Pretty Shabby Uk

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Sant hapus - Happy St Davids Day Due to the face that my mum's side of the family is from Wales, i thought I would Put together a post off all things welsh. These daffodil windmills / pinwheel s are fun to create and make a pretty display as they whirl around. The daffodil bunting is a fantastic craft for kids, as they get to draw, colour and paint. Bara Brith (Welsh currant bread is wonderful on its own, or toasted and served with lashings of butter...Recipe:  Bara Brith At Love Making things Ann shows off her beautiful to make St Davids Day Card.

After making my craft room wreath  i was inspired and decided that i needed to make more. I have recently decorated my bathroom, so i thought what better room to do it for. I love the vintage union jack theme at the moment. I created this wreath the using the same technique as i did the Pink, Black and Zebra Print one I had plenty of red, blue and white ribbon in my stash to use. My two beauties, both made within a night. (my door is actually white, even though it looks a yucky cream...honest)

As promised, Here is my Pink, Black and Zebra Print Ribbon Wreath. This is the one I will be using in my craft room. Firstly make your wreath base – For a super frugal idea, why not see my insulation pipe tutorial. Then cut all of the ribbon into 4 1/2" strips. This is the most time consuming part of the entire thing. Fold a piece of ribbon and form a loop. (overlap the ends by about 1/2"). Place a pin through the ribbon, from the inside out, to hold ends together. If your ribbon is one sided, make sure that your design is on the outside. Then, simply just attach the ribbons to the wreath base by pushing the pins in all the way. Make sure that the loops are close enough together that no base shows through. And you just keep going until your wreath is full. I started with just one ribbon and randomly put it in throughout. I think it helped to make sure that I didn't have too much of any one ribbon i...

After making my Christmas wreath, I'm really getting into wreath making.  After looking for wreath bases I came across a fabulous idea on Pinterest to use pipe insulation for the wreath form.  How fabulous is that??  Luckily my husband had some, as I am still doing my £0.00 challenge, which he uses for covering his fishing lure hooks.  He buys them at B & Q hardware store, the insulation is under £1.00 for a length. This project is so simple to do.  All you have to do is bend the pipe insulation to the wreath size you want and then just duct tape the ends together. How cool is that?  I think that this works better with bigger wreaths, as the pipe insulation does not really stay in a good circle on the smaller wreath forms. I decided to make the wreath a little stronger by taping it with electrical tape. There are so many wreaths that you can make. If you like this idea why not see how I made...

Well now I have my stamps in order , I don't want to have to keep pulling them out every time a friend wants to have a look or every time that I want to create a project, so I have made a Stamping journal which I divided up into sections according to the theme. I stared with a wire bound journal which can be bought from an stationery shop, in fact the one I used was from a pound store. Carefully de-bind (not sure if that is a word but it fits) making sure that you do not stretch or bend the wire. To make sure that I did not mess the papers and lose the holes, I added little paper dowels.   I removed and covered the front of the pad with some green and white spotty wallpaper. To easily locate the binded holes I pierced holes in the front with a darning needle before I forgot where they were.  It was a feel and prick kind of exercise. Then I decorated the front cover with co-ordinating papers that were already in my stash (a...

Have you ever had an idea for a project and thought I think I have a stamp that would look good on that? or you simply draw a blank because you can't remember what stamps you have in your stash? As part of my ongoing organisation of my craft room, it was Stamp organising time. Specifically my unmounted stamps. As you can see it was a nightmare to find a stamp that gave me inspiration.  They were stored in a plastic tupperware box. First came the hard part of sorting them out, so I categorised them into the relevant sections. This took the longest in the organising process. There are a number of ways to store the stamps but I chose to store them in CD cases.  I cut a piece of stock card to the size of a CD cover, and stuck the acetate pictures which came with the stamps on to the CD covers with double sided tape. For the stamps with the small stamps I put them in the paper disc holders to ensure that they did not get lost, and wrote on t...

A king cake (sometimes rendered as kingcake, kings' cake, king's cake, or three kings cake) is a type of  cake  associated with the festival of Epiphany in he Christmas season in a number of countries. The cake has a small trinket (often a small plastic baby, said to represent Baby Jesus) inside, and the person who gets the piece of cake with the trinket has various privileges and obligations (such as buying the cake for the next celebration). The "king cake" takes its name from the biblical three kings. Catholic tradition states that their journey to Bethlehem took five days (the Twelve Days of Christmas), and that they arrived to honour the Christ Child on Epiphany. The season for king cake extends from the end of the Twelve Days of Christmas (Twelfth Night and Epiphany Day), through to Mardi Gras day. Some organizations or groups of friends may have "king cake parties" every...

Hi all, I am delighted to have been asked to be a guest blogger for Maggie over at  Passionately Artistic . For those of you who don't know me let me introduce myself; I'm Dawn, I live with my fantastic hubby John, and I have 4 amazing kids. I am a newbie when it comes to the blogosphere.  Have a look around, see what you think.  Feel free to add yourself to my list of followers. Let me share with you how to make this easy peasy Me to You Happy New Years card Supplies:- A4 white card Me to You Stampers gift set Me to You papers Xcut oval nesting dies Silver adhesive stones Step by Step Instructions Using the Xcut oval nesting die I created an oval card blank.   Then covered the card with patterned paper Stamp ‘Let’s Party!’ on to a small oval die cut and embellish with a ribbon bow and shimmer dots. Attach to the card. Stamp the tags four times on to card and patterned papers then cut in half and paper piece the tags. Add colour to the ba...

Lavender Shortbread Recipe Makes 16 small rounds. Ingredients 150g plain flour Pinch of salt 100g butter 50g caster sugar 2 tsp culinary dried lavender flowers. Method Preheat oven to 160C.  Slightly crush 1tsp lavender flowers in a pestle and mortar to release the natural oils. Sift the flour and salt into a mixing bowl with the caster sugar, butter and crushed lavender, and rub in using fingertips to make a crumbly mixture which can then be kneaded together to make a dough.  Roll out to 1cm thick and cut into individual rounds. Sprinkle with the remaining lavender flowers, pressing them down gently until they stick, then bake for 10-15 mins until the shortbread is just starting to brown. Leave for 10 mins before removing from baking tray, and sprinkle with caster sugar. Tips Some people recommend leaving the dried lavender flowers for decoration until after the shortbread is baked, but I find th...

Hi All, Well not long now.... It is about time that i posted my fabulous Christmas tree picture.  This year i decided to go for the fairytale gingerbread theme. See what you think?  Have you spotted the Five little snowmen  or the Felt Christmas Puddings ? Remember the wooden gingerbread men post i did?? Meet Gingerbread Sam The full effect This one is also gingerbread Sam..... My son Luke loves Fireman Sam.... I have been busy trying to get my assignments done before Christmas so i can relax, oh and baking the odd batch of mince pies (yummy).. So I am going to pop over and see what other fabulous goodies have been made this week at Wendys