My tiny golden violin!

Every so often, I see a new craft on Instagram or online and I know that it is the craft for me! Usually, it involves some recycling or reuse! If it's that, I am all over it!

For me, the craft I gave a go today was just that.

It involves a Tomato puree tube.

Take a completely used metal tomato puree tube and then cut off the ends - the top and the bottom and then carefully snip one side open and open it up so it is a rectangle.  Be careful! It's metal- it can be sharp!

Then clean off any residue tomato. 

You will have a wrinkly, golden rectangle.

Take a spoon and rub it in circles over the metal, right to the edges. You may have to go over parts.  This will flatten the wrinkles generally.

You should be left with a slightly flatter rectangle.

Now you need to choose your design that you will draw backwards on the reverse using a biro pen that doesn't work anymore (or an embossing tool if you have one)

The designs I have seen now are usually stars with trails behind them. In fact, I went to a friend's house in December and saw one hanging up. I knew it was going to be a tomato puree tube. When I turned it over, I was right.

I decided to do something with a musical twist, naturally.

I decided to go for a tiny violin!

I grabbed my little violin keyring purchased from the Beethoven Birth house museum in Bonn to use as a model to draw around and to copy.

I turned the tube over and drew the design hard. It can be a bit tricky especially if there are still any ridges.

You then draw any detail on that you want to. The hardest part for me was the F holes. I decided to add some extra decorations- the purfling (that's the patterned edge on the outline of the violin shape) and also added some hearts on the tail piece below the bridge.  The strings were a bit of a disaster! Should have used a ruler!

You then need to cut out your shape with scissors- bonus is that it sharpens your scissors! 

The downside is, I accidentally cut off the pegs at the top of the violin on one side. I've never been skilled with scissors since I was very young! I was gutted! 

Here is our Jellycat Christmas star modelling the finished violin. Look at the top, you'll notice the missing pegs!

At this point, you could then make a hole to hang it for a decoration for the Christmas tree etc. I haven't done that. You could attach your decoration to the front of a car for a detachable gift for someone.  Beware of sharp edges. I'm not sure if you could perhaps sand the edges. I haven't tried it because it bends and I am clumsy!

I then tried to think what I should attempt next.  I was going to attempt a flute but then decided to just draw a musical stave.

The question was, what musical quote to include?

Being incredibly geeky, I decided to start drawing a quote from my favourite symphony- the 1st symphony by German composer, Gustav Mahler. It's first played by the cellos but it picks up on the motif played for the first part of the symphony by the strings and woodwind bird calls.   However, when I got to the end, the 2 crotchets and minim looked bare so I just decided to alter the quote into something else to make it look better.  If I did this again, I would cut off the f for forte below the stave so it has a neater base. Considering I did this all freehand, backwards, I was quote pleased with it!

Listen from about 4:44 and then hear the glorious cellos come in soon after!

I still have a bit of the tube left so I may fashion some paisley hearts for either a wedding or a valentines card (although I have another idea for that this year as CBC has become rather fond of Tweedy and Fluff on Insta so I may draw/paint a design of them instead!

What do you think of this craft? I must confess that I am utterly enchanted by it!  I can imagine making lots of darling little decorations out of the tubes. Just be careful of the sharp edges!

xx

 

Magazine Star!

Last year and the year before, I shared a few  Christmas crafts I enjoyed doing which involved reuse of some sort of materials.  I am quite fussy at what I am going to attempt and I've seen numerous 'star' tutorials on Instagram that look too fussy or confusing or I think wastes a lot of paper/card.

Today, I saw a great video/tutorial on making stars out of magazine pages and thought that it looked really easy to follow and not too complicated.

Here is the video I watched:
 

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A post shared by Marioara Gabriela (@ralucagabrielam)

I had a little magazine come through from Bam clothing (I bought my sister an item of clothing from them for Christmas last year and the year before and they keep sending me magazines- I had unsubscribed from them via email but they are still sending me magazines- annoyingly).  It was made out of matt paper in neutral shades so I thought would be a good resource to use.  The magazine pages are A5 sized.

