Family-Handmade Christmas Calender

 There is no better way to keep your 2.5 years old kids busy and creative on a late November afternoon than crafting their own Christmas calender with them!


They started with painting on colorful sheets of craft carton. They also used recycled carton I cut out of packages.  They used water colors and markers:

 There was the classic fight over the red marker of course, which in the end nobody really used...

 And I had to do some work too, like cutting the cartons and drawing the numbers (yes, our printer is broken...). And of course somebody had to cut the numbers out.. Sweetheart, remember this is family business  :-P 

 

Then I shaped the cartons into cones and stapled the  two ends together. The numbers were also stapled on the carton cones.

Tight or staple some string or ribbon on them:

 And stick them on the wall with blue tack:

 You can also decorate a window with these or put them as ornaments on the Christmas tree! Ours wouldn't be much safe there so I put them on the kitchen wall where they are out of reach for the moment!

I guess we have to fill them with some goodies now :-)

Superhero styled jars!

Last week I prepared some homemade playdough for my kids and some more for their new twin friends. I put them in jars in order to last longer in the fridge, but the result looked rather plain to me, so I decided to paint superhero logos on the lids. I also tried to make something that looks like a cape out of scrap fabric I still keep in an old shoe box..

Here are the superman and batman style playdough jars :-)   :

They kind of look like capes though, don't they? :-D

Up-cycle an old gemstone bracelet into a fashionable woven chain bracelet

It has literally been years since I last posted anything on my blog! There was no time at all for me during the last couple of years for such leisure time activities, however, I finally managed to find an opportunity to concern myself with my blog and post this up-cycled bracelet tutorial.

I used :

-a gemstone bracelet

- 2 pieces of steel chain (the size of the chain parts has to match approximately the distance between the gemstones)

- ribbon

-embroidery threads

-lobster clutch (you cannot see that in the picture, sorry:-( )

After you make a knot with the ribbon containing the ends of the chains and gemstone bracelet, twist the ribbon around the bracelet, through each chain part and between the gemstones as you can see on the picture below:

 

Afterwards, use the embroidery threads of your choice and make a knot on one side. Weave the threads through the chains:

I used the tutorial I found here , you can also find woven chain bracelet tutorials on youtube.

I repeated the same on the other side/chain and I made a final knot. Put on a lobster clutch and here is the result:

I think it's fabulous, what do you think?