Paper-cup posies

I was DESPERATE to get some fresh air today.  It is the last day of the school holidays (woop!), but the weather has been decidedly cloudy and awkward lately, so getting the kids out has been a bit of a non-event.  Generally, the last couple of days has been a continuing cycle of surfing Netflix, watching old Dragonball Z eps and Sophie asking me to print off unicorn colouring pages.

The Mister forgot to pick up a carton of cream when shopping the other day, so I unanimously and all on my own decided we would walk to the closest supermarket to get some.  As expected, this suggestion was not met with unbridled enthusiasm, partly because the weather still looked decidedly iffy, and because 'walking is boring'.

However, Sophie is easily persuaded into walking almost anywhere by shoving a paper cup into her hand so she can collect 'stuff', be it sea-shells, rocks, seed-pods, and in today's case, flowers.  She fancies herself as a bit of a walking florist, keeping an eye out for pretty looking weeds and council-verge flowers, with the odd specimen snatched from bushes straying over fences, and always, ALWAYS about a half dozen spears of lavender from the far side of our neighbours' garden (shhhh!).

She does pretty well with her selections (and non-selections; if there is anything resembling a bee close-by, she is out of there).  We try and name all our flowers with their proper names - in the bunch we collected today, we have bouganvillea, rosemary, a dandelion and lavender, but some we do not know the names of, and they have been given their own names, like 'stickflower' and 'seedflower'.

It's interesting how paper-cup posies vary from season to season, the one in the photograph above was taken last October, and looks a bunch different.

We keep a small sleeve of cheap paper cups in the car so that wherever we are, we can throw together a new posy, and see just how different they can be from place to place.  If we think beforehand that we might be doing it as an activity, Sophie sometimes gets her textas and stickers out, and decorates her 'vase'.

 

 Pretty!

(I would like to say that making our posy was the one thing that made our walk [on which we did end up getting wet] less boring, but I will admit to committing a slight bribery with a cupcake from the local bakery ;) ).

Super quick bunny ear hairband - tutorial

With Easter around the corner, there are a stack of bunny eared hairbands in the stores, I know.  Most of the ones I've seen though are lolly-like hues of pink and blue, and that eye-piercing shade of bright baby-chicken yellow, which are all, incidentally, the colours I like least.



For the cost of a cheap hairband, a couple of chenille sticks, along with a favourite piece of fabric from your stash, and about ten minutes, you can easily make one that co-ordinates with your little one's favourite outfit.  Even if you don't have a sewing machine, you can make these easily and quite quickly.

I've left mine plain, but you could have fun decorating with sparkly bows or (my beloved) colourful pompoms at the base of one ear, or both.  This would also be a great Easter project for older children who are learning to sew.

What you need:

Thin cardboard (piece of cereal box or similar) for making a template
A thin headband (I like one with grippers - it helps stop the ears sliding about :) )
2 chenille sticks (mine were each 30cm long).  Preferably the same colour as the hairband.
A piece of fabric 20cm x 40cm (or two pieces of co-ordinating fabric 20cm  x 20cm). I've used a plain cotton to make mine.

What you do:

Print the template below on to a sheet of paper, then glue to thin cardboard.  When dry, cut around the outline.

Fold your piece of fabric in half width-ways, right sides together, so that the folded fabric measures 20cm square.  (If you are using two co-ordinating fabrics so the front and rear of the ears are different, place them right sides together).  Press lightly if needed, to get out any creases.

Place the ear template on the folded fabric (leaving enough room to draw a second ear) and draw around it with pencil.  Draw a second ear in the same way.

Machine or hand-sew around the two long sides of each ear, leaving the bottom open for turning.

Cut around stitching. leaving about a half centimetre all around.

 
 Turn inside out, using the end of a pencil to poke out the top point.  Also run it along the long sides of each ear so that the curves are nicely shaped.  (Note:  I found that clipping the curves along the edges and into the top was unnecessary for the fabric I was using).  Lightly press the ears and set aside while you prepare the hairband.

Bend over each end of each chenille stick, just so that prickly wire isn't a problem (ends of chenille sticks can sometimes be sharp!)

Fold each chenille stick in half as pictured.

Attach the chenille sticks into the position you want the ears to sit, using the picture below as a guide (I've used a yellow chenille stick here, so it looks clearer, but will be using black chenille sticks to make my ears.)  I think this knot thing I've used is called a cow hitch.

