Baby Hand Print Get Well Card - A little bird told me you're not feeling so chirpy

My mum has been in hospital for nearly four weeks after being suddenly struck by a serious illness but she is recovering really well and will hopefully be back home soon - a huge relief for all of us.

 

I live a couple of hours away so in between visits I’ve sent her a few things in the post, including a get well card that I made in haste and forgot to take a photo of.

 

This is the second get well card I made, or rather that my ten month old daughter made. We go to a class occasionally called ‘Baby Picasso’ that is basically hand and foot painting with some messy play as well. There is a theme each week and we have the opportunity to make one picture or card or other item (before Christmas for instance we did tree decorations) using hand prints and one using foot prints.

 

It gets quite messy - you have to put paint on your baby’s hand or foot and then stop them wiping it on themselves or you before you are able to get them to place it flat on a piece of paper! Then the other details and embellishments are added by the parent, as this particular class is for pre-walkers so the babies are too young to do it themselves.

 

The theme this week was birds, and my little girl made a picture of two robins sitting on branches with handprints in paint.

 

I decided to turn it into a card so when we got home I glued the picture onto a blank card and had a think about a suitable sentiment. The phrase ‘a little bird told me’ sprang to mind straight away then the rest followed and seemed perfect for a get well card - ‘you’re not feeling so chirpy’!  I wrote the sentiments on the computer and stuck them on the front of the card and inside printed ‘get well soon’.

 

I gave my mum the card when I went to visit a couple of days later addressed to granny from my daughter - she really liked it and hopefully it helped cheer her up a little bit!

 

I'm sharing this with the following craft blog challenges: The Male Room - nature (this card would work for a man easily!)

Paper Funday - anything goes

Everybody art challenge - anything goes

Unicorn challenge - things with wings

Heart 2 Heart challenges - creative cards

 

 

 

Paper 1st Wedding Anniversary Gift Ideas

Everyone has heard of golden wedding anniversaries and ruby wedding anniversaries, but if you’re not married yourself, you may not know that every year has a theme! The theme is supposed to represent the gifts that the husband and wife give each other, and there is a traditional list and a modern list - for some countries they differ slightly but this is what I’ve found online:

 

Anniversary   Traditional                    Modern            

1^st                     paper                              clock                                                               

2^nd                    cotton                             china

3^rd                     leather                            crystal or glass

4^th                     fruit or flowers               electrical appliances

5^th                     wood                               silverware

6^th                     sugar                              wood

7^th                     copper or wool               desk sets/ pen and pencil sets

8^th                     bronze or pottery            linens or lace

9^th                     pottery or willow            leather

10^th                   tin                                   diamond jewellery

11^th                   steel                                fashion jewellery, accessories

12^th                   silk or linen                    pearls, coloured gems

13^th                   lace                                textiles, furs

14^th                   ivory                              gold jewellery

15^th                   crystal                            watches

16^th                   -                                     silver holloware

17^th                   -                                     furniture

18^th                   -                                     porcelain

19^th                   -                                     bronze

20^th                   china                              platinum

21^st                   -                                     brass, nickel

22^nd                   -                                     copper 

23^rd                   -                                     silver plate

24^th                   -                                     musical instruments

25^th                   silver                              silver

30^th                   pearl                               diamond

35^th                   coral                               jade

40^th                   ruby                               ruby

45^th                   sapphire                         sapphire

50^th                   gold                               gold

55^th                   emerald                         emerald

60^th                   diamond                        diamond

 

I’m a bit surprised at some of the themes on the modern list – in this digital age, I doubt many people want desk sets, and electrical appliances doesn’t seem particularly romantic! (Then again I suppose neither does the more traditional tin). Furs are a throwback from a former era unless it means fake fur, and I do think it’s slightly mercenary that women can expect diamonds after only ten years of marriage rather than 60 – in fact according to the modern list, there are three opportunities for women to receive diamonds!

 

I do think these lists are rather unrealistic because how many people can afford real diamonds? But still, I know a lot of people enjoy coming up with quirky gifts that fit each theme.

