Christmas Challenge #17: A Fishy Gift

Hi! Today I am sharing a fishy game that I made for my son. This one has been a WIP so I am so glad that I finally finished it and can now pop it away for xmas!

 How I made it: I simply cut a bunch of fish shapes our of felt and lots of fins, dots and stripes. I sewed them all together and added a washer into the mouth of the fish when I stuffed them and sewed them shut. I took two small lengths of wood that I purchased at the hardware store and painted them, then added some line and a magnet on the end. I then hot glued the red hook onto the magnet to cover it.

 I'm happy with how these turned out and happy that they are finally done and my son will be able to play with them!

 I'm also super excited that I have another handmade gift to pop away! YAY for handmade gifts!!!

I just can not wait to see him playing with it!

Christmas Challenge#14: More Christmas Tags

The last time I made tags I cut them with my silhouette and I cut these ones at the same time. I popped them on my table and left them there because I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do with them.

I recently purchased some dylusions ink sprays and when I got them I thought they would be perfect to use on these tags. I just love that red colour its called 'cherry pie' ! Oh I think it may be my all time favourite colour!!!

I ended up backing the cut tags with some bright green misted tags and then just glued on some stars. I'm loving the effect of the dylusion mist!! So much fun to play with!!

Christmas Challenge#11: Christmas Felt Food #4

The fourth felt christmas food thing is another cupcake, I just felt like the other cupcake needed a friend ;)

 I'm thinking that I will make this into a set of six then box them up so that I can gift them. I might even make the box.

Again I am liking the second cupcake better, I think once you make it the first time you can adjust to make it a little better. I love that I already have a little set!

Christmas Challenge #6: Christmas Tags

Yes I've created more tags! 

 This time I stuck to paper. I cut 20 tags with my silhouette and also some of the embellishments. I die cut the stars and printed the words. I painted the tags and let them dry then went to town sticking all the embellishments on and then adding the words and then adding a little extra detail with some sequins!

I finished them off with some twine, ribbons and sequins. Now if only I had some of my gifts organised, I could add them onto my wrapping!;)

Christmas Challenge #2: Gift Bag

Day two today and I have a little gift bag to share.

I bought a whole heap of these little muslin bags, Im hoping to turn a bunch of them into an advent calendar but until then I had been thinking that they would be cute for some snail mail filled with some little goodies.But since I am focusing on christmas stuff right now I thought I would try it out as a little christmas gift!

 I use a Heidi Swapp stencil and paint to create the big red 'love' and then just used a pen to create the 'christmas'. Im not super loving how the paint spread a little, sometimes things just don't work perfectly and that is ok!

 Ive added a few little things inside: some lindt chocolate, a little bit of tea, a handmade paper book and a pen.

I think that this is a little gift you could use as a random act of kindness gift at christmas time, most people would like the chocolate and could use a little note pad and pen. Also you could add pretty much anything you like to this little bag, I will probably experiment with a few more because I could see this gift being personalised or made to suit the recipient or have just so many different things inside!

See you tomorrow!

Make It Christmas: #1 Star Ornaments

First things first, I have to say a quick word about your theme for the year, I know its too early to be thinking of such things but really having a theme is the best way to achieve a cohesive look at Christmas, it would be confusing to be put modern  wrapped pressies under a traditional tree!  For me this is the most important thing, it takes a lot of stress out if you decide this super early because you can then plan for it.
You can see my post about Christmas themes here. Or My post about Christmas planning here

Taking off from last year I thought it would be fun to make some felt ornaments first up. What I love most about them is that they can be a pretty gift in themselves, there are people who I like to give more than a card to but just a little something extra and this is where a cute felt ornament works well. I also LOVE attaching them to gifts, using them to decorate the packaging or wrapping! Usually most of my felt ornaments get given as gifts, I may keep one or two .

What you will need:

Scissors and thread

Felt in a variety of colours

Ribbon or thread for the loop at the top

Stuffing

Bells are optional

Pattern (at the bottom of the post)

So here's how to make them:
 Cut star shapes from felt using the pattern
Cut two the same size to be the front and back of your star and then cut extra for layering in different sizes.

Layer as many star shapes as you like together, sew them on to the front piece using whatever different stitches you like, or you could simply glue the layer pieces to the front of the star.
 At this pint you could also sew on a bell.
Stitch the front to the back piece leaving a hole to stuff. Once stuffed continue stitching the ornament closed. You can then add a piece of ribbon or string to hang the ornament.



I've made four stars and some of them I have popped through the minc and added some gold foil. I simply used some double sided fabric adhesive that I put through the minc on top of the felt then again with the foil on top of that. It has a cool effect and works really well.

