I get by with a little help from my friends (and family!)

Often, when I am devising a new class or workshop, I need help.  Sometimes I just need something made for a photograph, other times I need samples, and most importantly, I need to test the craft out to see if it is something that non-crafters can do.

I do get people who come to my classes who want to start crafting, and we don't want to put them off by giving them something achievable do we?

So I use my friends, family, anyone who makes the mistake of visiting, as unpaid testers.

This is Hubster, doing Needlefelting for the first time.  This was a "Young Folks" class, so I thought if he can do it, they can do it.  

He managed not to stab himself too!!

(Now, if you have never stabbed yourself with a needle felting needle, don't be in a hurry to try it.  The tool is barbed, it hurts so much more on the way out than on the way in, and you usually just jab so it is out and in before you realise, and boy, does it sting..... for ages after too)

So, thankfully in this case, no blood on the felting wool.

Using a cookie cutter to protect those fingers, and to give the shape of the piece, he got to work making a duck.

Didn't he do well for a first attempt, I was rather impressed.

A couple of days later my son, Iain, came for tea  (I'm Northern, the evening meal is Tea, not Dinner as my Southern Hubster keeps insisting it is called)

And guess what?  He got a crafting job.  "Make me a dinosaur", I asked.  "No" he said.  "Then I won't have time to make your Tea", I said... so he did.

I'm thinking that this 25yr old, father-of-one is a little too pleased with his dinosaur, don't you?

He made me a fish too - Hubster made the butterfly, and I cooked Tea.  It seemed like a fair deal.

May Half Term Kid's Club

Gosh, these school holidays really come around quickly don't they?   All of a sudden I was having to plan for my half-term Kid's Club & Young Folks sessions.

It was only a week this time, so couldn't squeeze a lot in due to other commitments, but I did manage to put on these workshops.

Plate Weaving.   This is a lot of fun actually. Once the plate is threaded up, the young peeps then choose their own yarns and weave them in and out of the threads.  They end up with unique wall hanging which looks quite spectacular.

Just look how happy this wee chap is with his creation.

And these ladies too  - they were with Grandma and she wasn't sure about giving permission to put their faces out on social media, which of course is absolutely fine, so we took this arty shot instead as they really wanted to show their work off.

A "Young Folk" workshop followed, these are a little more structured as the attention span of the young people are higher at this age.   

They made bunting with Air-Dry clay, which they textured, patterned then glazed before taking them home to leave to dry out for a few days.

Can you see what this says?  I keep seeing "chocolate"!!

The last session was to make a cress pot, then sew some cress seeds to grow at home.

We wrapped the cups in yarn, round and round to cover each bit.  Then put some beads in the weight, followed by damp kitchen roll & cotton wool.  Finally we sewed the seeds.

My cress is growing really nicely on my window sill, must be ready for harvest soon.  Better boil some eggs   :)

If you are interested in Kid's Club and Young Folks sessions, keep an eye on my Facebook events where I pop them up.

Air-dry Clay name bunting

As I run workshops for young folks, I keep having to come up with new ideas so they keep coming back to take part.

Sometimes the ideas just ping into my head and sometimes I have to dig deep to find things that inspire me enough to make.

Now, this is a surprising one, especially as you might have read my previous blog about my awful attempts at pottery, but I picked up a block of Air-Dry clay and a tub of Wilton Alphabet Cookie Cutters.

Rolling out the clay to shortbread thickness, I then looked about for things to texture it with.  I am SURE I have texture plates somewhere... just cannot find them!

The first thing I used was some hessian sacking.... BIG MISTAKE, the clay was suddenly covered with tiny brown hairs that took ages to pick off.  I used bubble wrap and lace for other pieces, along with just jabbing other pieces with various tools to create a pattern.

I also wanted the clay to be painted at the same time - normally you would need the clay to dry before painting it, but then I would need to make parents buy paints to take away which seemed a bit unfair.

After a chat to some colleagues we came up with the plan of mixing acrylic paint with PVA glue which would form a kind of thick glaze which wouldn't be too wet and which shouldn't hinder the drying out stage afterwards.

And you know what?  It worked!

As for the workshop, it went really well...

"Ellie" suncatchers

Working at Hobbycraft is not a great idea when you are a big crafter.  Especially when you see a new delivery come in with lots of new goodies on it!

Which is exactly what happened when this lot arrived......  

A bunch of suncatchers, in all the letters of the alphabet. Of course, I had to buy some.

1 x H, 1 x O, 1 x P, 3 x E, 2 x L, 1 x I..... and what do they spell?  Hope and Ellie of course.  My grand-babies.

