Inspired by "All That Glitters"

 My name is Jessica and this is my first post on Mum's blog.

We have been watching "All That Glitters" on the BBC iPlayer. We were inspired to make our own jewellery. I settled on making necklaces out of wire and thread for me and my friends. This is how I did it:

1. Put pegs in a board to wrap the wire around to make a design.

2. Make coils of wire by wrapping it around something round!

3. Decide how long you want the necklace to be and measure your thread so that it is twice as long.

4. Thread it all together using the coils to keep the doubled thread together. Tie a knot at the top.

5. Share them with your friends and see them smile!

A Very Merry Christmas Craft Weekend

We may be out of lockdown but it's December so Jessica and I spent the weekend crafting at home. Some of our crafting was for Christmas gifting so I won't share those bits yet but here's what we've been up to for ourselves...

Our little snowman is made from cork, wire, acrylic paint and embroidery silks. Super simple, aside from the fiddly nose, and so cute - he looks great hanging on the tree.

 

I did some needle felting on Friday evening whilst catching up on "Kirstie's Handmade Christmas". I had a polystyrene base to felt onto but it was quite thin so this was a bit more challenging than usual and I had to be extra careful of my fingers. I also squeezed in a bit of time to make my own little wreath. I opted for a "less is more" approach and kept it simple. I opted to use wire rather than hot glue to attach everything so I can easily make adjustments in future years. 

Finally, Jessica and I have been pottery painitng AGAIN! I can't share her efforts but I was really pleased with my little gnome / nordic santa. I'm now praying to the kiln gods that he comes out how I'd like him to!

Beaded Snowflake Decorations

This weekend I've been creating incredibly fiddly decorations for my own tree. I love these snowflakes but I am a little concerned that they'll get a bit lost once the whole tree is up. Only time will tell I suppose. There is something incredibly satisfying in the process of working with wire and beads. It takes patience, attention to detail and a steady hand. My crafting pliers are my best friend and my final pieces twinkle and shine!

Beaded Wreath Ornament

Half term is over, which means that the Christmas crafting season is well and truly upon us. Jessica and I have topped up our Christmas supplies from Hobbycraft so it's full steam ahead. This evening's project was a wreath ornament made from wire, hundreds of seed beads and three jingly bells. This was fiddly and time consuming but definitely worth it. 

What Came First?

What came first, the chicken or the egg? Well, we weren't aiming for a chicken but nevertheless, in our case the egg definitely came before the bird, and it was polystyrene egg! Jessica made this little bird from the polystyrene egg, which she painted before giving it wings, a tail, eyes and a beak. I was left to create the feet from thick, purple wire. You could attach a hook to the top of these if you wanted to hang them up or paint extra details like a red breast but we opted for super simple...

Dragonflies Galore

It was back to preschool for Jessica yesterday where we discovered that she has moved into the newly opened Dragonfly room. This was such exciting news that we have spent rather a lot of today making and playing with dragonflies in various forms. Five of these went with her to nursery this afternoon and did not return with her but will proudly adorn the classroom from now on. Jessica was very much involved in making all of these although she was happy to leave the fiddly bits to me. She often insists that she can do these things herself but today was content to accept that the wire work was probably a step too far!

Seed beads and beading wire...

Wooden beads, tiny bells and craft wire... I attached string to hold it up and it makes a really delightful jingly noise as it flies!

Pipe cleaner, beads, straws, paper, paint and washi tape...

Lollipop stick, washi tape, coloured film and sharpies...

A stick, PVC tape, contact paper, card and glitter... The picture's not great but the wings are translucent with patches of glitter. This one flew around the garden for about an hour this morning!

Bugle beads rather than seed beads for the body...

Hama beads instead of seed beads... Much easier for Jess to do herself.

Hanging Wire Stars

Just a few more handmade decorations for my tree. These ones are quite rustic and take a lot of wire but I like how they look on the tree…

  

  

Scilly Crafts

We’ve just returned home from our first family holiday on the Isles of Scilly. It was a wonderful week in a beautiful place. There are examples of craftsmanship and entrepreneurship dotted across the islands with galleries and little stalls with honesty boxes cropping up regularly along roads and footpaths. Unfortunately I only decided to do this blog post late on in the holiday so I can’t share everything we came across but here is a selection from St Marys and Tresco…

The wall of the primary school on Tresco is a very effective mosaic including plenty of shells. The second photograph is of a stall set up just outside the entrance displaying crafts by the children for sale.

Back at the quay there was a shell trail set up. It’s a lovely way to raise money for charity and local organisations. There is a lot of work that has gone into this.

On St Marys, my favourite find was the Carn Friars Farm Shop that featured pyrography gifts, homemade jams and chutneys and the best apple juice I have ever tasted. Delicious!

  

This stall was offering rather older craftmanship…

  

Finally, we stopped off at Kaffeehaus, a German cafe, on our last day for a couple of slices of their legendary apple strudel and we came across these beautiful beaded flowers in vases alongside real flowers. I’ll definitely try to make some of these in the future.

  

Happy Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s day has given me the perfect excuse to make a simple card using wire and stitching techniques. I originally tried to make the whole thing from scraps of wire but it was too difficult to make the structure rigid. Plan B was to stitch the heart onto card instead. It was much easier and possibly even more effective than Plan A!

Beaded Champagne Bottle

I have made my first beaded creation on wire this evening. It’s an easy piece to make using 117 beads (115 in the pattern but I had to add a couple extra because my green ones are slightly too small). As with all crafting endeavours, I’m sure that I will improve with practice and hopefully future edges will be perfectly aligned but this is not a bad first attempt.

Here it is alongside the pattern used…

The champagne bottle design comes from one of my Christmas presents, which was selected from my amazon wish list. I can’t imagine that I will use any of the very simple designs from this book but some of the more complicated ones are beautiful. Click on the image to link to amazon and read some reviews or purchase the book for yourself.

Paper Patchwork Card

As England headed out of Euro 2012 and our flat slowly flooded from the bathroom I have sat and created a paper patchwork card this evening. This leaving card is for the other Maths teacher who is leaving Woodford this year. We’re going to be a very different Maths department next year and I wish her all the very best for the new challenges she will face.

Wire cards

For Christmas a few years ago I was given a very nifty wire-writer, peg board and set of wires from Lakeland. I’ve had a look on the website and they don’t seem to stock them anymore but I’ve found them on another craft website:

Wire writer toolkit

These are a few of the cards I’ve made using the kit. I also made 100 wine glass charms with it for my wedding guests. It’s a brilliant little kit that makes manipulation of wire very easy.