Springy Eastery Garland

Some of you may remember seeing this photo on Facebook a couple of weeks ago.

I was having a particularly creative Saturday (it was the day I made my peg bag out of shorts) and decided to spruce up some sticks I’d bought from Ikea. I’d bought them because I could imagine them hanging over my fireplace, all covered in pretty springy decorations, but up to that point they were just sticks with a few flowery fairy lights!

So I grabbed some plastic eggs (really cheap from the supermarket), a jar of paper flowers and a jar of buttons and this is what happened…

I loved the colours of the eggs, but not how plasticky they looked. The paper flowers disguise plastickiness nicely! And I love the bright, spring colours too. I hadn’t really planned them to all look so coordinated – it was only once I’d finished that I realised I’d chosen really similar colours for each flower.

In addition to the eggs, I also cut up some fake flowers to add to the flowery fairy lights (the big white flowers in the photos below). I’m not usually a fan of fake flowers, but I’d bought these to go in my basket when I was Red Riding Hood (it was a dress up day at school – I don’t usually dress up as fairy tale characters!) and it seemed a shame to let them just gather dust somewhere. I really like the different pinky colours too.

As I was unpacking boxes I came across a couple of other decorations. I think this tin egg was a gift from a child at one of my placement schools when I was training to be a teacher.

And I made this heart several years ago when I was experimenting with sewing fabric and paper. I really like it, but think it must have been a bit of a pain to make since this is the only one I have!

I finished off the garland with a few tin heart bells that I found in a lovely local shop. I love their colours and the soft jingles they made as I hung them up.

Here’s the finished product, complemented nicely by the bunting which used to hang on my bookcase.

So things are complete – for the time being! I love the fresh feel of all the combined items together, but at some point (probably soon after Easter) I’ll take the eggs off and replace them with other things. Not sure yet what I’ll replace them with though – any suggestions?

Paper crafting

Last night I held a craft evening at my friend’s house. I needed to think of some Eastery ideas, so I turned to pinterest. I found so many things I wanted to try out! If I knew how to link to pinterest I’d let you have a look at my Easter board. (On that subject, if anyone knows what I need to do to put a pinterest link on the side bar, please let me know! It’s the sort of thing I’m sure I’ve done before, but have completely forgotten.)

Anyway, when I got back from my fun weekend away, I got started on some experiments. I decided that some were a little too complicated for a craft evening, but these are some of the things I came up with…

I also took some polystyrene eggs. I didn’t really know what to do with them, but my friend had some pretty napkins which she and another friend used to decopage the eggs. The eggs were finished off with a pretty ribbon and a thread through the middle to hang them. I only got a photo of one of them. The other was pink.

Someone else decided to make a bunny garland. So pretty!

And here are some of the things I came up with that I decided not to take. I’ve really enjoyed having a go at paper cutting, but it takes quite a lot of time – possibly too long to explain and have a go at all in one evening!

I’ve had a few more paper cutting ideas, but I need to give my neck a rest for a day or two!

Spring flower wreath

About a month ago Jill posted about a lovely flower wreath she made. Isn’t it pretty?

It got me thinking about my own wreath. I’ve had one on the door for the last few years and my original intention was to change it every season. However, the last time I changed it was probably November 2011 – oops!

It didn’t really bother me as it was mostly made of food (dried apples, oranges and chillies and cinnamon sticks) which seemed fitting for a kitchen door!

But it really was time for a change, so I got busy making a whole host of crochet flowers. I made some large and medium sized roses…

…some teeny tiny flowers…

and some micro flowers (that’s the little dark yellow one in this picture) .

My plan was to completely cover the wreath in flowers, but as I started playing around with them I realised that I liked seeing the wreath and ribbon so decided to leave some spaces. As a result I have quite a few flowers left over – any ideas what I can do with them?!

I didn’t really plan where each flower went, just tied one on to start and went from there! As I made each flower I left long tails and used these to tie them in place.

I made a simple chain loop to hang it from, then covered the knot with a few more flowers.

And here it is in place, hanging on the kitchen door.

I just love it – it makes me grin every time it catches my eye!

February

I’ve had blog posts running through my head all week, but no time to write them down. Now it’s Saturday and I have all the time in the world and the words have run out! So instead of words, I thought I’d give you some pictures of what I got up to in February.

I enjoyed some early (and very short lived) signs of spring.

I made my first ever crochet necklace. It’s still on my desk and I just love looking at it!

I made a cover for my journal.

I whipped up a super quick baby boy blanket.

I’ve also been working on another project since the beginning of the new year, but I’m making it as a birthday present, so I won’t be able to show you for another couple of months.

What have you been up to this month?