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"Crafts"
Remember I told you I had an awesome Easter weekend? Not only was I well enough again to eat chocolate (hoorah) but I got to spend it with all my favourite people. Easter Sunday was spent with my lovely family but I also managed to arrange a little get together with my bestest girlfriends on the Saturday night (not all of them as they are spread out across the world!) and do my favourite thing – make things!
I was lucky enough to be challenged by Swinton Home insurance, who have some great Cheap Home Insurance Quotes Online, to have my perfect night in! I always enjoy going out for dinner or to watch a band but I do love staying in too. Normally my nights in involve me cooking for people (which I love, I’m a bit of a feeder I think!) and wine :) But with a £100 budget I wanted to do something a bit creative and different. First port of call when looking for inspiration? Pinterest!
After a good 30 minutes looking for party inspiration it came to me! I would arrange a pinterest party! I am forever pinning amazing creative ideas for things to make but realistically I don’t often actually do anything with all those pins I pin. Very occasionally I’ll revisit something I’ve pinned on there… but how fab would it be to have a night in with the girls trying to recreate some of these lovely ideas that I pin?
I decided to split the budget and spent £50 on food and drinks and £50 on craft materials which actually worked out perfectly. The planning took a bit of extra thought, I spent quite some time sifting through pinterest (oh what a hardship) looking for the perfect ideas to recreate. I didn’t want anything too complicated, something that we could all get involved in and something the girls could take home with them. I am also trying to be a bit healthy at the moment so was looking for healthy food recipes and non alcoholic cocktails (I know, but everyone was driving!). I made a prelimary board http://pinterest.com/mummylish/pinterest-party-ideas/ but there was so much choice, so many ideas, craft ideas, make up ideas, nail art ideas, food ideas. Eventually I settled on making…
and these crafts to make
Shopping for the party was pretty tough, I had two ridiculously long shopping lists. It must have taken me 3/4 of a day to find it all! In all fairness, the craft shops round here are not great so I spent a while running round looking for the bits I needed and running from one end of the supermarket to the other collecting ingredients for the recipes. I still managed to forget a few things which was annoying!
The girls arrived at 7pm and we set to work following the food recipes and getting things going so we had something to eat! We started with the strawberries so we could get them straight into the freezer, they were very simple to make but were delicious. At this point I still had an excited Littlelish around so this was the perfect thing for her to help with. The quinoa nibbles and mini taco cups were also very straight forward recipes to follow, simple with only a few steps, the stacks of aubergines had a few more steps to the process but were also simple.
By 8pm we were tucking into our food. All the girls agreed, the recipes were delicious :) When I make the quinoa nibbles again I may experiment with flavour as quinoa can have a bit of a bland taste like couscous. The aubergine stacks were yummy, even without the all important feta (which was one of the things I forgot, duh)! We replaced it with parmesan and mozarella cheese and they were equally as delicious (infact we couldn’t really imagine them with feta) a little bit like mini Melanzane Parmigiana. Our absolute favourite were the chicken taco cups, we were all in agreement that this was a brilliant idea for party food and such a yummy bite.
We were all so full we decided to wait with making the chocolate muffins which were apparently only 58 calories (amazing!) and time was ticking on and we wanted to get on with the crafts. We did a quick clear away and brought out the craft stuff, ready to make our pinboards! We chose our fabric, followed the instructions, which worked well and we were there to help each other if we got stuck at all. It was lovely both with the cooking and crafting as we all sat round the table chatting, laughing and catching up. It was a really lovely, chilled atmosphere and we all agreed it was fun and different to be making something together :) There was a little bit of a joke that we were turning into the women’s institute but you know what, we didn’t care! We all love to cook and craft and chat so it was absolutely perfect combination! I may have missed some wine but I think that wine would have made the crafting a bit more difficult and we may have had a rather different outcome ;)
After we had all made our pinboards and done lots of chatting it was already 11pm! Some of the girls decided to call it a night but we still had bracelets to make! Maybe they were all crafted out ;) The ones that were left stayed up making the bracelets which were actually not that easy! I think this was definitely something to do with it getting late, I kept on forgetting which side I was knotting to, the left or right! Whoops. I tried again the next day and it was much easier. I’m a little bit addicted to this new found technique and have been making bracelets all week :)
Thank you Swinton Home Insurance, we had a fab night. In fact we enjoyed it so much we said we would make it a regular thing :) I’d totally recommend hosting a pinterest party but it requires some good thought when planning. I’ve given you my best tips below on throwing a pinterest party – enjoy! x
Tips for arranging and hosting a pinterest party
- Don’t plan too many activities, you’ll never get to make it all and you want to take it a bit easy and chat along the way
- Choose activities that all your guests will be able to do, remember people have different ability levels when it comes to craft
- Write a clear shopping list of all the ingredients and craft items you will need. Try shopping in advance
- Make some food before hand or buy some little nibbles and crisps like I did so people have something to nibble on while making their food.
