Print your own Thank You Notelets.

A few weeks back it was Amelie's birthday.  She was so excited she could hardly sleep for about a week leading up to it.  I really wanted to get some photos of her opening her presents on the morning of her birthday but she slipped down stairs at the crack of dawn and appeared having opened the majority of her gifts.  I was a bit upset because I felt like I had missed a key moment, but then I thought about it and in the big scheme of things it really didn't matter.  In fact in amoungst all the craziness of her birthday I now realise that we have very few photos of Amelie on her birthday.  Everybody was very generous and she was totally spoilt and had an amazing time.  

Something I am trying to teach my girls is that they should say thank you for the gifts they receive.  Finding the time to sit down with Amelie and write her Thank You notes has been on my mind for a few days now. Originally I was just going to buy some Thank You notelets for her to write but then I came across some great downloads on the internet and decided to make my own..

Here are some of my favourite finds:

I love the idea of these Fruity Notes with Triangular Envelopes by Minieco 

I think these are adorable Matryoshka Card Set 

All kids love stamps.  DIY Play Envelopes and Stamps Minieco 

Printable Spring Envelopes | This Heart of Mine

Printable Mini Envelopes and Note Cards for Kids  Lia Griffith 

Add a Bit of Tutti Fruity to your Kitchen with these easy DIY Watermelon T-towels

I keep seeing Watermelons everywhere at the moment.  Not only do they taste great and remind me of my travels across outback Australia they are also bright and colourful.
With this in mind I thought I would show you how you can add a tutti fruity feeling to your kitchen with these easy to make Watermelon T-towels

You will need 

A plain white T-towel

Iron

2 sheets of A4 T-shirt transfer paper

Printer 

Pair of scissors.

Seriously they are so easy to make.

Firstly you need to print the watermelon designs onto your transfer paper. 

You need to cut out all of the watermelon shapes and put them into a neat pile ready to iron onto your t-towel. 

Once you have cut them all out you need to carefully iron each of the watermelons onto your t-towel in a random form.  (Follow the instructions on the packet of t-shirt transfer paper.)  I sandwiched the watermelon between the T-towel and a sheet of heatproof paper to protect the t-towel.

And there you have it a completed tutti fruity watermelon t-towel to brighten your kitchen.

 

Weather Related DIY Badges.

Today has been a bit of a blustery day with plenty of sunshine and showers.  Being slightly weather obsessed in our house I thought I would create a series of weather related badges.

What you will need:

• One A4 sheet of shrinkjet paper
• A printer
• A pair of scissors
• Two baking trays
• pre-heated oven to 200 degreesC
• A Glue Gun
• 3 Pin backs

What you need to do.

• Download and print off the images.  Don't adjust to fit as it will shrink when heated.  Don't be tempted to touch it too soon.  It will take about 10mins for the ink to dry.
• Carefully cut out the images, don't be tempted to cut too close to the edges.
• Place them onto a baking tray and pop them in the pre-heated oven.  They will shrink and curl.  Once they lay flat on the tray take them out of the oven and place the other tray on top of your images to keep them flat and prevent them bending.
• When cool using a glue gun,glue the pin backings onto the rear of your images.
• There you are a set of weather badges.  These would make perfect gifts for little people or party bag fillers.

Origami Fairy Lights

Last summer I was sitting in one of the cafe's in town with the girls waiting for the bus when a lady came in and started setting up for her pop up origami workshop.  I didn't realise "pop up workshops" existed in our little seaside town least of all workshops I would actually want to do.  I was really intrigued.  Origami was something I had briefly flirted with when I was younger, you know the basic stuff; origami boats, newspaper hats and swan napkins.  That was it.  I had no idea just how beautiful and functional Origami can be. My biggest problem with Origami is my lack of patience at learning the basic skills, hence I got frustrated and my paper folding never progressed much further.

However since sitting in that cafe last summer I have been on a bit of an origami paper folding quest.  I keep meaning to sign up for one of her workshops but they seem to get booked up pretty quick.  I would love to have the skills to make an Origami lampshade.  Having done a bit of an internet search and dug out my Origami books I realised that a lampshade may not be the best place to start.  I did however discover that you can make pretty strings of Origami fairy lights by using the traditional Origami waterbomb.

