Upcycled Denim Bag

Remember back when I started Crafting a Daydream, I told you about a denim bag I made out of one of my mums old skirts when I was younger? Well here's Sam to tell you about a much better version made by her daughter this summer. 

Cloud Dough Tutorial

Over to the lovely Laura for some good ol' fashioned messy play. LOVE it.

Being almost 1, an age where he’s starting to get into everything, my Little T needs things to take his mind off the fact that there are objects such as DVD players and Sky+ boxes in the house to ‘play’ with. One day last week whilst it was throwing down with rain last week (which sadly meant no trip to the park), I decided to pass an hour or so by making some cloud dough.

Summer Crafts

A busy summer has not stopped Rhia and her boy getting crafty! 

Hello lovely readers, as you are by now aware there has been a takeover here and we’re all talking summer. Thanks so much to the lovely Mrs Crafty B for having me once again.

Baby O’s First Wedding

With eight wedding invites over the last two years I am SO feeling this. Jo's tale of wedding adventures will have a lot of us nodding in empathy! 

Decorated Notebooks, Scrapbooks and Photo Albums

Here's Kelly with a tutorial for older children and adults alike. I am totally doing this. 

Do you remember covering your schoolbooks in wrapping paper or other decorative paper and protecting them with sticky backed plastic? Me too! Every work book for every subject had a different cover and I vividly remember that my French text book was covered in cartoon cows - not sure why but obviously at the time I thought it was cool!
Inspired by this schoolbook nostalgia, I have a simple but fun craft idea for you to create a special notebook, scrapbook or photo album that you can make with your children and that will look really special. Perhaps you can make a nice notebook for their new term at school or you could make a lovely photo album to collect all your photos of summer sun and fun. I can guarantee your friends and family will want one too and it's a great project to try at home.

Our Crafty Summer

Sam mentions her local Scrapstore in this post. Find yours. It really is, as she says, amazing. 

As a relatively new mum (I have the 3 year old Fred) and a summer stretching before us with downscaled nursery hours I knew I had to have a plan. Obviously we would be doing all the usual park/farm/beach visits, but that still leaves hours for doing things in an attempt to avoid having to pretend to be a dinosaur.

So we have spent this summer exploring all things crafty. We have made button bowls (brilliant), leaf prints, much cutting up of old cards - gluing and sticking, pirate ships from old boxes and a complete robot outfit (that really stretched my skills). We also discovered out local Scrapstore (amazing). But by far Fred’s favourite activity has involved pine cones.

Step 1 – spend a few hours in the park collecting as many pine cones as you can. Ticking the ‘outdoor play’ box 

Step 2 – bring them home and get the paints out

Step 3 – try to prevent small child from throwing them at the dogs, before attaching ribbons and storing for Christmas tree decorations.

Sam @ www.ourcraftythings.co.uk

Busby Vintage

First up on the September Takeover, we have Hannah. A post that is beautiful in so many ways.

Thank you Annie for inviting me to write a guest post today! It's been ages since I've written a guest post as have been ridiculously busy, but it's nice to be writing in a different corner of the internet for an hour or so. I hope you're enjoying your new bundle of love, or, if he hasn't arrived yet, you're not too frustrated... or if you're in labour, you're not in too much pain!

So hi! For those of you who don't know me I'm Hannah and I blog over at Make, Do and Push! I've decided to write about my daughter Busby today. She's a funny little monkey whom I love very much. I could write for hours and hours about her, and I do on my own blog, but today I've chosen the topic of her summer wardrobe, as she is far more stylish than me!

I wanted to share some photos from this summer, and talk you through her outfits (and hats).

I actually took this photo back in March, and don't have a more recent one of her in it as she sadly grew out of it by the time the sun finally appeared, but I thought you'd enjoy a 3 month old baby photo anyway. This is a little vintage outfit that I used to wear - I love the embroidered train!

September Takeover

For Baby B and I, it has been a long summer. Being very pregnant through the heat has not been easy (let alone the 9 months of sickness, anaemia and other pregnancy woes). Entertainment has come in the form of anything I don't have to sit down on the floor to do. The most has been made of time in the garden (exception to floor rule: sitting in the paddling pool) or hiding in the front room with a tower fan. Colouring books have been my saviour and Baby B's new addiction to puzzles has been brought to the table (quite literally).

Crafty time has been almost none existent and at the time of writing, Bumpleton's blanket is still not finished so I have lots of crafty plans for those winter evenings in front of the TV!

By now, I am hoping to be resting up in preparation for Bumpleton's arrival or maybe even lost in a whirlwind of new born baby antics. Either way, the time has come for me to hand over my bloggy space to some lovely bloggers who will entertain you with tales of their summers. There are tutorials, tales of adventures, crafts for young children and older children and a bit of baby fashion thrown in for good measure!

I hope to be back crafting and blogging as soon as possible but whilst I get to know my new arrival (and figure out where crafty time will fit ;-) ) it's over to the gatecrashers of my September Takeover.

Enjoy :-D

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'Quick' Sugar Paste Flowers

During my time spent away from blogging recently, I had a few crafty things to do that I didn't get a chance to share. One of these things was revisiting my love for sugarcraft. 

My mother in law's 60th birthday saw me wanting to make a special cake but not having the drive to bake AND decorate one so I did a little bit of cheating. I made a visit to a supermarket where I located a large iced fruit cake. I was able to push my posy pick into the centre and I spent a few hours over a couple of weeks building up some sugar roses. 

The posy looked a bit sparce to me but my limited time away from Baby B meant I just had to do what I could. As my own worse critic I have to admit they are not my best work (the heat at the time of making them made these very difficult...) I also removed the ribbon from the cake and decorated around the bottom with some sugar paste flowers made with a mould.   

