double giveaway time!

I apologise for my lack of crafting and absence from the world of blogging..

Apart from the usual pressures of work, family, friends etc. I am getting started on plans for our wedding in October. Expect to see posts on this in the coming months, needless to say I am planning to craft a lot of things for our wedding.

I just realised that it’s my blog anniversary this month (where has the year gone?!) so I have decided to do a giveaway. Entries welcome from anyone anywhere, instructions below.

You could win a cute fabric party bag with some fun goodies for your child,
and some cute little extras (yet to be decided) for yourself..

I will be giving away an Alice in Wonderland and a Dinosaur fabric party
bag, yes – that means TWO winners!





To enter:

• leave a comment on this post stating your preference for Alice or Dino
• if you are a follower please leave an extra comment for an extra entry
• giveaway closes Friday 25 February 2011 21:00 PM GMT
• the two winners will be picked at random, announced here,
  and contacted via email
• please make sure your email address is accessible via your profile,
  or include it in your comment like this: you (at) domain (dot) com

The two winners will get to choose which bag they would like, there are 6 Alice character bags to choose from (Alice, Queen of Hearts, Mad Hatter, Cheshire Cat, White Rabbit, Caterpillar), and the Dinosaur winner will get to pick the prints from my stock and the colour for the handles (green, orange, blue, pink)..

Each fabric goody bag will come with colouring book, shaped crayons, stickers, and other fun goodies to match the Alice or Dino theme..

There will be extra little gifts included just for you, I haven’t decided what exactly yet, but they will be cute/crafty/handmade!

Good luck! and thank you for taking part..

alice in wonderland party bags and favours

I made these necklaces as favours for Cyan’s Alice in Wonderland birthday party. I found the coloured aluminium chain when I was buying the charms for Oliver’s pirate dalek party. I had lots of the little key charms left over, I then found little gold heart charms – but I was having trouble finding the right charms for each necklace.

The cute little acrylic faceted teapots in all the same colours as the chains were a lucky find on ebay the week before the party! I love how they look with the chains. The necklaces fasten with a heart shaped clasp..

I was going to make some charms with pictures on, using Michele’s tutorial here using printing onto tissue paper and mod podge, my first try didn’t quite work out as I hoped, and I just didn’t have the time to do more trials. I will be playing around with this idea again though..



The party bags are made from different colours of gingham, with coordinated grosgrain ribbon handles; and a shaped felt pocket for each character. Featuring..

Alice



The Mad Hatter



The Queen of Hearts



The Cheshire Cat



The White Rabbit



The Caterpillar



I made the heart and cat bag styles back in July for the felt week of CraftShare 2010 at Sew Can Do..

The stickers I designed for each character were included.. (Thanks moo!)

 

And I made up colouring books – also using the John Tenniel illustrations..



Sadly I ran out of time to make the heart shaped crayons I was planning to do, luckily I had bought these cute mini gel pens as a back-up.

dalek pirate party stencil décor

For my son Oliver’s 7th birthday party on a dalek pirate theme I enlarged
the stencil designs I created for the invitations and used them to make flags
and other items for the party..



I made one large and three small flags with our dalek jolly roger design..



The large flag and two small flags were put up in our back yard,
and one small flag we put up at our front gate.



I used lightweight black poly-cotton for the flags, and gold spray paint
for the stencil designs.











I made a backdrop to hang up with a (almost) life-size dalek stencil..



It rained on the day of the party, so we hung the dalek backdrop indoors
in our dining room..



I stencilled a T-shirt for Oliver to wear – he wanted to ‘be’ a dalek!
I used special T-shirt spray paint for this, which is machine washable and everything..



I also re-used the stencil from the invitations for the party favour bags
which the kids took their booty home in..



Linked:

craftshare 2010 at sew can do ~ felt pocket party bags

Today I am a guest poster over at Sew Can Do as part of CraftShare 2010. My post is about using felt to make pockets on party bags, please hop over and read it here..

dinosaur crayons party favors

I have made lots of these recently :


from a lot of these :


I made lots of these dinosaur shaped crayons over the last few weeks for some Etsy custom orders. I recently purchased a new mold to make the dinosaur crayons, made of silicone – much better than my old plastic chocolate mold. I can use the new one in the oven which is so much easier when making crayons, it also allows me to make multicolour crayons which are much more fun, especially for party favors. I make each crayon with 2 or 3 colour layers.

I had to take a shot of all the crayon paper wrappers because they look so pretty! and I hate to throw anything away, so I am trying to think of a way to recycle these .. paper maché .. handmade paper .. ? Any ideas/suggestions welcome ..
(removing these is the worst part of making crayons – luckily for me I have a little helper who loves to peel!)



I love making these! I am buying in a whole variety of new molds so I can make different shaped crayons to go with all the other party themes I’m working on ..



Here are the crayons with our dinosaur coloring book and fabric party/gift bag :



You can buy them in my Etsy shop ..

Linked:

dinosaur fabric party bags

I love fabric party bags – they look great, are tactile, eco-friendly, last for ages and kids love them!

For my son Oliver’s dinosaur themed birthday party I sourced a lovely variety of different dinosaur print cotton fabrics to mix up and make the party bags. I also found fabulous dinosaur printed grosgrain ribbon perfect for the handles.

They were really quite simple to make; what worked really well was double-folding and stitching the top hem and handles, this makes them really sturdy – they have lasted two years now and still going strong! I have just this week made another 25 party bags for my very first Etsy order – very exciting! This also gave me the opportunity to take some photos of the construction process:





You can make these bags to fit any party theme, by varying the fabric and ribbon. If you’re planning a child’s birthday party why not have fabulous fabric party bags as a long lasting keepsake for your guests.

I have dinosaur fabric party bags listed in my Etsy shop along with other coordinated custom/personalized dinosaur party supplies – perfect for a dinosaur birthday party theme.

Linked: