Paper & needle crafts among other handmade things

On my last post I showed you how to make a pen holder for Father's Day, today I want to share with your a couple of ideas for cards for this special day. The 2 designs below are very easy to make and therefore are a perfect project for children to make for their dads.

If you're not too keen on these and want something a little more elaborated have a look at these cards instead for inspiration.

Here's an idea for a simple but lovely gift the children can make for Father's Day. To make a pen holder such as this you'll need a cardboard tube, a piece of cardboard for the base, ice cream sticks, hot glue, thick gold or silver card (or any other colour you like) and paper shapes to embellish the pen holder. I put together a little step by step tutorial, hope you enjoy it.

Pen holder tutorial

1 - Apply hot glue around the edge of the cardboard tube and place on a piece of cardboard pressing down for a few seconds until the glue dries.

2 - Trim carefully all the way around with a craft knife or pair of scissors making sure the cardboard base is flush with the tube.

3 - Cover the cardboard tube with double sided sticky tape and peel back the non-adhesive layer.

4 - Begin covering the cardboard tube with the ice cream sticks. make sure these are nice and straight, to help them stay in place use one or two elastic bands.

5 - Cut 2 lengths of thick gold or silver card and put them around the pen holder. These will serve as braces helping keep the ice cream sticks in place and also serve as a decoration element. They should overlap a little at the back; keep them in place with a little hot glue.

6 - Apply a line of hot glue inside the pen holder along the top of the cardboard tube as shown below. This will further help keep the ice cream sticks in place.

7 - Add any other embellishments you want and you're done.

 

We traveled to the stars and back yesterday at the library during another lively crafts session. We were a very small group as the weather was its usual self: grey, cold, windy and very wet but we had great fun adding whatever details they wanted.

As usual I made samples for them to see and then they let their imagination and creativity run wild.

If you'd like to have a go at making any of these yourself these are the tutorials I used as inspiration: paper plate flying saucer and balloon rocket.

Happy crafting :-)

Back in February I showed you a project of mine, a Sunbonnet Sue appliqued and embroidered on felt and framed with an embroidery loop. Here are 2 more, these were made as a birthday gift for a friend.

To make sure the background felt remains stretched I applied hot glue all around the back of the loop and then folded the felt over to fix it in place.

 

Despite the still wintery weather it's looking a lot like Spring in the library thanks to the great tree mural designed and painted by Becky, a very talented 16-year old Art student.

We had a narrow, blank wall space between one of the notice boards in the children's area and the emergency exit. After looking online for inspiration I thought a tree would be a good idea but not just any tree, ours is an interactive one as it will change to reflect each season.

Our Winter tree was looking quite bare as trees do between December and March.

But now it's full of blossom and new leaves, there's birds perched on its branches, butterflies and owls and daffodils on the ground.

Me and Becky were helped by 3 very energetic and creative children aged 3, 6 and 8 who soon took over the whole project and did almost everything themselves with only a little help from the adults here and there. I think they did a brilliant job, don't you?

These are the samples I made from templates found online. The links are below, the butterfly was drawn free-hand.

Template for bird, owl and leaf.

Template for blossom.

When looking for ideas for my Crazy Hat Day taking place at the library in 2 days time I came across these Easy Paper Hats from FirstPalette.

This is a great crafts project to make with children of all ages as it's so easy and fun. I made a few myself to show them and I can't wait to see what they come up with.

To make these I used white cardstock to print the hat templates, the ribbons are made from strips of paper, cardstock or wallpaper, the flowers were punched out of paint cards. The leaves were printed on green card and the feathers printed on white card and then coloured in.  All hats were coloured in with markers or pencils.

With Mother's Day fast approaching (Sunday, March 10th) me and the children had fun this past Saturday making a card and gift for their mums.

These are the samples I prepared ealier for them to see what we would be making.

The gift was a bangle made from a thick cardboard tube and wound with yarn and they could choose between 2 card designs. The butterflies and flowers used on the cards were punched out of paint card strips which you can get for free from DIY stores.

We used white envelopes to gift wrap the bangles and strips of coloured paper with borders drawn in black pen as "ribbons".

Are you making anything for Mother's Day?

I love Sunbonnet Sue and have used her in several crafty projects over the years. The very first one was this wall hanging I made when I was pregnant with my son featuring Sunbonnet Sue and her friend Overall Bill.

I also used her on cards, made entirely of paper as you can see here.

And this is my latest one which I made as a birthday gift for my mum. Everything was hand sewn and once I'd started I didn't stop until it was all finished.

I'm working on a few other items envolving fabric, felt and embroidery hoops and will show them to you once they're finished.

I've been busy organising the 1st children's event of the year taking place next week at our community run library. The theme is Pirates and Princesses so it appeals to both boys and girls and it's a split event with activities on Tuesday 12th and Friday 15th.

Craftwise we'll be making cutlasses and hooks out of cardboard and princess crowns with gold/silver card strips, pipe cleaners and beads. These are the samples I made for the children to see.

The templates for the cutlass and hook can be found online here and here. I resized the cutlass to make it a little bigger.

I've been meaning to show you this and then I keep forgetting.  This is a small wreath I made for a friend as a Christmas gift although I think it can be used all year round as it's not particularly Christmassey. I bought a Styrofoam Doughnut Ring from here and used acrylic wool to cover the ring. As a final touch I added 2 small crochet flowers and it was done. I used hot glue on the back to make sure everything stays in place.

I actually bought 2 styrofoam rings to make a wreath for myself but never got round to making it and then by coincidence my friend sent me one she made herself. Unfortunately I can't show you hers as I've put it away together with the Christmas decorations and it's difficult to reach it at the moment but it's bigger and much, much prettier than the one I made. You'll see for yourself later in the year when it's time to bring the Christmas decorations out again.