More Easter Makes

Thank you for all of your sweet comments on my Bunny Bunting tutorial!  You can find it here if you missed it.  Now I'm back again, to show you a few more of my Easter makes.....

I made this sweet little crocheted Easter Bunny for my sister:  

I love his long, floppy ears and bright shiny eyes.  I found the pattern on Ravelry, here. 

As my sister's now caught the sewing bug from me, I thought I'd wrap her little Easter gift in fabric and ribbon - that she can use in a future project, maybe:

I liked how my little parcel looked, and think I might try wrapping some future pressies in fabric, too.

I just want to show you one more thing before I go.  Here's one of the Easter cards I made with my class:

They were so easy to do - just a hand print in black paint, a googly eye, and some fluffy cotton wool balls.  WARNING:  it is entirely impossible for a teacher's clothes to remain clean amongst an entire class of 4-year-olds with their hands painted black (no matter how hard that teacher may try to dodge the little darlings until all hands have been thoroughly washed).    

I hope that the Easter Bunny managed to find you this morning, and that you've now got chocolate enough to last you until August (and if not, Christmas)!  HAPPY EASTER to all of you, my dear friends!!!  

Carly

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Easter Bunny Bunting Tutorial

This year, I wanted to add a little something to my collection of Easter decorations, and decided that some sort of bunting (for the kitchen) was the way to go.  I wasn’t sure whether to go for eggs or bunnies, but plumped for bunnies in the end (maybe I’ll do some egg bunting next year). 

I searched the internet for ages, looking for a bunny template (of which there are thousands) that was quite tall, but thin enough to fit on some strips of backing paper that I wanted to use.  In the end, I just made up my own (to fit my paper).  You could use my template, or find a different shape by doing a Google search.

So, here goes with the tutorial.....

Things you'll need:

• Bunny template pdf (printed on to thick paper or card)
• Pretty papers or card
• Tiny buttons
• Scissors
• Craft knife
• A pencil
• A length of ribbon (mine was about 2m long)
• Needle and thread (or glue)

What to do:

1.  Print out the template (on card, if you can) and cut it out.

2.  Draw around the template on the back of some pretty card (or thick paper).  Cut out the bunny shape.

3.  Cut out lots of bunnies, in different colours and patterns, until you have a nice little bunny family (I made 10).

4.  Stick on some buttons to make your bunnies’ eyes (maybe steer clear of red – I used some red buttons and these bunnies look a bit evil - see a few photos below).

5.  Using a craft knife, cut two parallel lines going down either side of the bunnies’ necks (this sounds a bit brutal, but the bunnies won’t feel a thing).  The lines should be about an inch apart, and slightly longer than the width of your ribbon (so that you’ll be able to thread the ribbon through the holes easily).

6.  Make a loop at each end of your ribbon.  I sewed mine, but I guess glue would do the trick just as well (and in a quarter of the time).

7.  Now comes the fun bit..... arrange your bunnies in a row, and thread them on to the ribbon.  Space them out evenly.

8.  Hang them up, using the little loops you made at either end, and..... tadaaaaaaa!!!  Bonnie bunny bunting, just in time for Easter!!!

  

What have you been crafting to decorate your house for Easter???

Carly

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Teeny Tiny Hat

Hello lovelies,

This is going to be a quickie. I just wanted to do a quick show-and-tell of a hat that I made, last week, for a teeny tiny little friend of mine.....

  

The pattern in from the lovely Susie F Handmade blog. You can find it on Ravelry here.  

I was worried that it was a bit late in the year to be making a hat as a pressie but, as we've had MORE snow today, I needn't have been concerned!

Where are you, Spring???

See you all again soon, dear friends.....

Carly

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A Pretty AND Practical Prize

I was VERY excited indeed to learn, a few weeks ago, that I'd won a giveaway that the lovely Susie was hosting over at her Flower Press blog.  

And the prize???  A planner (from Personal Planners) that I could COMPLETELY personalise myself!!!  Choosing from all the options made me feel like a kid in a candy shop!  I got to pick the size of the planner, design the front cover, plan the lay-out of the pages, add extra features to each page (like to-do lists, spaces for notes, 'idea of the week' boxes.....), select what sections I wanted to add to the back of the planner (like address pages, birthday lists, plain paper, lined paper, squared paper.....), pick out colours for the text and the elastic closure - and even the little ruler that clips inside.....  It really did feel as though the possibilities were ENDLESS!

As you can imagine, I spent HOURS playing around with my design!

I was SO excited when it finally arrived, all the way from Australia!  I DO love the postman when he brings me goodies (instead of leaflets telling me what kind of meat's on offer at the local supermarket)!!! 

Would you like a little look?

I chose a photo of one of my makes for the front cover:

I picked it because I love the shade of bright blue, with the grey.  I picked out a grey elastic closure to match, and a grey back cover:

I chose grey for most of the text and features inside the planner too - and for the cute little ruler/bookmark (can anyone guess what colour I'm into at the minute???), with little bits of red:

My new planner can even talk:

  

I'm VERY happy with it!  Thank you SO much, dear Susie!!!

Now I'm off to check today's to-do list.....

Happy Saturday to you all!!!

Carly

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Mothers' Day Crafting

Happy (British) Mothers' Day to all the moms out there!  And, most of all, happy Mothers' Day to MY WONDERFUL MOM!!!

Here's the card I made for my mom, with some teeny-tiny little paper triangles, a black pen, and a set of alphabet stamps:

And here's the present I made for her.  It's the purse from the lovely Cath Kidston 'Stitch' book, and my first ever attempt at cross-stitch:

  

We're going to have a good, long Skype session later on.  I wish it could be a real-life chat, though!  But..... we don't have to wait too long for that now, thank goodness!!!  :-)

I LOVE YOU, MOM!!!  

Carly

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Half-Term Trip

As we enjoyed our February half-term visit to Center Parcs so much last year (click here if you want to read all about it), we decided to book up to go again this year.  This time, we went to De Huttenheugte (near Emmen, in the Netherlands). 

Our little chalet was lovely!  As our trip was our Valentine’s Day gift to each other, we decided to book a ‘VIP’ chalet.  This meant that we got lots of nice little extras, like a Jacuzzi, a sauna, and a lovely lakeside location.  

The weather was still VERY wintery while we were there.  The lake was frozen over, and we had a few flurries of snow.  As snow always does, it made the water and forests look even prettier and more magical!

Of course, we hired bikes for the week, and got a lot of use out of them.  Our sunset bike rides were my favourites!  

  

We also played a bit of table tennis, went for a few walks, visited the farm animals, fed the ducks, and did lots of swimming (well, floating around on the ‘lazy river’ and whizzing down water slides more than ACTUALLY swimming if I’m perfectly honest).  There were some wonderful, hot outdoor pools too.  I think my favourite bit of the holiday was swimming outside, while it was snowing! 

This Center Parcs trip didn’t involve much  other sportiness.  We spent the rest of the time drinking hot chocolate, eating pancakes (it was Pancake day while we were there), watching movies, and snuggling up in our chalet. 

Of course, I did a bit of crafting while we were there (more of that to come in another post).  I also took LOADS of photos.  I wanted to experiment a bit with the news lens Simon bought me for Christmas.  I lured in lots of little birdies with tasty snacks, and they made the perfect test-subjects!  I really like the photos I took of them.

We had a wonderful, relaxing week!  The only thing we didn’t like was having to leave!!!  

Why do holidays always whizz by so quickly???

Now we’re looking forward to our next one.....

Carly

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