Thursday, December 30, 2010

Happy Holidays


Holidays especially these at the end of the year are so much fun. Apart from the various festivities it involves so many family activities.
This Christmas we explored a very popular tradition of making Gingerbread house for those families who celebrate Christmas. I say explored because to begin with we had absolutely no clue about it. Just because my daughter wanted to make one (thanks to the discussions in School and Cartoons like Mickey Mouse Christmas special). We being a food fanatic we thought let's make it from scratch. With lot of search on internet (courtsey my husband)and some ideas of our ownwe made this Gingerbread house. It was a bit elaborate one (for the first timers)but really was so much worth it. My daughter had the best time thinking how to decorate it and decorate it with candies, crackers, cereals etc of her choice.
For those interested we used the template from here but somehow after printing it didn't match up so we improvised on it free hand.
The recipe of making gingerbread cookie can be found here.
For royal icing we used Wilton Royal icing mix.
The christmas tree is inverted icecream cone with gum paste leaf and royal icing snow and tree topper.


The gingerbread man and woman have gum paste clothes.
The snow man is Marshmallow and the grass is colored dessicated coconut.
Windows and pond is made of sugar.
If you want to know more feel free to write to us.
There are so many templates available and for decorations you can go wild with your imagination.


Happy Holidays everyone, do try this fun family activity with your kids.

Monday, December 20, 2010

Easy and unique Christmas ornaments you can make



Purple Sparklie Bird Ornament: This is what my daughter calls this creation of ours. Made of glitter foam sheet and a free hand drawing. This christmas ornament is one of the fastest and cutest creations. Don't you agree. This is my daughter's favorite creation so far. She calls it Sparklie Birdie.

Last few days have been really busy. We were so busy with holiday shopping and crafting that could not publish on blog. However, I have been updating as and when I could.My soon to be 3 yr old daughter is very excited about Christmas this year. Since the day we got the Christmas tree in our house, she is talking about Christmas and all the things related to Christmas. The best part till now is making new ornaments with her. Eventhough our Christmas tree is not very big it still has ample space for many more ornaments. We had a few from previous year's Christmas and we converted some of the previous craft creations into ornaments and now we are making one ornament big or small, easy or complicated every day. It is like our own countdown to the D Day.

We are so excited to share some of our creations till now. We will be updating this post with more pictures,tutorials and tips as and when we keep making it.Making ornaments is fun. Do try it and share your experiences. Feel free to ask if you want to know more about making any of these.



The Classic Ball Ornament: The first ornament made by my daughter with her Dad. One fine saturday afternoon when I was busy shopping for craft supplies at Michaels, my toddler and her dad were busy learning how to decorate a transparent round Christmas ornament. Using some glue dots, glitter, some paint pens my daughter made this beautiful ornament with a little help from her Dad.


Glittery Yarn SnowBall: One of the most fun ornaments for kids to make. We used Yarn on a balloon, stiffened it with glue and let it dry. Blew off the balloon and viola we got this cute Snow Ball. We added the shine of the snow using a silver glue pen.



Photo Ornament: This one is the last year's Ornament. Some of you might have already seen the detailed tutorial for this, for other here is the link.



Paper Porcupine Ornament: This one is our take on the fabulous Polish Porcupine Ornament which we came across recently. We made a smaller version, circles we used were 2 5/8" diameter. We used fine silver glitter to add the sparkle. Detailed tutorial at Jessica Jane's blog How about Orange. Thanks to Ann Martin of All things Paper for inspiring us with creations from amazing artists from all over the world.



Butterfly Ball Ornament: This again is one of the most colorful ornament. Glue gun and Martha stewart Butterfly punch is the key element here. Glue gun makes it so quick and strong. We are really proud of our first glue gun application.



Painted Pine Cone Ornament: My daughter's one of the favorite things to do is to collect pine cones. We have atleast dozens of them. She decided that she has to hang one of these on the Christmas tree as it is a tree thing. So here it is, her pine cone painted yellow in her choice of color and hanging happily on the tree. Interestingly, when you paint the pine cone it shrinks and it again comes back to its shape once dry.



Origami Crane Ornament: Long back we shared a tutorial of Origami Crane. We converted those cute paper cranes into adorable paper crane ornaments. For tutorial click here.

4 Days to go...


Lucky Origami Star Ornament: Loved this one for the simplicity of making and the fact that this is lucky. Here is a video of how to make it. We made it with Japanese Washi Paper, which as a matter of fact I bought myself during my Japan Trip from the famous shop Tokyu Hands. This is one of those where multiples look even better. I plan to make more if time permits.

Other than these we have some wrapped candy canes, a lantern made at Children's museum last weekend, Woody of Toy story fame converted into ornament ourselves and some glittery red and golden ball ornaments.

