My Dolls House

Thought I should post about the wonderful present my darling husband gave me for Christmas. He was so sneaky and hid it from me until Christmas Day. I had no idea what it was so it was very exciting when he handed me the great big parcel and I opened it to discover a kit set wooden dolls house, Yay! We have often talked about how I really want to make and decorate a dolls house, so it was a well thought out gift. So far we have put most of the house together, still have the roof, doors and stairs to go in. Can't wait to start painting and decorating. Found this great website that sells scrap booking paper, might use some of their designs for wall paper. See http://www.thepaperpeacock.co.nz I promise to post a photo of the finished product.

Pretty in Pink

OK I'm back. Hope everyone had a great Christmas. Here's a quick idea for next time you want to give someone a pretty present. Had a friend come to visit us on Christmas Day, she likes pink so I gave her a special pink present. What I did was buy a pretty pink box (about the same size as a shoe box) and some pretty pink things like candles, soaps, lollies to go inside. I then wrapped each little present individually in different shades of pink tissue paper and put them inside the box. Then I wrapped the whole box with wrapping paper. It was kind of like making up a shoebox for operation Christmas Child, only by making them for your friends you get to watch them open it. Everyone likes opening presents so when you have lots of little things to open it's much more exciting.

Christmas Cookies

Spent the day making cookies. Made Raspberry heart shaped cookies iced with white chocolate and spcied cookies shaped like stars and iced with cocoa icing. Made up little parcels of cookies to give to neighbours and friends. Made the parcels by wrapping cookies in cellophane and tissue paper then tied with silver thread.

Holly Christmas Wreath Update

The holly wreath I made did not survived as long as I had hoped. If you plan to make one of these for a future Christmas I suggest you make it about a week before Christmas day. The husband asked me to make another one, I laughed. Anyway have now replaced it with an artificial one, I wonder if he will notice.

Christmas Vouchers

Found some little gold bags at work so i decided to make little gift bags. Got the kids to decorate them and put in some lollies, also added a little something extra. Got the kids to make some vouchers for their family, little notes offering a hug or to do some chores. This is a sweet little thing you could do for anyone, sometimes what people really want is to spend quality time with people they love.

Kombi Campervan Performance

The show went well and the Kombi except for losing one window wiper survived, yay! I have some plans to do some baking for Christmas but haven't quite decided what to do, expect to see a blog about it soon.

Christmas Wreath 2

Did a little research into the meaning of a wreath and learnt that it symbolises eternity and the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. If you like the symbolism but don't want to cut your hands on sharp Holly leaves this is how you make a wreath from craft supplies.

What you need:
cardboard
coloured tissue paper
sellotape
shiny paper
Glitter

Cut a ring shape from the cardboard to make the frame for your wreath. Wrap green tissue paper (you can use different shades) around the ring making sure you can't see the cardboard anymore, sellotape down on the back side of the wreath. Decorate with bows made of tissue paper, scrunch red tissue paper to make Holly berries, use shiny green paper to make Holly leaves and add glitter if you wish. This wreath should be put up inside, if it gets wet it will not be pretty.

Christmas Boxes

Made some cute little boxes with the kids at work today. Don't know where you get the boxes from but I think spotlight might have some. They come as a pre-cut cardboard template and all you have to do if fold them into a box. You don't even need to use sellotape. Anyway, I got the kids to decorate the boxes with coloured paper, stickers, shapes and whatever. Then we put lollies inside and wrapped the boxes up with wrapping paper and bows. They make cute little Christmas pressies. They look so good that I took the ones I made home and put them under the tree. Unlike the wreath in my last post this is an activity that I recommend people do.

Christmas Wreath

My darling husband had this great idea that I should make a Christmas Wreath out of the Holly we have growing at the front of our house. When he made the suggestion I immediately thought of the pain I would experience in doing such a task, however being the dutiful wife I accepted the challenge. Although the finished product looks alright the pain was as expected. Ever tried to give a cat a bath? well this was a similar experience. I now have a greater appreciation of what a crown of thorns might feel like. Anyway if you are interested in causing yourself immerse pain this is how it's done: First you need to cut a cardboard ring. then twist holly branches around the ring and attach with wire. I used solder wire but I suggest using florist wire as it's a bit stronger. Then add tinsel and decorations.