If you're using a hairband with grippers, before pulling them too tightly, make sure they are in the right position, because they can be difficult to move.

Tape or twist the ends of the stick together.

Take your fabric ears and slide them over the sticks.

Turn in the bottom of each ear about a half centimetre or so, and run a gathering stitch by hand around the base of each ear.  Pull up the gathers and slightly so they sit around the base of the chenille stick.  Then, without breaking your thread, secure the ears to the headband by sewing through the base of each ear and around the headband, until they are firmly in place.  Repeat to secure other ear.

And they're all done!  Add a decorative bow or pompom or anything else you can think of to pretty up your new ears.

These are so quick and easy to make, they would make a great addition to a child's chocolate egg stash!  Or, make some for the whole family and take an awesome Easter family portrait.  My crew sadly won't do this for me.  Too embarassing, apparently.  If you're family is cooler than mine, and you do this - I would love to see it!

Luckily, I still have one poser.

I don't know what I'm doing.....

This space has been a bit quiet of late, and I'm sorry for that.  I have this little fancy that I'm going to make up some kids clothes and other bits and pieces and open a little etsy or Big Cartel store and sell them.  I have no illusions that I will make thousands from doing it - really, I'd just like it to be able to pay for itself and perhaps a bit extra to finance some of the kids' taekwando lessons.  You know, fabric and fighting fees.

So, I've been sewing up little things, set up an instagram account, set up another facebook page and another blog, all with the intention of leaving this one behind and heading full tilt into my new project.  Because, I thought, I can't possibly do both.  If I'm spending all my free days sewing up goods to sell, I won't have any time to make up new tutorials or any other of the fun stuff I do here.

And that sort of saddens me.  Because I love doing this.  And I miss it already.

I may not have (and have lately, not had) the time to write up tutorials, but still want the option to be able to do that, especially as I have had piles of ideas, and lots that would complement the clothes I plan to make.  I could write up tutorials on the other blog, but to be frank, the idea of starting all over again makes me feel terribly mean, as if I'm abandoning everyone who has supported and followed along on my adventure here thus far.  And, as I'm sure has been mentioned in passing a hundred times before within these pages over the course of the last four years, I'm very lazy.

Besides which, when the kids and I make bird heads out of cardboard boxes, we want to be able to show them to you without them looking like they were placed on another blog by mistake.  Although I love making kids clothes, and hope that I can sell some, I've kind of worked out that I still need my space for all the other things I love to create and share.

So, my blogging journey is about to take a bit of a turn - it might be a temporary detour, or turn out to be something more concrete.  In the next few weeks, you will see a shop link in the sidebar, which will direct you to my (Etsy or Big Cartel) store (I've not decided which yet).  My store is called on june or janet (the Maker*land moniker didn't really fit my wares, and I've learnt that it is actually the same name used by other pages/websites - I didn't want there to be any confusion).  It'll be a bit like being my own sponsor, I suppose.  I've changed my Instagram account to @makerlandblog and it will incorporate both my shop and what I do here (with a couple of happy snaps of the kids and sunsets thrown in for good measure).  I'm putting the kybosh on the other blog, but will keep the new facebook page (feel free to visit it and click that 'Like' button).

I hope you'll bear with me during this time.  It's a bit of a transition and one I hope will happen smoothly.  I want to share everything I'm up to, but at the same time, I don't want to be shoving my new venture down your collective throats and for this blog to become about promoting my store.  I may share one or two photos here and there so you can see what I'm up to, but will leave the hard sell to the store's facebook page and Instagram, which you can visit if you're interested.  That's the plan anyway, we'll see if it works.

And what's to say my store won't be an epic fail and all this worrying was just a big waste of time and words.  In fact, that's the most likeliest scenario yet.

Scribble day

There's not been much to report of late, except that today is the start of the school break and I am over it already.  And it's hot. We have busted out the drawing things and a roll of paper and are partaking in a bit of art therapy.  I have been back to the brown paper table about two dozen times myself already today, trying to get my happy back.

However, I'm thinking Cameron might need a roll of his own.  He is a very quick and prolific doodler and is able to draw at one metre a minute, thereby muscling in on my patch of happy-making space, which is not on when I'm already snippy.

But I guess it doesn't really matter, because Sophie just scribbles all over my drawings anyway.  Her story is that she's making them 'look better'.



