11 December 2013

Home made Gingerbread House 2013

I am starting a new Christmas tradition for my young family this year...a home made Gingerbread house which will be wrapped up and on display and will be opened (with great ceremony) and devoured on Christmas Eve while watching cheesy Xmas movies...

Now this is my very first attempt at baking and decoration a gingerbread house (I do love a challenge) and I am pretty happy with the result. But I have to share that it was not a smooth ride.
The baking went very well and the decorating started equally well but then I tried to add the roof and well it all turned pear shaped when I tried to adjust the roof at a late stage and the whole thing collasped and the roof parts broke. I very nearly through it across the room but I thought 'no I can fix this'. So I manged to get the sides together and after much pondering and coffee drinking I had a brilliant idea...

I found a tall skinny box, chopped the ends out, covered it in greaseproof paper and squeezed it into a diamond shape and placed it inside the house. I wasn't about to start baking more roof pieces so off to the supermarket to buy pink wafers and chocolate fingers and royal icing mixture my daughter and I went...

I applied liberal amounts of icing to the greasproof insert and between the wafers and fingers and it all stuck together beautifully. Then I just started sticking and eating heaps of candy. I think I gained about a kilo today from all that sugar.


More is more when it comes to decorating...


The base is just a thick piece of cardboard covered in grease proof paper....
 
 
The iced Christmas tree I bought readymade from the supermarket...

And here it is all wrapped in its cellophane waiting for Christmas Eve to come around...

Now the only problem is I have no high shelt to put it on and two kids under 4 and a husband with a sweet tooth...hmmmmmmm I am going to have to be on guard duty I think!

08 December 2013

Free Christmas craft patterns + tutorials

I have pinned so many great FREE Christmas craft patterns and tutorials on Pinterest lately and have been sharing them on my FB page but I thought that I would put them all on one page and share them with you.

First up are these adorable Deer + Fox felt ornaments from Cutesy Crafts...



Then a wonderful felt Santa from Gingermelon (I just adore all of Shelly's designs!)...



Next are these gorgeous fabric houses from the very talented Retro Mama...

Home for the Holidays: free fabric house tutorial by Retro Mama

A very cute Kawaii felt Christmas Tree pin from the very inspirational Mollie from Wild Olive ...

O Christmas Tree Felt Pin

Adorable felt Raccoon hanging ornament from Imagine Gnats...

raccoon felt ornament

And I love this hanging terrarium from My So Called Crafty Life...

DSC 0035 3 599x600 DIY Christmas Hanging Terrariums

And of course my own latest freebie a little Gingerbread house to stitch...



Happy Christmas crafting!


05 December 2013

clouds, clouds and a few more clouds + a new pattern!

I have become a little bit obsessed with clouds lately.  I have been making felt cloud pinchushions...

....and little felt cloud brooches...

...for recent Christmas markets. So I thought I needed a cross stitch pattern to match...

'Rainbow + Clouds' (very original title!) is perfect stitched up for a kids bedroom and is cross stitch with a little bit of back stitch so an easy pattern to follow.

You can find 'Rainbow + Clouds' in my Etsy store.

Happy Stitching!

04 December 2013

Triangle Geometric Cushion...making something out of nothing.

I am always squirreling away crafty bits and pieces that I have found at op shops, people have given me or leftovers from other projects and sometimes they all come together to make something wonderful...


For this fabulous cushion I used a piece of rug canvas I bought for 50 cents at the charity shop and acrylic craft wool that I already had from previous projects, and my new  Triangle Geometric pattern.

 
I used two strands of wool at a time and cross stitched the design onto the rug canvas...

...and made the design the same size as the cushion inner I had was recycling.
  
This is vaguely how I made it into a cushion cover...

 
I took a long length of calico and cut in two. Placed the fabric and  triangles right sides together and  sewed up against edge of either edge of completed tapestry with about a half inch seam.

 

Folded and pinned the edge of each piece of calico...

then sewed the  sides....

Turned the cover inside out and trimmed the sides and cut the corners,...

Turned right side out and stuffed with the inner and there you have it a funky cushion!

03 December 2013

FREE Gingerbread House cross stitch or hama bead pattern

A little freebie to get you into the Christmas spirit...

You can find this cute  (+ FREE) Gingerbread House here in my Craftsy store.

I have also turned the same pattern into a hama bead decoration...

.....Cute!

Feel free to share this pattern with your friends and get everyone in the Christmas crafting mood!