Busy setting up Stompy's Craft ...

It has been a really busy few weeks setting up the products for Stompy's Craft Little Blog Shop. I have specialised in creating craft kits for children, from simple colouring shapes (that my 20 month loves to colour in (well scribble on)) to Canvas Collage Kits and Simple Sewing Kits.

More kits will be uploaded soon - along with a price list....



So now is the mad rush to get a stock ready for two Christmas Shopping Fayres.

Thursday 22nd November 7- 9pm  - Friends of St Johns Christmas Shopping Evening at St John the Evangelist School, Newbury.

Friday 7th December 4:30 - 6:30pm - St Nics School, Newbury.

If you live in the Newbury area - come along and support the schools - it would be lovely to see you there.

Regards
Stompy xx

More Fabric fun with the Silhouette SD

Again the Silhouette SD came to my rescue when making a named toy bag for my youngest daughter.

 

As with the owl wall hanging I used cheap iron on adhesive to stabilise the fabric and then cut out quite intricate and small pieces for the letters and image applique patches.

I reused lots of old fabric for this make, including some old roman blinds for the main fabric ( I had to turn it inside out to hide the horrible pattern) the patches are demin from old jeans and the lining is a mixture of fun fabric left over from making a girls dress and an old bed sheet.

It’s not the best shaped bag in the world, but it does what I intended it to do, and that is holds lots of toys (it can also carry a 20 month old, as Chloe decided that she would climb in too!)


Thanks for looking

Fabric fun with the Silhouette SD

When you don’t have much time to get things made, I love any tool that can speed jobs up.

After searching the internet on how ot use the silhouette to cut fabric, I was hoping not to have to pay out for the specialist materials that the sites were recommending. Especially as I had recently found my 18 month old daughter sitting on my silhouette cutting mat - adhesive side down - on our door mat.
So I experimented using a spray mount on the cutting mat (after scraping off the dirt) making sure that I masked off the edges.
To stabilise the fabric I used a cheap iron adhesive bought from my local haberdashery. The Silhouette cut the cotton fabric beautifully, there was just a few tiny areas that needed to be snipped with scissors.

The owls I cut were then used as aplique decoration on a wall hanging for my daughters bedroom.

I hope to post more Silhouette SD applique ideas in the next few blogs...

Thanks for looking

Launching Imagination Station UK

July has so far been a really exciting month for me at Stompys Craft. I have teamed up with a local art teacher, Sarah Martinez, and together we have set up Imagination Station UK.

Imagination Station UK is an Arts and Crafts Group, where we will aim to deliver fun, and educational arts and craft based activities for children.

We are starting off with two sessions this summer holiday for children aged 4-8 years old.

Session 1 - we will be making fantastic flying fish kites and getting the children to create their own sea creatures for a sealife mural.

Session 2 - the children will be able to create their own story book puppets and collage scenery for the puppets to act in front of.

So please check out our blog imaginationstationuk.blogspot.co.uk for more details on the activities.

Thanks for popping by

Stompy

Wendy House Decorating

Just finished the wendy house today in time to get a blog post for June!

Having some large pieces of scrap timber hanging around the garden / garage, we decided a few years back, to build a play house for our daughter at the back of the garden where no plants would grow.

Made from old fence posts, some left over perspex, decking scrounged out of a neighbours skip and some new sheets of plywood we built a little house... which never quite got finished... so plants grew in under the roof.... bringing with it all the creepy crawlies little girls don’t like.

So this June, I finally got round to sealing the roof, and painting the internal walls with gloss paint. And with two little girls, we thought it would be nice to make the interior rather girly.

Excluding the blackboard paint the whole decorating cost came in at under £10.

To make the peg row - I reused some plastic handles from the girls bedroom and attached them to a scrap piece of 2"x1" timber which was covered in some in-expensive gingham.

The blackboard was made from an old picture frame that was taking up space in the garage, the print was taken out and the frame backing painted with blackboard paint.

The bunting was made from my husbands old work shirts and some gingham I had left over. See below for my tips on making quick bunting.

I made little covers for the wooden stools from old jeans and an old duvet that had spent the last few years in the cats basket (it was well washed before I used it!!)

One heart decoration was from jeans and shirt fabric, whilst the other I made by reusing some florist wire, which was covered in a mix of wire, wool and some cheap Pony beads that were crocheted together.

The butterflies and other decorations were purchased - all for less than £8.

Now it is a really cosy and great fun to play in.

Thanks for looking
Regards Stompy



Another Speed Sewing Saturday...

8 days before a "Mike the Knight" birthday party we get an invitation with the tag line Fancy Dress to Impress! My daughter didn’t not want to go as a knight or a Viking so we loosely settled on a Medieval Princess.

The next day in town I striked it lucky in the local Cancer Research Charity shop, where there was a beautiful Jayne Copeland dress - it needed a little repair - but was a bargin at £4. That was most of the costume sorted, all I would need to do would be to make a cape, and a head dress - job done!