Hooray! - my own little editor.  What would I do without her?

Gingerbread houses

I remember a few years a go, I tried to put together one of those three dimensional gingerbread houses.  I didn't make the gingerbread myself, but instead bought a kit from Ikea (of all places).   I don't know why, but I stupidly picked the most hottest and clammiest day over the Christmas break to try and stick it all together.  I very quickly discovered that royal icing is rather like me in the humidity - overly temperamental and a hag to work with.  Needless to say, the two hours of effort I put into trying to recreate the magical image on the box resulted in a failure of colossal proportions, a Tupperware container full of gingerbread shards and me vowing never, ever to make another one, ever.

Fast forward five years and can you guess what I'm making?  Cameron likes to gift his classmates something every year and we were looking through my cutters and these were about as Christmas-ish as it got (besides stars, but they are ho-hum because I make them ALL the time, apparently).  So gingerbread houses were the go.  But this time, without those two extra pesky dimensions.



Anyway, check these over and spot the mistakes.  As you can see, my mad (sad) piping technique needs some work, and I'm quite sure some of Cameron's friends will be scratching their heads and thinking, what the heck are THESE supposed to be??  Cameron took great care and skill in placing on the coloured bobbles and pretty silver things, but that's where the care and skill ended, I'm afraid. 

 I think, as a cookie decorator, I make a pretty good dressmaker, or anything else for that matter. 

Zombie cookies

Halloween is fun, and a great excuse to make cookies.  I love cooking stuff with a theme, but when I saw the price tag on a bag of four plastic cutters, which very vaguely looked like a witch, a ghost, a cat and an I-don't-know-what-that-is,  I just about screamed.  Oh, okay, no I didn't - I mean swore.  Screaming just sounds more Halloween-ish.

But I did end up buying some mint lollies and licorice straps, and gave some boring round-shaped gingerbread cookies a makeover instead.  Here is the recipe and how-to. If you have a favourite gingerbread or shortbread recipe, you could use that instead and just use the decorating face making tips.  These go together really quick.

What you need

125g butter, softened
1/2 cup brown sugar (firmly packed)
1 egg yolk
2 1/2 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 or 3 teaspoons of ground ginger (or none, if ginger isn't your thing)
3 tablespoons golden syrup
1/2 cup of water (you may not need all of it)
Jam
Small white mints for eyeballs (I used Jila mints)
Licorice (I used a 2 pack of 1 meter Fyna Licorice rolls, though only a tiny bit - I have about 1.95 metres left! )
Food writer (I used an Americolor Gourmet Writer) or black writing icing

To make cookies -

Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius.  Grease and line two baking sheets with baking paper.

Sift the flour, baking soda and ground ginger into a bowl and set aside.

Using a stand mixer, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.  Add the egg yolk, and beat well.  Gradually add the sifted dry ingredients and the golden syrup and continue to mix.  With the mixer running, gradually add the water a bit at a time, until you reach a cookie-dough-like consistency, as below.

Scoop mixture out of bowl (you should easily be able to able to press it into a big ball) and place on a roughly square sheet of baking paper.  Place another square sheet of baking paper on top of the dough, so it's sandwiched between the paper, and using a rolling pin, flatten  to a thickness of about 5mm.  (I find it easier to roll between two sheets of paper - it saves having to use flour to keep the dough from sticking to the rolling pin and the bench.  Using too much flour will make the cookie dough elasticky and affect the taste.  That's my experience, anyway).

Cut 24 rounds of approximately a six centimetre diameter, using a small glass or cup (I actually used the plastic lid from my cooking spray), and pop twelve on each cookie sheet.  You may have dough enough dough left over to make more.  

Now you need to find something you can use to indent the eye sockets.  They have to be a little bit wider than the sweets you have chosen to use as eyeballs.  The end of a marker, a piece of dowel, a small plastic bottle cap, etc.  (Whatever you use, make sure you wash it and dry it so you are not inadvertently poisoning yourself with germs or something toxic.  That's not a good trick, even if it is Halloween.)  I had a hunt through my useful box and found a wooden bead which I pressed into the cookies to make the eye sockets.

Then scoop a small amount of the jam (about an eighth of a teaspoon) into each socket to make the eye-goo.  If you get a little bit on other parts of the cookie, don't worry.  A zombie wouldn't care, so why should you?