 

The first anniversary, paper, is quite good for people who may have overspent on their wedding or are still setting up home together – it’s also a fairly easy one if you haven’t gotten around to printing out wedding photos or doing a wedding photo album!

 

Here are some of my favourite suggestions for 1^st (paper) anniversary gifts – and read on to see what my husband and I got each other!

•  A card – you don’t need to give each other anniversary gifts on top of birthday and Christmas presents so why not agree from the outset you will just do cards?
• Photo album, photo book or printing out photos to frame – of your wedding or honeymoon, or moments from your first year together, or a photo story from when you met right up to when you got married
• A bunch of paper flowers – which you can fold yourself following an origami book, or buy ready made
• A book – something romantic, or a copy (even a first edition) of a book they really love
• The lyrics to the song you chose for your first dance, or your wedding vows, printed out and framed
• A calendar made up of photos of you both
• A personalised print like this or like this
• A framed map, where you’ve marked places you have been together and places you want to go
• A framed picture of your wedding venue – there are places online where you can commission a painting or line drawing, or you can frame a photo
• A framed paper-cut picture like this or this
• A scrapbook of photos and memories if you are the sort of person like me who keeps ticket stubs and mementos from places you have been together. You could also turn this into a memory board and frame to go on the wall.
• A personalised notebook
• Tickets to a show or gig or similar – the tickets are made of paper, or if you print an e-ticket that works too!
• Write them a poem if you are feeling creative – this is a nice cheap idea. Or if you’re a bit more flush, you could commission someone to write a poem about your beloved!
• Write them a love letter, or a series of love notes that you can surprise them with
• A flying lesson – this is not strictly a paper anniversary gift, but you can give your partner a paper plane folded from a print-out of the details of the lesson!

My husband got me a fantastic anniversary gift which I hadn't spotted despite it being from Not on the High Street.com, which I had combed myself looking for gift ideas! It's the perfect present for me and shows how well he knows me, because I like to scrapbook and do papercrafts, and to make lists and fill in notebooks.

 

It's a wedding anniversary album, with 50 pages. Each page has the same layout, with a space for a photo, and places to write down where you spent your anniversary, what you gave each other and a space to write either some notable things that have happened over the past year or your wishes for the year ahead. It's really lovely and I'm looking forward to filling it in!

I was debating between several ideas for my husband and decided to get him two things - and after having a look online decided to make rather than buy them. First I went with one of the ideas I'd seen on various websites, getting the lyrics to our first dance printed out. It would have looked better if I'd had it professionally done but I don't think this looks bad at all - I selected a font and made different lines different sizes depending on how many words per line.

 

 Then because I wanted to do something a bit more creative I did a papercut of our wedding venue. A paper cut is where you use a sharp craft knife to cut out around a picture - every section must be connected to the edge of the paper otherwise you'd find parts of the picture come away in the middle. So it can be a little challenging but it's good fun!

I drew a sketch of the roman temple at the Larmer Tree Gardens which is where we stood during the ceremony (our guests were seated on the grass in front) and added some words at the top with our names and wedding date. As each letter has to be attached to the edge of the paper somehow the easiest way to do this is make the letters look like flags flying on bunting, and attach each letter to the bunting and attach the bunting to the edge of the paper.

The Larmer Tree has several peacocks which wander around and one featured in several of our wedding photos so I wanted to include a peacock in this picture. I decided to add some different colour and texture by using a peacock sticker that had little gems on it, and added a couple of other gems to the temple outline. I bought frames for each pictures as well.

It's a bit different, very personal to us, and homemade with love.

Scrabble Name Picture for a Londoner

I like giving homemade gifts and ever since I discovered Hobbycraft's box frames I haven't run out of ideas. I first made a picture spelling out a family's names in scrabble letters several years ago; now they are much more common and it's easy to buy packs of the wooden letters with flat backs which are easy for gluing (for instance Hobbycraft, Amazon and the Works sell them quite cheaply).

