Sharing some of my favourite felt crafts

I really love crafting with felt. Felt comes in a huge range of colours, you can cut and sew it easily without the need for hemming, it's durable and very versatile. Over the years I've featured lots of felt crafts on my blog, including my very first blog post, and so I thought that I'd share some of my favourites in a round up post.

As I said above, my very first blog post was a felt craft, sharing these felt party rings and cookies that I made. I've also used felt to make lots of other play food for the children's toy kitchen, and it is all still played with today. Among other things I made a felt sandwich set and a felt and salt dough pizza.

Another homemade toy that I was really proud of was the magnetic felt fishing game. Unfortunately the fishing rod has broken, but the children still play with the fishes and they've held up really well.

I've also used felt for some more grown up craft projects. I love my two felt button pictures that are now hanging above my desk. You can find the instructions here - Green Button and Felt Framed Tree Picture and Pink Button and Felt Framed Tree Picture. I like how they are both different yet still match.

Another decorative picture that I made was this embroidery hoop flower art, it's difficult to judge the size from the photograph but it's quite small, about 10cm across. I could easy make loads of these as they are so easy and fun to do, but I'm running out of places to hang them!

I was also really pleased with the Denim and Felt Butterfly Bunting that I made for our summer house. Some of the butterflies have become a little faded after nearly four years (!) but it still looks really pretty hanging up out there and makes me smile when I see it.

Finally, I've also found felt a really good material to use with the children for some first sewing projects. These little Valentine's Day felt gift bags were really easy for them to make and decorate, and look really pretty.

You can see all of my felt projects on my Felt Crafts page.

How to make a dragon cave and magic dragon egg

For this month's Bostik Bloggers challenge the theme was Dragons. The children love the toy dragons that they have, and with lots of pretty sparkly coins and jewels included among the craft materials, we decided to make a play cave for their dragons to live in and store their treasure. We also made a magic dragon egg for the cave.

For the dragon cave you need:

A small cardboard box
A flat piece of thick cardboard for the base
Other junk modelling materials - we used screwed up newspaper as that was all we had but you could also use small boxes, egg box cartons, pieces of polystyrene etc.
Bostik White Glu
Tissue paper (black or grey is best, but you can use any colour and paint it)
Paints - you might want black, white, grey, green or silver
Foam sheets in appropriate colours
Coloured felt
Bostik Glitter Pens
Piles of plastic coins, jewels, strings of sequins, coloured buttons and so on to decorate the inside of the cave.
A toy dragon or two - we used our small green dragon from the Playmobil Dragon Fortress.

First you need to build your cave - this is the part that takes the longest! I cut open a cardboard box, cut off the top flaps, and taped the base back together to make it more cave like at the back. Then I mounted it onto a piece of flat cardboard. I used rolled up newspaper around the edges to make some rocks and to give it a bit more texture.

Then the children could get involved. We mixed some Bostik White Glue with water (approximately two parts glue to one part water) to thin it out a bit. This makes the glue go further, and it is also easier to spread, making the tissue paper wetter and easier to manipulate. I tore the black tissue paper up into quite large pieces which we coated with glue and used to cover the box and the scrunched up newspaper. I finished by covering the whole thing with another layer of glue to make sure that it was all stuck down, then we left it outside in the sun to dry.

When it was dry we used some grey paint to give the rocks a few highlights and make it look more realistic. I also used some green felt to cover the flat base in front of the cave, and Harry made some stepping stones from green foam, all stuck down with the White Glu.

Then we finished the cave by painting it all over with some of the Glitter Pens.

I squeezed them out onto a plastic lid so that the children could apply the glitter glue with brushes which meant that they covered the cave nicely.

I stuck some strings of green sequins to one side of the cave to make some shiny vines hanging down, then we filled the cave with the jewels, plastic coins, the dragon egg and of course a dragon!

I'm so pleased how well it turned out, I think it looks fab and it will make a great addition to our Dragon castle play set up!

For the magic dragon egg you need:

A styrofoam egg
Gold or silver acrylic paint
Sequins, jewels and glitter to decorate

First you need to paint the egg, which is a little fiddly. I stuck a cocktail stick into the bottom of the egg, then the other end into a large ball of Bostik Blu Tak to hold it stable while I painted it. It needed a couple of coats of paint to cover completely, but it doesn't need to be completely smooth.

