I upcycled some small tined fruit cans to make these cute hanging egg baskets. Follow the instructions below to find out how easy it is.
What you will need
Small tin can
Decritave Paper
Ribbon
Styrafoam beads
Glittery egg decorations
Method
Take the small tin you want to use. Make sure it is nice and clean. you can remove the label but I decided to leave it as the decritive paper will stick easier to it. Mesure up the paper and using double sided stick it to the tin.
Till the tin with some syrafoam beads, leaving space at the top for the eggs.
Tie some ribbon around the tin and make a bow at the dront. On each side tie some more ribbon. This will be used to hang the tin in the window
Put eggs in the top of the tin, mixing the colours in the different time. The first tin is done. Make 6 in total.
Them put some letters on the tins E A S T E R . I then used a market to outline the letters to help them pop a bit more.
Hang the tins in order in the window. I used the raill for the net curten to do this. Its was very hard to make them all hang at perfect level but I actually tink it adds caractor having thm at different levels.
Using the green wool, start ch 9 stitches. Round 1: Ch 2, dc into the next 8 stitches. turn your work Round 2: Ch 2, dc into the next 8 stitches. turn your work. Change wool to white colour Round 3-4: repeat round 1 & 2 and then change to orange colour wool Round 5-6: repeat rount 1 & 2 again Fasen off and weave in the ends.
To make the garland
To make the garland ch 40 of the green wool Add one of the crochet shamrocks to the chain using a sl st. Ch 20 more stitches Add a crochet flag to the chain using a sl st across the green side Ch 20 more stitches and add another shamrock repeat adding flags and shamrocks untill you feel you have enough. Once you have added the last one, ch 40 more and fasen off.
I was looking for something simple to do for St. Patricks day and I tought a shamrock broach was the best idea. Here is my step by step on how to make a crochet shamrock
Begin with a magic ring Round 1: ch 4, work 3 tr into the center ring. ch3, sc into the ring.
Repeat 2 more times to make 3 petals.
Stem: After the petals, ch5. Work 1 sc in the 2nd ch from the hook. 3 sl et in chains just made back twords the petals. Join with a sl st into center ring.
Fasen off and weave in the ends.
Grab some safety pins
Pick one that works best size wise
Use a wool needle to secire the pin to the shamrock
So I have well and thoroughly caught the crochet bug, so expect to see alot more crochet projects over the next while
Here is a Crochet Project I did recently, for Valentines. I made some crochet hearts.
I have given a brief method below.
What you will need
Sise 4 crochet hook
100g Acrylic wool in the colour you want to use
Stitch marker, safety pin.
Toy stuffing.
Abbreviations
st: stitch ch: chain stitch sc: single crochet 1 incr: make 2 sc in same st 1 decr: make 1 sc through 2 sts sl st: slip stitch
Method
HEART TOPS Using the color you want your heart to have Begin with a magic ring Round 1: 6 sc in the ring (6) Round 2: [incr] x6 (12) Round 3: [1sc, incr] x6 (18) Round 4: 1 sc, incr, [2 sc, incr] x5, 1 sc (24) Round 5-7: 24 sc (3 rounds, 24) Cut the yarn of one of the tops (top no.1), and leave a tail end of about 20 cm.
Repeat the above for the second one but Do NOT cut the yarn of the other top (top no.2).
HEART First crochet the two tops together. Take top no.2 and place it side by side with top no.1. Begin by working top no.1. Round 1: 23 sc around each top, 46 sc in all (46) Sew up the hole between the two tops with the tail end of top no.1. Round 2: 8 sc, decr, 1 sc, decr, 18 sc, decr, 1 sc , decr, 10 sc (42) Round 3-4: 42 sc (2 rounds, 42) Round 5: [5 sc, decr] x (36) Round 6: 2 sc, decr, [4 sc, decr] x5, 2 sc (30) Round 7-8: 30 sc (2 rounds, 30) Place the safety eyes between rounds 4 and 5 with 7 sts in between. Embroider a mouth and two cheeks. Round 9: [3 sc, decr] x6 (24) Round 10-11: 24 sc (2 rounds, 24) Fill with stuffing as you work on. Round 12: 1 sc, decr, [2 sc, decr] x5, 1 sc (18) Round 13-14: 18 sc (2 rounds, 18) Round 15: [1 sc, decr] x6 (12) Round 16-17: 12 sc (2 rounds, 12) Round 18: [decr] x6 (6) Round 19: 6 sc (6) Cut the yarn and sew up the small hole.
There you have it, its that easy. Why don’t you give it a go yourself and spread the crochet love.
The above pattern is base on the design found at hobbii.com
Valentines is one of my favourite times and I an excuse to put up some more decorations after a sad depressing January.
