easter egg craftiness

Well you thought you'd seen the last of me for a while but no I am still sans baby and instead have spent most of the weekend making things to take my mind off still being sans baby!  I saw this decoupage egg project in the latest issue of Woman's Day magazine this week so we made them today. Well, Amelie started making them with me but sticking all the little bits of paper on the eggs proved a little tricky for her little hands so I finished the eggs while she made her own eggs on paper instead. So if you've got older children you can do this all together and if you've got younger ones you can have fun making the 3D eggs while your little ones can help rip the paper into little pieces and stick to their hearts content to make their own paper egg decorations- great projects for the school holidays which have just started here in NZ.

I got the polystyrene eggs from a shop called AJ's Emporium here in Tauranga- it's a sort of 'craft/ costume/ handyman/ random stuff' shop. They have pretty much everything you need for crafty projects- even the teeny cup hooks I used to stick into the top of the eggs to hang them on the branches.

 

I saw the fab idea for making these paper eggs from Clare's Craft Room last week too so it tied in really well with the decoupage eggs. Amelie just used the bits of paper already ripped up but stuck them on a piece of paper instead and we drew an egg shape on the back and cut it out. See Clare's tutorial here. 

I made some more crochet eggs too from Kate's tutorial here- they are very addictive to make!

Hope you all had a great weekend :)

Megan x

pom pom easter chicks

I saw these pom pom easter chicks a few years ago in an issue of Littlies magazine. I searched on their website for the tutorial (they have heaps of great tutorials here) but couldn't find it so here's a quick pom pom tutorial if you're keen to make an easter chick or two for your little ones, or a crafty easter activity to do in the school holidays for older children.

1. Draw a big circle with a smaller circle inside x 2 (I used a can and a spice jar). Next time I would use a smaller circle for the inner circle so it's a bit easier to keep the pom pom wool pieces together when cutting it.

2.  Cut around the outer circle and then cut out the inner circle x 2.

3. Cut lengths of wool into manageable lengths - a metre or two at a time. Place the two circles together and start winding wool around the circles as pictured.  Keep cutting lengths of wool and winding around the circles until completely covered.

5. (Above) and 6. Wedge your scissors between the two circles and cut through the wool, going right around the whole circle. Hold the circles together reasonably firmly as you do this to keep all the bits of wool together!

7. Cut a piece of wool (say 20 cms) and slide it between the two cardboard circles,  pull tightly, tie and knot. 

8. Slide cardboard circles off and fluff out pom pom, trimming it up if needed.

9. Cut out a circle and feet from a piece of card.

10.  Glue pom pom chick to the piece of card, cut out eyes and beak from felt and glue onto chick. Craft googly eyes would look great on the chick too instead of the felt ones (I need to get some!)

If you're in the mood for a bit of shopping instead of crafting though, here are some cute 'chick' easter treats...

'Hello Chick' badge from Belle and Boo

Easter baby chicks from Sabahnur on Etsy

(I came across this shop via this crafty Easter post from Monkeemoomoo)

Rabbit nesting toy from Cherish Child.

Well, no sign of baby yet- hopefully not too far away now!

Megan x

my creative space: two more 'busy book' pages

It was so neat to read all the lovely comments about the first few pages of my busy book the other week, thank you! I've finished a couple more pages so here are some pics.  Both of these pages were inspired by some fabric I already had- a lovely flower corduroy and a babushka print.

I've seen lots of examples of the 'button on flower' page on other busy books- such a great idea for little hands to practice their buttoning skills! For my page I appliqued on some 'grass' and stitched some flower stems and leaves, then sewed on some buttons...

...then I made some flowers out of Felt and cut the button holes. 

I used two layers of felt to make the flowers as I knew they would get plenty of wear so I wanted them to be nice and strong!

With the babushka page I wanted to do something similar to the nesting dolls idea so I decided to make little pockets on two of the babushka's so they fit inside each other from smallest to biggest. 

I also sewed on a dome to keep the babushka's on the page (and to practice using a dome too!) 

I wanted to have some threading practice in my book too so I sewed on some little rings around the babushka's and tied some cord onto one of the rings.  A little bit random but the more to do on the page the better I think!

 

I've made a page on my blog with all of my busy book pages so I'll add each new page there too. There's a link to a site I found with a list of ways to develop fine motor skills on there too :)

And Rochelle from "Through a Focussed Lenz" has come up with a great idea if you are keen to make a busy book for your little ones - a 'busy book page swap where "someone might take zips, some one clips, a person for threading etc. Each participant makes a number of pages in their "theme" and we post off to each other."She'll be posting about it soon so stay tuned!

For more creative spaces, head over to Kootoyoo here

It's my due date today but no sign of baby yet, I was overdue 8 days and 6 days with my first two so maybe 4 this time!

Megan x