London Mummy

Thrifty Playtime tutorial

I don't know a single child who doesn't like to play pairs, so here is a simple little tutorial to make your own from a sheet of wrapping paper and some card.

As soon as I spotted this sheet of "Playtime" gift wrap with it's wonderful retro illustrations designed by Sean Sims I just knew I could have a bit of crafty and thrifty fun with it.

It was the fox that really caught my eye - I'm just loving the foxy trend at the moment.

My immediate thought when I spotted this gift wrap in my local Oliver Bonas store, was that it would lend itself really well to a kids handmade Alphabet memory game - here's a shot of the whole sheet of paper (which is 50% recycled, so another yay) which gives you an idea of just how many sets of the alphabet are on it:

Yup, I'm going to get quite some mileage out of this - if you want to make your own set then you can order the paper, along with with lots of other lovely paper goodies online  from the nineteenseventythree website. - £2.00 a sheet.

So here's how to make your own little handmade memory game.

Gather your supplies:

1. One sheet of the gorgeous gift wrap
2. Cardboard - was £1.95 for a huge sheet from my local Art Supplies shop but you could easily substitute a cereal packet or any other suitable board which is probably lurking in your recycling box, rather than buying some cardboard.
3. Decorative paper sheets - mine were from Tiger down in Shepherds Bush, a couple of pounds for a bumper pack of about twenty different sheets if I remember correctly - again, not strictly necessary but I did want to pretty up the backs of my cards.
4. Scalpel or other cutting knife/blade
5. Metal ruler
6. Adhesive - I used Spray Mount as it's what I had to hand and it is fabulous but not cheap so just use some pva glue instead which you could also use to varnish your finished cards if you so desire.

Basically, I simply cut out two complete alphabet sections from the gift wrap, sprayed the back with my Spray Mount (in a well ventilated area) and stuck the sheets to the cardboard, making sure that all the edges were completely stuck down.

Then I trimmed it down to a manageable size, I found eight images worked well for me, and then stuck the decorative paper to the back

Make sure it's all nice and thoroughly dry and then cut out your individual cards - this is really easy to do as the all your lines are nicely laid out on the print for you already - easy peasy!

Of course being me, I didn't stop there, couldn't resist making a very quick little matchbox style box to store the cards in:

Or fail to notice that three images, backed with card and cut lengthways made really cute bookmarks - how sweet would they be tucked into a party bag:

And then I remembered some little wooden blocks I had in my project stash:

Yes I'm becoming somewhat obsessed and still have at least half the sheet left!

Dominoes anyone? 

To be continued .....

 

 

Christmas Ornament tutorial - sneak peek

Every year I like to create some new simple handmade ornaments for Christmas.  Not only do I get the fun of  playing with the goodies in my craft stash but I love the feeling that I'm creating a little stash of ornaments for Livvy to keep and remember her childhood by, even the ones she doesn't always like :)

Fortunately, she rather likes these prototypes of some new felt ornaments I've made :)

Apologies for the poor lighting but it is a grey dull day here in London.  I'm thinking they will look rather sweet hanging from my ubiquitous white twigs at Christmas.

I've always loved the Swedish Dala horses and was inspired to make these whilst taking a little break from making another batch of my festive lavender houses:

I'm currently in the process of writing up a little tutorial for these felt dala horse ornaments to share with you, they really are quite simple to make and you don't need much at all in the way of materials just some red felt, scraps of white ric rac, red and white embroidery floss, some bakers twine and a bead if you feel so inclined - I also used some scraps of Warm and Natural batting, left over from some Christmas patchwork bibs I've been making, between the two layers of felt to add a little extra body. 

I've actually got a couple of tutorials on the go at the moment which I'm looking forward to sharing with you all.

 I might even put together some little kits to add to the shop if there is enough interest as I know it can be frustrating and expensive sometimes to have to go out and buy all the materials, particularly when you don't need an awful lot of each item.

And Livvy, how can you not love my Snowls .........?

There one of my most popular photos on Flickr

 

Happy New Year with a peek at some of my Christmas sewing and fab tutorial compilation.

Well so much for my resolution of keeping on top of blogging and emails, failed already :)  Thanks to all who emailed me wishing me a Happy Xmas and New Year, I will respond soon I promise. 

Anyway just wanted to pop in and say Happy New Year and hello to everyone visiting from The Long Thread.  Ellen has compiled an absolutely amazing list of Tutorials and kindly included my Handmade Skittles and Ball Tutorial.  For those of you suffering from post Christmas crafting withdrawal go and check out the raft of wonderful tutorials she has featured, many of which I hadn't come across before.  She also has a really cute Reversable Skirt Pattern available in her Etsy Shop along with some cute machine embroidery designs for applique - go take a look!

As for me, I've been busy continuing with my DIY, more progress reports on that next week hopefully and trying to upload and edit some of my Christmas gift crafting photos:

Love this Robert Kaufman "Hot Couturier" print and thought the small scale would be perfect for a little doll's bed quilt set for a very special little girl who turned two on Christmas Day and has also just become a big sister to a new baby brother.

I teamed it with some very soft, fine red and white striped cotton/linen blend which was actually a real pain to work with but loved the combination of the fabrics.  The binding is the Michael Miller Garden Pindot - I cheated and just stitched both sides on in one go.  The quilt itself measures approx 21 inches by 18 inches and I simply quilted 3 inch squares - I like to keep things simple round here :)  For the pillow I made a simple calico stuffed one and then made the little patchwork cover using the fabrics I had used for the quilt - have to say I love this little set and will be making more for London Mummy soon.

I also made her this little scarf:

Really simple to make, a rectangle of the pretty blue floral fabric which is a lovely soft brushed cotton, a layer of "Warm and Natural" batting and some dark midnight blue soft corduroy for the reverse.  Plan to add a button and button hole but need to double check her neck size first - I have a habit of underestimating sizing :)

A few people asked me for a tutorial on the pyramid fabric shapes, both in the kids play size and door stop size and I will try and post that later on this week, provided I finish Livvy's floor first!