When you ask a three year old what she wants to do for her birthday the demands are usually pretty easy. Minnie was no exception this year- Pizza, Ice Cream, Cake, Granny, Party Hats...

ah, party hats. Now there is a crafting opportunity.

A quick text to Kateri, a rummage on Pinterest and voila! A plan was born.

Simple!

What you need:

Take some felt, some embroidery thread, elastic, Bondaweb(not essential) and a bit of imagination!

Kateri had found some patterns for princess crowns online which were simple shapes like the red and pink ones above, I simply took the idea a little further!

How to:

1. Cut two pieces of felt for each hat from the same colour- each hat was approx 10 inches along the bottom.
2. Hand stitched on any embellishment
3. Add some bondaweb (or you could use a similar stiffening backing (or none at all!) to the wrong side of the front piece of felt.
4. Place the felt wrong sides together and pin.
5. Cut a length of elastic (mine varied between 10-15 inches) and pin either side.
6. Using a sewing machine simply stitch all around leaving a 1/2 cm border.
7. Trim and uneven edges.
8. Use small child to model your brilliance.

This is what your hat will look like from the back (well, it is if you use pink)

I went a bit mad and made more than just a few princess hats- elf hats embellished with leaves, pirate hats with skiulls and crossbones, a sheriff hat complete with bullet hole and an indian princess head-dress.

I made a total of 14 and they took me from start to finish one evening and one afternoon. I could have made more/ made them faster had I stuck to the simple designs, but where would the fun in that be?

March Challenge craft- Done!

It has been almost a year since the hugely devastating earthquake in Japan, and a year on there are many people who are still homeless in temporary housing or even living in their damaged homes. A fellow blogger Jo over at A bit of this and a bit of that (who lives in Japan) has started a little project to send a little handmade message of hope to those people, that even a year later they haven't been forgotten.

The idea is that we send small handmade scrap fabric houses & a handwritten letter to her and they are distributed by people in the area. Jo has made up a tutorial that you can use to take part too. It's super simple and fun to make. They are ideal for people like me who hoard even the tiniest bit of fabric "in case it might be useful" - and gee, look it is useful!

I've made these two so far that will be sent to Japan but I think I will probably make a few more for my own house, they are just super cute.

I think I'll consider this as my crafty challenge for February ( I'm spoiled for choice as to which project to pick though as I've also made a Egyptian Pharaoh dress for Charlotte, redecorated my living room, baked and even made a bib for my nephew)

As part of the 4D challenge (man I still don't think that name really works, but by the end of the year I'll probably love it) I had to finish a craft project.

So - BOOM!

I present to you a DUVET COVER! That I embellished with bunting (yes I know I have bit of a problem with bunting, but it's so pretty and versatile and, well, so pretty).

This is a bit of a strange project - I have never set out to make a duvet cover in my life (and for the record I'm unlikely to ever do it again). I had been browsing the local Hospice charity shop and found what I originally thought was some mismatched bedding, all pink, all bundled together for £3. Bargain, with three girls I can never have enough pink fabric for projects. When I got home I discovered it was actually 2 full sets of bedding.

One set was flowery and lovely and required no extras. The second was plain pink, and although nice- was frankly a bit dull. It also had some fading on one side. It seemed a shame to not use them and Lexie really wanted the new duvet cover. So a bunting plan was hatched. And then shelved for a couple of months in favour of Christmas crafting.

And then the girls received not one, not two but SIX new sets of bedding over the Christmas period (add this to the existing six plus the one that came with the plain pink one and we have A LOT of duvet covers). Yet, despite this over-indulgence of bedding I pushed on.

I ripped apart the seams, I pressed and I pinned and I added that bunting to the duvet cover. It was actually pretty simple- like making bunting but with only one side to worry about. The biggest difficulty was manhandling the sheer volume of fabric as I had to turn it to sew on the flags. Thankfully, as I was already a duvet cover I didn't have to match up buttons to holes or studs or any of that nonsense.

The best bit though,

Is that Lexie loves it. (oh, and why, yes my three year old girl does have a Lightning McQueen duvet cover. And boy does she love it)

January Project: Done!

This Christmas the most highly desired gift was the Nintendo DS. I'm a big mean mummy and I haven't allowed the girls to get one before now for a long and boring multitude of reasons chief among them the fact that they didn't need one- they didn't have enough time for "proper playing" as it was- you know that running around, creative, imagination fuelled stuff that all children need. I wasn't in the frame of mind to add negotiation for DS time to the list of battles. Plus, there was no way I could leave Minnie out. I wasn't buying a games console for a blimmin' 2 year old. It's bad enough buying one for a 3 year old.

Right, anyway- like I say, a multitude of reasons. Since we decided that the DS would come from us and not from Santa (we always give a gift from us, Santa presents are different) so that I could make bags for each of them. I wanted the girls to have somewhere to store their DS's as well as the accumulation of accouterments. Somewhere that would protect them from the accidental dropping, bashing and general carelessness of small children.

So I came up with this-

{Bags l-r: Lexie's ballerina's, Minnie's butterflies, Charlotte's spots}

A simple pouch with shoulder strap and a plethora of internal pockets to stash whatever the heck they need to cart around with them. Plus they look a lot sweeter than the ones I saw in the shops. The girls love their individual bags and I don't need to look at the beeping, plastic things.

But oh, the blessed silence that they bring.