure you

Oh and just in case you are after some more great quick and easy ideas check back tomorrow for some gorgeous material flowers that go great guns as headbands!