- Invite people you feel relaxed around, like your closest friends. Its a pretty informal set up and you will want people to get stuck in with helping you make the recipes etc.
- It is nice if your friends get to leave with something they made :)
- Start a pinterest party board now so that when you come round to organising you have loads of ideas to chose from!
Last week I posted a great round up of ideas for grown up pumpkin decoration. This weekend I had a go at a few of my own decorated pumpkins. Firstly I attempted to make something similar to the lace patterned pumpkins I loved (above)! So much intricate carving requires a great deal of patience which believe it or not I do have, however finding the time to create this tiny pattern on a weekend with a little 3 year old wanting to play all the time is not as easy. Hence only the top section being complete. I still think it looks fab like this, the light shines out of every tiny hole and looks gorgeous. I created this look by hunting through my drawers for any type of tool that I thought could perforate the pumpkin skin and create a different shape. I had kebab skewers, lino cutters and my trusty stanley knife. I hollowed the pumpkin out from the bottom and put a candle inside so the pumpkin looked like it remained intact.
I then went on to play with glitter! This was great as I could set Littlelish playing with the glitter too and all mums know glitter keep kids amused for.ever. It was messy but only took a minute to clean up as this clever mummy did it all on a black bin liner. I drew around a candle on the top of the first pumpkin and hollowed out the circle shape (keeping just a fraction smaller than the actual candle so it fits snug) inserting the candle in from above. I then covered in modpodge with a brush and sprinkled liberally with glitter. Ta da! Super quick and very, very pretty don’t you think? I love this one.
I then hollowed out another space for the candle (as above) in a slightly bigger pumpkin and used a paint brush to draw modpodge lines in the natural creases of the pumpkin and then cover with glitter, blowing/wiping off the excess when dry. I just love the look of these together… they create a lovely, warm, sparkly feature.
Still rolling with the modpodge and glitter I decided to have a go at writing with the brush and glue. The ‘trick’ is to not use too much glue or it will start to drip. Once again sprinkle with glitter and allow to dry, finally shaking off all the excess glitter when done.
So what do you think of my own take on grown up, glittery pumpkin decorations? Super easy, super quick, perhaps an hours worth of work for all 4 pumpkins – not bad going hey?
Today Daddylish arrived home with 10(!) gorgeous pumpkins that were left over at his work (he works with veggies!). Naturally Littlelish and I will be using a few to make Halloween pumpkin faces but we have such an assortment of sizes that I’ve been looking for inspiration for gorgeous grown up pumpkin decoration and I’ve found some beauties to share with you all…
Pretty painted pumpkins by Alisa Burke
Gold drawing pin covered pumpkins by Madigan
Fabric paint decorated pumpkins by A beautiful mess
Painted quote pumpkins by Proper Measure
Ribbon wrapped pumpkins by Good HouseKeeping
Lace pattered pumpkins by Martha Stewart
Lots of great inspiration for pumpkin decorating. Keep you posted on the progress!!