I made the first star as the video and was super pleased how easy it was to make.  I had the strips left over from the first stage of folding the paper diagonally to make the initial square and I decided to do the same procedure to make some smaller stars.  In fact, I ended up making three smaller stars out of the left over paper and I was left with barely any paper at all- just a tiny strip of each piece.

And here they are.

They look nice from either the front or the back....

Back view...

Front view....

I thought I'd share this early in case anyone is thinking of doing crafts with either kids or teens or indeed, like me, you fancy doing some recycled crafts.

Enjoy!

xx

 

Recycled Materials Crafts- Used Envelopes for Christmas decorations

Good Evening!

Greetings from sad and lonely Kezzie whose husband did not tell her he was going to the Staff Christmas party until late! I totally would have made social plans if I had known!

Anyway, I am going to do some marking but I thought I'd post before that.

Thank you for all the love on my recycled cardboard Advent calendar!

Today, I thought I'd share some other crafts that I tried the same weekend as my calendar.

I saw this idea on the web (not sure of the original source but I saw it on Pinterest in Google.

 

A concertina paper tree on a skewer seemed a cool idea to try.

I picked up a junk mail envelope from the table and decided to use it to experiment with rather than waste a piece of fresh paper.

https://www.pinterest.pt/susanafrgomes/christmas/

I liked the way it looked, rather than just a white tree so I rescued a few more envelopes from the recycling and tried making a few more.  CBC had bought a pack of skewers for a Duke of Edinburgh expedition so I grabbed some to put them on.  They slipped off a bit so I guess you'd have to glue them.

There were a few pieces left over so I decided to try making paper snowflake cut outs in the remains.

I wondered if using variations on patterns would look more interesting than white.

They're easy to make.

I'm sure you know how to make paper snowflakes but just in case, here's what I did.

1.  Cut out a square of paper. Any size will do but make sure the sides are equal.

2.  Fold it in half, from one diagonal to another so you end up with a triangle. You shouldn't fold so you end with a rectangle.

3.  Fold in half again and half again.  You should end up with a triangle each time.

3. Hold the middle point (where all the folds are) in your hand and cut a curve from one point to another.

4. Cut little triangles or curves from each edge but don't let any of the cut outs join with other ones or they will just make one big cut out.

5. Use a hole punch to make holes further into the shape.

6. Unfold and you will have a lovely snowflake!

I've sat here making a few more and I think I might try to decorate our upstairs windows!

Have you ever made paper snowflakes? Why not try reusing old paper to make them?

xx

I've got staaaaaars, they're multiplying....

Here's another DIY recycling project I've been involved in this week.

During Lockdown, we ordered a few takeaways from our local restaurant which is Madieran.  The food came in big aluminium tins with silver card lids.  I used a previous set of them to make all the tiny stars for my children's constellation project in June but recently, CBC ordered a meal from there and I saved the lids.

This time, I decided to make big stars out of them and then made subsequent smaller ones from the trimmings.

I used an old, not working, biro to draw lines from the centre out to the sides and it gave them a really lovely finish.  Now I just need to find my hole punch to string them up somewhere...

You can make something beautiful from rubbish if you take the time to think about what you can do with it.

F holes

Today's BEDM brief is to do with the Mexican celebration of  Cinco de Mayo.  Zoe at Splodz Blogz has done an excellent post on this, so please head over there to find out more as I had no idea what it was and I've left it a bit late to find out about it!

So instead, I am going to focus on celebration of a different kind. CBC's birthday!  He celebrated this a couple of weeks ago (maybe a week ago?).  Usually, I have some clear defined idea of what card I am going to make for him but this year, I was definitely scraping the barrel for an idea.  Finally, I decided to make him a card linked to his 'cello. CBC is a very good Cellist.

