DIY flower crown

Quite some time ago I made this flower crown as a gift for my daughters friends 5Th birthday. The crown was modelled on a traditional headpiece worn by traditional brides from the Lowicki region in Poland. (see image below).

My crown was nowhere near as decorative or beautiful as the real thing but I figured it would be something a little 5 year old girl would love. It was made more special because my daughter and I made it together.

The crown is made entirely from felt. The flowers, hearts and felt ribbons at the back are just cut by hand with no particular stencil or pattern. The actual crown piece (in orange) is cut from a heavy weight felt that I don't know the name of. I bought it in Spotlight (a large fabric store in Australia) and they didn't know what it was called either. If anyone knows could you leave a comment? It kind of feels almost like a felty carpet. All the decorations are just stitched on.

We cut the flowers out first and then matched up the colours and decided where they would go by placing them onto the crown piece while it was laid out flat. We glued the flowers on lightly with little dabs of glue just to position them into place and then I stitched each flower on. From the inside you can see that I covered up the stitches of each flower by gluing a felt spot onto each cross stitch. This is not a difficult project but it's time consuming. Set aside an afternoon especially if you're doing it with your child :)

Most importantly the birthday girl loved it!

DIY wallhangings

Some time ago I did a post about my new wall hangings that I now sell through various Australian retailers. I love wall hangings and always have. And I think they are very easy to make and hang in your own home. All you need is some fabric, some fabric paints and a sewing machine. I used calico for all these. The ones pictured below are some of the many I have made in the past.

The Elephant. I made this one by first drawing the design onto the fabric with a pencil and then redrawing the lines with a permanent marker. Every time I paint directly onto the fabric I always water down my paints instead of using them straight out of the tub as they are. The thicker the paint is the slower it will go onto the fabric and you'll find yourself painting using tiny strokes and constantly re dipping your brush. The watering down allows the paint to flow better along the fabric. The back of this wall hanging is left plain and the whole thing is sewn like a big pillowcase. As you can see I added felt tabs at the top just to make it a bit more interesting. Put a stick through the top and you're done! This one was for my sons room but he didn't like it so it now hangs in the entrance way.

These next three I made for my daughters room and she actually liked them! I made all three like patchwork quilts out of old bits and pieces of fabric that I hand painted a long time ago. I had a lot to chose from so I decided to do one in all pinks one in all blues and one multi-coloured. For the centre panel on each one I used a piece of her old clothing that she no longer fit into. Like the front of an old top or a summer skirt. In fact when I finished these I thought it would be great to make one huge wall hanging completely out of her old clothes. I may still get around to it. She has many years left of growing out of clothes. I also liked this idea as it made these wall hangings special and personal. And the sentimental me imagined that she may one day like to hang them in her own daughters room. Or better still add another few panels from her daughters old clothes or her own hand painted bits of fabric. Oh the possibilities of heir looming are endless!!

This blue one was put away as my daughter did't think it suited her room anymore. Please forgive the wrinkled state of it in this photo!

Over the next couple of weeks I will be making another wall hanging, again out of some left over pieces of hand painted fabric. I will post next week about the bits and pieces. For some time now I have been painting on and off and experimenting with different styles and techniques. So now I've ended up with a bag of squares and rectangles and as I like to say: "when in doubt make a wall hanging."

Till next week!

The winners!

Hello everyone. It's moday morning and as promised here are the winners of the give away. I put everyones names into a box and asked my children to fish them out! Please email me your postal addresses laikonik@optusnet.com.au

Thank you for visiting and commenting! I hope you like the papers :)

veri maz
Sarah
Freckles
Barb Fisher
sneakycrafty

First ever give away!

Hello everyone. I am loving these new wrapping paper colours so much that I have decided to do my first ever give away and share them with some of you :)

It will be my way of saying thank you for visiting and reading my blog.

I have five packs of four colours to give away, see the picture below. Each sheet measures 760mm x 570mm and is a good quality 80gsm brown kraft which has been hand screenprinted. If you like the idea of wrapping up a present for a loved one in one of these just leave a comment here and next monday, 29th June I will announce the five winners. I am happy to post anywhere in the world :)

Cheerio!

