What I did this weekend...

We went to FORGE arts and craft fair in Sheffield this weekend, organised by Hallam Roses W.I., and brought to my attention by fellow Yorkshire blogger Emma from Oh Gosh blog. They were raising funds for their W.I. and the charity Roundabout. There was plenty to see and it was great to support all the local talent. Unfortunately, we didn't get to stay long, as my little baby boy decided to have a little bit of a meltdown. I still managed to find some nice items to take home and grab some cake, as my husband frantically rocked and attempted to soothe my son.

There was such an array of baking that I struggled to decide what to buy. It all looked so delicious. We opted for some lovely moist chocolate cake, some flapjack and some white chocolate and Tobelerone brownie. I must admit I had a little nibble of the flapjack on the ride home, as I couldn't wait, but the rest was devoured with a nice cuppa when I got home. I thought it was only fair to give my hubby half a taste of them.

I got this adorable sock monkey (from the Ginger Zoo), a cute panda origami card (from Terrible Lizard) and a deep repair hair mask. (from Lovely cosmetics) The sock monkey and card are for my sister-in-law, but I got the hair mask for me. It has left my hair luxuriously smooth and silky. I cannot tell you how much I love the smell too, as it reminds me of going to the perfumery in Grasse, France, as a little girl. 

Seen as I was having a naughty weekend, I thought it was about time I had my first post-pregnancy Nandos. It is an addiction! My husband commented on the beaming smile I had all day once we decided to have Nandos for tea and its true I did!

We then had a quick visit to Hemsworth Water Park, which I hadn't visited since I was small. My grandparents would often take my siblings and I when we were younger. It was a lovely nostalgic walk down memory lane.

It consists of two lakes (with a bridge ideal for poohsticks), pedalos, a cafe, a play area, a small beach?! and a miniature railway. It wasn't the greatest of weather, so we didn't stay very long. Infact we ran back to the car, (just as my hubby offered to buy me a White Magnum icecream. Gutted!) when the torrential rain arrived.

Hemsworth Water Park is free, but parking costs £2. There are also additional charges for different activities, Playworld is £2.50 per child, the railway is £1 per person, paddle boards, mambo canoes and ocean duo canoes are £1 per person.

Hope you all enjoyed your weekend.

Snowy walks and Father-to-be gifts

We managed to have a little walk at Yorkshire Sculpture Park over the Easter weekend. It was really pretty, as there was still a dusting of snow about. The latest exhibitions look amazing. We had a quick walk through the Fabric-ation exhibit. I'm planning lots of nice picnics in the Sculpture Park this summer, so I'll take lots of pictures of the artwork when we next visit.

I have been creating a couple of Father-To-Be gifts for my husband, as I know that the Mummy tends to get more attention. I got a big basket from Matalan for £5 (similar ones here) and filled it with all things to remind him of his childhood. (I asked his family and friends for some ideas) These included Wrestling and Thundercats figures, his favourite books as a child, some DVDs of programmes he used to watch, his favourite childhood movies, some Tizer (He used to have Tizer nights with his best friend, where they would pretend this was alcohol - Bless!) etc. I also decided to create some T-shirts and Baby vest sets.

These were really simple to make. 

I bought two cheap T-shirts and baby vests, and some fabric pens from Ebay. I had bought the fabric pens for people to decorate baby grows at my baby shower

Fabric pens bought for £3.39 from here

On a piece of paper I wrote out what I wanted on the T-shirt. You could print this out for it to look more accurate and professional.

I then placed this under the top layer of the T-shirt, and placed a piece of cardboard underneath this. To be honest, the pens did not actually go through as far as the cardboard, but I still think that it is worth taking precautions. Once I had traced over my design, I left this to dry for half an hour and then ironed on the reverse to lock the colour, so it is machine washable. My husband's unfortunate nickname is 'The Big Dog', so I thought it would be cute to do a play on this too. 

These fabric pens were so easy to use and didn't bleed into the fabric. I'm looking forward to doing some different T-shirt and baby grows for Halloween and Christmas this year.  I think I'm better dressing my child up before they can answer back and I'm sure my husband will be thrilled to wear them! I have got some fabric paints, so I may make some stencils and be a bit more creative next time.

Painted Pottery and Egg Shell Surprise

I thought that I would make a little Easter gift for my sister today. My sister has the food blog Bilberry Tart, and is obsessed with buying kitchenware and crockery. I thought I would utilise a couple of bowls that I already owned and use some paints that I had bought. I first used these paints to decorate some tea cups and saucers for my baby shower's favours. Unfortunately, my baby shower was cancelled due to my ill health, but I'll post some photos when we have the rearranged shower. 

I used Pebeo Porcelaine 150 paints and mixed together some Ivory and Opaline Blue.

I decided to paint a simple flower design on to the bowls. These paints are really easy to use and mix well together. If you make a mistake, and the paint is still wet, it will wipe off with a bit of toilet roll or a cotton bud. If the paint is dry then I used a sponge with a bit of soapy water to remove the mistake. I painted the two bowls and left them to dry for 24 hours. Once they have dried for 24 hours to seal the paint you need to bake them in a domestic oven for 35 mins at 150°C. 