When it's dry, decorate it with a selection of sequins and jewels, using plenty of Bostik White Glu to hold them all in place. If you have lots of smaller sequins you might find it easier to just coat the egg in glue and dip it into the sequins, or sprinkle them over the top. I held it while Mia dropped the sparkly things onto it over a sheet of newspaper. Then place it safely in the cave, guarded by a dragon!

This box of craft materials was provided to me free of charge by Bostik as part of the Tots100/Bostik Craft Bloggers Club.

Music is the answer to more family time

Do you play music around the house? New research from Sonos has revealed that families that listen to music out loud spend an extra hour together each week, as well as eating an extra meal together each week.

I've always found that background music kept my children calm when they were little. My son in particular was quite a grumpy, easily bored baby, and we had a CD of children's music songs that we played over and over, it really made a difference to his mood! Now, my husband will often initiate a 'disco' before bed where he'll turn up a few party songs, and the children will dance like mad around the room showing off their moves.

8 out of 10 people from the 4000 Brits surveyed agreed that household tasks are easier when listening to music and I definitely agree with this, I love playing my old Britpop albums while I'm doing some ironing or any other household task that seems to drag on for ages. At the moment I'm decorating the kitchen, and it's a lot more interesting doing the painting with some of my favourite songs to sing along to.

The infographic below represents the findings from the research, and I find it really interesting to think about how important music is to the family dynamic.

Is music around the home important to you?

I received a Sonos speaker in exchange for sharing this infographic.

Easter and Spring crafting with Baker Ross

I love it when we receive a new box of craft supplies from Baker Ross! This month we've received some lovely craft materials to make some Easter and Spring crafts.

We started with some Bird Ceramic Flowerpots. There were four in the pack so the children decorated two each using some HobbyLine Brights Porcelain Paints. The paints are gorgeous colours, really bright and cheerful and in a colour palette which work really well together. They covered the birds beautifully and dried to a lovely glossy finish. I was really impressed with how nicely the children decorated their birds! They are so colourful and would look lovely as little decorations or used to store some of their bits and bobs.

The Mini Birdhouse Gift Box Decorations are little pop out houses which can be decorated and glued together easily to make small hanging decorations. Filled with sweets they make a lovely gift box, or you could string a whole line of them together to make some really sweet bunting or garlands. I think they'd also make good Christmas decorations! We found it easier to decorate the houses before they were popped out, and because they are so small they aren't too daunting for little ones to think about decorating. The children used felt pens and a few small stickers. We filled them with sweets, then I stuck them together with glue stick as they were a bit fiddly. They are so pretty!

The Arrow Wooden Plaques are lovely sturdy hanging arrows which could be decorated for all sorts of purposes. We used ours to make some signs to give the Easter Bunny a helping hand. I began by giving all the arrows a coat of white emulsion so that the children had a plain background to work on, then they decorated them using felt pens.

Finally we used these Tissue Paper Flower Kits to make some tissue paper flowers to brighten up the windowsill in my office. The tissue paper is pre-cut and folded, so you just need to wrap it around with a pipe cleaner and then fluff out the petals. They were a little fiddly at first, but we soon got the hang of them, and we made them a little shorter than suggested so that they fit nicely inside one of my mugs.

I received a box of crafting supplies from Baker Ross as part of their Bloggers Network.

Review - Crafting with the Epson EcoTank ET-2500 printer

As a parent to young children and as a keen crafter, we get a lot of use out of our family printer. But we speed through printer cartridges so quickly that it does limit me, especially if I want to print in colour. I seem to be constantly printing out colouring sheets for Mia, and I must admit that I'm often put off printing things which would otherwise be fun, because I'm worried about using up all our ink.

I was recently given the opportunity to try out the Epson EcoTank ET-2500 printer. Instead of printer cartridges, this printer has refillable ink tanks. Although the cost of the printer, with an RRP of £229.99, is slightly higher than other printers on the market, this printer, which includes your first set of ink bottles, will print up to 4000 pages in black or 6,500 pages in colour. When you do need to replace the ink bottles, which for an average user is two years away, they are very reasonably priced with an RRP of £7.99 for each of the four bottles needed. 