After several attempts at folding and inflating I finally got the hang of them.

I am really pleased with the end result.  I brought some cheap battery operated LED lights and just poked each LED light into the top of each waterbomb.  I had fun making them and I am still hoping at some point to make an Origami Lampshade.

Eggxellent Easter Eggs.

I'm not sure why but for some reason I never knew decorating eggs for Easter could be so much fun.  I know I have left it a bit late this year but it hasn't stopped me lusting after all the gorgeous DIY Easter egg projects I have come across.  I am awe struck by some of the talented bloggers I come across each day.

Here are some of my favorite DIY Easter inspired finds.

I love this bowl of golden eggs by miss renaissance.  Such a simple idea creates such an amazing result.

I had never heard of cascarones or confetti eggs until I saw these amazing eggs on A Pretty Cool Life.  I wish I had discovered this fab tradition sooner as I might have made them for our family Easter gathering.

Everyone loves a pinata and how cool are these by Oh Happy Day

I love these beaded eggs I found on DIY Enthusiasts.  They would make a beautiful gift for someone special.

Imagine how great these would look as part of an Easter egg hunt.  Learn how to make these fab sparkly eggs over on She Knows How.  Also if you are wondering (as I often had) how you paint the eggs and get them to dry without finger prints all over them hop over to She Knows How for a fab tip.

These glitter bomb eggs by a little craft in your day look so much fun.  I think these might be on my DIY list of things to make for next year.

If you missed out earlier in the week you can check out our Easter egg decorations here.

DIY Spring time tote

I love this time of year.  I love watching the tulips and daffodils poking up from the depths of winter and the blossom appearing on the trees.  I love the fact the evenings are getting lighter and the thought of some warm summer sunshine is only just around the corner.  I thought I would share my love for spring with this colourful spring tote.  It was so easy to make.

You will need 

a printer either an ink jet or a laser jet

a plain canvas tote bag

an A4 sheet of T-Shirt Transfer Paper make sure you get the right paper for your printer.

a pair of scissors

a sheet of greasproof paper 

an iron 

an ironing board

The first thing you need to do is download my PDF tulip images and print them off onto the T-Shirt Transfer paper as per the instructions on the packet.

Next you need to cut the images out as close to the edges as possible.  This prevents any bleed.

Once you have carefully cut your tulips out arrange them face down on your plain canvas bag. Again following the instructions on the transfer packet iron the images into place.  I usually place a piece of greasproof or heat resistant paper on top of my images to prevent heat damage from my iron.

When you are sure that the images have been heated sufficiently carefully peel the backing paper off and voila you have one spring time tote bag. 

DIY Height Chart.

When Amelie was born my mum brought her a height chart which we dutifully measured her against on a regular basis.  Then one day Amelie and her cousin decided it would be a good idea to colour all over the walls including the height chart with felt tip pens and biro.  In my madness with them I made Amelie scrub the walls clean unfortunately in doing so she rubbed off all of her early year heights, not only this but it's not going to be long before she has outgrown her current height chart.  It had never occurred to me to make my own until I was reading Brooklyn Limestone and saw the beautiful wooden growth and milestone chart they had made, then a couple of days later I was flicking through the cox and cox catalouge and I saw a wooden ruler height chart.  It was then I decided I would make one for the girls.

Michael took a look through his "spare" wood collection and found me a piece of MDF which he cut to size for me.  As always Amelie was keen to be included so she helped me give it a coat of Yellow Annie Sloan Chalk paint.  We didn't specifically choose this paint we were just using up what we had left over from some chairs we painted not so long ago.

Once painted I used permanent black pens to write the numbers and mark the height increments.  The red indelible pen didn't really work so I had to carefully paint over the letters and numbers with some acrylic paint I had.  When I wasn't looking one afternoon Harriet scribbled all over it with blue pencil - luckily I managed to rub it off.  Finally I gave it a coat of lacquer.  I was a bit disappointed as the lacquer made some of the pen bleed but nothing too serious.  In hindsight I probably would have been better giving the board a coat of lacquer prior to writing on the numbers.  The pens would have worked more smoothly and the red wouldn't have been absorbed by the paint.

To give it the finishing touches Michael hung it on the wall for me and we marked off all of our heights against it.