Image borrowed from
http://musicpartnership.com.au/music-instruments/cello / 

If you're wondering about the F holes reference- please refer to the diagram above for the names of all the different parts of a cello (and violin/viola).  The f holes are so called, because they resemble a fancy 'f'.   I had an idea in my head to make CBC a really simple card using apertures cut in the shape of f holes as you can see above.

What I didn't remember, it being so long since I used one, was how utterly egregious I am at cutting using a craft knife OR a Stanley knife.  Literally, it was a disaster. And when I folded my gate-fold card, I accidentally folded it in half too reducing the stability of the whole card.

Finally, I resorted to a pair of scissors to finish off the f holes and filed the (very) rough edges with a nail file.  I printed f hole shapes onto the card in the first place.  Oh and as you can see, I should have printed them a bit nearer to the middle edges.

It looked MOST sad and pathetic, so I added gold outline stickers to the edges of the card to try and give it a little more sophistication and used a gold Sharpie to try and outline the f hole edges.  

The whole thing was decidedly shoddy, which I warned CBC about, and he laughed lots when he saw it.  It looks better here with a glossy filter and sparkles than it does in real life but am including it here in case someone who CAN cut, sees it as an excellent idea they can use for their own card for a string player and adapt it accordingly! After all, the idea was quite original, it was just the execution of it that was rather dreadful!

Linking to Creative Mondays with Claire Justine in hope that someone sees its potential

This is my Day 5 contribution for Blog every day in May

Sunflower, sunflower growing tall

When I think of sunflowers, inexplicably, I think of my beloved older sister. I can only attribute it to my Mum baking and icing her an incredible (purple and orange) sunflower cake for her birthday when we were young. My Mum used to bake the most incredible cakes, but I'm sure you guessed that after seeing my wedding cake masterpiece she made (which you can see here in my wedding reception post).

As usual, I have digressed and rambled away from the main point. THAT being, that it was my sister's birthday 2 weeks ago and I wanted to make her a card and for that strange reason, the idea of a quilled sunflower came into my head.  I searched the shed for my quilling tool and some A4 brown and orange paper which I cut into strips using the manual papershredder.

I must recommend quilling, it really is a lovely form of card and paper crafting. Very therapeutic and you can sit and coil papers around the 2-pronged quilling fork whilst watching TV or chatting rather like one would knit.  You can use quilling sizing tools (basically looks like a stencil or different sized circles) to regulate the size of all your coils but I am lazy and just use my eye-judgement. It can also look very effective through the combination of a coils and not too much skill!  I also like to make up some generic coloured coils and keep them in and old pill pot in case I want to make a quick card.

The difference between the different coils in the card are that the brown ones are coiled and then glued (you stick a cocktail stick into your glue and dab over the end which secures to the coil) or the orange ones are coiled and then you release it and catch it/stop it when it has uncoiled/loosened to a size you want. Then you dab the glue on the cocktail stick again.

I cut a circle of brown paper in order to centre the sunflower and give it a background and then used a hexagonal formation or coils to ensure uniformity.  To make the orange petals, once you've made the loose coil and glued it, you pinch the ends between your fingers and I twisted the outward ones slightly.
It looked a bit bare so I stuck some of the strips and then punched a few butterflies from my wedding butterfly punch.

What do you think?

Linking to Creative Mondays
and Pink Elephant Challenge this week where Anything goes!

6 easy-peasy Valentines cards you can make yourself

Hi there,

Last year, I did a few posts (here and here) about some easy Valentines cards you could make yourself for your loved one. This year, I decided to think up a few designs you could do yourself with not really any specialist craft equipment.  I hope these inspire you to give the card-making thing a go!


