CRAFTY DAY 25 - POTHOLDER KITCHEN MAT

We all seem to accumulate potholders, I know I have to old trusty's that I use and a few others that just sit in the drawer.  So what to do with them.   Mmmmm head down to the local op shop and buy everything they have, I got all of these for about 10 cents each. Even the mitts will come in handy. And come hoome and rustle up a fashionable kitchen accessory from them.  Want to make this a bit bigger so will have to find some more holders

MATERIALS

10 - 15 potholders
sewing machine
scissors


Remove any loops and tags from potholders.  Cut stitching on oven mitts to seperate into two seperate pieces.  Now arrange your potholders in a pleasing design, you can choose to do them in rows or layer them on top of each other as I have.  Just a note here, take care when layering that sewing areas are not to thick.  When placing mitts it is better to have them in a middle position of the mat sew that all edges are sewn down, alternativly you can bind the edges for a neater look.  The more holders the bigger the mat.  Would look great down in kids face washers for a bathroom mat.

CRAFTY DAY 24 - DINO PLANTER

I saw this idea on Pintrest and immediatly fell in love with it.  Wanted to make it for my sons room, so set about trying to find giant dinos.  OMG do you know how expensive these things are, so I decided I would have to wait for one to come to me.  Amazingly it was a very short wait, two days later on a trip to the tip I found this fellow in the tip shop. Believe me I snatched him up really quick. Cost = FREE. I love the tip shop.  As usual I had all other materials on hand so another free craft day.  Anyway onto the craftiness of Dino Planters  NOTE - Don't paint this is 40 degree heat, it has taken four days to do this as the paint wouldn't dry quickly because of the heat.

MATERIALS

Large childs vinyl toy
Scissors or stanley knife
Gloss Spray Paint
Small succulent plant
Marker

With the marker, draw a circle on the back of your vinyl toy.  Using this mark as your guide cut this section out.  Much easier with the stanley knife.  Did you know these things have stuffing, mine certainly did, and it was all wet and smelly - YUCK - pull all this out, and toss.  Wash your toy well and allow to dry.  If there is an air hole in the underside of  your toy plug it with a little dab of hot glue. I sprayed my toy with a light colour first (yellow) and then a few coats of the blue.  This allowed me to get better coverage with less coats.  Allow paint to dry.  Fill your dino with soil and add your plant.  Using a succulent means less watering and is easy for young children to look after.  And you are done.

CRAFTY DAY 23 - NAUGHTY PUSSY CAT NECKLACE

My kids found this Kingfisher wing tip out in the yard, and the beauty of it needed to be made into something to commemorate the poor birds life.  So todays crafty offering is my Naughty Pussy Cat necklace.  You don't need to find a birds wing for this, you could use a groupong of any type of feathers.

MATERIALS

Feathers
Matching coloured button
Pussy Cat button
2 split rings
chain
clasp
small amount of fabric
needle and thread

Glue the feathers to the fabric and trim around feathers taking care not to snip the feathers.  Glue the cat button to the large coloured button and position at the end of the feathers.  with a couple of pins temporarily position split rings on the back of the fabric and place chain on, you are doing this to check for the true centre of balance.  You will find that the weight of the buttons will make your feathers point down, if you want them to set across your chest you will need to find true centre.  Once you have found your balancing point sew your split rings to the backing fabric, attach chain and you are done

CRAFTY DAY 22 - PATCHWORK HEART VALENTINE GARLAND

Well technically it is still day 21 but I have not crafted much over the holidays so will try and catch up.  A lovely little patchwork heart garland ready for valentines day decorating.  A way to use up all those odd decks of cards that everyone has that is missing a few cards.

