FYI


Saturday, March 30, 2013

A Pastelly Easter

All set for Easter? The eggorations have been up for a couple of weeks now and I have not really added anything new this year. In fact I re-used stuff again, in a slightly different way. The old frame keeps getting used - it really has been the best decorating device ever.


I had actually planned to take the little strings out of the frame once I took my Valentine-y love heart display out of it. But then I found my paper eggs from three years ago in the box of Easter stuff. Three years ago - my oh my, I had all but forgotten that I had made them, but as it turns out, they were one of the really popular posts here on my blog.  Back then I wrote a whole tutorial about making them. Check it out here - there is also a template you can download. It is very easy and the sort of stuff you can do with your kids. In fact, the initial egg came from my daughter, then 8 years old.


With the eggs all slightly pastelly, I had to forego my usual red deco on the kitchen mantle. Good thing I still had all those white and pink Easter eggs from the Euro shop from last year. They were popped into a vase, and together with a few white bits and pieces, the kitchen this year has a slightly paler theme.

All that remains now is to look forward to my first piece of chocolate in 6 weeks tomorrow. Honestly, I can't wait! 

Happy Easter, all!

Monday, March 18, 2013

Peekaboo

Alright, with Patrick's Day out of the way (belatedly happy Paddy's Day, all afiliated Hibernophiles out there!), I can finally get down to the first decorating highlight of the year. Easter is around the corner. And don't I know it - this year's fasting exercise is streeeeetching my patience. No chocolate since mid-February. A self-imposed Facebook ban. No crisps. I am surviving, but I *am* looking forward to a chocolate feast on Easter Sunday. But I digress. It's still about a week too early to bring the Easter eggs out. Mr Craft-Werk objects, as you know. Especially when we are talking silly relics of religious rituals. But where there is a pair of scissors, there is also a will.

"Peekaboo"
I came up with these whimsical little bird houses with chicks peeking out of them after I found a whole stash of those pipe-cleaner chicks in my craft-materials box. "What can I do with them?" I thought to myself. I came up with a little paper birdhouse that is very easy to make - all it needs is some nice cardstock, glue and a pair of scissors.

First of all I made a template from which I could cut a number of those shapes. I drew it up simply by estimating and experimenting. Feel free to use the image to the right: Print it on a piece of card stock to use as your template. (I scanned it at the highest resolution I could - just resize in the size that you need.)

When you look at my template you will hopefully see the lines that I drew on the template. They are the folding lines. Fold up the two main bits - the front of the birdhouse with the hole in it, and the back. before you then fold the sides over so that they form the two sidewalls and the roof, fold the edges in, in order to glue them to the front and back of the house. Ah, you'll work it out as you go along.



For some nice, colourful paper in spring colours I "blasphemed" and ripped photos out of a book on funky wallpapers. (I feel bad about destroying a book - there is something sacrosanct about books, isn't there?) The pipe cleaner chicks were simply popped into the finished birdhouses and secured with a drop of glue.



And that is it - here they are, my colony of chicks, frolicking in- and outside their houses. They blend in pretty well with the first branches of forsythia from my garden. They bring a smile to my face, every time I look at them.



Happy spring time!


Best,



Monday, March 4, 2013

Wishi-Washi

Finally, two years in, Sonja jumps on the washi bandwagon. Yeah, it's been a long time coming. I have watched the rise to crafty stardom of the modest Japanese tape. And when I recently was sent a homemade gift as part of a Valentine's challenge that featured lovely washi tape, I knew I had to act if I didn't want to be overtaken by the bandwagon. So a week into my love affair with wishi washi washi tape I finally got the reason and purpose for a washi tape project.



Essentially I had to reward myself for finally, after about three years of living with an extremely heavy, guilty conscience, I did my tax returns. Which in turn left me with a number of documents that needed to be fiiled for possible perusal by the authorities. I had the file - but it just looked shite with its scratched out file label.

Yeah, even the carefully placed vase of flowers cannot disguise the fact that there is ugly in the picture. Apart from the fact that I wanted a fresh start with my paper mess tidy, and that meant labelling things properly.

So I printed a label and out came the washi tape. Just a simple sticking job.


There. That's better, isn't it? I think I can now move on to spring. Yay!