Our Favourite Festive Family Crafts

Handmaking The Christmas Season With A Young Family

 

 

Don't you love December?  A crazy, happy, fun-loving month that this year has whizzed by this year. As my daughter has finally got the Santa and Christmas thing now (she is four).  I've been making Reindeer dust, gingerbread bakes and the odd Christmas stocking and wreath with her. It's been great but I've had to realise that I can't do everything. So this year, I decided to craft what I could and enjoy a Christmas that my daughter would remember with the odd grown up addition...

 

Here's our top family crafts of 2015....

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Salt dough Christmas shapes covered in glitter for our tree was perfect for a rainy Sunday afternoon, we made the salt dough and baked it then covered it in Christmas glitter. Not really as messy as it sounds and the decorations lasted all Christmas long.

 

 

Don't you love the idea of your own knitted handmade Christmas sack? I have to admit that even thought this was a child activity, I was a tiny bit excited too. We went to the sack making family session at the Framework Knitter's Museum neat Nottingham.

 

 

Little L choose the coloured yarns and knitted her own stocking for Santa.

 

 

We then knitted it on a circular knitting machine in the museum's knitting shed.

 

 

Once made and stitched at the base, the knitted bag could be decorated with bows and Christmas fancy dec's.

 

 

Ta-da! Our finished sack that we hung up on Christmas Eve!

 

 

Christmas wreaths made from all the evergreen in our garden, we collected huge bunches of ivy, greenery and pretty leaves.

 

 

After gathering the greenery, I tied it into wreaths with floristry wires and we found a place to hang it up in the home.

 

And finally pastry and gingerbread baking. Again and again...lots of fun and satisfaction.

So that's our best crafty family times of  Christmas 2015.

Wishing you a Happy New Year!

Happy Crafting,

Samantha xxx

It's Been A While

Hello, yes it's been a while...

 

So three and a half years ago I started to blog here on my little corner of the web. Why? I was a new Mamma to my little girl and wanted to share my DIY's, crafts, parenting and mostly home inspired makes. I started in July 2012 and 'Create It Samantha' was born in January 2013 (originally called 'Create It Mummy').

And here we are the week I launched my blog, my beautiful Little L on her Christening day wearing my Christening gown (she looks so tiny) with bunting made from all the hanky's my late Gran gave me (and I have a lot). Looking back, I was so excited to be creating my blog and leaving behind my old job to devote time to my family.

Then in September 2014 as my little creative business grew and I was time hungry,'Create It Samanth'a started to get put to the side for quotes, invoicing and creativeness for my young business. I am sure I'm not the only one who has a blog that has suffered.

I've met some amazing people through blogging, meets ups and crafting and been lucky to work with some amazing brands. Back then I joined twitter chats, facebook groups and learnt a lot. My blog gave me the connection with other people just like me around the world.

 

I loved to share my makes and now my Littler L is a little bit bigger I have a stack of DIY's from my home, dressmaking creations and Mamma days that I want to share. Plus a fancy new camera I'm really itching to use.

 

I want to blog on so many aspects of my life. Like how I've sold two houses in less than 18 months in less than 10 days, how we are making over our home to be a space for our family, how I am sewing a new wardrobe for myself and Little L plus all the behind the scenes of life being the founder of a creative little business (that I can't believe is happening!).

I'm really looking forward to this chapter of our lives on my blog; creating a creative and happy life here in Derbyshire with my family.

Thank-you for reading these and I would love to hear your blogging journey,

 

Samantha x

 

Make A House A Home

I love a craft challenge and was thrilled to be invited to take part in the Make A House A Home competition.



Make A House A Home

As the Summer days are fading and I am crafting for Autumn and Christmas (yes the C word in September!) it was great to get my craft on with bright Summer inspired colours.

I was sent the pretty wooden bird nest with the brief to get crafty and to 'make a house a home'. With the inspiring craft materials at Buddly Crafts  to choose from, I put together a colour palette of homely happy colours; greens, pastels and reds. I then chose the a basket of pretty materials to reflects this.

I saw the Fimo Effect polymer clay with a great shimmer to the classic Fimo I have used before. Fimo polymer clay is great for modelling so I bought a pastel palette of  six pretty colours Aqua, Light Pink, Lilac, Mint, Peach and Vanilla.

I had to include the Tilda fabric in the project as I have used them to make cotton dolls, cushions and bunting and the prints looks really homely. I chose the green to look like the trees.

To start the project, I broke off a strip of each of the colours and rolled it out with a old wine bottle a 3 mm thickness. This was for my flags for around the bird house roof. I played around with the flag shapes until I got one I was happy with. I then cut out the flags six times in each clay and wetted them to bend them into a shape so that the bunting flags looked like they were blowing in the breeze.

They were then baked as per the packet instructions and left to cool down whilst I decorated the bird house.

I used the Tilda fabric for the roof and the side panels of the bird house leaving the inner panels ready for a white acrylic paint wash later in the project. I used a hot glue gun and a heat proof mat (the red dotty mat just seen) to protect my craft table.

I bought a pastel pink, pastel blue and white ric rac trim to add to the bird house around the sides and over the Tilda fabric as a contrast.

Over the Tilda fabric - so pretty!

Then the white wash was added.

I crocheted a bunting flag in red using devil red #666 .

The flags were then fixed into place and with the remaining thread and fabric I embroidered a 'Home' banner and decorated the bird perk ready for my reveal.

Our little Home sign

The bunting fimo flags were glued in place on a crocheted string with a ric rac trim. I used a staple gun to attach the thread to the house and strong craft glue to attach the flags to the string.

And a hanging loop on the back.

And our new bird home is finished.

I am over the moon with my finished bird box and it's going up in the house tomorrow. I want to thank Ocean Finance for inviting me to take part.

How would you decorate a bird box?

Samantha

* This is a sponsored post

A Hand Drafted Envelope Cushion For The Made Up Initiative

Last month I was reading Love Sewing with a coffee looking at all the new exciting patterns when a story really hit me as a great idea.

 

The Made Up Initiative was launched last month for sewers to pledge money to charity to make up a project to a deadline! I decided to open up my sewing stash and make a difference.


The initiative supports the National Literacy Trust, as Mum who takes her little girl to the library on a weekly basis this really hit home. I was amazed with the facts that one person in six in the UK lives with poor literacy.

Since being a Mum, not only does my daughter come home from our library with books, so do I! I have found a new love of books. I love the craft section in my library and my pledge to support the Made Up campaign is to make a hand drafted envelop cushion inspired by my last craft book I loaned. It was a French inspired soft furnishing book loaned to make a dent in my soft furnishing fabrics!

I have had these duck egg, lilac jacquard home furnishing fabrics in my stash for months and I have planned and planned again to make cushions to match my Laura Ashley sofa. And I am delighted I have done them! I love the colours and textures to match my sitting room colours.

I wanted a shabby chic look with the different patterned fabrics.

And here is my Made Up envelope cushion, it's a pretty and simple project but these are always the ones we leave to one side for the more glam dress and cutie baby/toddler clothes?

Have you made the pledge?

Happy Sewing,

Samantha