1. The simple Dot-to-dot interactive card



The first one is the simplest of all. All you need is a piece of white card, a ruler, pencil and a red gel pen.   How about a Dot to dot postcard (or card) for your loved one.  I simply drew myself a few grid-lines to ensure it was even and not wonky and then drew the design in pencil which I went over in red gel pen.  Nice to have an interactive card

2.  The origami heart card


 I should begin this with a disclaimer that I am egregious at origami so if I can do this, you can! How to Orange shows you how to make the heart which is really easy, just size it up to the size you want, making sure you cut a rectangle with the width half of the length.  This entire card was recycled- old music, red packaging from a Christmas card and a photo-card envelope. Choose a colour and paper of your choice.

3.  The scribble hearts


Also entirely made out of scrap of the same sources, this was purely an experiement. On a fragment of black card, I put a heart stencil (made from punching for the cards below) and scribbled over it with a gold Sharpie. Did this three times. Edged it with a ruler and then mounted onto scrap card.  Use double-sided tape for a neat finish.

4.  The textured hearts

Again, you just need some scrap card (black) and some textured card. The brown corrugated cardboard came from the wrapping of a Bacon-roll I had one morning from the BP petrol station- the plastic wrapper is surrounded by this perfectly good card.  The red COULD come from the old Costa coffee exteriors (I used to use these a lot) but I just used some I had. Used the Sharpie again to doodle Love all over the black, mounted it, drew red spots with the gel pen and wrapped a piece of Bakers twine from a Christmas present and finito! I used 3d pads to give the hearts some height.

5.  The DIY polka dot heart card

 I used a scalloped heart punch to punch these hearts but you could just cut them free-hand.  I then coloured each one with polka dots in different gel pens.Mounted them on 3d sticky pads (can be got from Poundland) and stuck at jaunty angles.

5. The Pink Elephant picture inspired Doodle heart card

The last design was inspired by the inspiration picture for the Pink Elephant Craft Challenge this week

To design a card inspired by the picture. In the same way as the former card, I punched 9 hearts and had fun doodling them with different patterns in red.

Did as shown and finally added my handwriting to finish the card.

CBC might get one of these next week or I might make another one. After all, these could all be used for wedding/engagement general girly greetings cards.

Did these help you in any way? I'd love to know if you decided to make your own cards at all?



Linking to:

Pink elephant challenge


Creative Mondays

 Brilliant Blog posts with Honest Mum


 You're gonna love it Tuesday

Craft and surreptitious maths investigation!

It was Sunday at 1pm and we had to be at my sister's for 2pm for my niece's 5th birthday party, half an hour drive away.  Problem was, I hadn't made her a card and UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES would a bought-card be tolerated in that household, my sister would be really disapproving/disappointed in me as would I. In myself, I mean.

Thus, I decided to do create a quick fun card I had been thinking about as an idea for a card that children could make for their friends' or relatives birthdays.  It would be a sneaky fun way that parents could get their children to do some maths investigation,  whilst having craft/making fun.  It was based on something that my Father-in-law and Brother-in-law write in cards to each other.

The idea is, you take the age of the recipient and try to make that number in as many ways as possible.  This of course will vary, based on age.

To support your child doing this of course, particularly if they are younger, you can provide cubes or marbles/multiple objects. 5 for very young children (just addition) or 10 or just a whole bag, so they can count out the objects to make the sums.

Image from TTS group

You can choose to use one operation, e.g. adding or all four: multiplication, division, addition and subtraction.  Fractions or decimals could be involved for Year 4-6 children (8-11 year olds)

You will need to make it fun then by providing either a set of wonderful coloured pens (CBC has these delicious Staedtler fineliners that I used) OR you could use number outline stickers OR  stamps OR funky-foam numbers

Staedler fineliners from Hobbycraft*

Clear Stamps from Hobbycraft*

Anitas outline stickers From Hobbycraft*

Yep, also from Hobbycraft*- pretend they are numbers...

Once you have sourced your 'fun element' then get said child to try and find ways to make the number. (might want to try on scrap paper first)  As you can see, I tried to make mine in a way that my 5 year old would understand.  Don't forget encouraging/leading/extending words such as 'How about trying to combine more than 2 numbers?' or 'What about subtraction?'