I had some leftover styrofoam cones left from making Christmas decorations so I thought they would make perfect Love Fool Trees.
What you will Need
Styrofoam Cones
Crepe Paper
Felt Ribbon
Heart Embellishments
Red Buttons
Pink Fluffy Embellishments
Pipe Cleaners
Pearl Garland
Scrabble Letters
Foam Double Sided Tape
Glue Gun and Glue
Method
Take the Cone and cove them with come coloured crepe paper. I used some that I had kept from a Christmas gift. The pink paper is actually from a bunch of flowers.
Then I took a pip cleaner and made them into a heard to put at the top. Then I used some ribbon and wraped it around the tree.
Styrofoam Cones
Crepe Paper
Wrap Cone
Pipe Cleaners
Velvet Ribbon
Starting to look good
To finish off the Pink one I used some foam double sided squares and covered it in Red buttons and Hearts on it.
On the Red one I started by adding some scrabble letters. Then I added some pearl garland to it. I then used some double sided to stick the fluffy embellishments on it.
I thought they where all done and I left them on the mantle in the sitting room. I went back in later and found that the pick fluffy embellishments had all fallen off. So I decided to glue gun them on instead. they stayed on this time.
Scrabble Tiles
Pearl Garland
Double Sided didn’t work
And there you have it, two Love Fool Trees. Why don’t you give it a go yourself.
Hi all, it feels like I’m starting this blog all over again with this post. Its been nearly a year since I posted last. Its not that I haven’t crafted in a year far from it. I just didn’t have the time to sit at a computer and type. I know some people can blog from a phone of a tablet but I like the traditional desktop. I like to look at the bigger picture. Just like in my life.
Now talking about the bigger picture, the reason I have been keeping it low key is because we welcomed our baby girl into the world last July. Máible is a super wee kid and we couldn’t have asked for more.
I now find my crafting steering towards everything baby related. I did do some baby related items before like the Nappy Babies and the Baby Name Frames but now I have started a new passion inspired by our little one, CROCHET.
During the last few months of my pregnancy 2 things happened. 1, I found it hard to move around, some days I would be in a lot of pain. It was really annoying as all I wanted to do is clean and get ready for this baby. 2, COVID 19, if I wanted to go anywhere I really couldn’t. I needed to find something productive to do that didn’t involve much moving around. I sat in the craft room and made some toys at the sewing machine but the setting it the chair even hurt.
The place I was most comfortable was in the recliner chair but there wasn’t much I could do from there. That was until I saw a Facebook post my cousin Dan put up. He was doing the #Challange32 for Holler Street Hospital by crocheting an item of baby clothes every day. I thought I could make some hats? I had done some crochet before but wasn’t very good at it. I messaged Dan and he helped me with some patterns. It did take some time but I got the hang of it and I was off.
During lockdown there weren’t many places open that had craft supplies. The main places I went was Mr. Price and Dealz. These both had stocks of wool with Mr. Price having the largest selection.
I decided I would make hats for the prenatal babies in my local hospital, I would bring them with me when I went in to have Máible. I made about 20 in different sizes. I also made 2 when I was in there in early labor. It was a great distraction got the first few hours of contractions.
I did make some for our wee baby too, this one was my favourite, I’m not sure she was as keen.
This was the very first hat I made, love the colour combination.
The two above and below are different variations based on the basic design of the hat.
As some of you may already know we are expecting a little bundle of joy this July. I thought this would be no better time to show you some of the Baby gift I have made for friends in the last few years.
Let me introduce to you Nappy Babies. These super cute guys are easy to make, and they really brighten up a hamper.
What you will need
A Nappy
An Elastic
Googly Eyes and Pen
Small Facecloth
Baby Socks
Method
Take
the Nappy and roll it from the padded side to the thin waistband.
Once this is secure place an elastic around it to hold it. Not too
tight to make a dint n the Nappy.
Now
take the small face cloth and wrap it around the nappy like a swaddle
?
Cover the elastic as you do this.
Now
you are going to use a sock as a hat so turn up the cuff of the sock
a few times. Now place it on the other end of the nappy.
All
it needs now is a face. For this on I stuck on some googly eyes and
drew on a smile. Sometimes I draw on little closed eyes like they are
sleeping
What
do you think? Here are so samples of where I used them. Why don’t
you give it a go?
With spring in the air it is coming are to wedding fair season again. With this in mind I wanted to share the full range of crafts and design work I did for wedding back in October 2018.
I have a previous blog post where I talk about some of the crafts but here I am going to go into it in more detail Wedding Craft Part 1
Wedding Stationary
Invitations
As everyone knows the wedding invite is your guests first look at what your wedding is going to be like. Some people go with an elegant invite, some more simple. We had 2 themes in our wedding, Music and Vintage. With this in mind we went with a ticket style invitation. With the RSVP being the ticket stub. By doing the design myself we saved a lot of money.
