another bag

Christmas presents

I made these "rainy day" gingham bags for two sisters who are friends of ours. The bags are fully lined with some furnishing fabric which has given the bags a bit more weight and hopefully strength. I appliqued the initials and hearts from old jeans. They are called rainy day bags

because they are going to have scissors, crayons and paper dolls in them - and maybe some drawing paper too. I have added paper houses from Anna at twelve22 and a book of vintage paper dolls from Chez Beeper Bebe

The bags tie up with grosgrain ribbon. Now I have posted one image twice and cannot remove it....oops

Fab Freegle Wicker Chest

I was lucky to be given this wicker storage chest by a kind lady on my local freegle site (what was freecycle- I don't quite understand the internal politics of the change). We have received a few things from this family and have managed to give stuff to them, which I realy like. It fitted in my car boot (hurray) and now has pride of place in T's bedroom. I filled it very quickly with his spare and summer school uniform and jumpers too big for his bedroom drawers. It was quite heavy which made me think it was well made - I like its slightly tatty look, "It's vintage chic" I reassured Mr Minnado, though he didn't mind me bringing it into our house as it was (a) Free (b) a Storage item. Our house seems to be full and there is no room for more stuff so I have to sneak some things in.... I am slightly worried about Christmas and the onslaught of presents for the kids from well meaning relatives - this morning I took two bags to the charity shop. To make it even better I found a Paul Smith dress in green velvet there for £8.00. (with tags still on!!) It was a no brainer. I bought it with a view to resale but once I got it home and tried it on, I was in love! It fits and is a Real Lady Dress. I will upload pic soon. I now need to find a party to wear it to.

Felt Picture

We made this a few weeks ago - I did the cutting under direction from T - he drew shapes on paper which I used as templates for the felt. Then he did arranging and glueing. There was some overly enthusiastic use of glue.

This was the first thing we made with our craft felt pack from Ebay. I will definitely used craft felt again as I love the bright colours and it is so simple and easy to use. T enjoyed it so much that two more are under construction....I am trying to persuade him it would be a good idea to give one to Grandma for Christmas - he doesn't like to part with his masterpieces! Cue the conversation about how Christmas is about giving to others, thinking of others not just ourselves.... One great thing though , while making it he uttered the amazing words, "This is better than playing on the computer" Hallelujah!!

Christmas Cards

I set those children to work...inspired by the Kids Craft Newletter http://http://kidscraftweekly.com/simple_cards_issue.html. We bought a pack of craft felt on Ebay and it is really gorgeous stuff. I cut and stuck the tree shapes, then T decorated them with shapes we already had in the craft box. This was the first batch, I was mean enought to make him do it all again! I really like the simplicity of these and the brightness!

Then little sister had a go, her cards were made with some craft punches. One has a label shape and then we have a small Christmas tree shape and lots of pearlescent white glitter. She enjoyed using the craft punch, we used it on sugar paper and then on some of her gold and red finger paintings.