To cut a long story short - by the Saturday morning the cape was mostly made. In the remaining 3 hours I had to finish the cape with brooch, make the headdress and make the card... all this after being up most of the night with a 4 year old with a fever!

The headdress took about 1 hour (with interruptions!)

This is how I made it...

• Take a wire coat hanger and remove the hook part.
• Bend it round into a hoop - a good loose fit as it will be padded out.
• Secure and cover all the wire in tape - I used gaffa tape.
• Wrap scrap cotton fabric around the hoop to pad out the head dress - I used 4 sleeves off my husbands old work shirts. The cuffs were removed and the sleeves cut into approximate 5cm strips.
• Cut strips out the cover fabric - I cut x2 10cm strips of the unused cloak fabric (the fabric was ~140cm wide).
• Turn and press a 2cm hem along one edge of each piece.
• Wrap the pressed fabric around the loop making sure that it is the pressed neaten edge showing.
• On the inside of the hoop hand stitch the edges to stop the fabric from moving and stitch the ends securely.
• Wrap the finished hoop in a contrasting ribbon - I used ~2m of 2.5cm wide gold organza ribbon knotting it at the back.
• On the inside of the hoop hand stitch the ribbon to stop it moving (I didn’t have time for this step and the ribbon had moved by the end of the party!)
• Add some netting decoration - I cut a 50cm piece of gold glitter netting - gathered it up by hand and secured it with the ribbon at the back of the head dress.

The brooch took about 20 minutes - but needed another 40 to dry.

 

This is how I made it...

• Cut 2 circles out of card - I used cereal boxes and the 2nd smallest Eyelet Circles Die (Spellbinders Nestabilities range)
• Coat each circle with gold embossing powder and heat - I used Papermania gold embossing powder (but this comes out quite dull and has tarnished on cards made in the past).
• Coat each circle with clear embossing powder for an extra glossy finish - I used Stampendous clear embossing powder.
• Glue both circles together - off setting the eyelet holes.
• Punch a hole in the centre and add a "glamorous" jewel button, glue to hold in place.
• Stick smaller gems or pearls into each of the eyelet holes around the edge.
• Coat the gems with a thin layer of a decorative dimensional adhesive - I used glossy accents.
• Leave to dry

My daughter was very happy with the costume - and best of all it survived 2 hours of running around Eddie Catz soft play!
Thank you for looking
Regards
Stompy xx

Extreme Easter Makes and tech bites back

Again - long time no blog posts.... this time it was because our home tech decided to go kaput big time. Firstly my much loved 9 year old olympus camera gave up, swiftly followed by the just as ancient (in tech terms) home pc. So we have spent our spare time (and my craft time) rescuing and reloading all our programmes and files on to a new family pc.

I did have to make time late on Easter saturday to make my two daughters an Easter present each, as we had forgotten to ask the Easter bunny to bring some appropriate gifts. So after drawing up a simple template and raiding my felt box, I sewed and glued two little bunny egg cosys - cute and sort of practical.

Glue used - PinFlair silicone glue

Flowers cut using Sizzix original flower die

For Easter Sunday sponge cupcakes were decorated by my daughter and nephew with chocolate butter icing nests and Cadbury mini eggs.

I also made little Cranberry Simnel cupcakes based on an old recipe from Mrs Beeton’s Everyday Cookery book, with a nugget of marzipan baked inside - these were then topped off with marizpan flowers.

4oz Stork margarine
4oz light brown sugar
1 1/2 oz golden syrup
2 large eggs
6oz plain flour
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon mixed spice
11oz mixed currants, sultanas, cranberries
2oz marmalade
2-3tbsp milk

This was mixed together like an all in one, starting off with the eggs, sugar, flour, salt, spice and margarine in a bowl. All the other ingredients were placed in a food processor until the bulk of the fruit had been chopped up small (but not pureed). This mixture was then added to the bowl and beaten (with electric whisk) until all ingredients had been incorporated (but not over worked). The mixture was then spooned into 12 muffin cases, and a large hazel nut sized nugget of marizpan was poked into the centre of each cake.

The cakes were then baked for about 25 minutes in a preheated fan oven at 170 oC.

After being left to cool on a wire rack the tops were brushed with warm apricot jam and a marzipan flower and fluffy chick were added.
　

So all in all not too much crafting to write about - may be I’ll get more time next month....

Scrappage put together using Serif Craft Artist and my own Easter Digikit...

A Fairytale Party.

