It's a Creative World

Plushie Fun!!

My very first crafting projects when I was a teenager were soft toys so when I saw these Japanese plushies or Nuigurumi I just had to have a play!

 

 

The Japanese are avid crafters and they love their toys and this book of plushies is a joy- yes the instructions are in Japanese but the instructions are all in picture form and very clear and easy to follow.

Nuigurumi means Wrap and sew and refers to rag dolls and fabric animals. All these animals are made from felt which is a wonderful fabric to work with because you don't need to hem it, you can easily stitch and glue it and it comes in so many lovely colours that it's perfect for these fun little creatures! 

These characters are so quick and easy to make that you HAVE to embellish and personalise them!

My eldest son (who's twelve) created a Pokemon character 'Apart' from the little monkey pattern, you could add Christmas hats or hair bows made from felt or embroider initials or numbers, great fun!

Patterns used from '190 Adorable Felt Animals'

For patterns online search for 'Plushie patterns'; Palm Sized Stuffies or Nuigurumi.

Enjoy playing!

Love Katie x

An interview with Jackie from Make the moment last

Today we are excited to bring you a snapshot of the lovely JACKIE from the fabulous online store Make the moment last.

 

IACW: Jackie, did you have a particularly ‘crafty’ childhood, and what is your earliest crafty memory?

JACKIE: I remember when I was about 13 my Mum buying a Papercrafts book for me during the school holidays and I think I did every single craft in the book, from making masks, cards and loads of other things.

IACW: How did you discover scrapbooking, and how long have you been scrapping?

JACKIE: I discovered scrapbooking when my Niece’s Mum returned from a holiday to Australia. She then became a rep for Creative Memories, held a party and I was hooked from the start.

IACW: What crafts do you currently enjoy besides scrapbooking?

JACKIE: I have started to make cards again, I used to do this a lot before I discovered Scrapbooking as well as making Wedding Invitations and from time to time I go back to counted cross stitch.

IACW: From where do you draw your inspiration, and do you have any unusual sources of inspiration?

JACKIE: I do a lot of blog surfing and like to read a variety of Scrapbooking magazines. There is so much inspiration on the internet, I just wish there were more hours in the day. I also think the CBeebies house is great, would love to do a layout based on them!!!

IACW: Have you had any scrapbook/craft disasters, and, if so, are you prepared to share the details with us?

JACKIE: My first layouts are quite disastrous, especially when I look at my style now. I was thinking about redoing them, but it’s great to see how far I have come. I would definitely not share them though.

IACW: What tools/products/embellishments are you using most at the moment? Is there a line of papers you’re particularly fond of? What’s currently at the top of your ‘wanted’ list?

JACKIE: I love my Making Memories Trimmer and a great pair of scissors I picked up a craft show a couple of years ago – wouldn’t work without them. I also love my BasicGrey Precision file Kit. My current favourite paperline is Cosmo Cricket Mr Campy – I love that marshmallow and the whole line is perfect for my Caravan holiday pictures.

IACW: Do you have a blog?

JACKIE: I’m afraid not – but you never know I may start one in the future.

IACW: Who are your craft/scrapbook heroes/heroines?

JACKIE: I think Ali Edwards is amazing. I love her honesty and how she lets us in to her lives with the work she produces. I am an avid reader of her blog and love her books.

IACW: On average, how much time do you spend scrapping/crafting in a typical week?

JACKIE: Not as much as I would like as the website and my family take up a lot of my spare time. I suppose I average about 2 hours a week on a good week, but having our monthly crop helps.

IACW: Are you working on a particular project right now? Can you share any details with us?!

JACKIE: I’ve been scrapping my Disney Holiday that we took in January and just working my way through the many hundreds of photos of my Daughter Hannah is who now 3.

And now for a bit of fluff .......

IACW: What’s your favourite perfume?

JACKIE: Romance by Ralph Loren

IACW: Who is your favourite artist? Have you ever worked a particular artist’s style into YOUR work?

JACKIE: I love plenty of artists, I don’t actually have a favourite and have never really followed any particular style as my taste seems to change all the time.

