Easy peasy lemon squeezy foam stamp tutorial

This is such an easy thing to do, it probably doesn't even warrant the word 'tutorial' in the title, but I've bumphed it out with some other bits and bobs about using stamps with fabric paint, so hopefully you'll learn something :)


You will need:

• Foam stickers or shapes (if you want to know where to get them from, have a look in the hints bit at the end of the tute).


• Foam board, 3mm or 5mm (again, hints on where to buy at the end)


• Ruler and pencil


• Scissors or craft knife


• Glue (if you have foam shapes, you won't need it if you have foam stickers).


• Fabric paint


• Paintbrush


• Fabric to test on


• A new t-shirt / bag / tea towel / cushion cover for your final design

Choose the foam shape or shapes that you want to use for your stamp. Check the surface of your shape for any bumps or dips - this flower was a bit wiggly on one side, so I made sure I glued that side rather than printed with it, as even small blips can show up when you print.

Work out what size piece of foam board you need to cut. Try and have as little white space as possible around your foam shape, that way you'll know exactly where you will be stamping - if you have a weeny shape in the middle of a huge piece of foam board it'll be hard to know exactly where to place your stamp.

Cut your piece of foam board with a craft knife or scissors, and stick your shape on. Make sure you use a decent glue so the stamp will last longer.

Ta daaaaaa! That's it. But if you want to get the best out of your lovely new stamp, please read on.

This bit is important: Test your stamp. Find an old t-shirt or vest and play around with your stamp first. Try out different fabric paints with it, work out which way round is the best, etc etc. You'll find that your stamp comes out differently depending what fabric you're stamping on to. So if you want to print on a t-shirt, use a scrap piece of jersey to test with, if you want to print on a pillowcase, find some cotton. You get the idea :)

Prepare your surface for stamping. Wash your vest / tea towel / pillowcase before you stamp on it. A lot of fabrics are finished with chemicals that can reduce fabirc paint absorption, so make sure your fabirc is clean first. Iron, iron, iron. Any little wrinkles can cause blips in your stamping, and you don't want that. Use guides if you want to do things in straight lines - I ironed munchkin's top down the middle and then centred my flower over the ironed line, and for lettering I use masking tape as a guide.

Make sure your stamp is totally covered with fabric paint. The easiest way to tell if you've done this is to hold the stamp up to the light:

Always clean around your stamp before you print with it. See that bit of red on the foam board in the picture below? See the teeny red splodge next to the flower on the t-shirt? I completely cocked up did that on purpose to show you what happens if you're sloppy with your paint. The best way to clean is by using a baby wipe. The same goes for cleaning your stamp when you've finished using it, or want to change colours.

And while we're on the subject of cocking up intentional mistakes, mind where you're wafting your paintbrush :(

Make sure you follow the instructions for fixing your fabric paint. If it says iron for five minutes, then iron for five minutes (yes, I know it's really boring ironing the same small patch of t-shirt for five minutes, but it's worth it). If you've made a mistake, for example by waving your paintbrush around and catching the arm of your t-shirt with a big splodge of red paint, then I'd suggest it might be best to start again on a clean t-shirt. I've tried all sorts of things to get fabric paint out (even if it hasn't been heat sealed with an iron), and it's bloomin difficult.

Where to buy: Foam shapes seem to be everywhere - most craft shops stock them, and I've found lots of different ones in Tesco, mainly seasonal (Easter, Christmas etc.). I've even picked some up in pound shops in the children's art bit. Remember lettering will come out in reverse, so foam alphabet stickers aren't great unless you like mirror writing.

Foam board can be a bit harder to come by. eBay is probably the easiest way to buy it, although not the cheapest. If you're buying in bulk then Paperstone, Discount Graphic, and Art Discount all sell it by the box. Rymans sell it too, although it might be worth giving your local stor a ring first to see if it's in stock.

A final word on fabric paint. It's worth investing in decent stuff, because it can have a huge effect on your end print. I like Colourcraft paints (although their website isn't great), and I love Stewart Gill paints, especially the True Colour range.

There you go, pretty much everything I know about making and using foam shape stamps, in a blog post. Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

Crafting with Munchkins - Scrappy be-jewelled trinket box

This is something me and Munchkin did when we were stuck at home in the snow. Munchkin has about a squillion hairclips, and the little tin I used to keep them in was getting a bit full. We bought her some new shoes in between Christmas and new year, and the box they came in was a perfect size for decorating. The rest of the stuff was things I already had - fabric from my scraps bag, some felt and some cabochon jewelly things that I didn't really know what to do with.

