Family fun

Generally, 'making moments' are a communal thing in our house, so hot on the heals of my last post showing my card making efforts, here are those of my little boy. Usually, if I am honest, his efforts put mine to shame (and this is no exception)... so I hope you enjoy:

(i) Valentines day (foam hearts and glitter on an aperture card)
(ii) Robot (an early representational piece!)















(iii) Snowman (cork and potato print with glitter and toothpick accessories!)
(iv) Guiding Star (taking advantage of his love of cutting things up into tiny pieces and then rearranging them, (in this case last year's Christmas cards) - OK I had influence over the shape they were glued into but even so....)

Wrapped around your finger

It has been a difficult couple of weeks in our household with illness and unfortunately death striking across the family. There have been a lot of emotions flowing which I hope to capture in some form as gifts of condolence and comfort to my nearest and dearest. These items hopefully will show here before too long, but in the mean time, here are some cards I made in more quiet times.














The first is one (green and gold on cream background) is called frosty lawn, which was made by cutting up strips of fancy fabric, and knitting them in randomly with a rather nice green speckled yarn.

Next is starry night (on blue background), which was a lovely petrol blue mix yarn of very varied texture (can't you tell I am not very good at this by how poor my descriptions are!) Just straight knitted into a largish sample, then sewn onto a backing cloth, chopped up, glued down and star shaped embelishments added.

Finally (stripey on black background) is a yarn wrapping technique using my extensive "neutral tone" (no... not beige!) stash, which I have rather grandly called 'Snow on the Charnwood Hills'. Of the three I like this best, followed by frosty lawn.

Anyway, they have started my homemade christmas card collection (not bad for August!).

Baubles, bangles and beads

Here is an update on the plaster of paris and chocolate tray project...

My boy and I filled the tray with the plaster, left it overnight to set, then the next day we turned them out and sprayed them gold.
Then the fun really began as we pulled out our mighty selection of glitter, sequins, stickers and beads. I think they look pretty good, and will definitely grace our home at Christmas time.

I'm quite keen on this plaster modeling as an activity for children now. There is stirring and pouring to do, then the waiting (good discipline for them!), then pressing out from the moulds, and then the final decoration. I think we might be making a series of bespoke fridge magnets next!

Summertime blues

I have a young son who started school this year - this is our first summer holiday period, and I am really enjoying having him back at home every day. I know it is sometimes difficult to keep children entertained during the very long summer break, but so far we have not had any difficulties.

This is our next project...


I love this photo because it makes a very mundane item into something very interesting. This is the tray from a box of chocolates. They were very nice chocolates :-) and the tray reflects their quality in that it is much more sculpted and robust than the normal cellophane trays you get. So apart from photographing it, we plan to fill it with plaster of Paris, turn out the individual pieces, file them, spray them gold then decorate them with sequins and beads and use them as Christmas decorations. (Yes, I know it is only August, but actually everyone I take into my confidence and tell that I am already hatching Christmas plans then confesses to me that they are doing the same thing!).

I imagine that will keep a small boy entertained for most of an afternoon. Watch this space for the results!