As I had some paint left over, I decided to do a little secret message in a painted egg shell. First you need to get an egg and a needle and pierce both ends of the egg. Wiggle the needle around in the hole to widen it a little. You then need to break the yolk inside by piercing it several times with the needle. Once you have done this you should be able to blow into one of the holes and the egg should drip out of the other end. If this does not happen then you may need to widen the hole or wiggle the needle around some more to break up the yolk inside. When all of the egg has been removed, run water into one of the holes and blow through to make sure all remnants have been eliminated. To dry out the egg, I give them 30 seconds in a microwave.

I then painted the egg in a couple of coats of paint. Once this had dried, I used a cotton bud to make spots on the egg.

Whilst this was drying, I wrote out my message on a small piece of paper. As the message will need to fit through the hole in the egg, your message cannot be very long. 

Your message needs to then be rolled up as tight as possible and when your paint has dried and stuck through one of the holes you made initially. I then made a little label saying 'Crack me open.'

I'm sure I'll be posting some more painted crockery in the future, as I think you can make some really beautiful personalised, and inexpensive gifts. 

Housebound Arts & Crafts

We have had an eventful couple of weeks culminating in me having a week's stay in hospital. I am therefore, going to be housebound for the upcoming weeks, so I'm probably going to turn to some arts and crafts to keep me busy.

Twine bottle with paper flowers

I've seen these a few times on pinterest and decided to have a go at making them.

What you need:

Empty wine bottle
Scissors
PVA glue
Super glue
Lace ribbon (I bought mine from ebay - there's lots of choice)
Pearls/crystals (I had some pearls from a broken necklace)
Old book
Twine (I bought mine from Wilko £1.49 for a large ball)

First take labels of your wine bottle and make sure it is thoroughly washed. I put quite a decent blob of superglue to stick the beginning of my twine to the top of the bottle. Then I started to wind the twine around the bottle. I used the PVA glue to stick the twine to the bottle and the twine together so there wasn't any gaps. I didn't glue all the way down the bottle, but just used PVA glue and then superglue at intervals. It holds without it all being glued. 

Whilst your bottle is drying you can make the paper flowers. I used pages from a charity shop book for the paper. (It was in Spanish so I was unlikely to read it.) Remove a couple of pages and draw on three spiral designs and a couple of stalks and leaves. Cut along the line and cut out the stalks and leaves.

Once you have cut them out they should look like this...

You then need to glue along the inner edge of your spiral and stick it together lifting up the outer edge, so it creates a flower shape. Once you have created your flower shape stick a pearl or a jewel in the middle or it looks pretty just as it is. 

I let my bottle and flowers dry overnight. I then added the ribbon to the twine bottle and arranged the flowers and glued with PVA glue. 



This is really an easy project that I think is really effective. Hope this has inspired you to give it a go. 



Valentine's Day

We enjoyed a very relaxing Valentine's Day this year, in the company of our little niece. We made the decision that we would buy something inexpensive for Valentine's Day, as we have had quite a lot of expenditure getting ready for our new arrival. I, therefore, decided that I would make a couple of presents for my husband.

Embroidered poetry journal

My husband is a keen poet and has a room full of books and journals. I thought it would be a nice idea to make a personalised poetry journal for him to write some poems for our baby. I bought a cheap A5 plain notebook for £3 from paperchase. The paper inside is taupe and cream and surprisingly good quality. I have bought these previously and they hold ink really well. As I am constantly buying material for future projects, I already had some quite thick brown material that I thought I could embroider with cream thread. I have recently been looking at lots of classic artwork using silhouettes, so decided to turn a profile photograph of my husband into a silhouette. I then embroidered this and 'Poems from Daddy' and my husband's name. Once I had embroidered I simply cut this to the size of the book and glued using standard PVA glue.

First dance lyrics picture frame

I found a box picture frame with quite a wide mount and placed two photos from our first dance at our wedding. I then wrote out the lyrics from 'Here, There and Everywhere' which was the song we had our first dance to. I picked a frame that was a bit more modern and masculine than the decor in the rest of my home, but thought my husband would appreciate it for his study.

Sketchy image from a photo

For my husband's Valentine's card I drew a picture using GIMP and the trace facility. GIMP is a wonderful program that is free to download. First I selected a photo from our wedding day.

I cropped the image and then clicked Layer -> New Layer and clicked to create a transparent layer. (You may want to name the layer so you know which you are clicking on later)

To make sure that you are drawing on the transparent layer click Windows -> Dockable dialogues -> Layers and make sure you are clicked on the box that is a grey chequerboard. You can then pick how big you want your brush to be and trace over the image. I think it looks best when you make it look quite sketchy and imperfect. 

Once you have sketched over as much detail as you like then you need to go back onto the Layers box and click on your original image and press delete(the little trash can at the bottom). Then click Layer -> New Layer. This time you want to create a white layer. Then right click on the transparent layer and click Merge down. 

The image is now ready for you to colour in as you please or leave as a sketch. To get a watercolour painted feel, I experimented a bit. To get the paintbrush options open double click on the paintbrush. I used the round brush and made the opacity 39%. I changed the Dynamics to Pressure Opacity. This means that you can layer the colour up as every time you click your paintbrush down your colour becomes darker.

I thought that I would make the front of the card this simple design as then the card could be put into a photoframe later. I will definitely be using this technique again, as I think that with a bit more practice you could create some really stunning designs.