FREE PATTERN: Giant hama bead lollipop (perfect for a Katy Perry costume!)

So if you follow me on facebook or instagram you have probably seen my recent Katy Perry costume. Let me remind you...

Anyway I had so much fun making my giant hama bead lollipop I thought I would share the pattern with you in case you ever need a giant lollipop accessory in your life!

You will need one large round and one large square peg board and lots of different colour hama or perler beads.

As the round and square boards can't be joined I just placed very carefully together!

Here is a close up if you want to follow the pattern exactly...

Once I had ironed my lollipop my stick wasn't quite strong enough to hold up the lollipop head so I had to get my thinking cap on...

So I made two extra sticks and stuck one on the front and one on the back using a super glue...

....and lots of pegs to hold it while it dried.

Add a bow and you are set.

I waved my lollipop around all night at my costume party and it is still all in one piece even after letting the kids loose on it over the past few days.

The accessory you didn't know you needed!

Have fun!

Kim
xxx

Free Pattern: Cactus Christmas decoration

Christmas is fast approaching and it is time to start to get stitching!
Why not start with a felt Christmas Cactus? He's cute, he's quirky, he will look great hanging on your tree.

So let's get started!

You will need:

The pattern which you can DOWNLOAD HERE for free
Green felt (A4 piece)
Dark green felt
Scrap of red felt
Black 12mm safety eyes (or black felt if you don't have eyes)
Green machine sewing thread
Light green embroidery floss
Red embroidery floss
Black embroidery floss
Ric rac or ribbon for the hanging loop
Stuffing

Cut out your cactus shape and pin it to your green felt and cut out (seam allowance is included). Pin the cut out cactus to the green felt and cut around to make the second piece.

Lay your two cactus pieces out so they are mirror images.

Take 3 strands of green embroidery floss and sew your prickles by making giant cross stitches in the positions shown on the pattern. Make sure you don't put any crosses where the eyes should be. For the back just mirror image the crosses or random crosses are just fine!

For the holly cut out two leaves of dark green felt and one ready berry. Overlap the leaves slightly, lay the berry over top and using 3 strands of red embroidery floss make a cross in the middle of the berry ensuring you have secured all 3 pieces together.

Lay the eyes down in the position shown and push down on them to leave a dent in the felt. Then cut two small slits where the dents are and insert and secure the eyes. NB My eyes are a little high here and the foot on the sewing machine only just made it past them!

Using 3 strand of black embroidery floss and back stitch add the eyelashes and mouth as shown on the pattern.

Place the cactus pieces right side together and pin REMEMBERING OF COURSE TO INSERT THE RIBBON FOR YOUR HANGING LOOP BEFORE SEWING..... because of course I totally forgot!!
So lay your ribbon down as shown (so beautifully!) below.

Note on the pattern piece where the stuffing holes are before sewing around using straight stitch. There is a 5mm seam allowance included.

Turn right side out and stuff from either end.

Use 2 strands of green sewing thread and ladder stitch the openings closed, continuing to add stuffing as you sew closed.

Position the holly wherever you fancy and  use one strand of green floss and a hidden stitch to sew it in place.

Congratulations it's a Cactus!

Kim xxx

Swans and Flamingos

Hello!

Gosh it has been a busy few months in my creative world. If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram you will know how fortunate I have been to win my section of The Clever Creations Project in association with The Market NZ and Your Home and Garden Magazine.

So I am very excited to introduce Featherstone the Flamingo and Suzie the Swan!  They are big and beautiful and full of personality. Featherstone is a little cheeky, Suzie is sophisticated.

Featherstone and Suzie are available exclusively from The Market NZ and not from my online stores. I am of course still making each and everyone with many teeny tiny stitches.

These two birds then inspired me to ditch the hoops and to super size my other animal heads.

I love how they appear to be floating on the wall.

So far Gladys, Terence and Ronnie have been enlarged and of course......

....Ursula the Unicorn.

And because the creativity was well and truly flowing I decided I needed to design some swan and flamingo cushions (as you do!)

So introducing Fred the Flamingo cushion and Serena the Swan cushion...

.....made of felt and full of personality they are a fun addition to your decor. Designed for gentle cuddles only! It also got me thinking what if Fred and Serena got cosy what would their offspring look like.....hmmmmm little Swamingos perhaps?

Anyway all the animal heads and bird cushions are now available in my Etsy and Felt stores. Most are made to order but some are ready to ship.

And well I have also been doing a bit of weaving too (not enough for my liking!) and have opened another Etsy store just to indulge myself really, give me an excuse to make more and more wall hangings. It is so addictive and very relaxing.  My weaving instagram feed is here with a link to the shop.

