DIY Stocking Hanger

I made this Christmas stocking hanger for our family last Christmas as our mantle was looking a bit overcrowded!!  I used wood for my back board, but mdf would be fine to use, and cheaper too.  My wood measures approximately 81cm x 22cm, with a thickness of 2cm.  I sanded it all down just to get rid of some rough patches and make it nice and smooth, and then applied 3 coats of my chosen colour.  Then using a Sharpie paint pen I wrote all the wording on which was easy peasy as I used the same technique as my 'Silent Night Christmas board'

As I was shaking my Sharpie paint pen to get more paint on the nib, I ended up having some lovely white 'snow' fall onto my board, so then I had to adapt what I'd planned and do the same all over, which was rather fun!  Luckily this crafting mistake didn't end up in tears but I think it actually gave it that finishing touch.

Once the writing was all dry, I attached two sawtooth hangers to the back a few inches from either end, and then screwed in the hooks evenly onto the front of the board....Ho Ho Ho our stocking hanger was finally complete!!

A Very Happy and Belated Merry Christmas to you all,

Love

DIY Sharpie Tea Towel

A quick, simple yet thoughtful gift to give to family, friends, teachers etc....and its ready in five minutes, well if the kids cooperate!!?!

Materials needed

Sharpie pens (or fabric pens)

Plain tea towel

Lots of hands to trace!

I drew round all the kids hands (preferably get an adult to do the outline as the material needs to be pulled tight so that the pen doesn't go off at random angles!!) and then they wrote their names inside their handprint.

 I traced the phrase 'many hands make light work' from a printout I whipped up...and from experience I made several different font sizes on the one sheet so that I could find the right fit without having to go back and forth to the laptop/printer :)

We gave these to each our mothers for Christmas, they'd also be great for Mothers day.  Hey, why not let the kids go wild drawing any sort of pictures on a tea towel, although I think an embroidery hoop might come in handy to keep the material taut for them as they draw...we wouldn't want any tears now ;)

Bespoke Notepads

At Christmas I was trying to think what we could give to our children's teachers that would be 'homemade' but wouldn't take too much time as I was really busy with several large assignments at church.

So the cogs got rolling, and I thought why not design an image on photoshop and then get it printed on a notepad.....and of course I got carried away with myself and ended up making quite a few of them (and I'm still getting bespoke orders now!).

I then attached a small pencil using ribbon or twine and then put the pad in a cellophane bag, to some I put some adhesive magnetic strip so that they could be used on their fridge.

You could easily use a word processor to design something bespoke for a teacher, family or friend....or for you!!

These notepads have been great for Christmas presents for teachers, friends and families...and have helped put a few extra pennies in my pocket too :)

If you live in the UK, here's my facebook page where you can buy these notepads along with other things that I've created...the page is called KugAlls Kreations.

I also have a facebook page to go alongside this blog (I haven't got around to finding out how to do a facebook icon to this blog yet), so for now here's the link to KugAlls.

P.E.G.S. bag

Here's another gift that I gave at Christmas, this time to my mum :)

Being one of eleven children and number eight in line, my mum has received lots of lovely presents over the years and has a house full of Willow Tree figures (I would have a small collection, but I'm currently down to one!...my kids love looking/playing/touch them, oh well).

So I tried to think of something that my mum would use most days, that would make her smile, and let her constantly know how much we love her, especially as we are a five hour drive away!!...Basically, I wanted to give her a big KugAll in a pressie.

And hey presto, the cogs got working and I came up with the idea for a P.E.G.S. bag...Positive Expressions Generate Smiles!!

click here for to download

 P.E.G.S. image

You need to print the image onto a medium weight fabric, by ironing freezer paper to the back to help stiffen it up so it will go through your printer like a piece of paper...here's the link to my post 'How to print on fabric using your printer'.

I was sooo excited when I was making this and then getting the kids to write on the pegs what they loved about Grandma, and of course I had to write on some too...I couldn't believe I was having one of my excited, clapping my hands with joy moments over a peg bag and some pegs, haha!!

My mum absolutely loved it, and she can't wait for this lovely English weather to brighten up so that she can use them...and if that doesn't happen any time soon, I'll be making her an indoor washing line for her Christmas present next year, haha!! ;) 

Quick and Easy tips for PEGS bag...

• buy a peg bag, print off the PEGS image onto your fabric, and then sew on the front.
• buy a peg bag, and use a sharpie pen to write the phrase on.

When I count my blessings plaque

I originally saw this quote at a ladies house I was visiting with one day, and thought it was lovely, and thought it would make a perfect gift for a member of my family.

I decided to make one, but of course being me I had to give it a teeny tweak....I used MDF for the base (18mm thick), and thought chalkboard paint would be perfect for where the numbers have to be written on (making it very easy to change as the family grows).

I used the same process for this plaque as I did for my previous Christmas DIY plaque (click on this link for tutorial), so it was fairly quick and easy to do.

The only change was when I was doing the chalkboard hearts.  I still chalked the outline from a heart template and then just painted it in with three coats of chalkboard paint (it doesn't take too long for each coat of paint to dry).  I then rolled up a stick of chalk in some white tissue paper and tied it with a pretty ribbon.

I'll be making another one soon for my grandmother, I'm thinking that I will use a lighter shade of paint for that one....and of course she will need an additional heart so that she can write in the amount of great-grandchildren!!

Don't forget to count your blessings, whatever they may be :)

Santa's Post decoration

These are super cute and very addictive to make, so watch out as your tree may get covered in them!!  It's a really simple activity for the kids to do to and is ready in minutes.