I wasn't planning to make another one any time soon until I found this piece of wrapping paper with a fab London design. I thought it would look great in a frame, and it made me think of my friend Alice who had a birthday coming up, as she lives in central London.

 The wrapping paper, from Scribbler, features London landmarks and various city skyscrapers which I recognise from around where I work. I decided the picture needed something to stand out against the background and so I found a design in the Silhouette store and used by Silhouette Cameo to cut out a few shapes from black card:

 

The umbrella was part of the set but I decided not to use it! I mounted them on top of the backing paper and put it in the frame.

My husband thought that the scrabble letters would be the finishing touch and I wasn't sure, as they would stand out better against a plain background, but personalising a gift definitely makes it more special. I hope Alice liked it!

Hobbycraft Christmas in July new product launch

The Hobbycraft press show - another Christmas in July event - was much smaller than some of the others I've been to, but much more fun - as there were things to make and do.

In between admiring the Halloween and Christmas ranges, I had a chance to decorate a snowflake cookie with a Wilton piping set and also to decorate a Christmas tree bauble with some Swarovski plastic beads and some ribbon. What do you think?

Some Halloween craft ideas:

 

Hobbycraft has launched some new products with craft queen Kirstie Alsopp, who was at the event earlier in the day but unfortunately I missed her as I was only able to go along after work. They also announced a partnership with 'sewing expert and fashion designer' Patrick Grant (no, me neither) to launch a range of sewing products.

I was also pleased to see Hobbycraft is stocking Sugar & Crumbs flavoured icing; this is something I came across at Cake International a few years ago and have bought from their website a few times.

There were lots of ideas for Christmas card making; I love the idea of this hole punch with a little hanging cut out shape in the middle.

Outside was a pink bus run by Libby Rose, who runs sewing classes, workshops and events and can sometimes be found at Hobbycraft stores. Follow her on Twitter for updates as to where she will be next.

 

Libby was showing people how to make little zip pouches so I had a go. I've got a sewing machine but have barely used it and I can't remember how to thread it and get started. Luckily Libby had done all that so after I chose my fabric I cut around her template and then she showed me how to sew in a zip and sew up the sides to make this. It literally only took a few minutes but I really felt I had achieved something and definitely want to get started using my own sewing machine!

 

Since I can't really sew, I'm quite pleased with this!

 

DIY Wedding: Handmade Wedding Invitations

 

If you’re getting married and are into crafts or baking it’s very tempting to decide you are going to make everything for your wedding yourself – but even the most ambitious bride (or groom) will realise they are just not going to have time. There is so much to do in the run-up to a wedding: OK, you’ve booked a photographer, but you have to give them a list of what family photos you want; OK, you’ve found a florist but you need to choose the flowers, find out who in the wedding party wants buttonholes or corsages, arrange when the flowers are going to be delivered, and decide what to do with them afterwards – every task on the to do list seems to split into multiple sub-tasks.

 

I realised this from the outset, but at the same time wanted some handmade elements for my wedding. As well as the personal touch, it also meant we could save money on certain things – though you have to be careful not to go overboard, thinking you’re saving money by making every guest a take-home gift when you can probably order a job lot from China on Ebay. But I do think that saving money is not the point of a DIY wedding – it’s about putting time and effort into something, making sure things are made with love, and getting exactly what you want because you’ve designed and made it yourself. Also, if you are into crafts it can be quite frustrating to buy something and think “but I could easily have made that myself!”.

 

As I’ve mentioned before, when I get married my name will be Caroline Cowe – pronounced cow. I’ve embraced my inner cow and am looking forward to being named after an animal (even though it’s a bit of a shame I didn’t ever meet a Mr Al Packer) so my fiancé and I felt that we needed to have a cow theme to the wedding. A subtle, elegant cow theme – we are not talking full on bridesmaid dresses in cowboy boots or a bucking bronco at the reception, but instead a few cow print touches here and there.

 

The wedding stationery was a good way to include cow print, we thought  - it would hint at the fun and relaxed atmosphere we are trying to create at our wedding (it’s mainly outdoors and the meal isn’t a formal ‘which fork do I use’ affair). I started thinking about how to include the motif and design something simple that I could make in bulk without it taking huge amounts of time, and this is what I came up with.

