Getting Crafty With Hillarys

Just recently I was invited along to The Hillarys Craft Roadshow to view thier newly launched fabrics and have some fun! The afternoon would also involve tea and biscuits and CRAFT! All good for me, I'm handy* with a sewing machine and there's generally always something being created in Monkeyfeet HQ.
*please note by handy I mean I can work a sewing machine, nothing ever turns out quite like it's supposed to!

We congregated in The a Jazz Cafe in Newcastle, and watched the very talented ladies from The Crafty Hen give a demo of how to make a reusable book cover. It all seemed fairly easy...

• Choose Some Fabric from the beautiful range (imagine these as blinds! They are gorgeous)

• Fold the fabric using the book as a template
• Decorate the fabric, possibly using a wee hand stitched flower (they're very easy we are told)
• Stitch together and et viola.

Or you can do it the Monkeyfeet Way

• Fold the fabric around the book (tweet about it)
• Realise you've folded it too big
• Fold again
• Choose some buttons then spend ten minute dithering over where to put them (tweet about it)
• Attempt a lovely cloth flower and realise you've just managed to create a Barbie shower cap!
• Now stitch the folds together (it's just a teeny stitch it's not hard)
• Realise you should have stitched the edges with the book still inside so that the cover actually fits!
• Re stitch (tweet about it)

• Look at the beautiful creations everyone else has made and feel slightly inferior

• Have a Cuppa! (tweet about it)

Next up a fabric bird

• Cut out fabric using the template (tweet about it)
• Stitch together (tweet about it)
• Stuff
• Et voila.

In reality I cut, stitched and sauntered to the front brandishing an inside out bird awaiting a good stuffing! That's when it all started to unravel, literally. Turning the bird right way out showed some flaws in my stitching, stuffing said bird highlighted even more!

The Top is how it should look, and the botttom is, well thats mine!

 

My poor bird was coming apart at the seams with stuffing escaping form almost every angle! Luckily with a bit of stitching and held at a distance it sort of looks ok, and Termite called it a 'quack quack' which is enough for me!

 

So to sum up, my crafting skills are exactly as I thought..... My ideas are much better than my execution! I had such fun though so a massive thankyou to Joe Blogs, Crafty Hen and Hillarys and all the other lovely North East Bloggers who helped make the day fab.

Proudly displaying our creations

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Easter Bunting

Monkeyfeet HQ is hosting an Easter Eggstravaganza tomorrow, with egg rolling, egglympics, and an egg hunt for all the littlies in the family. So we needed some decoration.

We made this really simple egg bunting

Cut out some large egg shapes

Let the kids paint them

Try to ignore the mess

Leave to dry

Clean up the mess!

Punch two holes in the top of each egg

Feed some wool through the holes

Hang and admire ! 

Winter Bucket List

The lovely Colette at We're Going On An Adventure has been sharing her bucket lists with us and it's been lovely to read, so we decided to link up our own bucket list for the next couple of months. 

January and February Bucket List

• See a post Christmas Pantomime We are huge theatre fans and a local drama group put on a late panto every year, so this year we are going to support them.'Oh yes we are'!!!

• Prepare the Garden of EnglishAlthough it seems strange to think of it so early, February is a great time to start planting the spring flowering bulbs like daffodils, tulips and snow drops. As well as tidying all the winter debris away.

• Make some Valentine CraftsIt's cheesy I know but we love crafting and it's nice to have a theme, so hearts flowers and lots of red are on the menu

• Successfully make Pancakes!I hate to admit this, but, I can't make batter based items! I bake cracking cakes, brilliant bread and perfect pies but pancakes and Yorkie puds are just beyond me no matter what I try I fail at batter so 2014 will be our year of the Pancake!

• Winter walks. -and plenty of them. I love bundling up and taking a walk to the parks or beaches we have nearby and it saves on cabin fever! 

• Start SwimmingThis is for the kids, after a bumpy patch and declarations of not wanting to swim anymore both big kids have had a short break but are ready to re-start their lessons 

• Start Dancing  Holly started dancing when she was just 3 but something knocked her confidence and after weeks of trying to encourage her back we gave up and stopped the lessons, she has now decided tap dancing is for her so we will start that next week 
   

Whats on your bucket list, I would love to hear your plans.

Wreath Making with Hobbycraft

We are great fans of Hobbycraft, we've already enjoyed some of their childrens crafting sets, so when we were asked to have a look at their wreath making supplies we were very excited.

The kit arrived really quickly and we had been sent a wreath, a hanging acorn and a bunch of fruity and floral decorations.

We separated all of the individual pieces from the bunch so that we could spread them around the wreath, and in the spirit of fairness and because I had two little helpers, we each took a few pieces to take turns in adding. All of the decorative bits came on flexible wire which is really easy to attach to the wreath securely (although little hands will need some grown up help).

We attached the acorn using the hanging string at the top and I had some lovely Christmas ribbon left over from last year so we added our own little bow. I have to tell you I'm uber proud of our creation and its hanging in pride of place on our front door, giving a warm Christmas Welcome to all our visitors.

I can't think of any negatives of this project.  The  wreaths are reasonably priced, good quality and easy to put together. We all got involved and it has turned out smashing! Best still Hobbycraft have an amazing selection of Christmas bits and bobs on 3 for 2.

Will you be making your own Christmas creations this year, I'd love to hear about your projects in the comment box.




***Hobbycraft kindly sent us these products  to review but the opinions in this post are all those of Family Monkeyfeet