I was a little nervous initially about filling the ink tanks, as I've heard that it can be a messy process. But it was easy. It's very obvious where each colour needs to go, so you just need to remove the lids to the tanks (there's a handy holder to keep them out the way), open the bottles, and pour the ink in.

There is a clear window on the side of the ink tank so you can easily see how much is left. When you have filled up the ink bottles you need to let the printer charge which takes about twenty minutes.

You can print wirelessly to the printer which is very handy for us as we have two desktop PCs in different rooms of the house, and there is also an app you can download for your smartphone meaning that you can print remotely even when you're not at home.

Having not really had a decent colour printer at home before, I was keen to see how well the printer would cope with some colour printables. I turned to my favourite resource for such things - Twinkl - and looked for a few simple papercrafting downloads to print out.

I was really impressed with the quality of the print, it's certainly better than colour printers that we've had in the past. The colours are clear and vibrant and it picks up all the details. I can see us doing a lot more paper crafting in future now I'm not constantly worrying about using up the colour cartridge! These nodding Easter bunnies are a fab Easter decoration and now I feel happy to print out and build an entire warren of them.

I have also discovered the world of free scrapbooking paper, which is available to print out for use in your own crafts. I printed out a sheet of free yellow gingham paper which I found here - Vintage Check Papers. Then I just wrapped it around an empty cardboard tube, secured in place with double sided tape, and added a band of pretty washi tape around the bottom. It's perfect for displaying my tissue paper flowers on my windowsill and brighten up a grey day!

On the same site I found some free Easter printable scrapbook papers. I printed them out and used them to make a simple Easter basket with a handle which can be filled with sweets. The egg decoration comes from the free printable Easter memory game.

We are really pleased with the Epson EcoTank ET-2500 printer, and I'd definitely recommend it. I love knowing that we are a long way from running out of ink and it gives me the confidence to print what I want to when I want to without worrying.

I received the printer in exchange for this review.

Some organising and decluttering books that I've enjoyed lately

Since the New Year I've been on a bit of a decluttering mission. I always find Christmas a bit overwhelming. Ram and I don't get much but the children always end up with a lot, and it's great and they are very lucky but it does take a little while to find new homes for everything.

It also takes a while to get going in January, because there is Harry's birthday too which brings another pile of things, and because we are often away for a few days we miss a couple of bin collections so it's not as easy to throw things away when they aren't actually going anywhere.

So for me this January was about spending free Kindle credit that I accumulated while doing the Christmas shopping (by choosing no rush delivery on Amazon and building up enough credit to buy books for the entire year which are digital so not sitting around cluttering up the place), reading about the joys of minimalist living, and making plans.

So I thought I'd share some of my favourite decluttering and organising books that have really struck a chord and inspired me.

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying by Marie Kondo

I wrote about this book last year - The Life Changing Magic of Tidying by Marie Kondo - and it is probably the current classic when it comes to decluttering and keeping it that way. I think it inspired me so much because it shifts the focus away from what to get rid of to what to keep. Although I do enjoy taking part in declutter challenges like the #minsgame I find it a lot easier to choose what to keep rather than what to let go.

I also like her way of thinking when it comes to sentimental objects. Sometimes something has entered our life for a purpose and when that purpose has been served it's time to move on. So you might have a beautiful dress in the wardrobe that you bought but have never worn, but you keep it because it was so expensive. You can thank the dress for the pleasure that it brought you when you purchased it, as that was the purpose that it served.

Aly at Bug, Bird & Bee recently wrote a great blog post about how reading the book this year and following her progress across social media has inspired me to pick it up again.

Miss Minimalist: Inspiration to Downsize, Declutter, and Simplify by Francine Jay (Kindle only)

This book is a collection of articles on the theme of minimalism, which I think are collected and/or adapted from her blog Miss Minimalist. So you can find a lot of the content over there for free, but it's nice to have them all collected together, and it wasn't very expensive. It was a quick read, but easy to pick up and put down when I only had a couple of minutes to read during the day. The articles are very varied and cover all areas of the home and types of possessions.