You will need:

• A box with a lid


• Scraps of fabric, long enough to go over the top of your box


• Scissors


• Glue - pva is probably best


• Felt


• A marker pen


• A sparkly jewel


• A munchkin

Cut your fabric into long strips so that they will go across the width of your box lid. Mine were about an inch wide, and I used pinking shears to make them look a bit prettier :) If your munchkin is big enough they can do this themselves, but I pre-cut mine.

Stick your strips across your lid. Munchkin chose which ones she liked and then we stuck them on together but if you're a control freak if you'd like your box to be very tasteful you could just give your munchkin a selection of nicely co-ordinated strips and let them chose what order to stick them in.

Trim the sides of the box lid so that the strips are all neat.

Stick some strips on the two short ends of the lid so the whole lid is covered. At this point you could leave it as a nice, tasteful box. OR you could bling it up a bit :)

Put your Munchkin's hand on some felt and draw around it with a marker pen. This was the most difficult part of the whole thing, and as you can see from the photo, it took several attempts :)

Cut out the hand shape, and stick it on to your lid.

Stick your jewel on to a felt finger. You're done! Fill the box with hairclips / treasure / tiaras / priceless plastic jewellery.

Crafting with Munchkins - Wallpaper Flowers tutorial

I'm making these pretty wallpaper flowers for my storytime craft at work in a couple of weeks. We're a bit short on cash due to some budget cuts, so I'm having to scrabble around in the craft cupboard to try and use existing resources, and scrounge materials where ever I can. I contacted a local independent painting and decorating shop to see if they had any old wallpaper sample books they no longer needed, and a very friendly shopkeeper was only too happy to offload 5 huuuuge books, and had lots more in the back office but I couldn't carry them all :)

Wallpaper has endless possibilities for crafting - it's durable, has cool patterns and textures, and can withstand copious amounts of glue. I thought I'd be better off asking a little local shop for old sample books rather than a big DIY chain, but I guess there's no harm in ringing up your local B&Q and seeing if they can help.

You will need:

• Wallpaper with a flowery pattern, or failing that, coloured / textured wallpaper you can cut into flower shapes.
  
• Sturdy cardboard, preferably corrugated (I used a cat food box, the sort that has those foil pouches in)
  
• Glue
  
• Scissors
  
• Straws (If they're bendy, cut the bendy bit off)
  
• Tape

Start by cutting out your flowers. If your munchkin is too small to manage scissors, get them to choose the flowers and you can do the cutting. I tried to get a photo of Munchkin choosing a flower, but she was in a major strop this morning. But this is the flower she chose, honest!

Now cut some discs of sturdy cardboard to mount your flowers on.

Stick your flowers to your discs.

Stick your straws to your flowers with tape.

You're done! And now find the best way to display them. I used a jam jar and filled it with those little glass nuggets, and then pushed the straws in. I cut the straws to different lengths so you could see all of the flowers. If you haven't got glass nuggets you could always use that pile of pebbles that your munchkin collected from your last visit to the seaside that's gathering dust in the bathroom :)

Now I just need some stories about flowers to go with my craft activity for storytime. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Christmas Making: Tea towel apron tutorial

Here's a quick and easy tutorial for a quick and easy apron that would make a lovely gift. You just need two pretty tea towels and some twill tape or ribbon, and a spare hour (probably less if you're a better crafter than me :). I wanted to make an apron for my mother-in-law (she cut the ties off the last one she had in order to tie up a Christmas tree. Don't ask), and I'd bought some cheap oilcloth but wasn't happy with it. I was thinking about making the tea towel apron from Amy Karol's Bend-the-Rules Sewing, but wanted a bib bit at the top. So I played around with my tea towels, and hey presto! As I was putting this tutorial together I thought I might be re-inventing the wheel, and a quick Google showed that Martha Stewart beat me to it, but my version has a gathered top to save on sewing time. Plus it makes it look nicer!

You will need:

Two tea towels. Mine were from Home Bargains as part of a set of three, and were £1.49.

Twill tape or ribbon. I used tape that was half an inch wide because that was what I had in my stash, but I think 1" wide would be better.

Matching thread - you might need 2 different colours if your tea towels are different colours.

A sewing machine (optional, you could do all of the sewing by hand if you don't have a machine).

A ready-made apron to help with your measurements.

Start by laying out your ready-made apron, using it as a guide, and placing your tea towels on top. You need to take into account how long you want your apron to be, and how deep you want your pockets to be. The top of your vertical tea towel will be folded over to make a casing for your neck strap, so leave enough space for this (about an inch or two).