IACW: What music do you enjoy listening to?

JACKIE: I’m a pop girl at heart. I got into music in the late 80’s, early 90’s. I will confess that I am massive fan of New Kids on the Block and cannot wait to see them in January again.

IACW: What was the last book you read?

JACKIE: I’ve just been re-reading the Harry Potter books in preparation for the next film release, which has now been put back until next year.

IACW:  What was the last film you saw at the cinema?

JACKIE: Mamma Mia – and I loved it, can’t wait for the DVD to come out.

IACW: Do you have a big screen heart-throb?

JACKIE: Patrick Dempsey – love him in Grey’s Anatomy, and thanks to my daughter, I watch Enchanted a lot now too.

IACW: You’re out to dinner at a restaurant where nothing is off the menu; what would be your dishes of choice (starter, main, dessert), and what would you be drinking?

JACKIE: Starter – Salad with mozzarella, avocado and tomato. Main – Pasta in tomato sauce, followed by Banoffee Pie. Diet coke all the way for me - not a drinker at all.

IACW: Tell us a joke!!

JACKIE: I am dreadful at jokes, I never remember them and the only one I know is a knock knock and I’m too embarrassed to repeat it, it’s so rubbish.

IACW: Describe yourself in three words…

JACKIE: Busy, busy, busy – but I love it.

Thank you so much Jackie.  We're a nosey bunch here at It's a creative world and we love to know what makes people tick.

If you would like to be interviewed for our blogerino or make any suggestions please leave a comment and we'll get back to you.

Sunshine, Rain, Hard work, and ENJOYMENT

Hi from MadDi in Johannesburg South Africa bringing you an update on how we garden down here!

 

Well its mostly relying on Sunshine, Water and Hard work. But a garden is supposed to be lived in so we do a lot of relaxing in the garden.

 

Sunshine: We (normally) have loads of it!

 

Water: Johannesburg is in a summer rainfall area so we get loads of it in SUMMER, but Winter is normally dry and COLD!

 

Cape Town is in a winter rainfall area, so in summer the Cape gardeners have to rely on sprinkler systems.

Hard work:  We do loads of it. But we also have a garden service that come in every Monday and they do a general tidy up. Ernest our ‘gardener’ also comes in on a Monday. He does loads of the hard work!

Pruning is a journey not a destination as is dead heading! We do this almost daily. And weeding is a non stop exercise!

 

Enjoyment: What is great about this time of year is that almost day to day you can see the change in the garden. I like to take lots of photographs so that I can see the change: The gorgeous Agapanthus are almost in full bloom. They are the most delicate periwinkle blue!

 

 

 

 

The South African summer sun is bright and harsh so we have have very bright coloured planting like these strelitzia:

 

More blue....

And of course we love the shade:

 

And where we have no shade trees we just use an BIG umbrella!!!

I hope you have enjoyed a glimpse into gardening in South Africa

Thanks for visiting IACW and love from MadDi X

Little Houses

Hi from Caz.
I have super exciting news to share before we move onto todays project. We have managed to recruit a FABBO, awesome, totally lovely lady onto our little design team. You will have had a sneaky peak at her awesome talent in this post where she was my guest for the day. But now she is a permanent fixture!! And we are so happy she's here. Katie doesn't only scrap, and adorn the pages of some of our best loved scrapping mags, but she is a knitty genious (she can even knit socks :o !!), a learner crochet'er and an inky princess! Welcome Katie!!
So without any more babble, I will hand you over :D

There seems to be a fashion for little houses in crafting over the last year. Many companies have produced houses themed scrapping papers, chipboard embellishments and mini-books. One such set that caught my eye were some really teeny houses by Collection Chipboard, which are very small and very cute! 

 

 

I drew up a simplified version of a house that I could vary the size as I wished. The template just needs to be scaled up to the size you like.

You can decorate chipboard houses as you like, with patterned paper, inks or paint. 

Embellishing the houses is perhaps the most fun! I found the Tim Holtz mini Grungeboard embellishments iwth their diddy door hinges perfect for these mini houses! Use stamped images or little photographs to place in ‘windows’ . You can make working doors just make a hinge with paper and then add fancy door knobs and a number.