I have loved creating moodboards ever since I was a child, sticking and cutting in her first scrapbook. Fast forward 20 years to when I was studying styling and you can imagine I was in sheer heaven, moodboard heaven! For 3 years I spent every evening knee deep in the most gorgeous fashion, interior and trend magazines (some which cost a pretty penny too!) Brimming with the most inspiring photography and design I was forever saving special images for the day I could use them (and when that day rolls around it is soooo satisfying, believe me).
But what are moodboards? A moodboard is a collection of inspiring images that portray a certain feeling or atmosphere to the viewer.
Why use a moodboard? Moodboards are really handy things. They are fun to make but also serve a great purpose in all manner of creative projects.
For work I use them in various ways. When I am working on a brand identity they help visualise the message we are trying to get across. A brand is all about how the core message you are trying to portray is translated into the images and text you use for your company. A moodboard can visualise this message and assist in the process. I also use them when creating a styling concept, this could be for an event, an interior or to demonstrate a trend.
At home I use mood boards when I want to create a new look for my interior. For example when I started thinking about Littlelish’s nursery the first thing I did was turn to my magazines to make an inspirational moodboard.
Moodboards help to cement your ideas, they are reference point when choosing for example fabrics or colours for a room or designing a logo for a company. They are also inspirational, when you start out on a creative journey you might think you have a firm idea of what you want in mind but by creating a moodboard you actually go through a creative process. You are inspired by images you might not have thought of using and arrive new and original ideas, creating something far more interesting than what you had originally planned.
How to make a beautiful moodboard
- Start with thinking about keywords around what you are creating, narrow it down to 5 and choose carefully making sure none of them overlap or are different words for the same idea. (ie key words for my blog are stylish, fun, heart warming and happy)
- Look for images that evoke the feeling of these words in you, they can be literal or not but be selective! The images can be interior, fashion, lifestyle or just beautiful photography. If you are looking at a brand you can also think about the type of person who would be buying ie. your target market and find a good image to represent them.
- Now you need to spread all these images out all over the floor or a large desk if you have one. Mine is always the floor as my desk is never large enough! Weed out any you don’t think are right and try and make a cohesive collection, look for instance at colour/shape/graphic themes – find the linking thread/s.
- Less is in this case also very often more. Choose larger images. A few stronger, big images will always look better than a collection of small fiddly images.
Sometimes as little as 2 images will work as a perfect moodboard
- Check back over your original words, are your images saying what you want them to say?
- Once you have chosen your final images you need to place them together – this can be a bit of a puzzle. Play around with it until you get something you are happy with. Sometimes you will have to add one of the images you put aside or take out an image to get it right. If you have any smaller images you can cut around the detail (sometimes it looks cool to have a graphicy cut out border) and place it over the base images but do this carefully otherwise it won’t look good. Sometimes I do this to cover places where more photos join if it adds anything. If an image does not add anything or is similar to another image weed it out, you don’t need it!
Images cut out with a ‘graphic’ white border
- Once you are happy with your final moodboard it is time to stick it down. I normally use foam board to stick it onto as this is very durable and thick and if you can, use spray mount to stick it down as glue often shows through and doesn’t stick it well enough. If you are using a really strong permanent spray mount make sure you get it in the right place first time or you will not be able to get it back up again! Watch out as this is really sticky stuff and seems to fly everywhere, it is ideal if you can spray inside a cardboard box or something to contain the glue.
And there you have your finished moodboard to gaze at and inspire you. Keep referring to it along your creative process and be reminded of what you are trying to achieve.
Do you create moodboards? Have any top tips to share? Let me know by leaving me a comment….
Watch this space for a tutorial on how to create the perfect colour chart to match your board.