When you're happy with your layout, pin your tea towels together, and stitch along the lines in the diagram below.

WARNING: You'll need to take into account the wonkiness of your tea towels. They're not known for their straight edges, especially cheap ones, so be careful as you're sewing the two together. I didn't take account of wonkiness, and you can see the wonky results below :) It shouldn't matter too much if you're using a thread that's well matched to the colour of your tea towel.

Next you'll sew a line down the middle of your bottom tea towel to make the pockets. Fold your apron in half to make sure you centre the line.

You're halfway there! Next you need to make the casing for your neck tie. Fold the top of your apron over, using your tape / ribbon as a guide. You need to make sure it will fit through comfortably and won't get twisted. Now sew your casing. As the edge of your tea towel is already hemmed you don't have to faff about turning it under to neaten it :)

Attach a safety pin to the end of your tape and thread it through your casing. You'll need enough tape to fit comfortably round your neck - I cut a piece about 40" to start with, and adjusted it to the right length later.

Runkle up your casing until you're happy with the gathers, and then pin your tape either side. Make sure you have an even amount of tape either side of the apron top.

Now sew the ends of your casing in place where you've pinned it.

Next you have two options. You can leave the ends of the tape free, which will mean you will have to tie the apron at the neck and the waist when you put it on. I recommend you do this if you're making the apron as a present for someone, unless you know their exact height / shoulder width / neck girth etc. :)

Or you can join the two ends together, making a loop that you pull over your head when you put the apron on. If the apron is for you then this is the best option. Put the apron on and put the tape around the back of your neck. Make sure you have enough tape to be able to pull the apron on and off over your head, and pin the tape together.

Cut the excess tape off, and join the two ends together. I folded each one over and then sewed them on top of one another, if that makes sense.

Next you need to add the ties for the back of the apron. Take your tape / ribbon and measure out enough to go all the way around your waist and tie comfortably at the front. I used about 55". Cut your tape in half, and attach each piece to the sides of your apron, where the two uppermost corners of the bottom tea towel are. Make sure you sew the tape on well.

Now neaten the ends of your tape by folding over twice and sewing. If you're in a rush (or are fed up with sewing fiddly little bits of tape) you could tie a big knot in the end instead.

Finished! Sit back and admire your handywork :)

No, I haven't suddenly got a lovely new big kitchen, the photoshoot took place at grandma pickledweasel's, with munchkin as assistant (she sat in an armchair eating raisins and shouting encouraging things).

Floaty Ghosts - tutorial for munchkins

Happy halloweeeeen! I'm a bit halloweened out, as on Thursday I did halloween crafts with 60 children. Yes, that's right, SIXTY. Not all at once, although it felt like it. We ran a session for under 7's and a session for 7's and over, and did three different craft activities for each. One of the advantages of working in a public library is that you have access to as many craft related books as you can shake a stick at, and so most of the stuff I did was from Usborne Activity books. However, I did have an original idea of my own (gasp!). Here's a quick and easy tute on how to make a Floaty Ghost.

You will need:
An egg box
A pencil/pen for bodging a hole
White tissue paper / crepe paper / kitchen roll torn into strips
Glue (the runny stuff, pritt stick isn't strong enough)
Little round stickers (or a black marker pen)
A big needle
Elastic - I used shirring elastic
Tape

1. Cut a 'bobble' of egg box out

2. Bodge a hole in the top of the bobble with your pencil.

3. Smother your bobble in glue.

4. Stick strips of your white paper to your bobble, making sure you cover it completely. Add more glue on top and stick another layer if necessary.

5. Wait for it to dry a bit (distract your munchkin with a toffee apple or something).

6. Stick on your eyes. I stole these stickers from work found these white stickers and coloured them black with a marker, but you could just use marker if you haven't got stickers.

7. Thread your elastic onto your big needle, and poke your needle through the hole you made in the top of the egg box bobble (go from underneath the bobble and out through the top)

8. Secure your elastic to the underside of your bobble with some tape.

9. You've made your floaty ghost!

These are so easy to make, and they were a great hit on thursday with the little munchkins and the big ones. Hope everyone has a spooktacular weekend planned. We're meant to be going to a bonfire party tomorrow night (i have no idea why they're having a bonfire party instead of a halloween one, but hey, there'll be booze and I'm going to wear sparkly things, so I don't care), but Munchkin is scuppering our plans somewhat by being sick. Three times :( I'm hoping she makes a miraculous recovery by tomorrow, as I can't really ask grandma pickledweasel to babysit a poorly child. Fingers crossed...