Glitter looks great as snow on a Christmas themed house and you can add christmas trees.

 

 

Instructions

 

 

~First then cut the walls and roof on card or thin chipboard (try ebay for chipboard by the sheet) using the solid black lines on the template as your guide. 

 

 

~Once you have cut the house walls stick them onto the WRONG side of your patterned paper with a small gap between the walls (this allows enough ‘give’ to let you fold your house into it’s 3D shape.)

 

 

~ Cut out the paper ensuring you cut around the flaps (shown on the template) these flaps help you secure the house in it’s 3D shape and make the edges neat.

 

 

~ Bend the house round so the walls meet and secure the paper with glue or double-sided tape. Fold all the flaps over the edges and glue.

 

 

~Cut out the roof in chipboard or card and stick on the wrong side of patterned paper. Cut around remembering to include the flaps.

Fold and glue the flaps over the edges of the roof to neaten.

 

 

~ Apply glue to the top edges of the house and attach the roof- use an eleastic band to hold it in place until the glue is dry.

 

 

~If you like you can make a base for your house by drawing around the bottom of the house onto a piece of card or chipboard. Cut out and stick this onto the wrong side of patterned paper (include flaps as with the roof) Fold and glue the flaps over the edges then glue to the base of the house.

 

 

Have fun!

 

 

The Bird House and The Flying House were made from the Collections Chipboard Kit and embellished with 7 Gypsies papers, Grungeboard, Paint and Inks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Family House was covered with 7 Gypsies and Rusty Pickle papers and the images were from Tim Holtz Distressables.

 

 

 

 

The Christmas House was covered with Basic Grey Christmas papers and embellished with ribbons, glitter and small photgraphs.

 

 

 

 

The Inky House was plain white paper that was inked with different Distress Inks then stamped with multiply images in a single colour.

The roof was run through a Cuttlebug embossing die and sanded,

Stamped images were added as 'windows' and the edges of the house were covered in copper tape.

 

 

 

 

Download houses-draft.jpg

Thanks for visiting!
Katie

Christmas Stockings and a Look Back

Hi from Trish, today is the last day of our Christmas month, so I will start with my project for today and finish with a quick look back over some of our projects from the last month.

When I bought the snowflakes for my wooden garland I also bought a few other bits and bobs, my favourite of which are these cute stockings.

I painted them red using Anitas acrylic paint in True Red, they needed two coats, then using pinking shears I cut 1cm strips from white felt, keeping the top edge straight and glued them on using PVA. I used a large needle and threaded the 3mm ribbon through the felt and the holes that were already through the wooden stocking. 

 

I think they will look really cute hung on my main tree this year.

The month started on 15th October with Jakeys Christmas Planner . We have made beautiful cards HERE, HERE and HERE.  Jo did some fantastic Letters To Santa, which I think I will do this year with my two.  Loads of Decor ideas, I think my favourite is THIS festive fabric post by Caz and Glittery Katie. Something I wanted to join in with but unfortunately due to life getting in the way I didn't manage was the A Month in my Life - December I really will have to try and make time to do this one month next year.

We have had  fantastic Christmassy fun sharing our projects with you this month, please email us with any pics you have of your Christmas Projects. Thank you for joining us in our pre Christmas prep.

Trish xxx

Index Box Scrapping

This was something I conjured up earlier in the year and I thought it would be great to share with you all as the festive season is fast approaching.

It gets so hectic over Christmas and it can leave some of us with little or no time for scrapbooking, but this is the perfect way to get all your Christmas photos scrapped!  Yes, even those imperfect ones taken in the dead of night after the children have bounced on the bed and forced you to get up, lol!

All you need is an index card box and some index cards, readily available from stationers and most supermarkets.

 

Then, you simply scrap as you normally would, but on a much smaller scale. 

 

It's a fantastic way to use up scraps and older embellishments, and most 'cards' will take you hardly any time to complete.  And wouldn't a box of these make a fantastic gift for a Grandparent or other family member?  I've made two for my children's grandparents this year and have included photographs of them from 2008 only. A kind of year in review.  I'm sure they will be very well received and are a present that can be viewed over and over and bring back great memories.

