April 27, 2008

Animal farm

When I stumbled upon this delightful (and free!) paper model by Fantasy cutouts.com, I thought my daughter might like to do a room box project with me. A shoebox was found quickly enough (my sisters don't call me Imelda for nothing LOL!). We collected some moss from the garden, and cut out landscapes from an old magazine for a background. With glue and sand we made a winding path to lead right up to the front door of the little shack. The shoe box proved too small for the cottage though, and she kept taking it out anyway, so the project was never really completed, that is to say... in my eyes it wasn't. I guess the concept of making this box 'just to look at' was a bit lost on my three year old ;-)) Laura sees it quite differently: she lets her tiny horses and care bears play in the 'miniature garden', as she calls it, with a swing, a slide and a seesaw. The cottage she just puts up wherever she fancies it, in the window between the plant pots for example. The roof is removable, so the cute little farm animals can stay indoors when it's cold outside. They are also free cutouts, located at Agence eureka (blog entry of January 22). I found her through Meggiecat, who's lovely and generous blog I truly like. Check them out, if you haven't done so already!

April 18, 2008

Bow hairband

Half a year has gone by like a whirlwind, with no time to craft, let alone post to my blog! Slowly, ever so slowly, our baby is now learning to sleep through the night, leaving me a little less exhausted than I have been all these months. Arrival of the spring season makes me want to clean up and finish all those projects that had been put on hold! As each year, by the end of winter, mice become a real pest at our house. They raid our laundry basket and eat the stains in the children's clothes, thereby ruining many a favourite piece ;( Ofcourse I'm to blame too: because I can't bear to kill them, we set live traps an expell them from the house when we catch 'em. I bet they slip right back in when our backs are turned ;) Last week I found my daughters bow hairband full of holes, and man, was I vexed!!! Taking apart what was left of it, I proceeded to make a new one right away, taking pictures as I went. This little tutorial came out of it. Enjoy!