 

 

For Christmas I received a set of three heart hole punches of varying sizes, and I already had some cow print paper in my craft stash (when it ran out and I couldn’t find any more to buy, we just photocopied it!). I used the largest hole punch to cut out paper hearts and stuck them onto blank white cards I bought from Hobbycraft.

 

  

The words ‘wedding invitation’ came from a sheet of outline stickers that only cost £1 in Hobbycraft and had 22 sets of word, so I bought three of these.

 

 

 I stuck the words underneath the heart, but felt it still needed something else. After we first got engaged on a whim I bought some cowprint paraphernalia from a website called Cow Cool Stuff (can you believe there are other people obsessed with cows as well?) including some cow table confetti which I planned to sprinkle on tables at the wedding.

 

 

 I found that the little cows looked really cute in a row across the bottom of the wedding invitations, so glued them on. On some of the invitations I interspersed the cows with hearts cut from cow print paper using the smallest of the three hole punches I’d been given.

 

 

 

We printed out the wording for our wedding onto A4 paper, and bought a guillotine, again from Hobbycraft, to cut the right size so we could stick it inside the cards, which were 6x6 inches. I glued the inserts into the cards, and glued a piece of ribbon (which I bought from Ebay, in the same colour as the bridesmaid dresses) along the centre of the card, and tied it in a bow on the front. Each card didn’t take that long to make and even though they definitely look homemade, I was really happy with them. We have used the same motif for our order of service and menu cards as well.

  

 

 

Red and Gold Anniversary Card

Does everyone send anniversary cards to their parents? In some ways it seems a bit weird, like “congratulations on getting married so you could have me!” – but since my sister and I were children we have always given my parents cards, and presents on the milestone anniversaries like their 25^th – they are on their 38^th now I think!

 

I made this card for my parents anniversary this year. I didn’t really have a design in mind but had a piece of red polka dot paper which I liked, so I used that to cover a card, and added a red heart from a huge pack of foam hearts I bought from Hema last year.

 

I had also bought a set of card toppers from Ebay with various sentiments so put one of these at the top of the page, and a gold outline sticker saying ‘happy anniversary’. Finally I added some gold hearts along the bottom. The problem with the outline stickers is I only use one a year – but from 2017 I will have my own wedding anniversary and can make a card for my husband!

Mother of the Bride and Groom Decorated Notebooks

These notebooks are a lovely gift for a mother of the bride or mother of the groom – they can use them for wedding planning notes and ideas.

 

 

I’d been thinking about decorating notebooks as gifts for a while but hadn’t gotten around to it, then when I got engaged – and was seeing my mum the following weekend, I thought it would be a really nice thing to do.

 

I had a small square notebook that was perfect – it had blank pages and a stiff, plain cover. I got it from Tiger for I think only £2 or £3 (I love that shop!).

 

I wanted the notebook to say ‘mother of the bride’ as I thought my mum might enjoy getting it out of her handbag in shops or at wedding fairs and letting people see the cover. I imagine she’s relieved that at the age of 36 one of her daughters is finally getting married!

 

I found the perfect die-cut on Ebay that was made of thick cardboard so all I did was stick that on and let the words take centre stage. I decided it did need something else so found a cream die cut heart in my card stash. I added a few hearts and flowers stickers around the edge as well.

 

I found the ‘mother of the groom’ notebook a bit harder but did want to make one for her as well. I spent ages looking online for a sticker or die cut with the correct words but couldn’t find anything.

 

 

In the end the only thing I was able to get were the words spelled out in diamante (luckily that’s more her style than my mum’s) for ironing onto clothes. I decided to give it a go anyway and covered a larger but thinner notebook with thick purple paper, and ironed the letters on. It worked!

I stuck a heart print ribbon strip along the top and bottom of the notebook and added some silver outline stickers from a wedding sheet, of champagne glasses, hearts and a lucky horseshoe.