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Angel Tree Topper


This year's Christmas is a little special. My daughter is so much excited about Christmas. Thanks to her school and teachers and all the decorations in various shops. Wherever we go there is something going on.
She is so much involved in all the decorations we are doing this year. We selected the tree she liked. It made her all the more excited about decorating the Christmas tree.
We bought a pre-lit 4.5' Christmas tree from Walmart. Wrapped a box and put the tree on it to give it a little more height. Bought some glittered ornaments in red and golden. Decorated it with some ornaments from previous year and are in a process of decorating it more and more everyday. It is so interesting that the more you decorate the tree the more you feel it needs more decoration.
Usually its my daughter who is telling me what to do next. She comes up with some idea or other and I try to involve her in making the next ornament making sure I take something from her imagination.
I will keep posting our journey to the finally fully decorated Christmas tree and how we reached it.

After decorating with what I told earlier it still feels incomplete. My daughter wanted something on the top of the tree. May be she heard me talking to her Dad that we really need a Tree topper. This is our first time decorating the tree so big. I am sure it is smaller than most of you decorate but believe me when you start decorating it you feel 4.5' is also too big.

So here I ended up making the tree topper yesterday. It is a simple DIY Angel tree topper. My daughter wanted it real quick so I took inspiration from one of the templates I found on Martha Stewart's website and frankly drew it free hand and used the material available at my home and here is my version of Angel tree topper.
My daughter helped me throughout the process in the little ways she can.It turned out well. You might want to give it a try. If you make a smaller one, you can use it as a Christmas ornament too.

Supplies you will need:

-Glitter Foam sheet: Silver and Red (Self sticking)
-Wired Holiday Ribbon: Red with gold design or any of your choice
-Ornament for head: Red
-Silver wire
-Tinsel rope for Halo
-Scissors
-Pen

1. Print the template or do free hand drawing like I did, cut it on a cardstock.
2.Put the cardstock on the back side of the red glitter foam sheet, draw the outline using a pen. Cut it.
3.Assemble at the slots. This will make the wings and the body of the Angel tree topper.
4.Now just draw the wings using the cardstock template on back side of silver glitter sheet. Cut it using scissors. Peel off and stick it to the front side of the wings. You now have the body and the wings of Angel tree topper ready.
5. Next using silver wire and the tinsel rope make halo by twisting it as shown.
6. I fixed the red ornament on the top of the body using wire, you can use glue gun too.
7. Also fix the halo.
8. Use ribbon to decorate the body so it looks like Angels dress.

Your Gliterry and beautiful Angel Tree topper is ready to be put on the top of the tree. My daughter loves her Glittery Angel.I hope you liked it too.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Snowflake Craft


Today was the season's first snowfall here. I have always loved the beauty of the first snowfall, when it is pristine. Today my daughter was so excited to see the snowfall. It was really interesting to see her as excited as me.
Then came the idea of making another snowflake. Snowflake craft is one of the most popular winter crafts and there are so many ways everyone tries to make it. My favorite one till date is paper quilled snowflake. There are so many snowflakes people have made which you can find over the internet, but the most satisfaction you get is from the one you create yourself. Do give it a try. It is not as difficult as it seems at first.
If you take care of few things while you make the snowflake you will definitely get a perfect snowflake.

This is what I learned from my attempts of making a perfect snowflake.
- When you look closely you will find that paper quilled snowflake is a geometric shape with some basic simple quilling shapes. Just try to figure out the pattern. Remember perfection is the key here.
- A quilling grid and circle sizer comes handy while making any geometrical pattern like snowflake.
-No matter how perfect you think you can make without a circle grid, you end up making some little mistake and the whole effort of making a perfect snowflake goes waste.
- It helps to design the snowflake first and then put it under a parchment paperwhile making it. That way you can get the guidance needed and save the design for making it later.
- You get better at every attmept of making snowflake, learn from your attempts and try to make better each time.

Paper quilled snowflake is perfect for making a christmas ornament too. A little glitter on it and a silver ribbon, transparent thread or fish line can make your snowflake a perfect christmas ornament to cherish for years to come. Just make sure you handle it carefully and properly store in a box after christmas.

Supplies:
- 1/8 inches of white pre cut paper quilling strips or you can cut your own too.
- Quilling tool or a barbeque stick with a little slit at the top.
-Glue
-Toothpick and brush to apply glue
-Piece of silver or transparent thread if you want to make ornament.
-Glitter (optional)

Snowflake craft tutorial
-Follow the design in the picture and make the basic quilling shapes.
-For a crash course on quilling shapes click here
-Once the shapes are ready glue them using a toothpick or a pointed glue bottle. Let it dry completely.
-Using a brush apply little glue of the surface of snow flake. Slowly add fine glitter in silver or a color of your choice

Tips
-Any white paper of the thickness of normal printing paper or a gift wrap is fine for making your own quilling strips.
-You can use a paper cutter or simply a ruler on cutting mat and a craft knife is also fine.
-Usually scissors are not recommended as it is difficult to get straight cuts with them however if you are confident give it a try.