Wool-wrapped Christmas Trees

I know, I know. Another Christmas decoration post and it is only November - but you see the decorations need to go up on the 1st December so I have a lot of work to do before then!

One of my lovely friends bought Kit a Thomas toy for his birthday back in June, for some reason the box for it had still been lying around when I went to find card for my treasure post, I think I've said before I tend to collect recycling! Well, not only did I want to recycle the card into something, but I also found that it had some of those long wire ties that they use to prevent you from ever being able to remove your toy from the box! I wondered what I could do with them. Well I was thinking about Christmas decoration ideas and I thought I'd use them for christmas tree frames to wrap wool. I'll show you how...

I'm making more with the left over wire, this one will be for our tree, the others I'll hopefully sell at a Christmas craft fair. 

Fabric Pom Poms

I started to make Kit a quilt tonight (hopefully more to be shared later!). We took the sides off of his cotbed last week, so now it is just a bed! He'd climbed out of the cot one morning and I woke up to 'where are you mummy?' getting louder and louder until a small child appeared in my bed! I had hoped to get the quilt done before taking the sides off but I didn't want to wake up to a thud, so now I am on a mission to get it done asap. First task was to cut out the patches. I had to stop before I'd managed to do the last lot of material because one of the panels is massively creased and I don't have an iron!





From the patches I had cut out I had lots of little scraps of materials which didn't seem good for anything, but I hate to waste pretty material, no matter how small. I remembered that I had a new pom pom maker that you could use with strips of material, so I thought I would test it out.



I only had enough scraps for one pom pom, but I know what I'll be doing with all my fabric scraps now!

Treasure

We missed International Talk Like a Pirate Day this year, slack I know. But we don't need a celebratory day to be pirates. In this household we are always on the search for treasure - although what constitutes treasure differs slightly between the two of us. My idea of treasure is generally something that I can make something lovely with (which is why I have an epic wool and fabric collection!). Kit seems to consider treasure as either something he can eat or play with. Well, I combined the two, and used some of my pretty things (and a few bits from the rubbish bin) to create something that Kit could play with. We literally made treasure.

Firstly we found some scrap card and a bottle top. Drew around the bottle top and cut out lots of circles.

This is the reason that toddlers shouldn't play with scissors...

 'I cut my nose Mummy'

We were lucky because the card we found was already gold on one side, so when we did the next step of sticking two circles together we already had a gold coin, but if you don't (and we had one that the gold was torn on) then you could cover them in tin foil like we did.

We needed something to store the coins in so I whipped up a really simple bag from some piraty fabric I had in my stash. They are basically a strip of fabric folded in half and a flap folded over at the top of each side to create a drawstring. You have to do it inside out and then sew the flaps in and up the sides (but not the flaps as you need to thread the string through there) - sorry I'm dreadful at explaining!

I think my little pirate likes his treasure anyhow.



 

Recycling Crayons

I've seen lots and lots of posts on various blogs and websites explaining how to recycle old, broken crayons into new, pretty, lovely ones. What a great idea! Kit is only 2 and we already have a box full of crayons, mainly given to us in goodie bags from various places. I thought recycled, nicely shaped crayons could make a great party bag or stocking filler (especially if you find moulds that are seasonal!).

Ribbon Rosettes (tutorial of sorts)

Kit inherited a beautiful rocking horse from freecycle, it needed a few repairs but his Grandad fixed it up for him and now it gets treated to carrots and everything. He does some spectacular rocking on it, definitely deserving of a rosette!

Origami

I still have a very large pile of envelopes to use, and so I started another craft idea to re-use them. Origami paper is generally quite pricey, so I made my own!

A year or so ago Kit's big sister (who was 11/12 at the time) did lots of origami with Kit's (and her) Dad. They got the patterns from Activity Village, so well worth considering as an activity if you are stuck for something to do with the kids over the holidays.

Loo Roll Piggy

A while back I found a book in a charity shop...

T-shirt Covered Cushions

I'm bit of a hoarder when it comes to clothes, and I still have some t-shirts I bought when I was a teenager. Over the years I've become better (mainly due to moving house quite often), but I still had a few t-shirts left that will never fit me again! I also still have the biggest pile of baby and toddler clothes and really need to find a home for or re-use (in a craft sense).



I already showed you how I had used some of Kit's t-shirts in a memory blanket, and I will be saving a whole bunch more ready to create a much larger one for him later on. This is more of a use of my larger (but now too small) t-shirts, although a couple of little t-shirts have crept in along the way.

Recycled Stickers

Kit loves stickers - every child does, don't they? He also insists that practically all of his artwork be stuck up on the wall, so we now have a living room wallpapered with sticker and scribble covered paper - but he's so proud of his work, what can a mum do!

Lots of sticker usage causes lots of empty sticker sheets...BUT they aren't empty are they!!

Being frugal, and posing as environmentally friendly I was wondering what I could do with all the leftover sticky bits from the used sticker sheets.

Hanky Bunting

I've been promising a friend that I would make her some bunting for a while now after she had admired the bunting I made for Kit's room when I moved into my flat, and he moved out of sleeping in my room.

I'd used a template and cut and stitched up each flag on Kit's bunting, which was fairly time consuming (although worth the effort in the end), this time I wanted something that would be quick and easy to do, to ensure that I actually got around to finishing it.

I read a lot of craft blogs and craft magazines, and I'd seen mentions of making bunting with old (vintage!!) hankerchiefs so I thought that I would have a go.

Memory Blanket

A while back I made a memory blanket for Kit with some of his t-shirts that were too small, and one of my old t-shirts backed with my old dressing gown. I'm hoping to make him a much bigger one when he moves into a 'big' bed. I had been inspired by a blog I'd seen where someone was making one for a friend whose child had passed away. I think it is such a lovely idea and it was such a lovely thing for them to do for their friend. (I can't find the link to the blog anymore - I'll add it if I ever do).