#silentsunday

Kids Crafts – A Crown To Get You Noticed

Ok, so Alice’s school will be awarded a very large check of money today! Why? Because her school have taken first place in this years spelling bee table… In our language, it simply means that her school boasts some of the best spellers in the country.

To help to share the schools success the local paper will run a piece accompanied by some images of some of the pupils. In order to get selected as one of the chosen pupils to be photographed, children including my daughter, were asked to make a crown, the type that would get them noticed. Well, my daughter being the girl who never shies away from a camera, got on the job right away.

Armed with a box of bits and bobs, she got to work. Given we had to be somewhere yesterday evening meant she didn’t actually have all that long to design and create her “large” noticeable hat! But in all fairness this little lady is pretty capable of doing some fantastically creative projects in a tiny space of time.

So… Here it is! Her flower, butterfly, and of course… Bumble bee crown.

She used all sorts of materials to create her crown, from tissue paper to sequins, glitter to foam, card and decorative tape. A mountain of flowers that were so delicately sprinkled with glitter, then laid lightly around the crown. She even made a bumble bee eye mask to match her large hat! Alice may now have walked the walk to school with a head full of bumble bees but she did so in style.

She is a real inspiration my amazing Alice-Sara! Even if her oversized bumble bee crown doesn’t get her in the local rag, it gets her in my top spot list, as she always does, time and time again!

Well, thanks for checking out the crown of bumble bees! We hope Alice-Sara has inspired your little ones to get creative with buzzing bumble bees.

Easy Personalised Art Work For Children’s Bedroom (Tutorial)

Sometimes you realise that a room could do with a bit of a cheer up. Not that you need to redecorate, painting the walls a new colour… Sometimes the addition of a little art work is all that’s needed to make a boring wall a magical one.

My daughters bedroom walls were looking a tad boring so with this in mind I decided to make some simple artwork to cheer it up a little

What I used to create this easy flower and butterfly picture.

Thick Card Square (measuring 30 by 23 centimetres)
Blue Metallic Acrylic Paint
Green Pic-Tixx 3D Glitter
3 Handcrafted Butterflies
5 Yellow Buttons
Pain & Glitter Flower Pre-Cut Shapes
Deco Pen (light green)
Glittered Card Letters
Mod Podge (clear gloss finish)

Tools
Glue Dots
2 Medium Size Paint Brushes (for glue and paint)

Optional… Box Frame To Display Art

How to Make…

1) Paint your piece of card with the blue metallic paint. Leave to dry then paint a second coat.

2) Once both coats have been applied and your card is fully dry, use your green deco paint pen to draw the flower stalks onto the card like so…

3) Use the green Pic-Tixx pen to randomly add some sparkly leafs to the flower steams. Leave to dry for a least an hour.

4) Once dry use glue dots to add the flower shapes to the ends of the flower steams. Layer these up and use the yellow buttons to finish of the bigger flowers. Be creative, mixing sizes and colours for different effects.

5) Once all your Flowers have been added use a thick brush to cover the picture in a layer of mod podge. Sponge around the flowers as glue tends to sit within these areas. Now leave to dry.

6) Once dry add your glittery letters along the bottom of your picture. Cover these in a thin layer of mod podge using a sponge. Leave to dry for 45 minutes.

7) Once dry add glue dots to the backs of your 3 butterflies (2 each to the bodies). Add to your picture by pressing and holding down firmly.

Add your picture to a frame, a box frame is best as it allows room for the butterflies.

Mine is yet to be placed in a frame but it looks pretty great wouldn’t you agree?

Resources…
Handcrafted Butterflies (£1 pack of 4 from PoundLand)
Paint, Deco pen and Pic-Tixx (Baker Ross Ltd)
Mod Podge (Hobbycraft)
Flower Shapes (PoundLand)
Letters (eBay)

#silentsunday

My latest Art – Japanese Teen

Japanese Teen

For more of my work please click the ‘Creative Flare’ tab under the main blog header.

Would love to know what anyone thinks.

Crafting With Decopatch – Make Vintage Inspired Frames

I really enjoy crafting with Decopatch. I’m forever on the lookout for things to cover in Decopatch paper.

I’m currently awaiting some great paper mâché Christmas decorations which I plan to Decopatch in some beautiful new Christmas papers I brought from eBay, but in the meantime I’ve been busy making things pretty in my bedroom.

Below is a pretty little frame I decopatched and decorated this afternoon.

I’d be lying if I wrote that working with Decopatch was really easy. In theory Decopatch is relatively simple, however, in reality it is much more tricky than one would expect.

You see, its rather messy to start with and its also a bit of a fiddle when layering the pieces of paper. If your wanting your design to look complete in terms of the paper design you need to patch it together like a jigsaw. I never worry to much about this part! As long as the patten doesn’t look to odd its fine by me.

For this frame, I used an A5 piece of Decopatch paper cut into small pieces. I then covered a small square frame in Decopatch glossy glue (normal glue is no good, Decopatch glue dries with a glossy finish). I then layered on the pieces of paper adding a layer of glue over each piece as I went.

This time I was sure to allow the paper to crease as to give it a more aged effect.

Once I had covered the frame I took a corsage cream flower I had made previously and glued this to the top left hand corner. I covered the flower in the same glossy glue as to give it that same glossy finish.

I than left it to dry for 3-4hrs.

This frame could actually do with a few more layers as you can still slightly see the lines from each piece of paper. I would normally do this once the first layer or two have fully dried. However, I kind of like the effect and have therefore decided to keep it this way.

Winter Flowers 12/366

My 12th picture in the 366 project is of the winter flowers that sit in the centre of our dinning table. The thing is, I brought these fresh flowers one week before Christmas 2011 and its now the 21st of January and these super flowers are still living! Maybe this is normal but in my experience, flowers never past the 2 week mark in this house (with 2 weeks being considered a long period of time in my book)! I’ve done nothing special in regards of their care, they have lived so long that I’ve had to refill the vase with water three or four times as these hungry festive flowers have drunk it all up over the past month! The only explanation I have is maybe it was the food that came with them (you know, the little sachet of plant food that you get when you buy them)! Does anybody else ever find there fresh flowers last for such long periods of time? 

Related articles

• Flowers in January (fiberythings.wordpress.com)
• Precious winter flowers (fritillaryblog.wordpress.com)
• Our Garden of Winter Flowers (whitecranes.wordpress.com)