October 5th 2015 - tshirt 2 pillow

October 5th 2015 - tshirt 2 pillow

Last year myself and a friend in USA did a christmas gift swap based on Elves.  It was great.  We decided that we would do it again for this year.   Just after christmas last year I picked up a baby tshirt that said "I Elves they have magical powers".  My friend doesn't have a baby so this may seem like a strange thing to buy for her.  However, I had plans for the tshirt.  And that plan was to turn the tshirt into a pillow.

I started off  by cutting the long sleeves to just below the arm holes (as you don't need long sleeeves or extra pieces of material as they will just get in the way.)  I then stitched up the arm holes and along the base of the tshirt:

 I then started to stuff the tshirt via the head hole and pushed it down into the tshirt.  The stuffing is from a quilt I bought for this type of craft.  Its cheaper to buy new quilts and rip the stuffing out of than it is to buy bags of toy stuffing which is exactly the same thing!  Once it was fully stuffed I stitched up the head hole.

And have a finished pillow.

I forgot to take pics as I was working hence why its all a stuffed pillow.  I think it's nice and i'm sure my friend will as she is Elf mad!

August 7th 2015 - Making mini marshmallows

August 7th 2015 - Making mini marshmallows

I found this marshmallow toss game on pinterest, it is played with real marshmallows.  However, I was really dubious about this incase any of the children put them in their mouths after they had been on the floor etc so I decided to make some mini marshmallows from material.

The other day I had bought some pillows to make a big marshmallows for a smore race, I only used 1 of the 2 pillows so this is what I have used for the mini ones.  I have done them in the same way as the big ones.  I cut open one end and removed all the stuffing, now with the paper material cover I have cut it into strips about 1 1/2 " wide and then pinned and cut the strips into squares:

From here I have stitched 3 sides and then stuffed them with original stuffing.  The first 1 I did was just stuffing but when we threw it it didn't go very far so I undid part of it and added some rice to it to give it some weight for throwing, this worked much better.


I have a big red box that is coming to camp (it has chairs n things in it) and this will be used as the marshmallow toss game instead of the bucket like picture shows.  I have printed and laminated a picture of fire and the words marshmallow toss to be stuck on them as well.  We also have a small red spade from the sandpit to throw them with.


Although the image doesn't tell you how to play the game it looks very simple - you have a bucket that has fire/flames on it and marshmallows and a spade, I assume that the marshmallows represent water and you need to throw them into the fire to put it out.  The way we are going to play is each person has a turn with all of the marshmallows to see who can get the most in the bucket.

august 5th 2015 - making smores

august 5th 2015 - making smores

.....but not the kind you can eat!  The smores I am making are for a smore making race for day camp.  The idea is meant to be done in teams but as I only have a few coming to day camp they can do it individually.

I had to go shopping for pillows to make them:

I then cut the pillows in half and then into quarters, as these seemed to be a good size to be the marshmallows for the middle of the smores.  I stitched up the open sides:

I have 4 marshmallows like this:

 

Whilst I was making the marshmallows I had my son cutting squares of cardboard to use as the biscuits/crackers, they are a nice brown on both sides and dont need painting:

 

I also got him to cut out some thin cardboard cereal boxes and backed the shiny sides together, these will be the chocolate of the smore once painted dark brown.

The way the race will work is each player has 2 crackers, pieces of chocolate and a marshmallow.  These are placed the opposite end of the room to players.  On go they need to run to their pile and pick up a cracker and run back to the start, place cracker on floor and then go get a chocolate and place on top of cracker, then go get their marshmallow and place on chocolate, get the next chocolate to go on top of marshmallow and lastly the cracker on top.  IF any of it falls down before you get the next piece on it, you must put the new piece back, rebuild your smore and then go get the next piece.  the first person wins.

March 27th 2015 - Dragon's Fire potion jar

March 27th 2015 - Dragon's Fire potion jar

Today is the last day of school for the boys for the Easter Holidays, they finish at 1:30pm.  I have had quite a productive day so far - I have finished painting the lizards new house (finally) and its now drying ready to have the glue put on it to waterproof it.  I have done 2 lots of washing up and 1 load of washing, plus todays pin.

For today's pin I have done another Halloween thing, I found this lovely apothecary bottle on pinterest but sadly there was no instructions just a link to the ladies etsy shop.  This made me start thinking as to how I could make 1 and what I could use to get the flame effect.  My inital thought was pillow stuffing and that is what I used.

I have a pillow that is in the craft box and used as stuffing for toys etc.  I pulled some of the fibre stuffing out and started to colour it with sharpie pens - not as easy as it sounds as the fibres seperate, but I perservered with it and the final result is really good.  I used a base of bright yellow and then added an orange and some red patches to it all and then re-did more yellow to get a nice flame effect (see pics below).

 

Obviously it's not quite finished as I need to print a label to stick on it when I get some ink and I also have a brass dragon necklace on its way from China to add to it.  I'm also trying to work out whether I need the lid added to the jar with "fire" stuck on it or just glue the "fire" to the top of the jar.  I'm really pleased with how it looks.