And I promise I am going to add some step by steps of how to weave so you can get started too.
We are off on a road trip in a couple of weeks and I am going to take my mini loom and wool and camera and hopefully get some decent photos to help get you started.

Looking back this is only 2 months work (not including the many animal head orders that have also been made and sent). I feel like I don't get enough done every day but thinking about it now it is no wonder the bags and wrinkles under my eyes have their own postcode.....I have been very busy!

Now I should really go to bed.....but maybe a little instagram first!

Thanks for reading
Kim
xxx

Learn to weave with cupcake cutie

So we all know about my obsession with faux taxidermy, well I have another love in my life too....WEAVING!

My new passion for weaving is all consuming and I want to share all my tricks and tips with you so you can get your weaving groove on. I have set up a dedicated instagram account for my weaving at @cupcakecutieweaving where I will be sharing works in progress and any tips I have learnt so far.

I will then add all these handy tips to my new Weaving page (see page tab above) as a handy reference for you.

I can't wait to get started!

Kim
xxx

Win an Ice Cream Splat Narwhal

WIN, WIN, WIN.....you can win one of my ice cream splat Narwhal softies .......

....and lots of other cute goodies over on the Twinkie Chan blog as part of her June sponsor giveaway...

Look at those little happy pills, so cute! Enter HERE to win. Good luck!

And while you are on Twinkie's amazing blog check out her quirky crochet, it is so cute. Her patterns are a great incentive to hone my crochet skills.

Kim
xxx

           

Dolls house makeover: The kitchen

So the dolls house makeover is finally complete...well there is always room for more but at a certain point you have to stop so your poor children actually get to play with it before they are teenagers!

I thought it would be easier to show one room per blog post and today it's the kitchen.....

I started with a bit of a cactus theme in the kitchen and papered the walls with some fun digital papers from Light Breeze Boutique on Etsy. The amazing bird feature rug is actually a decorative paper that came in a Mollie Makes magazine. Fridge, units, stove, dining table, white chairs and tiny food items are from Lundby.

Kitchen sink, pots, plate and boy are from Lundby. Giant bread on the table and retro clock over the sink are vintage finds from the local market. The stunning weaving on the wall is made by me using a tiny loom made by The Creative Muster . I will post a tutorial soon on how you can make your own.

 Plastic greenery in the window box is courtesy of the local $2 shop!


Next up is the bathroom...

A random Unicorn Sale....20% off

I love a random sale. For no reason at all I am having a sale of all Unicorn related products in my etsy store...

...no code required as the 20% has already been deducted. It includes everything shown plus the Unicorn faux taxidermy pattern.

Here is the link.

Happy shopping!

Kim
xxx

Vote for me and my taxidermy and you could win too!

I am very excited to announce that I have been chosen as one of the 12 finalists in The Clever Creations Project. Here I am on page 33 of the latest issue of the NZ Your Home & Garden magazine.

This is the front cover.....

.....I have to say there is nothing more exciting than seeing yourself in one of your favourite magazines. My 3 year old daughter and I were in the book store on the floor madly flipping through until we found the picture of 'Mummy'!

This is a bit of background from the Clever Creations website outlining what it is all about...


"The Market NZ and Your Home and Garden have been searching for new creative talent in need of a helping hand to grow commercially – and look who we found! We had so many exciting entries, which the judges have pared down to the 12 talented finalists below. The winner of each category will create an exclusive collaboration with The Market NZ, all costs covered, and be featured in the September issue of Your Home & Garden."

AND HOW YOU CAN WIN.....

"The People’s Choice award is selected by you! Get voting to be in to win one of 10 x $100 vouchers for The Market NZ or one of 10 x 1 year subscriptions to Your Home & Garden. One lucky voter will also win the entire Clever Creations Project collection. That’s a product from every category winner. Voting closes July 15th"

So if you could please take the time to vote for me and my menagerie HERE then we both have a chance to be WINNERS!

Thank you so much, I really appreciate it. I have all fingers, toes, legs and everything crossed so wish me luck.

Kim
xxx

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Dolls house makeover: The Bathroom

Next up in the Dolls House Makeover reveal is the Bathroom....

First up I started with this amazing Pink Flamingo wallpaper which I downloaded for free from Jennifers Printables. If you have the time and patience to wade through all the advertising and navigate yourself around there are so many wonderful patterns to choose from on this site.

The pink polka dot curtains are actually strips of washi tapes that I overlapped on slight angles onto light card and then cut out to look like curtain shapes. The pink and white checkered floor is from Alice Apple on Etsy. The donut detail on the floor is a free decorative paper that came from a Mollie Makes magazine.