I have included a few random photos of the process for you to have a nose at, but I didn't really get any brill pics of the finished cake! Silly me. 

 

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Fingerprint Tree

I can't believe it's taken me so long to share this with you!

Back in May, I went to a family wedding and wanted to present the lovely newleyweds with something they could treasure. We had been to a wedding in April where guests were asked to use an ink pad to put a fingerprint on a large print of a tree. I thought this was a lovely idea. I looked into so called 'fingerprint trees' and it turns out you can purchase prints and kits etc but of course, I decided to make my own.

I used a die cut shape to draw around at different angles to create the branches and tried to be symmetrical. I also stamped their family name into the trunk before colouring the whole thing in. I popped the tree into a frame and provided one colour ink pad. 

At the wedding, I knew it was an opportunity for friends and family to contribute to this and luckily, the couple were a laid back and didn't mind the uncouthness of my telling them what the gift was JUST in case they wanted it out late in the day with their guest book. It was never my intention for it to happen like that, I thought they might ask friends and family over time as they visited their home but it just happened to be the perfect opportunity at the wedding. The groom had seen this before and suggested everyone write their name in their fingerprint too so although I haven't seen the finished tree I imagine it was well filled with lots of lovely coloured 'leaves' with guest names. 

Maybe I will get an opportunity to share a photo of the tree now at a later date :-) 

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(Look....here is a picture of the completed tree :-) )

Still Buzzing Around

An unusual event has occurred. It is a Thursday morning and I am at the desktop with a cup of tea and silence in the house. Baby B is away until 3pm and on his return, he shall be going away till Sunday to give Hubby B and I a chance for some R & R before Bumpleton arrives. Also an unusual event to occur as family aren't so close.

I couldn't think of a better way to mark the start of this rest time than to update my blog and let you all know that I haven't fallen off the planet or been sucked into a black hole. I haven't run away or abandoned my crafty side or my virtual world. In fact I have just been so torn between running around with my first born (who was two last week!), holding the fort whilst Hubby B was off around the world on business and growing our second little love in my tummy. This time round has not been plain sailing but I have now been given an (almost) clean bill of health, I am full term at 37 weeks this coming weekend, Bumpleton has been head down since June and is now fully engaged and looking like he wont be moving in the 'wrong' direction so I am now just a ticking time bomb.

With that in mind, I REALLY need to finish the baby blanket. By the time I have had a chance for crochet, I am just too tired. I also need to finish hemming the nets to hang in the boys' new room and swap the curtains with what is now the study/guest room. It is never ending. Alongside these top priority jobs, I need to update you all on what crafty things I have actually done in the last few weeks.

Phew, I better get started. Getting lost in my crafty world is definitely up there in the next few days. Obviously alongside spending time with Hubby B, eating and sleeping a lot.

Don't forget to come join me on Twitter and Facebook for a bit of crafty nattering.

Happy Thursday

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Crafty Gifts from Japan

It feels like yesterday that Hubby B came back from Japan and we were just getting over Summer Sharing on the blog but alas it was over a month ago and I've been kept away in a whirlwind of family events, household tasks and being pregnant. VERY pregnant. That is a whole other post!

Hubby B returned from Japan with a whole big bag of goodies not only bought by him but also gifts from the family of one of the gentlemen hosting him. I won't bore you with them all. Just my favourite ones :-)

Unused Baby Bottles Help Teeny Baby Hedgehogs and Other Wildlife

You may remember my spring cleaning catch up post when I briefly mentioned that I was donating baby bottles that I no longer needed to a wildlife park and hedgehog hospital. I did this via a lady from my WI group who volunteers at the hedgehog hospital and she assured me that they would be of use for not only feeding animals but for measuring and mixing fluids.

Imagine my delight when she emailed me not only to say thank you and that they are indeed being used a lot, but included a picture of their latest arrival to the hospital, a 3 day old baby hedgehog. SO cute and I am so pleased that the bottles that I would have otherwise recycled, are being put to good use :-)

Home Sweet Home

As I stare at the keyboard, the keys are all bluring into one. When you put off responding to email after email, they build up. Then you remember all of the things that are now longer 'current' that you wanted to blog about. Current they may not be but I'll catch you up sooner or later!

Firstly let me thank all of the lovely peeps who held the fort whilst I was away with Summer Sharing. Some fab posts and ideas which you can catch up on here:

How to Make an Easy Summer Punch

Today's Summer Sharing post brings us a little bit of 'summer in a bowl' (name that show ;-) )

One of my favorite things about Summer is the food and drinks! Everything seems to taste so fresh and tropical. Can’t you just smell the ocean air? {sigh}

When it comes to entertaining in the Summer months, I love easy. I love to be able to toss something onto the grill or in a bowl and it’s done. That’s one reason why I love this punch so much! I came up with it on a whim, and it’s so easy to put together. You’re gonna love it! Plus, it tastes like Summer!

For this punch you will need 4 ingredients and a big bowl.

- 1 can of frozen lemonade 

- 1 can of frozen limeade 

- 1 can of frozen Bacardi Mixers Strawberry Daiquiri 

- 1 2L of 7-Up or Sprite 

Are you ready for the directions?

Pour it all in the bowl!!! Yep, that’s it!! Pour your frozen lemonade, limeade, and Daiquiri mix in the bowl and stir. You can add slices of lemon, lime, and strawberry to make it look fancy if you want to, and just serve it over ice.

I told you it was easy. Now go make you a bowlful, pour yourself a glass, and picture yourself relaxing by the beach, breathing in the ocean air, and being served by some hunkies! ;)

Casey :)

Find Casey at  CSQ Designs and on Etsy.

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