The Joy of Less - How to Declutter, Organize, and Simplify Your Life by Francine Jay

This is Francine Jay's longer book which covers many of the themes from her blog in a lot more depth, and it's more of a how-to guide when it comes to looking at your own home and possessions. I've just noticed from the blog that there is a new edition of the book which will be published in April 2016 so it might be worth hanging on for that, especially as this updated version of the book will have a new chapter on how to live clutter free as a family, something missing from her earlier work.

The book goes through all the main areas of your home in turn and talks about what we use these spaces for, what belongs there and what doesn't, and what to do with the things that you want to get rid of. Admittedly I did find that it could get a little repetitive, but then sometimes in order to hear a message you need to hear it repeated several times for it to sink in, and there is lots of inspirational chat to keep you motivated. In particular it has really motivated me to keep my surfaces clear and really think about what belongs in a space, as leaving one thing out just leads to more and more things being added and before you know it you have a house filled with cluttered surfaces.

Clutterfree with Kids by Joshua Becker

Joshua Becker also writes a popular minimalist blog - Becoming Minimalist - where you can find lots of inspirational reading. The book is a great read if you are dealing with family clutter, with an emphasis on removing the clutter to improve family life, for example having extra time to spend with the children instead of constant tidying and cleaning.

I enjoyed reading about his own journey to minimalism as it made it seem more achievable, and although there perhaps wasn't anything ground breaking in his approach, reading through definitely helped to reinforce the message.

Stuffocation by James Wallman

This one isn't such light reading as the others and it goes into more detail about the problems caused by consumerism, particularly in the US but worldwide too, and the modern problem of Stuffocation where people end up with so much more than they really need and what the reasons for this might be.

He also discusses the trend towards minimalism, and choosing experiences over possessions which was very interesting. It's not so much a practical guide to decluttering like the above books, but it's certainly worth a read.

Blogs

There are also a couple of blogs that I enjoy reading with similar themes that I'd definitely recommend if this is a topic that interests you.

The very popular Zen Habits has plenty of articles on simplifying life by reducing not just possessions but also commitments, helping to reduce stress and live more mindfully.

Unclutterer contains lots of tips and advice along with news and productivity tips. There is also the fab Unitasker Wednesday slot full of funny products that have no place whatsoever in a minimalist household!

These are books and website that I've particularly enjoyed reading but I know that there are loads more out there, I'd love to hear your recommendations!

Amazon links are affiliate.

Crafting is my Therapy March 2016

Welcome to the second month of our new crafty linky, Crafting is my Therapy, hosted by myself and Me, You and Magoo!

This month we were away for a week at Center Parcs, and I made the decision to leave my crochet at home, knowing that it wouldn't take me too long to catch up when I got back. I really missed it while I was away though, and I did start to regret having left it! So instead of crafting I used my spare time during the week to write in my Travel Listography book, making lists about places that I've visited and places that I'd love to go to. It's filling up nicely now, and it was fun to spend some time reminiscing about the fun that we've had travelling in the past.

I caught up with my Sky Blanket the day that we got home, and it's looking good now. I've been a little bolder and included some slightly different stitches to represent wind and snow, and continued adding a few extra bits of ribbon and button to portray things that I've seen in the sky.

It's also starting to look a little more like a blanket now that we've reached the end of February. It's not very wide, but I can see that it's going to be nice and long when it's finished!

I'm also getting on extremely well with my other crochet blanket project - my granny square blanket. These last steps have been a bit of a slog. My decision to make a wider border seemed like a good idea at the time, but each round took ages, and I also had problems with the border curling up so I tried various different ways to stop it, decreasing stitches at various points and turning the work back on itself.

I'm very excited to have finally started work on the last row! I'm attempting a scalloped edge which I think is working out really well and will finish the blanket off nicely. There will definitely be a ta-da blog post when it's finished!

Then I have another crochet project to work on - a pink crochet bunting pack designed by Attic24. I'm looking forward to having a go with the kit and hope that I can work it out, and I'm hoping that Mia will want the bunting for her bedroom when it's finished.

Amazon link is affiliate.