Snip small pieces of licorice into strips, and press into the cookies to make mouths.

Pop your zombie heads into the oven for ten minutes, on the middle shelf.  That means you'll have to bake them one tray at a time.

Once out of the oven, press the eyeballs on gently.  I used these Jila mints for mine.  They are white on one side and blue on the other.  I pressed the blue side onto the sockets so all the eyeballs are white.

 As far as squoosh factor goes, a bit of jammy eye-goo squeezing out from behind the eyeballs is a good thing, but don't press them on so hard that you lose the eyeball altogether through the bottom of the cookie.  Leave them to cool on the tray for at least ten minutes so they have time to firm up.

Then using your food writer or black icing, detail the eyeballs with some wonky black pupils.  Lift them off the baking sheets with the help of a spatula or egg slice, and place them onto a wire rack to cool completely.  Store in an airtight container before using them to gross out  visitors or packing them up for the kids at school.

 

What a bunch of good-looking cookies.

Not all of them were blessed with cranky faces.  We managed to make a few smiley ones.  Because I'm sure some zombie cookies are happy with their lot in (the after-) life...

 

...even after having been stuck in the eye with a licorice stick.

These were a bit of trial run for the kids in Cameron's class.  He'll take some in his lunch tomorrow.  It's another week until Halloween, and I can see myself making another batch next week for Friday, unless I'm told not to.  They're not too over the top for nine and ten year olds, are they? You just never know these days.  I think they are sort of cute, actually, eye-goo and all.  I'm guessing that I'll sleep just fine with these sitting in my pantry tonight.  Well, I think I will.

Anyway, just in case, Happy Halloween for next Friday!  I'm sorry to say, that if you're local and you were planning to knock on my door for treats, you're all out of luck because I will be working - boooooooo (that's a sad boooo, not a scary one).  Have fun!

PS.  As the saying goes with regards to zombie cookies - eat them, before they eat you. I'm sure you've heard that one before, but I really wanted to use it.  Sorry.

Halloween hairband - tutorial

Halloween is almost upon us - and although it is still a fairly new tradition in  this part of the world, any holiday that endorses dressing up in costume is alright by me.  I'm still not sure about this whole trick-or-treat business, but I'm all over the dress-ups in a big way.  Actually, in a world ruled by me, everyone would be in costume every day.  It would be the law.

But I'm not so keen on those plastic, mass produced discount store costumes, nor the slackers that turn up on the front step in animal onesie pyjamas.  Some effort is needed if you are knocking at my door looking for treats.  I would rather see a kid dressed in a bed-sheet and a mask he or she made herself or wrapped up in a couple of rolls of toilet paper.  Sorry to be a hard-ass, but plastic Scream masks are just so yawn.

Halloween or not though, this is a fun dress-up accessory that the kids (and their adult helper!) can go a bit wild on.  And you will probably have to visit the discount store to get a few things, but in the end, you will have something that could look pretty schmick, totally unique, and you'll have had fun with glue and glitter and paint in the process.  What's not to love, here?

I've done a few variations here to illustrate some different ideas, but once you've made the hairband base, you'll come up with loads of ideas yourself, I'm positive.  This hairband could be adapted for all sorts of occasions - birthdays, bachelorette parties, Christmas, school plays - go wild!

First up, we'll start with the hairband base.  The instructions and materials list include what you need for one hairband.  But of course you could make several at a time.

What you need 

- Cheap plastic hairband (I found a pack of two for two dollars at my local Value Zone).

- 1 chenille stick, 30cm long.

- Sello tape or masking tape.

- Craft ribbon or bias binding - about 2 metres (the cheap stuff is fine).  Even better if you can find it, is the ribbon elastic that is use to make elastic hair-ties - being stretchy, it is much easier to work with.  But it does cost more to buy.  Your call.

- Needle and thread (the same colour as the ribbon).

- Craft glue

- Two straws.  The cheap striped paper ones are ideal.

What you do

Take your chenille stick and bend it  as shown in the diagram below, so it looks like a pair of cat ears.  Please disregard the fact that when you add up the measures in the picture, the total comes to 28 centimetres, not 30 centimetres. I think I was ripped off a couple of cee ems on my chenille sticks.  And a bit of the length is taken up in the bends.  Your chenille stick  doesn't have to be spot on measurement wise, just so long as your prongs can support the straws when you stick them on, all will be sweet.