I handed Hope's letters over to her Mum, thinking they could have some fun together painting them.  I was going to do the same with Ellie's letters, but my daughter Shona came to visit that night and after a couple of glasses of wine each we decided we would paint them ourselves.

It was actually rather fun, the gel type paint gets dabbed on with a plastic spatula type tool, and pushed about, to give a pleasing see-through gel finish.

I made a bit of a mess with the purple "L" by dropping red accidentally on it, so I had to blob some more to make it look like it was done on purpose  ;)  (Shouldn't have really told you that then you would have just thought I was super artistic!!)

If you want to get some for yourself, here is the link.....

www.hobbycraft.co.uk/suncatcher

Beautiful things made by creative young people.

Last week I ran my usual school holiday activities for young people.

I do two different workshops, the younger ones are age 3-12 (ish) and last around 30-40 minutes, which is about right for concentration levels of the younger peeps.

The older sessions are from around 8-16 yr olds and last about 2 hours.  They really get to grips with an activity in these sessions and see it right through to the end.

This time on offer was..... Yarn Wrapped Wreaths.

Brooke came and made herself the most wonderful wreath.  She chose a lilac yarn with a complimenting air-force blue.  We then found some gorgeous lilac roses to match.  She looks pretty pleased with it, and rightly so!

The next session was bunting making, but using a sewing machine.  The young ladies had to first draw and cut their own pattern template, then choose the fabrics before cutting and sewing them all along the length of some cosgrain ribbon.

How beautiful are these bunting lengths?  I think there are some pretty bedrooms somewhere in Carlisle that are decorated by this gorgeous bunting.

French Knitting was the following session - do you remember French Knitting?  We used to call ours a "Knitting Nancy" when I was young  (A good while ago I can tell you!)

Just look at the concentration coming from these guys!  How lovely to see boys crafting and these two enjoy it lots as they come to most of my sessions.

Another little French Knitter, deep in thought. It's a tough decision deciding what colour yarn to have next you know.

I thought they might get as far as seeing their work pop out from the end of the knitting doll, but by the time the session was over they all had really good length tails.

Beaded Bangles came next, I thought a few more bangles might have been made but so much time was spent searching about in the bead box that productivity was low - although incredibly beautiful, with lots of patterns and pretty colour choices made.

And last, but not least, for this school holiday was Button Tree Canvasses.

First of all they painted a tree, then decorated it with loads of pretty coloured buttons.  Adding butterflies and flowers too.   Works of art they were.

Even though the ladies were presented with the same materials, the results were very different and equally impressive.

Thank you so much for coming if you did, the reason I put these sessions on is for people like you, so keep on crafting and I hope I will see you all soon!

Fun holiday activities at Hobbycraft

I try and put workshops and classes on for the young folks when they are off school.  I also try and keep the prices as low as possible, having remembered when mine were young how expensive it can be to entertain families when everything costs money!  I offer these classes at just £2.00 per person, per activity, in the hope that it keeps them busy for a wee while, it's time away from the TV and they might take the idea home and make other things.

So, on offer these holidays were juggling balls!

Now, I do realise that juggling balls usually need to be weighted, but my main concern was parents ornaments and smacking siblings on the head with them, so I went for a safer option - styrofoam balls.  This also made the balls good for bath time fun as they float and are waterproof!

The young folk ripped up bits of duck tape and covered each ball, hiding all the white bits.

Now the difficult part... . learning how to juggle!  That, I cannot teach them as I am hopeless.

I am sure they can't do too much damage with these balls, but you never know the power of a good throw when your sibling annoys you  ;)

The next session was stained glass effect jars.  Simply cleaned and washed glass jars covered with little squares of coloured tissue paper.

They seemed to like this.... or was it the gluey mess, either way, a lot of gluing and placing of square kept little hands busy for a good while.

And of course the jars are useful afterwards too, for storing bits and bobs in, or for putting a tea-light candle in and making a lovely fireside glow.

Next up was Wind Spinners.  Another fun idea of sticking things to CD's, and hanging glass beads from them so they spin in the wind and catch the sunlight.

The amount of glue-dots I had gone through at this point was unreal!  I should have shares in them  :)

Just look at those happy faces, crafting seems to make everyone happy.

Such beautiful wind spinners too, gorgeous patterns and doodles, ready to hang and spin.

The last session was cardboard tube owls.  These were fun.  Again, lots of glue-dots and cut out shapes to make feathers.  Finished off with wings and big googly eyes.

Those eyes were not glued in, honestly!

Twit Twoo.......

Thanks for coming, if you did.  The reason I keep putting these workshops on is because you all like to come, so maybe see you all next time  :)