The box provides sturdy protection for the cards, but you can also cut down some A4 page protectors for additional help in keeping the cards clean.

I hope this idea has inspired you to make an easy scrappy gift and will assist you in scrapping your own (no doubt many!) Christmas photos.

Paulaxx

Christmas in a jar!

Hi from Caz!

One of my favourite things at Christmas time is the smell. I love the smell of warm mince pies, and mulled wine and oranges and spices.

In order to ensure I have a YUMMY smelling house all December I have captured all those smells in a jar!

 

All you need is an old jam jar and a few ingredients. I put the following in mine:

Little pine cones,
a twig of holly,
some cinamon sticks,
a spoonfull of cloves,
some mulled wine spice (I just cut open a mulled wine tea bag, and sprinkled it in),
and a spring of fir tree!

I then closed the jar, and being very carefull, I poked some holes with a paper piercer. You can also tie a bit of twine around the jar and hang them from the bottom of the christmas tree. The jars can also be painted or you can embellish with rub ons and stickers.

 

So easy and fun to make, and they smell SO GOOD! Oh and of course you're recycling too!

haPPy dAy!!
Caz
xx

Quick stocking fillers

I've made these magnets for relatives who live far away as stocking fillers.

They are quick, easy to do and use up your stash.

I dug out some Lil Davis Chipboard bookplates, measured the apperture and printed the photos to size.

I used papers from a Basic Grey matchbox kit as the papers are scaled down in size.

After adding magnets to the back I then highlighted sections with stickles.

 

There are lots of possibilities for these little gifts. You could add seasonal buttons, scaled down chipboard shapes or just bling it up with gems.

Have fun and I'll see you soon.

Lemon xx

Baby Sock Bouquet

Here's an alternative to the nappy cake that makes an ideal baby gift. Easy to make, practical and, in my experience, always well received!

 

There are many ways to make a sock bouquet, but I think this is the easiest.  First of all, you need to get a galvanized zinc bucket.  These are available in florist shops or craft stores.  I get mine from Hobbycraft.  The size is 15cm diameter across the top and approximately 15cm high.  You can get bigger or smaller buckets depending how big you want to make your bouquet.

 

Next, take a sheet of tissue paper and cut it into four.  Then criss cross the four pieces across the top of the bucket and push gently into the bucket.  Be gentle as you don't want to tear the tissue on the edges of the bucket.

The next stage is to add your "roses".  In my bucket I have used a washcloth, a bib, a hat, a bodysuit, and two pairs of baby socks.  The trick is to fold the items into long strips and then just roll them up like swiss rolls, as I'm doing here with the washcloth.  You can secure them with small clear elastic bands, but I usually find I don't need to do this once everything is packed into the bucket. 

 

It's then just a case of arranging your "roses" in your bucket.  I also added a small bottle of champagne to this one to make it extra special!  I filled the gaps with artificial rose leaves and paper roses, together with pearl springs for some sparkle.  All these items can be bought from Hobbycraft.

 

As a finishing touch I always like to add cellophane and pull bows, but they look just as nice left as they are!

I hope those of you who are expecting a new addition to your family or a friend's family find this useful. Any questions or queries just let me know!

TFL! Lots of love, Joanne xxx

Hanging card display

Hi from Jo!

Well I think we have the "making Christmas cards" covered but what about the receiving them? If your house is anything like mine it's always a struggle to find somewhere to display all the cards recieved particularly as we seem to get more each year from the children's classmates.

Here's a simple solution:

I started off with some inexpensive parcel ribbon

 

which I plaited until it reached the length I required and then I added a decorative button at the end to secure the plait and also act as a weight.

I then used some silver spray paint to colour normal wooden clothes pegs to use to attach the cards:

 

Of course you could always use fabric ribbon, string or anything else handy to make these displays. I shall be getting my boys making some so they can put their own cards in their rooms.

Thans for visiting IACW!

Jo x