Ok, so this is no fancy smancy blog, I have hand drawn a pattern for you. Its not perfect, it totally has my own hand writing on it and also this is my first ever PDF so don't kill me ok?? ;)
Star Ornament Here

Bunny Bags!

Recently a lovely instagramer, bespokeoutlaw had made some cute bunny bags, she posted a few photos of them, they were so bright and cute and just adorable and I couldn't stop thinking about them. I decided that I HAD to have a go at them! I love it when inspiration hits like that and something actually comes from it!

 After a quick trip to the craft store I whipped up these six in an afternoon. I'm kinda hoping there will be more.Right now I have just enough for some sweet little girls in my life but I can think of a  few more people who I would like to gift these to at Easter.
 So here is a closer look at each one:

They are a fun way to use up lefter over scraps of fabric or have a little fun buying some pretty new pieces of fabric. I love this kind of quick project that you can kind of production line to make a few of them. Hopefully I will find some time to make some more really soon. 

Have you started making any Easter crafts?

Cross Stitch Kit

My pen pal Sara sent me this cute cross stitch kit for Xmas and I was super excited because I had been wanting to try cross stitch for such a long time and had been drooling over other cross stitchers beautiful work.

 I'm a huge fan of a kit, I love that everything is ready to go, you don't have to think about it much and you know at the end you are going to have made something cute. It makes life super easy and helps to take the overwhelm out of making something.

 This kit came along with me in the car and was a fun activity to do while waiting for my son to come after school. I love that there was everything in the kit to make a few different designs and if you wanted to you could even design your own.

I loved making this little reindeer and I think that there will be more to come. I cant wait to hang this one up at Christmas time!I may just have caught the cross stitching bug!

A head full of dreams

I love this time of year, I'm slowly easing myself into the new year. We have been away on a beachy holiday so there is a super relaxed feel going on here. What I love most about this time of year is dreaming up all the wonderful things that I might like to do in the year ahead. For me over time I have realized that there is just no point in making restrictive resolutions, it only hurts my soul. So instead I love to dream up all the wonderful things I would like to do and if they don't happen, oh well! Its not a problem! This year I am dreaming of lots of fun crafty things. Last year my crafty goal was to complete 180 ornaments and that I did, more or less. And I am so glad that I didn't make any more because they didn't quite all make it onto my tree, don't worry though they will not go to waste!

 They totally would have if I had just stuck to the tree that I was going to put them on but when the chance to have my own first real life Christmas tree came up I just couldn't pass up the chance and I must say it was totally MAGICAL and there were happy tears ( a total dream come true) and it will be happening again because I LOVED IT!!!! But it didn't need quite that many ornaments. Anyway I digress, the 180 ornament project took up a lot of my crafting time last year and I spent a lot of time from September till Christmas making so many Christmas crafty things, I quite possibly got a little obsessive about it and I  pretty much forgot about this space! So I am really looking forward to doing some other fun crafty things this year and getting back into the swing of things.

Some things I am looking forward to doing this year are:

Finishing my December Daily Album

Getting some fun snail mail happening

Using my memory planner- though I am still deciding on how to document this year

I have some fun felt plans and gifts to make

Id love to try doing some cross stitch

I'm dying to finish some travelers notebooks that were supposed to be xmas gifts (reminder finish making things early!!)

Scrapbooking

and I miss sewing!!

And I have a year long project that I am still deciding weather to attempt or not!

So that's where I am at, still dreaming of all the fab things that I might or might not do this year and just enjoying the beautiful dreamy stage.

180 Ornaments- August Done!

I just finished Augusts Ornaments so I guess I am a little behind on Septembers ornaments whoops! That's ok because I am coming to the end of the Ornament road. With August's ornaments done that only leaves me two more months of ornaments left! Not long to go, and I cant believe that I am nearly done, who knew I could make it this far!

 I'm really loving these little envelopes, they were nice to sew up. They have a cute little love heart on the back and they could hold a little something in them too. I had even thought about sewing up 25 of them so that I could use them for advent next year, they would be cute with a little note or message inside of them!

I am up to 152 ornaments now! The ornament basket is looking so full that I am going to have to find something larger to store them in! September ornaments are going to be something a little larger, when I was looking through the ornaments I wondered if some of them are a little small and might get a bit lost and not have a big impact on the tree so I am thinking that I will go with a simple shape and make it a bit larger, hopefully it will all look great on the tree- I'm getting a little nervous to see what its all going to look like!

Snail Mail Outgoing

I recently created this snail mail for my pen pal. As I said in my last post I have been super inspired by all this cold weather here in Australia. And the theme for this Christmas is a winter wonderland. I am going to have lots of houses around the place. My pen pal asked me how my Christmas planning was going and well I just couldn't help but tell her all about it in this mail.