Not much blog activity from me in March, but I was busy preparing for my daughters 4^th birthday party, and finding the floor in "Mummy’s craft room".
The "planning" started in January after her sister celebrated her first birthday, and we started thinking about what we could do. We decided on a Fairytale theme – mainly because Princess parties were very popular, but we would be inviting boys too and I had seen a wonderful dragon cake on the internet.
I had already got a number of fairy drawings that I had done a few years back, so these got revamped and coloured in using Serif DrawPlus x4. But then we need a dragon – so I had to design one – which would be flying, or sitting down, or holding a sign – so three dragons were designed. Then of course you would need a Prince, and a castle, and a Knight, and a frog…… plus all the little decorations.
Once all the characters had been designed. I needed to design the Party Stationery, goodies, and decorations. Serif CraftArtist was key to all of this. I created a digikit (after coming up with some background papers and an alphabet). The digikit was used to create the invite, thank you cards, a party bag booklet (of puzzles and games), and labels. I created my own templates for shield shaped bunting and packets (for the Snapdragon seeds).
With the help of my Silhouette, I also created some "colour me" finger puppets to add to the party bags.
I was very pleased with all items, and had some lovely comments from the Mums.
The cake was good fun to do too. The dragon was made 2 days before, using shop bought Maderia cake (as it lasts longer than homemade Victoria sponges). The two slabs of cake were carved into the basic dragon shape (all held together with chocolate butter icing). The dragon was then covered with a thin layer of ready made icing that I had coloured lilac. Using improvised tools, I created scales that were highlighted with Dusty Lilac Edible Lustre Dust. Some more icing was coloured green and the detail of the wings, claws and spikes were added.
The next day I baked a Victoria sponge – simply coated it in a thin layer of chocolate butter icing and carefully slid the dragon into place. Gold coins and some dragon eggs made by my little helper were added for the finishing touch.
I was very pleased with the final looking cake.
　

The scrap page was put together on CraftArtist – using my Fairytale digit kit.
　
Regards
Stompy x

Knitted Flower Fairies

I saw the pattern for these lovely characters back in the summer and thought that the set would make a lovely gift for my daughters 1^st birthday. I had planned to knit all 4 – but only managed 2 (and a half) in time for her birthday.

The pattern is Patons Book 3806 and they are knitted in Patons Smoothie DK.



I wasn’t sure about the yarn when I bought it as it looks like a cotton yarn but is 100% Acrylic – in the end it was very nice to knit with and as long as you didn’t accidentally split the threads – it knitted up beautifully.

I did, however, make a number of changes to the pattern.
When I started on the first leg, I noticed that the increase stitches showed up making the stripes look quite bity. So I changed it from a stripe starting on a knit row to a stripe starting on a purl row – this meant the increase happened within the stripe and the resulting stripe was far neater.
Another change I made was to the knitting of the body and head – in the pattern the body and head are two separate pieces that need stitching together – I made it all in one piece for a smoother finish.
And the final change was to the wings – the pattern wings were quite large and I didn’t like them. I tried to crochet some lacy wings, but realised that it probably wasn’t wise as little fingers would get caught up in them. So I ended up crocheting a pair that looked a little like butterfly wings and trimmed with a blanket stitch using Anchor Artiste Silver Metallic yarn.

I do hope to finish the third one – Forget-Me-Not, to join Daisy and Rose, and if I get time I would love to knit/crochet a little garden for the fairies to play in….

The scrap page was put together on CraftArtist – using Bambino Thoughts digit kit and some of my own images.
　
Regards
Stompy x

Never Enough Time

As I had been warned, my second daughters first birthday came round very quickly – too quickly after Christmas…. We had invited some of Emily’s friends over to play, so as usual the day before a birthday was not spent making lovely decorations and adding a few final touches - it was spent blitzing the house to get it clean and tidy – oh and don’t forget getting a cake made.
So using my trusted recipe from Mary Berry (thank you Great British Bake Off) a Victoria sponge cake was made. Once assembled with homemade strawberry jam and vanilla buttercream a wedge was cut off the front – turned up-side-down and adhered (using jam and buttercream) to the back of the cake. A slab of ready made icing was rolled very thin on some cling film and then carefully placed over the cake and plate. Some of the large creases were cut out and the icing rejoined, but as the cake was a ice cliff, the icing didn’t have to be smooth. Excess icing was trimmed from the plate. The base of the cake was then coloured with a small amount of Glacier Blue Edible Lustre
Dust. The penguins off the Christmas Cake were joined with extra penguins to decorate the cake, and a couple of trees were added to the edge (with the help of dried spaghetti).
The cake was enjoyed at a family birthday tea later in the afternoon – but we couldn’t eat all of it – so it was taken into work by Dad:
"Very nice thank you, the cook should be congratulated as for the penguins - a masterpiece"
"Thank you for the cake, it looked and tasted fantastic. I bet the penguins are still there at the end of the day though, they're too cute to eat!"Where it was polished off – Penguins and all!
　
　Left over icing was used to quickly decorate some cupcakes with little penguin faces.
　

　

The scrap page was put together on CraftArtist – using Portfolio digit kit and some of my own images.
　
Regards
Stompy x