More Bird Decorations - Keeping it Eco

Similar ingredients to the last bird decorations - just in different measure. And no sewing.

The main bird bodies are recycled wallpaper - one side of the wallpaper is the height of seventies fashion - BROWN contrasted with BROWN, highlighted with A TOUCH OF GOLDY BROWN on a BROWN base. Mmm. Where's my crochet hostess gown, fibre optic lamp and shgpile carpet to match? Yes -but it's not so festive. However, the other side is a wholesome embossed natural off white. Goes well with recycled coffee sack, no?

Simple - cut, glue, bit of ric rac, pom pom trim feet, hessian scrap for a wing and a button eye...or not. I like mine eye free I must admit.

 Here's the template I made - (you will have to play around with the size because I haven't sussed out attaching pdf's yet.)

And here's another template to try...get crafting!

 

Enjoy! 

free bag-tag pattern for back to school crafting

Now you would think that all the backpacks in this house would be adorned with hand made recycled felt bag-tags from our re-sew-cool range, wouldn't you? Well, ahem...cough....not exactly.

In fact, My kids wanted to design their own bag-tag (my designs not being quite good enough...)

Wanda has a cowgirl boot. Pepper wants a unicorn (I'm in the process of making it)and the little fella, Joe, wanted a dog that looked like his favourite toy dog, "Booey".

So I have made him this dog. It's not my usual style but I like him. And Joe really likes him!

Here's the template if you want to make a dog bag-tag too. For the swivel clasp you can recycle a lanyard.

He is simple to make:

1.decorate the face with a fringe, nose, mouth stitching and eyes. I used white shank buttons for eyes and a black permanent marker.

2.sew on swivel clasp to back of face. The fringe hides the stitches.

3.Sew head together, front and back, remembering to put the tongue in place.

4. Sew ears on around the front and back of head. Or simply both sides of the ears together and attach to the front of the head.

And remember - if you prefer one of our re-sew-cool bag-tag designs, enter our back to school giveaway!

thankyou notes

In keeping with my intention to put pen to paper more often, the younger kids and I have been making thankyou cards to post to all the aunties that sent us all a gazillion Christmas gifts.

There are many cards to download and print - here are some I found:
A bunting card
A lovely vintage inspired card
A stylish "put a bird on it" card

Ours are little more tactile...lots of pasting...here's how we did it.

We made two styles - a stand up person and a person on a card.

The template for the person is from here. If you want your card to stand up, I would suggest you make the fold back a bit bigger. All that glue and hair makes them a little top heavy.
I downloaded the image and made a page of them in  Adobe illustrator then I printed the templates on cardboard.

For my kids, I pre-cut the people out because they are too young for that.

I printed a page of the the word "thankyou" on some transparency paper but I it could have just as easily been done on coloured card or white paper. 

We "dressed our person first". I used some left over print outs from the magnetic paper dolls I made before Christmas.

We also just cut shapes in felt and coloured paper. The kids love round circles for puffed sleeves and silver pipe cleaner tiaras for the ballerinas. We used a hole punch to make circle eyes but I did convince them to just draw some of the faces.

As to what to write on the card, here is a great guide to writing a thankyou note - Anatomy of thankyou notes  - thanks to krrb blog

Now off to the post office!!!

Christmas craft - felt.

Here is a recycled jumper felt snowflake (hot wash a white jumper) based on the template in the last post.
 After carefully cutting it out, I glued a crochet flower in the middle. Did I crochet that flower? No sirree. I chopped up a commercially made tablecloth, op shop bought of course. Last of all I added some silver ric rac as the loop for some festive sparkle. Lines of silver embroidery stitching on it would look pretty too - as would some clear buttons or beading. 

For more recycled felt fun, don't forget the   re-sew-cool Christmas ornament kits. They have everything you need to make TWO ornaments - the kit contains a needle, embroidery yarn, trims, buttons and felt! Four festive designs to choose from 

Santa's Reindeer

Gingerbread house           Gingerbread man

And turtledove!

Christmas craft: Paper

Well, it's finally time! December is here! And everyone is getting into the Christmas/Craftmas spirit here so I thought I'd share some of the things we are making at our place. In fact - the twins (aged 4) are so keen on decorating the house, that today they hung undies and kitchen utensils all over the house! Clean undies....but still... not recommended!

Garlands are my "thing" this year. And I'm still keen on reindeer. So I've made this template for a leaping deer with Adobe illustrator and I've used some vintage wallpaper to cut them out.

 I cut on the outside of the line to make it a bit easier. Once I have cut them out I glue them to a length of ric -rac just across the antlers. You could use any sort of ribbon really. I stitch little loops at each end for easy hanging.



I have also been making reindeer paper chains based on this template below which I also created on Adobe Illustrator. Cut out the template then fold the paper to size in a concertina and don't cut on the left side at the antlers and the right side at the back leg. I used old wall paper again - which was, quite frankly, too tricky! But it works well in lighter weight paper - crepe, tissue or even brown paper on a roll.

The template below I used for a felt decoration but it would work well in paper too! You could add a frosty layer of tracing paper for an icy effect!



 Happy Craftmas!