living on the crafty side of life

Day 5 of the Egg-ceptional Egg-xtravaganza

We are half way through our Egg-ceptional Egg-xtravaganza. In this post Mel and I are sharing a couple of kids Easter crafting ideas. Mel has made some gorgeous little Easter eggs made from dough, which the kids would love making.

My little project is making fluffy chicks from pom-poms. There are a few readers of my blog who will know of my love affair with little fluffy chicks at Easter. This year I've decided to make my own. Kids love pom poms, they are fun to make, and even more appealing if you can create little creatures from them. 

Here's a little step by step to making a pom pom fluffy chick.

Step 1: Make two pom poms, one slightly larger than the other. I've used the Clover Pom Pom Maker gadgets. They make whipping up pom pomsvery quick and easy. When you tie around the centre of the pom poms, do not cut the wool ties off.

 

Step 2: Separate the wool ties, matching one tie from one pom pom with a wool tie from the other pom pom. Repeat with the other ties.

 

Step 3: Tie the pom poms together, pulling the wool ties tight so the pom poms sit very closely to each other.

 

Tie a few knots to hold the pom poms together. Snip these wool ties off close to the pom poms. You now have the body of the chick made.

 

Step 4: Add a beak and eyes to the face of the chick. You can also add little wings if you would like to the body of the chick. I've used felt for these little pieces, cardboard could also be used. A little craft glue will hold these bits in place.

 

And there you have them... your very own little (or big) fluffy chicks.

 

Thanks for dropping by to see our Easter craft ideas. Mel and I will be back on Wednesday for our next Egg-ceptional Egg-xtravaganza post.

Hope you're having a great day.

Cheers

Fiona x

Day 4 of the Egg-ceptional Egg-xtravaganza

Hello, and thanks for dropping by for day 4 of our Egg-ceptional Egg-xtravaganza.

Today Mel and I have made some bunny softies using another bunny pattern which caught our eye out in blog-land. This bunny pattern has been designed by revoluzZza, and here is the link to the RevoluzZzionary Easter Bunny pattern and tutorial. Mel and I made this pattern into little bunny toys, but the pattern is great as a template for any Easter craft, as you will see in RevoluzZza's post.

 

This bunny pattern is so quick and easy to make, you'll be whipping up several of these little guys. I have used some pinwheel corduroy I bought recently from Spotlight. Spotlight had some gorgeous bright colours available in this material. The patterned fabric on the fuchsia bunny belongs to the Park Slope fabric collection by Erin McMorris. The small blue printed fabric on blue bunny is from Spotlight. Rick rack trim from Ribbons Galore.

 

 

 

Mel's bunny, Cocoa, can be seen on her blog. She has used a felted sweater and buttons to make Cocoa and she looks good enough to eat!

Hope you have a great weekend, and find a little time for your Easter crafting. See you Monday for our next post with some Easter crafting ideas.

 

Cheers

Fiona x

Day 3 of the Egg-ceptional Egg-xtravaganza

Welcome to day 3 of our Egg-ceptional Egg-xtravaganza. Mel and I are sharing some Easter bags and pouches ideas today. Our little bags and pouches are perfect for filling with Easter goodness and sharing with friends.

Mel has made some very cute little bags, you can find her post HERE.

I have made some Easter pouches. Last year I made little felt Easter egg bags which were super easy. This year I've changed these a little to make pouches from bubble corduroy and ribbons. These require a little more sewing than the felt bags, but they are still very quick and easy to make.

Easter project: Bubble corduroy Easter egg pouches.

Here's some step by steps to making my Easter pouches.

Step one: Cut fabric pieces 12cm x 28cm. Turn top and bottom hem over and sew.

 

Step 2:Create little ribbon tabs for threading ribbon in a later step. I cut grosgrain ribbon approximate 5cm long and sewed them onto the fabric approximately 2-3cm from the hemmed edges.

 

Here's a close up of the ribbon tabs:

 

Step 3:  Sew a piece of ribbon across the fabric. I've used some cute bunny ribbon from Ribbons Galore.

 

Below is a photo of what the pieces of fabric will look like at this stage:

 

Step 4: Fold fabric right sides together and sew side seams.

 

Step 5: Turn the little pouches right side out. I often talk before about production line crafting when making several pieces of the same project. This certainly can be applied to this project. Take one step at a time, cut all your fabric and pieces of ribbon. Then have your little pile of fabric at the sewing machine and stitch each step at a time. You'll soon have a little stack of bags.

 

Step 6: Thread ribbon through the tabs. Fill you little Easter pouches with goodies and you're ready for giving.

 

 

Thanks for joining Mel and I again today. We hope you'll visit us again on Friday for our next egg-ceptional egg-xtravaganza posts.

Have a great day.

Cheers

Fiona x

Day 2 of the Egg-ceptional Egg-xtravaganza

Welcome to day 2 of our Egg-ceptional Egg-xtravaganza, thanks for stopping by. Mel and I have been busy working on some little bunny softies. We have a couple of patterns picked out to make and share with you during our egg-xtravaganza.

Today's bunny comes from the very talented Betz White. Mel and I are using Betz's Cashmere Bunny pattern and tutorialto make our bunnies. Betz's tutorial has very clear instructions and photographs.

Here's my version of Betz's bunny.