Mass Booklet
When we got engaged I had a friend do a caricature of the two of us to use on simple thank you cards. I was so happy with this I asked her to do something similar for the mass booklet. The very talented Rebecca Carmichael was more than happy to help us again and I have to say she did a great job.
On a side note in relation to the Mass booklets I have 2 pieces of advice. No 1. Do the content as early as possible, I left it a bit last minute and it was unnecessary stress coming u to the last few weeks. No 2. Get an external person to proof read the booklets to check for spelling and grammar. We had an unfortunate, but funny when we think of it now spelling mistake at the end of one of the readings. “Thanks be to God” turned into “Thanks be to Good”. Luckily my friend that was due to do the reading spotted it a few days before hand and we came up to a sticker plan to cover it. She also did that for me that took a lot of pressure off.
Bridesmaid Gift
I couldn’t decide what to do for the Bridesmaids gifts, so I decided to do it all ?
I made a personalised gift box for each bridesmaid. I got the boxes from IKEA and using the Teal from the theme from the wedding to decorate it. I used teal tissue paper in the box. I put a strip of teal ribbon at the bottom of the lid and using vinyl I put each of their names.
Inside where Pyjamas
with the girls name subtly printed on them. I also got some printed for myself.
For the night before
a small bottle of Rose Wine branded with a sticker. For the next morning a
personalised mug. A personalised Makeup bag with some essentials, Lip Balm, Mirror,
hair ties etc.
I had my fried Ali in A Little Idea custom make a necklace for the 3 of us. 3 small cups representing each one of us on a beautiful chain.
Lastly I did some personalised hangers for the dresses, I have a blog post on how I made these here.
Headpiece
With me going for a 50’s style short wedding dress a long vail wasn’t really an option. A headpiece with a small mesh vail would work best. Being the crafter that I am I wanted to have a go at making one myself but I had zero experience in making a headpiece so I went to a Fascinator work shop at The Design House in Dublin City Centre.
In this
class I learned how to make a base to hold the design. I also learned how to
make fabric flowers with some metal in the petals to make them bendy.
Of all the things I made for the wedding this was the hardest and I was still making it the night before. I would leave this to the professionals if ever I need one again or make it the only craft thing I have to do for the day.
The Bicycle
The apple didn’t fall far from the tree in my house as both my parents like to make and create things also. My Mam gave my Grandmothers old bicycle a new lease of life for the wedding. Granny’s bike was an old style black heavy bike with white trim. Mam painted the black with a lovely shade of blue as well as cleaning up the white trim , seat and handles also.
She got a
new basket for the front and put some flowers in it for the day. I also added a
welcome sign and the bike was placed at the front gate of the church.
Paper Flowers
During the Pinathon I had on Pinterest before my wedding looking for crafty ideas I came across these beautiful origami paper flowers. A lot of people used them to make their bouquets but I wanted real flower for that so I decided that I would use them on the church pews. I talk about them more in Wedding Craft Part 1 and I also have a step by step on how to make them in the Easter Basket. My good friend Maeve at Home Grown Sustainability helped me make the flowers and they where then used at her and her sister-in-laws wedding also so they where worth all the effort.
Centrepieces, Seating Plan, Cake table
I talk about the Centrepieces in the Wedding Craft part 1 but I just wanted to show how they tied with the seating plan and cake table
Music and
vintage where the two themes we had in our wedding. For the seating plan I
created tables based on bands myself and my husband had been to see or love
their songs.
On each table I had the name of the band on a record in the centre of the table. To wrap up the music theme I then had cassette tape chocolate wedding favours at each guest seat.
There was a vintage part of the centrepieces also. I talk about the doilies, flower jars in the Wedding Craft Part 1.
Here I will talk about the china teacups and tea lights. I picked up a mix and match of some cups and saucers in the local weekly outdoor market as well as some in charity shops. I wanted to put tealight in each on the tables. I decided to go with the battery-operated ones as this they they would stay lit for hours. I also upcycled these at Christmas and made them into scented candles as gifts. Blog post here
I kept with the vintage tea party aspect when it came to the cake table also. I found a cute tea set that matched my grandmother’s old tea pot and arranged the table for tea for two.
We decided to go small with the dress cake so this fit in well on the tea table. We had our fab cakes made by our friend Ciara at Ciara’s Cistin
The cake stand was a gift we received a few months previous and fitted in perfectly
And there you have it, that is all the crafty bits and bobs I did for my wedding. Id like to thank Sonja Smith Photography for letting me use her beautiful photos as well as doing a fab job on the big day
