Personalised Magic Cape gift

Mum and I came up with the idea for a special magic cape for a special boy called Connor who we are very fond of. You can read about Connor here.

As its his 13th birthday we didn't want it to be childish and Mum really wanted it to be black with red lining and Connor is sparkly letters. A lot of the red and black capes we found though looked quite Dracula like. I wanted stars and a rabbit coming out of a hat. Needless to say we failed to find what we wanted!

I turned to Etsy and found a seller who could clearly see as she makes the most amazing tutu's. Is it wrong that at 30 I really want one of her tutus?







I messaged her with our ideas and she said she could help. Today this arrived!



It's so well made, silky soft (Connor has sensitive skin) and beautiful, the picture doesn't do it justice. It's lined in red with gold ribbons to fasten.

Thinking of buying a toothbrush as a gift?

I was searching around the Internet looking for gift ideas for this Christmas and ended up on Wilkos (who do some lovely Christmas bits). Under the 'Gifts for Her' category I saw an entire section dedicated to toothbrushes.

My dear readers, if your thinking of buying an electric toothbrush for Christmas then I implore you to watch Rhod Gilbert's stance on them.


Last year someone Dad was working with in Central London made the long journey to Blue Water after work to select a present for his wife. His choice...you guessed it an electric toothbrush. Dad suggested watching the video and getting something else to go with it!




Ps)Only other fans will understand why my parents couldn't stop laughing in baggage reclaim when a luggage handle (not attach to a suitcase or bag anymore) was going around and around!

Presenting birthday tickets to Harry Potter Studio tour

For Mums birthday I gave her an IOU for tickets to tour the Harry Potter set. She's wanted to go for ages but felt guilty as I'm a huge Harry Potter fan but too ill to even consider going. As I didn't have the actual tickets to give her I did a special letter instead.

I've not tea bag stained anything since I was at school but used a wet tea bag to make a piece of paper look like parchment, while still wet I sprinkled a few grains of coffee on. Then I wrote in green pen as Dumbledore himself wrote in green and added a red seal with a H on the back. On the front it had Mums name and our address but with 'master bedroom' added.

The letter said;


To

Happy Birthday. You are invited to Hogwarts. Sadly you are past the age limit to be a student, your too tall to be a house elf and have CSE's instead of OWLs so can't be a teacher.

Due to this we are inviting you following a bribe from Vikki. You will walk down Diagon Alley, enter the Great Hall and see Hogwarts from dawn to dusk.

Vikki will also bribe us to give you the devices to hear about what your seeing,

Enjoy your visit,

A Dumbledore

Handmade crafty Christmas presents

Whoops, I did this as a draft and forgot to hit 'publish'!

Long time no blog! My health always takes a dip at this time of year after over doing it at Christmas.

I can now share some of the things I made but couldn't sooner.


Christmas 2013 was the first one since the amazing Alice Pyne passed away. I wanted to send something to her family and searched high and low for a nice and suitable snowglobe but couldn't find anything. It's hard to find a suitable Christmas gift for parents who have recently lost a child. In the end I decided to make a Christmas decoration (which could be used at Christmas or year round if they wanted). I chose a lovely photo of Alice which I know was taken on a very special day and as a bonus she was wearing purple boots (her favourite colour). I added her name in purple text then ordered it. It arrived with red ribbon which I replaced with purple. Her family put up her purple tree and it fitted on great.



For my friend Kate I got various things including named pencils. I had her nickname (straw poker of all things!) printed on them but was disappointed when they turned up loose in a Jiffy bag. I arranged them into colour order and using tiny sticky fixers I lined them up on a piece of shiny purple card (we both love purple) and wrapped in cellophane. I liked to present gifts nicely and was pleased with how it came out. I stacked her other gifts (her birthday is close to Christmas) in matching stacking boxes and added a big ribbon around them. As it had to be shipped I used lots and lots of tape!






I wrapped Kate's other gifts in purple paper, added a beautiful purple ribbon I had saved from something and slotted in 'Juicy Lucy calling cards' about friendship





For my friend Emily I used the coloured tapes I had won earlier in the year (they were my fav crafting item of 2013) and decorated a white box with them, I then added her name in glitter letters (that I had also won). Both items were from Paper Celar range.



I also made some decorations for my very ill friends with this picture that says 'there is always hope'. I like the image anyway but it's extra apt as they all struggle with light sensitivity, bring a new meaning to light at the end of the tunnel.



I find guys hard to buy for, my friend Dan likes Whiskey and The Big Bang Theory among other things. From ebay I ordered a hip flask with 'Dan- one lab accident away from super villain' (a line from the show) and I really liked a tshirt I saw with Bazinga made up from elements on the periodic table. I didn't really want to get a tshirt though so in the end I found the image and had it printed onto a mug using Snapfish.



As a family gift I took a Christmas photo of my Dad and I pulling a cracker, added a snowy boarder using photobucket and had it printed as a jigsaw (under £5 on ebay and great quality). My Dad is blog shy though so I don't have a picture but it went down great. We did the puzzle as a family and they were guessing what picture it was for a while. I think I'm going to make it an annual gift with a different picture each year.

My sweet trees (fizzy belts and Haribo Stars) were wrapped in a small piece of cellophane and ribbon added.



The magnetic pegs I made were pegged onto purple card, wrapped in cellophane and had a nice label added.






We have a fake tree in our living room all year and at Christmas we put bird decorations on but they tend to blend in and aren't noticeable. Mum wanted some white ones and I found these beautiful Gisela Graham ones. Although they are lovely as they are I glued a single diamanté where all the ribbons join, it worked brilliantly and they looked even better.