I made my bunny from a soft polar fleece fabric. This fabric is thinner and softer than the regular polar fleece, it has a gorgeous velvety feel to it. I did see some in Spotlight the other day, but have forgotten the actual name of this fabric. It is VERY stretchy, so I backed it with some iron-onbatting and quilted it before cutting out my pattern pieces. This process just helped stabilize the fabric before sewing.

During the stuffing process I also added some lovely dried lavender along with the stuffing. So not only is bunny super soft, she smells good too. We've just had a couple of built-in wardrobes installed in our house and I thought this little bunny would look cute sitting up in Phoebe's wardrobe and make it smell nice too.

Make sure you visit Mel's blog for her gorgeous bunny. You can also see a few more bunnies over HERE.

Thanks for stopping by. See you on Wednesday for day 3 of our Egg-ceptional Egg-xtravaganza Easter craft ideas.

I just have to add, if you live in Sydney and are looking for a fabulous wardrobe company, you should consider SOHO Designs. From the design stage to installation they were great to deal with, very professional. I'm in storage heaven!

Cheers

Fiona x

Day 1 of the Egg-ceptional Egg-xtravaganza

Mel and I are sharing card and tag making ideas today. Mel has created gorgeous bunny cards today on her blog, take a peek HERE.

I've made an Easter bunny tag using one of my favourite little rubber stamps. Stamps are a great addition to your craft collection. You only need a few favourites and you can re-use them over and over again. I've made a larger tag so there is room to write a message to your tag recipient.

 

Here's a some steps to creating the tag.

Stamp the images onto smooth cardstock. I used StazOn ink this time as I didn't want to heat emboss my images. The StazOn dries quickly and I was able to colour the images without smudging.

 

Cut the images from the sheet. I will be framing my images, so I cut them slightly larger that the inner shape of my chosen frame.

 

Colour your stamped images:

 

Paint the chipboard frames:

 

Stick the stamped images behind the chipboard frames:

 

Cut a piece of felt slightly larger than the framed image (no need to attach at this point, I'll be stitching it to the card in a couple of steps):

 

Draw some lines across the tag. There are many journaling or ledger themed stamps available which you could also use. Drawing your own lines is very quick and easy:

 

Sew the framed bunny image to the corner of the tag. I sewed around the frame to hold this in place on the tag. I finished the felt piece off with a running stitch of embroidery thread:

 

Finish the tag with a big ribbon bow at the top.

This framed stamped image idea could be used on the front of little gift cards and on larger cards or added to the front of some packaging, like below. I have glued the frame onto the front of a pillow box which can then be filled with little chocolate Easter eggs.

   

Hope you enjoyed day 1 of our Egg-ceptional Egg-xtravaganza. If you make an Easter card or tag, leave a comment here on the blog with a link to your project. We'd love to share your creations as well.

Thanks for visiting. Until next Monday for our next Easter craft idea installment. Have a great weekend.

Cheers

Fiona x

Mel and Fiona's Egg-ceptional Egg-xtravaganza

I hinted yesterday in my blog post about something egg-citing coming up.

Well I'm very happy to say that my crafty buddy and fellow Easter lover, Mel Goodsell and I are teaming up to bring you some Easter craft ideas over the next few weeks.

Starting Friday, we'll be creating Easter themed projects... some sewing, some cardmaking, some cooking, some surprises. Hope you will join us and visit us regularly to see what we come up with.

Now, you can look through Mel's previous Easter craft ideas on her blog. I thought I'd just list some of my Easter craft/cooking ideas from previous years below:

• little felt Easter egg bags

• decorated Easter eggs (polystyrene eggs)

 

• Easter egg cupcakes

• Easter egg slide cards

• Easter banner

• bunny-sized Easter bonnets (idea can be adapted to human sized Easter bonnets)

• mini moopy bunnies

• wee bunnies by weewonderful

We hope you will join us on our Egg-ceptional Egg-xtravaganza, see you on Friday for day one.

Cheers

Fiona x

mid march catch up

We've been busy here since my last post. I've actually been on a road trip and driven to Lismore and Ballina since my last post. Paul and I drove Phoebe to Lismore to compete in the Little Athletics State Multi event. We had a lot of fun, even though it was very tiring driving such a long way in such a short time. Emily didn't come with us, she had a long weekend with her nana and poppa here in Sydney which everyone enjoyed (including Hugo the dog).

Last week Phoebe coloured her hair for the World's Greatest Shave. She went with blue hair and a purple fringe.

She had a few friends around to celebrate the event and help colour the hair.

We made colour co-ordinated cupcakes for afternoon tea ...

 

Phoebe has raised over $200.00 through online and cash donations. I know a few blog readers kindly sponsored her, thank you very much.

 

She has now washed her hair, and quite a bit of the blue remains, and possibly will for some time, I think.

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Emily recently worked on a project for school. Her task was to make a photographic essay for her Connected Curriculum subject. She has been out and about on excursions taking photos of her local environment. This project was pulling all her information together. She used a Maya Road sheer tab binder album, and made this book while we wereaway in Lismore. Here's a few photos of her book.

 

 

 

 

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A quick Ribbons Galore update. I have added a few very cute bunny ribbons which are perfect for Easter projects.

   

Speaking of Easter... I have some exciting things lined up. But you'll have to check back in a few days to find out more.

That's about all. Thanks for visiting my blog.

Cheers

Fiona x