Cracker Flowers

I guess I just can't help myself. Went out to a Christmas dinner last night and spent some of the night making flowers from the hats in the Christmas crackers. If you are a bit crazy like me, this is what you do: rip the hat in half (if two colours you separate the colours), then roll the hat up, start rolling tightly then loosely as you get to the end. The crinkly end becomes your flower, scrunch the other end in to make a stem. After that you can pull back some of the outside layers out to make the flower open out. A number of the hats were green and red so I used the green part to wrap around the stem to make it longer. At the end of the night I ended up with four flowers in a glass on the table.

Kombi Campervan

Our church's Sunday school kids are preforming a rendition of 'Kiwi Jingle Bells' at next weeks service. The first few lines of the song are as follows:

Dashing to the bay,

in a Kombi campervan,

Christmas at the beach-

the family's master plan

To complement the song I was asked to make a cardboard Kombi. Finished the Kombi today so it should be ready for a practice tomorrow. Cut the shape out of a big piece of cardboard (it was a movie display stand), painted it and used clear cellophane for the windows. I Also wraped red tinsel around the roof rack to give it a Christmas touch. Hope the kids like it.

Kiwi Christmas Decorations

Living in New Zealand it's often hard to find decorations that suit our summer Christmas. I have seen some display trees dressed in All Blacks paraphernalia, but since I'm not a rugby fan I wasn't very impressed. Have to admit I don't think New Zealand's national identity is best represented by rugby, racing and beer. However I do have some ideas for making traditional Christmas decorations with a kiwi twist.

I like the idea of drawing inspiration from native trees. You could make small angels like my previous post but instead of using feathers for wings you could cut cardboard into the shape of fern branches. Also you could paint pohutakawa flowers in the angels hands. Another idea would be to make doves holding ferns in their beaks. One year I put a large glittery fern on the top of the tree. I think maybe I'm a little obsessed with ferns. Let me know if you have any great ideas of your own.

Christmas Angel

I love Christmas, I think it's because I'm the baby of the family and still haven't grown up. I'm one of those people who put their Christmas tree up in November (sometimes October). So if you haven't already guessed my posts leading up to Christmas day will be filled with festive creations.

This post is dedicated to the Angel sitting at the top of my tree (we are calling her Angela). My tree is decorated in only two colours which I change every year, this year it's silver and white. Since I couldn't find a top of tree decoration that meet my requirements I decided to make my own.

To make your own 'Angela' these are the things you may need:

• Polystyrene ball


• Cardboard


• PVA glue


• Solder Wire and/or pipe cleaner


• metallic thread (for hair)


• feathers


• paint


• hot glue and glue gun


• White Paper and tissue (for Paper-mache)

Okay, first you need to make a cone out of cardboard. There are a number of ways to this but the easiest way is to draw a large circle, the diameter should be about twice the height you want the angel to be. Then in the middle of the large circle draw a small circle about the same size as your polystyrene ball ( the ball will be used for the head of the angel). Cut out the large circle then cut a straight line from the outside of the circle to the small circle and cut out the small circle. Then fold the cardboard into a cone and staple or sellotape the sides together.

Next you can start the paper-mache. Attach the head by placing it on top of the cone and sticking pieces of paper on the head and cone. Then continue to paper-mache the rest of the body, tissue paper is good for moulding arms and shoulders. Paint when dry.

To make hair cut pieces of thread into lengths and hot glue onto the head. The halo can be made with either wire or pipe cleaner. I made mine with both, the circle part of the halo is silver pipe cleaner and the part that attaches to the head is solder wire. Attach the halo with hot glue.

The wings are made by cutting a wing shape from cardboard. Make the shape a bit smaller than you want the wings to be, this is because you will want the feathers to stick out from the cardboard. Using the hot glue, cover the front and back of the wing shape with feathers and glue onto the back of the angel.

My angel is silver and white but you can make one in any colour is want. You could also add a harp, trumpet or candle ( I think you can get things like these from the doll making aisle of spotlight).