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Showing posts with label Christmas crafts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christmas crafts. Show all posts

Sunday, January 4, 2015

Santa Sack Swap, Part 2.

Now it's time to show the items that I sent to Christine in this swap.
Not all the gifts would fit in the Santa Sack :-)
 
As you can see, the Santa Sack was a Judy Newman Dillybag! This was the first one I made and I had fun cutting the hexagons out of my stash of Christmas fabrics...many fabrics date back to when my children were little in the 1980s. Every year I buy a few more to update the collection! Lol. 


I love making mini quilts/wall hangings, so I made one for Christine...added a hanger too...

Also in the parcel was a fabric basket with some Christmas serviettes and some coasters made from Christmas fabrics...
 
Some tree decorations....

Christine had said she didn't mind the odd chocolate treat every now and then, so that took care of another gift for the Santa Sack...
At some Christmas markets I had gone to, I was able to buy a tiny Christmas cake, which was decorated with a wooden Xmas tree cutout. 
The 5th gift started out to be a table runner, but I decided to turn it into a tabletopper, as the dimensions were set by the design and 2 rows looked ridiculously thin and 4 rows looked a bit wide for a runner...so I squared it up. Christine's photo looked better than mine, so I'm using that photo, lol. 


Usually in Christmas swaps, I add some iron on labels that I buy from Fabric Patch. This is Christine's photo too, as I forgot to take a photo.

I had great fun putting together the Santa Sack of gifts for this swap. 
Christine has used the Dillybag to store all the Christmas ornaments/decorations she has received in blog swaps...a lovely idea! 

Thursday, December 18, 2014

My Day with Lucy...

In a previous post I wrote about my great niece Lucy, asking if she could come over one day and do some craft. We settled on last Tuesday but between Thursday and Tuesday is a long time for a 'nearly 5 years old' person to wait. So I had at least one phone call initiated by Miss Lucy, whereas her long suffering mum put Lucy on the phone to ask whether she could come 'that day ' ! Lol
Miss Lucy arrived earlier than expected but all was in readiness for our day...first we did some collage...

My art lecturers from my college days would have been horrified by our use of stickers, but I know what children like! :-)

All artists should sign their work was something I always told my students, and Lucy certainly knows that...

Next we decorated some baubles to make Christmas presents for Lucy's mum, dad, little brother and friend Ruby.

We had started filling the 'take home box'...

We found some special heart stickers to make mummy's bauble...the teacher in me was impressed with Lucy's fine motor skills...


Then it was time for some play dough....
Lucy made a family of snowmen...pink and yellow...


I had showed her how to make curls with the pipe cleaner and a pencil, thinking it might be a bit tricky for her...she kept practising until her curls were just as even as mine!
We had a stop for morning tea when my neighbour and her grandson came over to visit. Then my neighbour Judy suggested that Lucy might like to see the little kittens at Judy's house...so off we went.
Lucy didn't seem to have experience with cats...so to see these kittens was a new experience.
Judy's grandson was a lovely host...

Jay showed Lucy how to tickle the sweet mother cat, Snowball, under her chin...

When we came back home, Lucy wanted to work on her snowmen and her collage...lovely independent play...
After lunch, I invited her to help me decorate the little Christmas tree that I had left until Tuesday to decorate...so we got out the box of decorations and the little step to stand on...


But then Miss Lucy found the angels in the box...and tree decorating was forgotten...

Lucy played with the angels, firstly on the window sill; then into the hallway which became an 'angel school'. Finally the game moved outside where the angels were joined by Mary and Jesus from my knitted Nativity set. I loved listening and watching Lucy while she chattered, playing the part of her characters. She did this for a good 45 minutes! 
Miss Lucy doesn't have a daytime nap but she was getting a bit weary...when I suggested story time she wasn't impressed with that. I started reading out aloud and it wasn't long before she joined me on the sofa and snuggled up while we read lots of books! 
My niece was an hour or so later than we expected coming back to collect Lucy because Max slept longer that expected.
During the day Lucy and I had called out to Eduardo but he stayed skulking under the house...as soon as the little family drove away, he emerged. 
Here he is lounging beside the basket of picture books...he had not been impressed at all with our little visitor! Lol

Later the little tree was dressed in its decorations...most of them from swaps. 


Wednesday, December 10, 2014

I'm quite excited !

It started with a phone call...
Then some searching on Pinterest....


Then there was a trip to Bargain City...( thank you for telling me about the wonderful stocks of craft supplies at the BC at Chermside Markets, Margaret B...it was a real treasure house!) 


On the way home there was a stop at our local council library...


The phone call was from my niece to say that my great niece Lucy ( who will be 5 next Feb) had asked if she could go to Aunty Maria's place without mummy or Max (little brother), and do craft. My niece was flummoxed as Lucy has never wanted to go to anyone's place on her own before. 
So next Tuesday, Miss Lucy is being dropped off for a morning with me! That is the nice thing about this little family moving from the Sunshine Coast to 2 suburbs away from us...it's much easier to drop over. 
I had given away all my children's art/crafts  book when I retired but then I remembered Pinterest...so with a few ideas from there plus 'tried and true' old favourites from my classroom days, Lucy and I will be making some decorations and little presents.