November 11, 2013, admin, Christmas, Crafts, , 0
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This weekend I have been busy making lots of craft decorations ready for Christmas with the help of some fabulous items from Hobbycraft.
Homemade Advent Calendar
Before going shopping I had a rough idea of what I wanted to do. My main idea was to make a felt, reusable advent calendar. It is something that I have been meaning to do for a couple of years but hadn’t got around to it. I remember having a reusable calendar when I was younger and have been wanting to make one for the Little A’s to share.
Hobbycraft had a great range of items to help me get creative and I decided to go for a fairly easy design of numbered felt ‘pockets’ on a string which I could hang along the mantlepiece. Not being particularly great at crafts, I thought this would be really easy to do and look quite effective.
To make the advent calendar I purchased a pack of felt, a pack of wooden numbers, some christmassy string, a pack of little pegs and fabric glue (I’m not great at sewing and knew it would take me ages to sew all of the pockets together!).
I started by cutting out 48 circles of felt and some other shapes to decorate them.
I then glued three quarters of the way around the circles, leaving an opening at the top big enough to pop in a sweet treat.
Once done I laid out all of the circle ‘pockets’ and placed the decorations and numbers on top. Once I was happy with my design I glued these on and left them to dry.
Once dry I attached them to the string with the pegs and attached it to the mantlepiece with some Sellotape.
It really was that simple and I’m actually quite impressed with myself! It looks exactly how I wanted it to and I can’t wait to fill it with sweets ready for December.
Decorations
Whilst I was in Hobbycraft I also discovered their decoration kits. There were lots of different kits to choose from and I thought they were a great buy at £3 on a 3 for 2 offer. I purchased three kits (with the help of Little Mr A!).
First up were the felt snow people. In the kit you get everything you need to make a snowman and snow woman. I have never done any felting before and sat with Little Mr A to do it. It was a little tricky to put together and was too difficult for Little Mr A to do on his own, he needed a lot of assistance.
There were lots of parts to putting the snow people together but I really like the end result. It is never something I would have thought of doing myself and I think they look great. I really like having these kits as they introduce me to new crafts that I would not have tried otherwise! We also purchased the Polar Bear felting kit which I intend to do with Little Mr A another weekend.
Everything you need is included
Little Mr A’s first time ‘felting’
Coming together…
Adding the buttons…
Nearly there!
Making the snowman’s hat – a very tricky bit!
Snow Woman done!
Snowman done!
What a happy couple!
Next up were two reindeer tree decorations which required sewing. In the kit you get everything you need to make two hanging tree decorations. The instructions were really easy to follow and, not being a great sewer, it didn’t take me too long to put together. I think they look really cute and I am sure older children would have great fun making these decorations.
Let’s make Reindeer!
A smiley face…
Adding antlers…
Reindeer done!
I can see me using Hobbycraft a lot more now I am aware of all the different things they stock and am hoping to get more creative myself rather than relying on the ready made kits!
