My craft room has been in various states of disarray since the beginning of December, so I decided that today was as good a day as any to have a spring clean and have a good old tidy up.

I never realised quite how much I had, I am a self confessed hoarder of all things glittery and any pretty paper that could potentially be used on a card or for scrapbooking. In a bid to use up some of my supplies (in no way procrastinating at all!) I decided to make some glittery push pins for my inspiration board.


How to Make Your Own Sparkly Push Pins . . .

To make these tacks you'll need . . .

* Wooden stars
* Glitter
* Thumb tacks
* PVA glue
* Hairspray
* Paintbrush

Step one - cover the wooden stars in a layer of PVA using a paint brush.
Step two - sprinkle the glitter on top of the star and leave for a few moments, and then tap of the excess. Leave to dry.
Step three - Once dry spray with a thin mist of hairspray and leave to dry for five minutes.
Step four - place a generous blob of glue from the glue gun onto the head of the push pin and apply to the back of the star. Hold in place for a few seconds and leave to dry. Your push pin is then ready to use!

 

Buttons, buttons and more buttons!!!

I also made some push pins using some pastel buttons. They're made in a similar way to the star ones above but without having to apply the glitter. All you need to do is follow step four.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Year!? It has been quite a busy few weeks. We spent this Christmas at our house in the morning and then traveled across a beautifully sunny New Forest to Jason's parents for a few days of festive cheer, and then made the traffic laden journey up to my parents in Suffolk and then back down to Bournemouth on New Years eve. 

I feel like now I can finally catch my breath and write about all of the bits and pieces that I made for friends and family. 

After a brief moment of thinking all I had to do this Christmas was the cake, it soon turned into quite a busy making period in the few weeks running up to the big day, with quite a few new requests coming in for things to be made.

My favourite make was this scarf that I knitted for Jason's Mum. I had some lovely yarn that I'd been wanting to use on a project for ages, it's so soft and snugly (65% wool, 35% alpaca); perfect for a scarf or snood. The yarn for the scarf is from the Andes range by Drops, and I used three balls of the light grey mix for this scarf in total.


I initially did a lot of research browsing through patterns on the internet, and decided to go for something that wasn't too complicated (given the tight turnaround needed), and stumbled upon this design by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee.

My yarn was slightly chunkier than that stated in the pattern so I used 8mm needles to knit the scarf on, however I stuck to the pattern and cast on 26 stitches.



Since finishing the scarf I have decided to make one for myself, as well as a snood which I can use when we go skiing in a few months time. So make sure to stay tuned for a progress update . . .

Here's how to make your own glitter star wreath . . . 


To make this wreath you'll need . . .
* PVA glue
* Pearl head pins
* Wooden stars
* Hairspray
* Gold glitter
* Twine
* Paintbrush
* Scissors
* Glue gun
* Polystyrene wreath base

The Christmas tree is finally up and decorated, this year we went for rustic/natural looking decorations with a hint of red. 

These are some more cards that I made for the Hobbycraft Christmas shoot, however this time round I've scaled them up onto a square card.


Here's how to make your own 3-D Christmas Tree Card . . .

To make these cards you'll need . . . 
* Card blanks
* Christmas scrapbooking papers
* Kraft brown paper/card
* Glitter star topper
* Scissors
* Double sided tape

Step one - start by covering your card blank with your chosen paper. I always use double sided tape as there's no drying time, and keeps everything nice and secure.
Step two - Cut two triangles out of the kraft brown card and fold in half. On one of the triangle halves apply some double sided tape. Peel off the backing and secure in place.
Step three - on the remaining triangle and on the opposite half apply double side tape and secure in place, lining it up with the first triangle that you stuck down.
Step four - stick the glitter star topper in place.



The finished cards . . .



For lots more Christmas card designs, make sure to check out my post on the Hobbycraft blog, here.

I couldn't resist giving Project Life (by Becky Higgins for American Crafts) a go, inspired by all of the lovely creations I'd seen on Pinterest,, and after some research for work. 

I made an 'Adventure book' for Jason after watching the Pixar film 'Up!'. However, over the past few years it has been somewhat neglected so I decided to update it and give it some love and attention and transform it into something we can add to and look back on in years to come.

After picking up the photos from our recent holiday to Cornwall, I decided it was as good a place as any to start . . . 


I LOVE(!!!!) glitter card at the moment, not quite sure why . . . but it went well with my chosen colour scheme.


I am obsessed with rub on's at the moment (I've been using some by American crafts called Mini Marks) they look great on tracing paper and then overlaid on top of the image.




More tracing paper experimentation's . . . this time I used the paper to overlay onto an image and stitched it in place using my sewing machine. I just really liked how the image looked behind it.

I then moved onto transferring all of the pages from the old 'Adventure Book' into the new one . . .




Love these stick on letters!!! (from Hobbycraft)

This year I've made it my mission to make my own Christmas cards, as I won't be giving too many handmade presents this year. I decided to replicate one of the cards I worked on for Hobbycraft's Christmas shoot. . . 


 Here's how to make your very own sparkly Christmas tree card . . .

To make these cards you'll need -
* Card blanks
* Christmas scrapbooking papers
* Double sided tape
* Tacky glue
* Green + brown felt
* Gold self adhesive star
* Invisible thread + needle
* Christmas sentiment
* Scissors

Step one - start by covering your card blank with your chosen paper. I always use double sided tape as there's no drying time, and keeps everything nice and secure.
Step two - cut tree shapes out of the green felt and small rectangles from the brown felt (this will be the trees trunk).
Step three - thread your needle with a length of the invisible thread and make a knot on the end. Stitch one sequin on at a time over the green felt tree.


Step four - Once you've added all of your sequins, apply a thin line of tacky glue on one of the short sides of the brown pieces of felt and secure to the back of the green felt tree at the base, centrally. Leave to dry (around 10 minutes should do the trick).
Step five - Cover the back of the tree and trunk with the tacky glue and place centrally on the card. Leave until completely dry.
Step six - secure the glitter star to the top of the tree, and place your Christmas sentiment centrally at the base of the tree. Voila! you have yourself a Christmas card!


For lots more Christmas card designs, make sure to check out my post on the Hobbycraft blog, here.

I'm pleased to say that Goldie and Copper have settled in well over the past five months that we've had them. We've discovered that they're quite characterful buns! For some reason they're obsessed with trying to get into the house, although they've recently been banned after Copper decided to chew through Jason's surround sound speaker cable which didn't go down too well!

 As the nights are drawing in they've both got there extra fluffy coats coming through, and love snuggling up next to one and other in their hutch. We were cleaning them out the other night, and the light was perfect for taking a few snaps, so decided to grab the camera . . .