Oh wow. It has been really quiet on here of late… sorry about that. I have been entirely consumed with crafting! Last weekend I participated in my first ever craft fair, so of course I needed stock and lots of it which consequently meant quite a few 2am bedtimes :/ Still I managed to put together a funky little stall and hold my own with seasoned artisans. Initially I felt rather peculiar selling my wares to the public, persuading them to part with their hard earned cash for something I made! But I soon got the hang of it, motivated by peoples enthusiastic reactions to my pieces. They actually liked them and wanted to pay for them, yay! It was great to see what people were going mad for : my upcycled jersey scarves – not yet on etsy, my bark and shell hearts and my new little handmade creatures with accompanying illustrated cards. I met some fabulous talented fellow crafters, especially the lovely Angela from Ah ha! vintage inspired selling the most exquisite vintage cushions and textiles as well as hand crafted jewellery incorporating the finest pearls and antique brooches. My favourite pieces were the clever weighted bookmarks with antique “charms”, such perfect presents (mum one is heading your way!). Rain stopped it being a sell out which was a shame but I was pleased all the same with my sales. I’ve posted some pictures of my stand on my facebook page so come and have a nosey around!
This time I made this little creature, which littlelish absolutely adores already! There is something very satisfying about being able to make something for your own child especially when they are super enthusiastic about it. She just kept on saying “mummy it is sooo cute” x
Oooh I’ve just finished making this little devil. Pretty labour intensive but end result is so pretty!! Tutorial coming soon, but for those who don’t fancy going loopy cutting out circles or burning their fingers on a glue gun – they are for sale in my shop for 12.50.
I made my first thing EVER with a sewing machine yesterday. Well I made a stocking a few years ago but that doesn’t really count as you can’t wear it! I was inspired by my sisters new hat/scarf/mitten thing (is there a name for these?) which littlelish thought was amazing. So I pinched one of Daddy’s old grey jumpers and collected some other purple fabric I had and set to work. This is the end result, I think it is pretty cool and so does she :) It took me a few hours to figure it out and get the hang of the sewing machine but in the end it was really quite easy. So I thought I’d make a tutorial for you all, watch this space! 
It’s been a busy few weeks. Actually that is a major understatement. We’ve moved house, welcomed a beautiful new baby (my sisters) all while organising Christmas (wouldn’t it be great if Santa were real?) and keeping life and routines carrying along as normal (ish). This year I decided I’d like to craft some homemade presents too, I don’t like to make it easy for myself, do I? To honour our first baby boy in the family, Levi Jack Turner, I decided to make a word frame for him full of things that little boys love! What do you think?
This is one of my girly word frames that I made for my daughter a little while ago. I custom make these for little boys and little girls, complete with all the things that they love! A very personalised, fun addition to their room. For more information feel free to send me an email or check out my shop in 2012!
Much to my husbands dismay I am a hoarder. This is one of the major problems that comes with being crafty, I think I have a use for everything… and most times, eventually, I do! For those of you who read about me moving house more »
Much to my husbands dismay I am a hoarder. This is one of the major problems that comes with being crafty, I think I have a use for everything… and most times, eventually, I do! For those of you who read about me moving house recently I have good news, we are finally making headway with the moving boxes (oh and the neck is totally healed!) which means I have found my craft things and even my – one day i will find a way to recycle / upcycle you things – box. Today I came up with an extremely fun and super cute way to recycle my little girls playdough pot lids.
My little one is crazy about playdough, only problem is she leaves it everywhere and it dries out. This means we have plenty of spare little playdough pots. Too useful to throw away (or recycle) I decided that I was going to make some cool little magnet frames out of them. Best part was it was super easy, you don’t even have to be crafty to be able to do this, it is for everyone! Hooray! I’ve put together a little step by step guide into how to make them so you can all have a go!
1. I took various colour and size playdough lids (just what we have used up recently) and attached some magnets strips to the back of them using a hot glue gun. I didn’t cut them into neat circles but you could.
I printed off some photos I like of my lovely family approximately guessing the size I would need them to be. I drew around the lid on top of the part of the photo I wanted in the frame and then cut about 5mm inside the line so it would fit.
I glued the photo inside the circle and my magnets were finished. I told you it was easy! I think they look really fun. I’m thinking I could definitely expand on these and already have a few ideas up my sleeve for next time!
I’m a freelancer in creative marketing with a background in design and styling but when I'm not working I'm doing the most important job in the world, being mummy to my beautiful little girl! I love to create and craft and have a passion for colour and beautiful detail. This blog is all about my life, my amazing daughter, my inspirations and creations!
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