It all started because I had a massive bags of these large lollipop stick 'scraps' leftover from a recent craft project at my church....I was determined to use them in some way, and hey ho, after a little bit of playing, failing and trying again I came up with this idea!!  And just a tip, we found it was a lot cheaper to buy a box of 100 waxing strips than it was to buy 50 large lollipop sticks..they are basically the same thing :)

Cut your large lollipop sticks up to roughly 3cm in length, don't worry about making them exactly the same size as they look better being slightly different lengths.  You will need to cut five 'letters'.  Make one 'letter' look like the front of a letter, then on another one look like the back of an envelope.  Leave the other three blank as you won't seem them.

Then use four strips of thin double sided tape to stick your five 'letters' together, just stack them up without worrying about them being perfectly lined up (it looks like a more authentic stack).  Put the front letter at the top of the stack and the back of the envelope drawing facing out at the back.

Wrap your letters up with some thick bakers twine, I'm sorry I didn't measure my twine, but the length of twine depends on where you will be hanging them, so play around with it and see what looks best...they look really cute on a small christmas tree.

Ho Ho Ho!!!

DIY Christmas Plaque

This plaque is really simple to do and hopefully my tutorial will explain it quickly and easily for you too!?!  There is a pdf file at the end for the words, and a link for where I got the Bethlehem Star from too. 


Before I start, I've only tried this technique with darker backgrounds as it won't work for lighter ones.  However, I will suggest other ideas of what you could use instead, but until I do one  myself, I will not know what works best until I try it.

1.  Choose what you want to have on your plaque, ie words, symbols, pictures etc.  I chose to do 'Silent Night, Holy Night' for Christmas.  Choose the fonts, size etc and no worries if it doesn't look like the end product, you can cut the paper up so that you can locate them where you want them to be.

2.  Make sure your words fit on your chosen plaque before you start.  For my 'base' I chose MDF (18mm thick) and sanded the rough edges down.  I then painted it using Dulux 'Urban Obsession', I love it against the white lettering, and I only had to give it two coats too.

3.  Cut your words, symbols etc into strips (if you haven't already), so that you can work on it section by section.  Now rub white chalk on the back of your chosen piece of paper and then trace round the edge of each letter with a biro or pencil.  You don't have to push too hard.

5. When you remove the paper you should have an outline of your word/image, like the above.

6. Now fill the chalk outline in using either a paintbrush or I cheated and did it the really easy way and used a paint pen marker...I love colouring in ;)

7.  Attach a sawtooth hanger (if you so choose) to the back and you're done.

NOTE for lighter coloured bases - try rubbing a charcoal stick, or a pencil on the back of the paper, or use carbon copy paper between the paper and your base.  I hope one of them works and don't worry I'll be trying one of the techniques soon so I will let you know how I get on. 

Here's the links for the Silent Night words and the Bethlehem Star I used...

Silent Night Holy Night pdf

Bethlehem Star

Have fun creating some lovely plaques!!

DIY Christmas wrapping paper

As you know I have a few kids (6 to be exact) and so I have several teachers, teachers assistants, play school teachers etc that I like to get presents for at Christmas.

I didn't have time to search or come up with an idea for something that the kids could make this year, so instead I got them to decorate the wrapping paper and Christmas tags for their teachers....they loved it!!  It was super easy and no mess either, which is always an added bonus.

The kids used my Sakura souffle pen, and just like their mum they love how it's 'magic'....go buy one now, you won't regret it :)

They drew stars, snowflakes, wrote Christmas messages, and one of my sons just scribbled all over the paper and tag and even that still looks good...and as mentioned before it will be almost invisible when you first put it on, but give it a couple of minutes and it will 'magically' appear!!

We just used brown parcel paper, got the tags for 3p each from a local stationers, and tied it up with chunky butchers twine. 

Hope you enjoy doing this as much as we have, Merry Christmas!

Kids Hanging Christmas Decoration

My three daughters have been keen to have some 'crafty' time with mum...so on Saturday we shipped all the boys off to the park with a football and had an hour to get creative!

Our stake does an annual Festival of Nativities, so since I'm helping in the Children's craft room this year I thought I'd get them to make something I could display in the room for ideas of what children can make.

This was one of the items the girlies made (age 7-11)....

...and yes, we were all still in our PJs, haha, the best way hey!!?!

Materials needed

CD/DVD - old or blank

wadding

material

felt

ribbon

hot glue gun

1. Put a small amount of wadding on top of the CD, then place it on the back of the material you are using as the cover, with the wadding in between the cd and the material.  

(Our material measured approx 24x24cm, yours could be smaller if you use a larger piece of felt on the back) 

 

2. Use a hot glue gun (with assistance) to glue the fabric to the cd, we folded the top section down first and glued it, then folded the material around bit by bit, gluing as we were going.

 

3. The back ended up looking like this, no worries how it looks as you can cover it up....stick your ribbon in the middle and to the edge of the cd so that it will hang correctly.

 

4. Choose what shape you are going to put on the back, my daughter chose to cut out a red felt heart.

5. For the front she chose to do the word 'JOY', so to help my girls not waste a load of felt and also to help get a nice edge, we ironed some freezer paper to the felt so that they could draw their words/shapes on the paper, cut them out and then peel it off ready to stick on....or to make it really easy (esp for kids) just use self-adhesive felt.

 

My other daughter made this one....

Just a note...you can cut a larger circle of material and do a large running stitch around the edge of the circle to then gather the material in, and this should make it look more circular when finished.

Enjoy being crafty, and don't forget to wear your PJs ;