I will finish with the gift I'm most proud of. I managed to compete my Mums stocking. I had never sewn before and the Bucilla kit seemed very daunting but I finished. Miss Moneypenny on MSE and Debbie's YouTube videos were a huge help. Instead of a picture I made a very short video so you could see the details. You can see it here. I've now brought 4 more Bucilla kits.

That rounds up my crafty Christmas, I hope you like the items I made or maybe inspire you to get crafty.

Pancake day, inspiration vs reality

It's that time of the year, bring out the lemon and sprinkle sugar all over the kitchen as it's PANCAKE DAY. I know I'm a day early but the early bird catches the worm...

This year it started with my browsing hundreds of inspirational and yummy looking pancakes. Many which look simple yet delicious so I selected a few and had one design in mind. Simple folded, layered on each other a bit and bursting with delicious fillings, some chocolate artistically drizzled for effect.

What can I say? After an hour Mum and I created this;




I think I nailed it!

Cut coins, a unique gift

My Grandpa collects coins so when I came across cut coins for the first time I was excited to of found something for him (he insists every year he wants 'an empty box'.

If like me you have never heard of them then they are normal coins which someone has taken a very fine drill too. You can get ones with lovely designs cut into them but by far my favourite are the ones that stick to the design of the coin. I went for the ship £1 coin.

From some sellers you can choose which year you would like so I went for 1951, the year my Grandparents got married. The little loop on the top is so cord can be threaded through and the coin worn. My grandpa doesn't aspire to be Del Boy so won't be wearing it but he can hang it up to display. After I brought it my Dad pointed out how similar it is to the symbol for our village, I shall pretend I thought of this all along!

There are lots of people on Facebook, Ebay and Etsy doing them, I am told they are quite common now at Christmas markets too.

I got mine from here for £21 including postage, to my surprise it arrived in a matter of days and I'm very pleased with the quality.

Sweet tress and magnetic pegs finished

I posted before about the trees and magnetic pegs I was making, here are the finished results.

Sweet Christmas trees

I've had a bad week M.E wise so no Christmas crafting has been done except for making a sweet tree yesterday. I had the idea ages ago but never got around to trying it out. As a very quick attempt I was quite pleased, I used Tesco fizzy belts (£1 for 3 packs) and Haribo Stars which also happened to be fizzy (60p a pack). I think a mini gem would make a good 'pot' but I'm just going to cellophane them.
 

Christmas gift idea - A year of good wishes!

Name- a year of good wishes
Cost- pennies
Homemade

 Take a strip of paper, write a wish for the recipient on the non patterned side and using these Instructions fold them into a star shape. It's easy and kids can make them, it's a good way of using up strips of paper chain links. You can make them out of lots of types of paper, here is one I did with purple sparkling paper left over from an iris folding kit.

You could just give a small amount in a pretty organza bag, have kids hand them out or you can make 365- a wish for every day of the year and present them in a vase or pretty container that you already have.

A simple, pretty and meaningful gift

Christmas idea for kids who stop believing in Santa / Father Christmas

Christmas to me is all about the magic, be it the type of magic which gets Father Christmas around the world in one night or the type of magic which brings strangers and families together and when most people go that little bit further than normal to be friendly.

It's sad when kids no longer 'believe' or are at that stage when they know but ask their parents for confirmation. It's awkward and I've seen a letter gain popularity, it's long and very wordy, plus very American. Nothing wrong with American (nearly all the gifts I want to get my family are all on American sites) but it goes on and on about Santa being a spirit and a feeling, I think for things like this short and sweet is best. I saw someone on a forum who said she told her child there are magic believers and magic makers in the world, now as they no longer believed they were instead a maker. I've taken this idea a step further (and will be entering it into MSE Festive Fiver competition if they do it this year).

Here is my idea.....


Name- Your a magic maker.
Cost - Free

For children who no longer believe in Father Christmas, tell them that in the world there are magic believers and magic makers, they used to be a believer but now it's time for them to become a secret magic maker. Give them a little token for becoming a Maker, anything from a little badge to a shiny pebble. Then working together come up with some ideas for creating magic, it could be snowy footsteps from FC for a younger sibling to see when they wake up or doing something anonymously for a stranger. Not only does it take the sting out of no longer believing but it helps keep FC real to younger siblings and makes the older child feel really special.

Christmas hot chocolate cones - gift idea

My first Christmas idea is hot chocolate cones, they aren't expensive to make but if presented nicely make a fab gift. They can be given to friends, family and kids either as a Christmas present or a 'night before Christmas' gift (making Christmas Eve that little more special).

You need:
Cellophane cones from ebay
Hot chocolate (I use cadburys)
Candy canes or North Poles (the same as candy canes but straight)
Mini Marshmallows
Some ribbon


Take some nice hot choc and spoon it into a cellophane, I like to use around 4 tablespoons so it's just over half full, then twist the top and tape it down before cutting off any excess. Slip this into another cone (of the same size), pour on mini marshmallows (you can add some edible glitter if you have some), this is the secret to a good looking chocolate cone other wise the powder and marshmallows will mix). Twist and tie the top with ribbon. Curl the ribbon and then make a tiny cut in the middle of the ribbon at the bottom and then tare it so you end up with 2 strands of curly ribbon, much prettier than the normal way of doing it. Next you need to cellotape the candy cane to the front of the cone. Print a label with instructions of how much hot chocolate to add to milk/water. An alternative to this is adding a poem called 'snowman soup' (just google it) but I'm not keen on the poems and I prefer the cone to look simple and stylish without having paper with the poem attached.