MATERIALS

Red backed cards
Blue backed cards
Black permanent marker
Scissors
Glue
Wool
Crochet Hook
Hole Punch


Glue 2 red cards together so that the red backs are showing.  Draw a heart on one side with the permanent marker, this is not an exact science and imperfections of a hand drawn heart look great. Just make sure you use the length and width of the card.  Cut heart out on the outside edge of the black marker, this will leave you with a red heart with a black border.  Cut a blue card in half width wise and draw a heart on each, cut out same as before.  Cut a red card into quarters and draw heart and cut out.  Glue a blue heart on the large red heart and a small red heart onto the blue heart.  Adjust the size of the heart if required. With the hole punch,  punch a hole in one top side of the large red heart.  With your crochet hook and wool chain 6 join with a single crochet in the first chain, chain 45, *single crochet into hole of card, chain 20*, repeat * until all hearts are on chain. chain 51, slip stitch into 6th chain from hook, finish off.

CRAFTY DAY 21 - LACEY COASTERS

Now that the rush of Christmas, New Years and Spousal Holidays are over I can really get into the crafting.  Todays offering came about from a trip to the tip yesterday.  Among the many things I picked up was a sheet of 4 inch square tiles. Cost of tiles = free.  Actually the cost of these coasters was nil as I had everything on hand, so even better no cost and house work put off for an hour.  I ended up making two sets, one in the bright colours and a set in black and silver.  When choosing your lace, go with curtain lace as it is thin and easy to work with

MATERIALS


Curtain Lace
4 x 4 inch Ceramic Tiles
Fabric or PVA glue
Gloss Spray Paint
Glue gun
Felt or polar fleece
Scissors
Paintbrush

Place lace over your tile until you have a motif in a nice placement,  cut out 1 inch wider than tile on each side. Cut out 4. Paint top of tiles with fabric glue and place lace over the top, turn over and weight down with a can for five minutes. Do this on a chopping board or bench, not on paper otherwise the paper will stick to your lace.  When dry, whilst holding tile cut the corners of your lace off this will mitre your corners without any bulk. With the gue gun run a bead on one back edge about 1/4 inch from edge and fold your lace over to the back.  Do this on all four sides.  You may find that the sides of your lace on the tile will be loose.  A small dab of hot glue and small amount of pressure will make it lie flat.  When all tiles are covered, place each tile on a plastic cup or similair and spray tops and sides of coasters.  Don't get to heavy handed with the paint here as it can easily fill the holes in the lace, if this happens a bit of scrap cloth wiped across the top whilst wet will disperse any excess.  While waiting for them to dry cut your felt or fleece into squares a little bit smaller than your tiles.  When dry using fabric glue,  glue squares to the base of coasters and you are done.  When they need cleaning just a damp cloth will clean them.

CRAFTY DAY 20 - DOCUMENT HOLDER

Todays crafty offering is a document holder. Perfect for letters, cards, photos etc.  Super easy and will look great when in use.

MATERIALS

Old thick book
Glue



Remove front pages of the book til you get to the first page of text, repeats for back of book. Glue first page down onto cover and repeat for the back.  Now you need to start folding each page in half.  When you get to the end that is it The End - you have now completed a recycled book project that will be used everyday. Experiment with different types of books, atlas, dictionary road map books etc.  Now all you ned to do is load it up with pics cards and mail etc. The book I used was over 100 yo and really poor condition. The paper is super thick and cracked and split along the folds, I like how the ragged edges of the folds looks, but if you want crisper folds use a book that doesn't have such thick, brittle paper.  You could also decorate the inside cover with fabrics instead of the book pages.  Or trim the covers back to the same width as the folded pages

CRAFTY DAY 19 - EASY NO COOK PLONKY RUM BALLS

Every Christmas we have a table of nibblies that last through out the day and this is one of our favourites.  Preferably I would use a stale cake, but left it til the last minute this year.  Stale cake means you can put more plonk in.  Onto the goodness

INGREDIENTS

Cheap fruit cake ( purchase  a week  before hand and allow to go stale)
Coconut
Chocolate sprinkles
Rum





METHOD


Cut your fruit cake into chunks and put them in your food processor.  Process them to a crumb.  Add about a half cup coconut.  Slowly add your rum until it forms a firm dough.  Take dough out and wrap in gladwrap, and place in fridge for 1 hour.  Remove from fridge and form into balls, roll in chocolate sprinkles, and your done.  Store in a single layer in fridge until required