The toilet and vanity are from Lundby. The flamingo picture is a vintage paint by number which I found on Pinterest and I made a hama bead frame for it. The tiny pink toilet roll holder which you can just see is from Tiny Things are Cute which is one of my favourite shops as it is full of tiny gorgeous things that you never knew you needed. The wee vase and flowers on the vanity is a vintage op shop find.

The wardrobe and wee blue seat are a vintage find from the local market. The shower and the bath (with rubber ducky) and little bottles are from Lundby. My daugther has broken 2 pieces of the bath already which I have taped back on with sellotape!

Don't you just love the light switches you can see through the window!!!

The felt zebra and donut cushions I made as well as the enormous Zebra rug which is an adaption of my Zebra faux taxidermy pattern.

Next up on the dolls house tour is the cloud room...

Playhouse Makeover

A bit of playhouse inspiration for you. Nothing like an injection of bright colours to lure the kids back in and get them interested in playing in it again.

This is before where it is all boring brown and very uninviting. The kids had a great time slapping on the white undercoat.

And then the fun began....the candy coloured stripes. I just chose any bright colour that appealed to me and only needed 2 large test pots of each colour.

It's like a giant licorice allsort in the back yard! And I got so excited about colour that I decided to paint the whole back fence bright orange too. Luckily my hubby likes any excuse to go to the hardware store and as long as I did all the painting he didn't mind what colour I chose.

I had already painted the mural on the inside previously but decided to splash some yellow paint on one wall...

...and a bit of blue and pink on the other walls....the type of place where you need to wear your sunglasses inside!

It is a tiny playhouse but we have it jam packed with goodies...a little stove with flashing and beeping elements, lots of plastic cups and plates and all the felt food I made a few years ago (you can find the tutorials for the felt food on my blog). The black doily rug on the floor and framed square on the wall are painted with chalk paint so we can do lots of list making and drawing.....

...and a wee table and chairs for serious tea drinking (with at least 6 teapots to choose from!) while admiring the view of the bright orange fence out the window.

Now we just have to wait for Spring again so it is warm enough to go outside and play in it.

P.S It never looks this tidy. If I took a reality shot of it right now it would be carnage with the floor covered and the place basically trashed but hey that's how kids play!

How to cross stitch on a chair

I love stitching on furniture and when I found this chair at The Warehouse (in NZ) I knew it was crying out to be stitched.

I dived into my wool stash and picked out a few bright colours and chose a large tapestry needle.

I decided it would probably look best with some kind of geometric pattern so I whipped up a cross pattern using cross stitch software and started stitching...

The wool I had was only 8 ply so I doubled it to get a nice chunky stitch. This was a bit fiddly as I had to make sure the 2 lengths didn't get tangled but it was really fast to stitch and so much fun to do.

I think it only took about 2 hours to finish stitching the whole thing. It was one of those projects I was desperate to see finished so no procrastinating on this one!

And the finished chair which matches my little sewing desk perfectly.

HUGE discontinued pattern SALE!

I have been busy in the last month or two organising our house trying to find a permanent home for everything once and for all. I have been ruthless with all items and if I don't love or use it, it has gone to either the charity shop or the recycle centre.

So now it is time to apply the same ruthlessness to the patterns in my Etsy store so I am having a huge DISCONTINUED PATTERN SALE.

I have created a special section in my etsy store called DISC PATTERN SALE and for one month only all the patterns in there will be 60% off. Yip that's right 60%!!!!

They are mainly cross stitch patterns and some sewing ones. Here is a preview of some of the iems on sale...

The prices shown are before the 60% discount so many patterns won't be much more than $1!

The sale offically starts on 22 Feb (US central time) and runs until 22 March. After this date all these patterns will be gone forever.....boo hoo. But that's OK becuase it makes room for new patterns to come.

I am still on track to release 1 new faux taxidermy a month during 2015.
Gladys the Giraffe is now available in both my Etsy and Payhip stores.

I have also created a fabulous PATTERN DEAL. Buy 2 get 1 FREE on all faux taxidermy patterns available exclusively in my etsy store.

And even more exciting news is that I will be releasing the SEWING MACHINE versions of all the faux taxidermy patterns as soon as I can. Gladys will be first because she is fresh in my mind.

Coming soon are the Bear/Polar Bear patterns, the Zebra and the Unicorn. I am very excited about all of them and can't wait to make them available to you.

As always if you have made any fabulous creatures from my patterns I would love to see photos if you feel like sharing. You can either tag me on Instagram or facebook or just email a photo if you like. I am happy to link/tag back to your original photo even if you are selling your finished creations.

So I am off to add more to the DISCONTINUED PATTERN SALE. Remember it starts on 22 Feb (US central time) so don't start shopping until you see the discounted price in red.

Happy shopping

Kim
xxx