Twist up those cat ears to make prongs.

Position your twisted chenille stick on the hairband, and stick into place with tape.

Now to wind the craft ribbon around the hairband, from one end to the other. Start my taking the ribbon and winding it tightly two or three times around one end of the hairband to anchor it.

 

Then proceed to wind around the entire band, covering the parts of the chenille stick that are taped flat against the band, but leaving the prongs free.  

 

Once you make it all the way to the end, again wind it around the band  two or three times tightly, snip the ribbon and secure with a few tight hand stitches through the ribbon (this is really the most time consuming and boring part).  Once finished, it will look like this - 

Dab on a generous amount of craft glue on each prong...

...then slide the straws on.  When you push the straws onto the prongs, a bit of glue may be pushed along with them, leaving a big glob of glue at the base of your antenna.  Wipe over gently with a lightly moistened cloth (not too wet or your straws will go soggy) to remove the glue, and leave to dry for a half hour.  Most craft glue dries clears so you won't see any that you may miss.

Once dry, the fun begins - time to decorate!  I could have gone crazy making hundreds of these, but here are just a few for ideas.

For the boys - ALIEN ANTENNA

What you need

- Two ping pong palls (again, the discount store helped out with really cheap, fake ones which are most likely useless for table tennis).

 -Black kids poster paint

 -Kindy glitter glue in colour of your choice

-Paint brush

What you do

Make some holes in your ping pong palls.  I do this by starting with a pin, and then re-piercing the same position with a thicker needle, then re-piercing again with a knitting needle, etc. finding thicker things to pierce the same spot until the hole is thick enough to accomodate the straw.  You culd try wiggling your piercing implement about, in I guess you could call a reaming movement, but very gently, otherwise the ball may split - be careful!  

Pop your ping pong balls on the end of a couple of sticks or spare straws.  Holding the stick or straw, paint with the black paint so that they are entirely covered.  Stand them up in an old cup and leave them to dry.

Once dry, give the balls two coats of  kindy glitter glue, leaving them to dry in between coats.  

Trim the straws on the headband to the length you'd like (take into account the length of straw that will be pushed into the ping pong ball, and then  gently screw the ball onto the straw.  Done.

(*Note - if you're in a hurry, and can't wait for three layers of paint to dry, you could stick on some black circles of paper, or black sticky dots to make eyeballs, like the one Sophie is wearing.)

For the girls - FAIRY ANTENNA

What you need

- Cardboard or craft foam sheet - we used silver craft foam sheet for ours.

- Craft glue.

- Star cookie cutter (or any other shape you might like)

- Pen.

What you do

Take your hairband base and trim straw to desired length.  Flatten the ends of the straws.

On the rear side of your cardboard or foam sheet, trace around the cookie cutter with pen and cut them out. You will need four shapes.

With hairband on a flat surface, place shapes right side downwards, under the straws as shown.  Cover with glue.

Place other two shapes on top of the glue covered ones and press down, sandwiching the straws between the shapes.  Leave to dry (you could put them under something heavy to make sure they dry flat).

And for the absolutely fabulous! - SHOWGIRL HEADPIECE

What you need - 

- An extra three chenille sticks

- An extra six straws

- Foam craft sheet or cardboard- 2 sheets should do it.

- Star cookie cutters, different sizes (or whatever shape you desire)

- Sello-tape or glue

- Scissors

- Pen

What you do

Now for this one, when making the hairband, shape all four chenille sticks, position them on the hairband and stick them down with tape, so your hairband looks like this:

...and then proceed to wind the ribbon around the band, keeping all the prongs free.  Then make as for the the fairy antenna, but of course, you have eight prongs to glue straws onto and stick stars on to.  I was slack here and did not sandwich the straws between two stars, but instead just taped them on.  On the rear side, you can see the straw stuck on with sellotape.  I just didn't have enough time or glittery sparkly cardboard, but if you want it to look as good from the back as it does frontways, by all means sandwich away!  I did however have enough sparkly gold cardboard to make eight smaller stars that I stuck lower down the straw to give it extra sparkle.  

Not that I think my two need any extra sparkle.

So, there you go, quick and easy, cheap and cheerful.  Good for Halloween dress ups at any time of the year.  I am particularly liking that last one for me, actually.  I could totally carry that one off daily, I think.  A world ruled by me, dressing up would be law, remember?  It looks like the Queen has found her hat.