5 minute necklace

I made this necklace as a kit to go out in the Lones newsletter. It was so fast to do I thought I'd share.

You'll need: adhesive transfer sheet, acrylic pendant, jump ring and cord.

Remove the protective plastic covers from the acrylic pendant.

Get the adhesive sheet (Herma Transfer Adhesive Sheet) and remove the backing paper. Press the pendant onto the glue dots.

Carefully re-lift the pendant – it is now evenly covered in glue dots (which are easily visible).

Position the pendant over the paper image you wish to use and press down evenly.

Carefully trim off excess paper (you might find using a craft knife makes this easier and neater).

Pierce a hole carefully through the paper inline with the one in the pendant.

Thread a jump ring through and close (you’ll need pliers for this bit).

Thread a cord through the jump ring and wear.

NB: To improve the life span of your pendant carefully apply clear nail varnish or PVA to the back of your picture.

Krampus

One of my favourite Christmas traditions (and it isn't even mine) is the Krampus. It's an Austrian thing and basically the night before good old Saint Nic comes calling to give the good kids presets the Krampus deals with the naughty kids. He beats them and takes them away in a sack. Anyway you can make a paper version (complete with naughty child) - created by Squealer Paper Toy (both that and the above image are from the Macula site).   Absolute genius.

Day of the Dead - Shrink Plastic Sugar Skulls

I did this for my Senior Section girls as part of the activities for the Mexican festival of Day of the Dead.

1. Draw your skull on the rough side of Shrink plastic using pens. This keyring used a 1/4 A4 sheet (the earrings an 1/8th). Beware the colour get darker once it shrinks.

2. Once your happy trim the skull (doesn’t have to be exact 3mm or less edging is fine). Punch a hole in the top for the keyring to go once it’s shrunk.

3. Place the skull in an electric oven (150ºC) on a flat baking tray, drawing side down and heat for 1-4 minutes until it goes flat. Allow to cool and add your keyring, earring or phone charm.

Olympic Crafty Idea

While watching the Olympics (bit of an Archery Widow due to it) I decided to find a crafty option and I have! The mascots are available as paper models so since I'm a bear lover I went for the panda (Jingjing).

Not that mine turned out as good as this photo from the website. Oh and the instructions were in Chinese but they do have very good illustrations!

Pacman Coasters

I was inspired by a Etsy item from Lost Mitten to make my own version of her Pacman Coasters. I borrowed heavily from her design but I made my own verison of Mrs Pacman and I changed the eyes on a couple of the ghosts. I used Hama beads (and the generic Tesco equivalents for the orange one) and an iron. I must be one of the few adults my age who didn't used these much as a kid so it was a bit of a first. It was bit like doing cross stitch - the trick was to do the outline and then fill in the colour. Still took me most of an evening but it was totally worth it since my coffee table is so much improved.

Camera Bag

I got a new camera - it's rather dull and black so I decided that to make it more exciting I'd make a camera case.

It was just a simple rectangle 14cm by 26cm folded into three (or as required by the camera).

I used two layers of fabric and a bit of wadding as padding (cotton front facing each other, then the wadding on the bottom), with a quarter inch seam allowance.

Then a simple slip stitch up either sides to about a third of the way up.

I added a wee loop of ribbon (as I sewed up the gap created from turning it the right way round) and a button to keep it closed.

I even put in a pocket so I can carry a spare memory card/ battery/ credit card etc. Then I went a bit mad and quilted the top round the island and the cap in the map.

Best of all I got to use my pirate fabirc and the dubloons!

Dr. Who Cookies

I love cookie cutters (not that I bake that often) but I couldn't resist this Dalek cookie kit from Greens. They were really easy to make and tasted pretty good too!

They proved to be a lot easier to exterminate than the originals :)

Crafty Excess!

Having had limited crafty opportunities for the past bit I went mental this week and did three different projects!

The first was the Adipose I talked about wanting to make ages ago! I haven't done much embroidery so getting the eyes and mouth even proved one of the hardest bits. I think my top tip for doing one is firm stuffing which makes it look more rounded.

Next came the cushions! Gran gave me old pillows ages ago and I got some fab yellow fur in Orkney last trip up so I made myself some muppet-esque cushions for my couch.

Finally came Tom's t-shirts. I got a couple of cheap t-shirts since this stencilling was another crafty first for the week. I used ColorBox's Crafter's stamping ink pads (I got it to print fabric for bears but have yet to use for that). I just used as if they were stamps and followed the instructions on how to get them to set.

I transferred the stencil patterns onto the outside of old photocopy paper packets. It's the poor man's version of freezer paper, the inside bit can be ironed onto the fabric just the same as freezer paper (though some of the cheaper ones don't work). I ironed on my photocopy paper stencil, placing some between the two layers of t-shirt so the ink wouldn't bleed onto the back, and stencilled away.

The FSM Pirate Fish was based on a simple google search but having looked again for the link I came across this handy stencil version on The Program Witch Pages. For the second t-shirt I used the 'classically trained' stencil created by diynamite.com. The original had fancier lettering but I decided not to risk it on my first outing.

Also on diynamite.com there is a great Mary Poppins Stencil which I may have to try for my own t-shirt another day!

Gingerbread Man Badge

I saw gingerbread men missing limbs in various forms including as softies (in Linda Kopp's book Plush-o-rama) and cookie cutters so I was inspired to make a badge version.

This little guy is only 6 1/2 cm long. I made it last trip up to Orkney and also got my sisters-in-law making their own versions (one with a missing arm the other with a missing bit of head).

It's simple to make so I thought I would share my original pattern (complete with instructions) in case anyone feels their clothing lacks partially eaten food. Click here to download the pdf.

Badges from kiddie doodles

Two of my nephews (P1 and 2) were drawing pictures with me during my last Orkney trip. So I got them to draw a picture of an animal/ monster.

We scanned this into the computer and I resized this to the size I wanted the badge to be.

I then traced the various bits of each creature onto to baking parchment (i.e I traced around the whole dog outline, then the eyes, muzzle and ear since I wanted these to all be different sections).

Transferred these sections onto the colours of felted I wanted to use (making sure they were all going to face the same way) and cut them out.

I cut a reversed version of the whole outline to use as the back.

I then blanket stitched on the bits in the right place and added any stitch detail to the faces . (I super glued the monsters dots!)

I then blanket stitched the two outline bits together (right sides out) leaving a small space for stuffing. Stuffed them lightly and sewed up the gap.

I then added a badge to the back.

Both boys were really impressed with their badges and were wearing them proudly during the visit. The oldre now wants a foot stool made of one of his drawings!