For even younger/lower-developmental stage children, you could just get them to draw/stamp five objects together, e.g. 5 hearts, 5 stars, 5 footprints.

To finish mine off, so it didn't look SO much like a 5 year old did it, I added gold outline stickers round the edge to give it a border and some dots.  And just so you know, I drew a HUGE multicoloured 5 inside but it was messy so you don't get to see that.

And there you have it, a card that can be made for anyone of any age, that gets your child investigating numbers along the way.  Also would make a possible man-card.  WOMOTM, My father-in-law , you know what you're getting next year....

My Father-in-law would expect something like this though... Eeek, genius child eh?!

Image borrowed from bodysmartinc.com*

Hope you like this idea.  Let me know if you try it out.

Best wishes,

Kezzie


xx

*Disclaimer:  the large number of references and links to Hobbycraft does not mean I was bribed/sponsored/endorsed/paid by Hobbycraft to write this post, I merely wanted to find a way for them not to sue me for stealing all their images by making you all go shopping there as method of appeasement! Rather like offering a goat to the gods/totem pole.

*  Disclaimer no. 2: Regretably, Bodyincsmart.com didn't sponsor me either, but go and look at all their pretty sums- maybe you can buy one to save me once again....

****



Linking to:

Monday Parenting Pin with Romanian Mum blog, hosted by



Tuesday's In and out link party with Cynthia Ladrie  at FeedingBig


You're gonna love it Tuesday with Kathe with an e


Creative Mondays with Claire Justine



Brilliant blog posts with Honestmum.com


The Pink Elephant Challenges "Anything goes"

and...

Dressing it up

Since the recipients have hopefully received their cards by now, I thought I'd share two cards I made.
My sister has this brilliant dress-shaped punch and I have used it for a few birthday cards.  She made me a brilliant present a couple of years ago and punched a whole box of dresses for me in different patterns and colours so I would have lots of lovely card-making objects. Cost very little but perfect for me!

However, I wanted to make a card for a blogging-friend who has lots of dresses and shoes in fabulous patterns and wanted to try and create a coordinating card of different patterns. So I punched several of the design and layered them on top of each other in order to make the dresses stand out like they had petticoats on.  Stuck at a jaunty angle and then punched shoes (also borrowed from sister).  Finally, the plain background was lacking something so I just used a colouring pencil to draw some spots.



 

Having this stripy and dotty  paper as part of the same pack as the previous card, I decided to make a simple matching card with one dress. Just added some baker's twine to tie on the fold.

Crafting essentials: Buttons and Cath Kidston catalogues!

A Cath Kidston catalogue is a many splendid thing!  So many pretty prints! Much to pretty to be thrown away once it has been ogled to full capacity!


The main feature of this card was the panel of card which was the back cover of an old Cath catalogue which I saved. It was the size that fitted perfectly on this pink card.I then decided to try and cover up whatever word or logo was in the middle by collecting together a selection of pink and lilac buttons from my collection. I've said this before, but buttons are a HUGELY versatile craft essential you should try to have when beginning card making- they can be all sorts of things: wheels for a new baby pram, wheels of a toy car for a boy, centres for flowers, make a heart shape out them. The possibilities are endless!



And it's not just the big chunks of Cath magazine that can be used- I was a little sad a couple of years ago and tore off a border on each page that was a different Cath print.  They're only about 3 cm wide and A5 length long but I foresaw a weaving possibility and finally got around to it.  I quite simply wove these strips, beginning from two pieces joined at a right angle and stuck the ends down.  It looked a bit bare as just weaving so I decided to make a paper flower (which button head- AHA neat segue from the previous card!) but decided to experiment with using heart shapes as petals.  I punched about 16 pink hearts and used my embossing tool to curl up the ends and stuck down in a sort of spiral!  The button, in its quintessentially versatile way, made a fitting floral centre- luckily it matched the base-card and drew an otherwise disparate card together!

Linking up to Claire Justine's Creative Mondays