New wrapping paper colours...

Is it June already!? I am embarrased that so much time has passed and I have not blogged. I hope you all haven't abandoned me out of boredom and lack of interesting reading material. I have a few new things up my sleeve and also over the next few weeks I will be sharing some of the things I have been dabbling in.

For now here is a sneak peak at the new colours of my wrapping paper. I am delighted with how they came out. The red and the white are the same and I now have a gorgeous light aqua blue and a mustard available.

This friday I will be emailing out a special offer for everyone on my mailing list. If you're not yet part of it please email me laikonik@optusnet.com.au to take advantage.

Handpainted curtains

Hello, another long break. I have a good excuse! I have been very busy over these school holidays finishing a project that I volunteered for at my childrens school. When the kindy class needed a set of curtains for an opening in the wall between two rooms I immiediately put my hand up with a brilliant idea....... a set of handpainted curtains..... double sided. Having finally finished them I realise now I had NO idea how long something like this took. Now I know. These took me between 30-35 hours in total. But I do love the result. They look exactly how I wanted them to look.

SO.... if you are thinking of doing a set of handpainted curtains for your living room here is what I learned that I can shere with you:

Do measure correctly even if you have to do it three times to be sure. All four panels of these curtains were 30cm too short so I had to sew seperate hems to the bottoms. I chose to paint them solid so as not to hide the fact that they were a later addition.

Find a large enough floor space where you can lay each panel out flat. A garage is great just lay down some clean paper or a drop sheet so your fabric stays clean. I, for some reason thoguht I could do them at home on the dining table. that would mean painting in sections, constantly moving the fabric around, putting everything away at the end of each day and making sure the chlidren dont use it as a canvass. Floor is best.

Use correct fabric. These were double sided so each panel had two lengths of fabric and I couldnt use a heavy weight. I used calico which was ideal for this. If yours will be single sided a heavier fabric will be good.

You can find good fabric paints in any decent art supply shop. I watered my paints down to the consistency of a smoothie, bit runny but still sticking to the brush. If you use the paint straight you'll be painting one sqaure inch at a time and continuously dipping back and forth because the fabric just sucks it all up.

I had a vague idea of the design I wanted and drew it up in my sketch book. I used a symmetrical folk art style design so it was easy to draw it onto the fabric.

I first drew the design on with a lead pencil. This allows for making mistakes and going over them without having to remove the lines off the fabric. You can still see some faint pencil lines on these but they dont bother anyone. I used a fabric marker for the outlines and when I ran out of that I used a permanent marker for the rest. Then the painting. That was the easiest but took for ever. It was at this point I thought "why do I always come up with these great ideas and then volounteer to do them!"

The curtains were sewn like any standard curtain: a giant pillowcase turned inside out and ironed for a long time to get it all perfect.

This project is not hard just amazingly time consuming. If you feel inspired and you fancy trying something similar you could start off with something smaller like some cushion covers. Even ready made ones, just paint straight onto them. It's advisable to slip a piece of cardboard inside so the design doesnt go through onto the back of the cover.

After all my tiredness over this project I have been eyeing my living room curtains which are just plain off white......... watch this space!

I will try to get some better photos of the curtains and if I manage I wil post some more. These are not very good, taken at the end of a school day when lots of kids were running about.

Thank you for visiting!

Last Easter Eggs

If you're reading this and you're getting bored of Easter eggs I promise this is the last lot I will be talking about this year. I forgot I had these and since I bought them I have been wanting to feature them on my blog because I find them SO beautiful. I love these eggs because they are so basic in their design. The wood grain that comes through gives them a natural earthy feel which suits the colour choices perfectly. I bought them last year at Babushkas. It's a beautiful shop at Darling Harbour in Sydney. You can visit their website here. They have a stunning collection of Christmas baubles, Easter eggs, wooden boxes, shawls, nesting dolls and many other colourful Eastern European gifts. If you have a chance please visit as it's well worth it.