  I simply used some pens to draw on the box and wrote her address on the right hand side.

It opened up to have a little winter village inside. A little view of my Christmas plans :-)

 I created a pocket pouch to hold the letter by sticking two pieces of  white card together and cutting slits in the top piece to crate the pocket and then added a flower to the front that I had cut with my silhouette. 

 I put my letter in the left pocket, the plan in the middle and a pattern in the right. I also added in a photo copy of a pattern that I thought she might like.

I had really wished that I could have made something useful, my pen pal Sara makes me the most wonderful things that I can actually use, so I felt a little guilty sending something that is purely pretty, but it is also nice to have something pretty in the mail, I guess.

Of course it was lots of fun to make and I always love to sit down and read a letter from my pen pal- its such a lovely thing to do. So different from our more modern forms of communication! 

Mamie Made Christmas: Getting Started

The last few months here have been a lot of fun crafting and there has been a lot of dreaming. Unfortunately my computer hasn't really been  up to the task of recording it all, I really need a new one but oh well it will have to wait! So while I have been away from the computer I have been thinking and planning for Christmas. What else is a girl to do in a freezing cold Australian winter??

 All this cold weather has inspired me to create a kind of winter wonderland village in my family room this Christmas. So I have begun lots of planning and lots of making so that I'm all organised to create a magical room come  Christmas time.This kind of thing takes lots of time so its great to be getting an early relaxed start on it!

 So far I have made a starry mobile to hang over our dining table and a wintery village to sit on the table directly under the starry mobile. I have also been thinking that some lights would look lovely hanging from the mobile too, we will see how we go. I am planning on buying lots of lights this year so I guess we will have to see how far the lights budget can stretch ;-)

As I finish each thing I have been popping them away with our Christmas decorations, I am hoping that when I pull them all out on decoration day I will surprise myself with how much I've done and also keeping a little bit of mystery so that when my boys see it all there will be an element of wonder for them!

The Evolution of Stars

I did happen to get super behind with my 180 ornaments I feel like it was mostly because I got stuck on March's stars.

I had really wanted to add in another colour but nothing really seemed to work or feel just right.

 I finally ended up making these plain stars and for now I am happy with them.

 I am still catching up with April's ornaments, I am nearly there with three to go. 

 Then I will be able to get a good go at getting Mays ornaments done before June arrives, although the months feel like they are whizzing by!

Mamie + Blake Made: A Heat Pack!

I have  a handmade little heat pillow that I love to heat up and pop on my feet when I am crafting or watching a little TV. Its lovely but I have a problem, my little guy Blake is a cheeky little thief and loves to take it and use it for himself!

 So yesterday on our morning walk I noticed his jeans were about two inches too short (how do they grow so fast!!?) and we were having a discussion about recycling so we put two and two together and came home, grabbed some of his too short old jeans and made a heat pack for him.

 He is absolutely dying for me to make one for Luke too. If I don't make one today I think I will be in big trouble! He cut all the letters, then I sewed them on, sewed it together,  he added rice and I sewed it shut. Simple.

It is going with him everywhere at the moment! Hes been carrying it around on his head and even taking it in the car with us!

Snail Mail Outgoing!

Don't get me  wrong I absolutely love my boys, I love that they are adventurous, funny, cheeky I love that they just wanna be like there daddy, I love that they play together and love together and I love that I am the princess of the house since I am the only girl here. But many days lately, now that my boys are getting older and are able to do more fun adventurous things (and probably because they don't need me so much now) I wish that there was another girl in the house.

 So to help myself get a little girl fix I thought it would be cool to send a little snail mail to my nieces who are four and six. You know because its always exciting to get something in the mail. My boys LOVE getting things in the mail.

 So I found some stickers and Barbie chocolate coins the other day and they became the starting point for some girly snail mail. I popped the chocolate in the coral striped bags and stapled a Kaiser Craft project Life card on the front.

 I also made a little paper book with their names on that they can write or draw in. And I made some cards with some project life cards and wrote a little note in there.

This was such fun to put together and I am hoping that they like it, if they do I think there must be more snail mail girly adventures. It makes my heart happy to make fun cute girly things!

180 Ornament Progress

Well its well into march and I am at 43/180 ornaments!

Still quite a way to go.

 I finally decided on making star ornaments for march and I began making some felt ones but the grey and neon pink polka dot fabric was calling my name much too loudly and I couldn't resist it any longer! Yes the fabric will fray a little the way I am sewing them but that is ok with me at the moment.

I'm still not sure that they go perfectly with the other ornaments but I am happy with them on there own so I am going with that. Somehow they make my heart happy and really that's all that matters :-)