Piglets and Chickens

It's the start of the Birthdays for 2012 and thus far they are off to a good start.

A friend just loves pigs, so for her it was a batch of little piggy vanilla cup cakes

I pipped the pink icing on. The snout and ears are made from marshmallows that have been cut in half. With the ears being pinched into a triangular shape. Silver balls for the eyes and using a tooth pick dipped in food colouring paste to get the two little nostrils.

Next up was my man's birthday (which is today actually).

If you have watched "Despicable Me", then you may be familiar with the finger puppet book called Three Little Kittens and the new one that Gru makes. If not, here are two video snippets to fill you in: Three Little Kittens and then Gru's Unicorn Book (not my videos, I just found them on U-Tube).

You can apparently buy the Three Little Kitens Book, but the reviews got me thinking about making my own version. 

I modified the story line a bit...and made a story puppet book card. It has two little pink piggies and three little chickens.

Why, you ask? Well because they have a special meaning for us ;)



I just love the little chickens!

The puppets fingers were machine sewn along the edge and the bottoms were turned in and hand stitched. A pair of cotton gloves could be used I guess, just snip the required number of fingers off.

Then taking a rectangle of cardboard, I cut out two/ three circles using a medium sized cotton reel for the size (something a bit wider than the fattest finger). Then using a glue gun, glue the outer edges of the finger holes to the back of the circles. The piggies and chickens were made with little pompoms, bits of felt, a few beads and feathers and some goggley eyes. The beaks where diamond shaped felt bits, folded and stitched along the folded edge. The beads were also sewn onto the pompoms for the piggies nostrils. Everything else was glued in place.

The cardboard was then glued onto the book. Unlike the book in the movie, mine don't go through the pages, they just peer over the top.

**Please note these puppets would not be suitable for little kiddies due to the possible choking hazard of the little pieces** 

Next up, I made some chocolate cupcakes (with a little twist...I put a chunk of chocolate and a dollop of caramel treat inside each one before baking)

There is an assortment of toppings:

Cherry Chocolate, Chickens, Piggies, A Sheep and Chocolate Caramel Cupcakes

Little Chicken Cupcake

Little Piggy Cupcake

Sheep Cupcake

Cherry Chocolate Cupcake

Now I have to try contain myself and wait for my man to get home so I can see if the twist worked...



Christmas Treats

A long awaited and belated Greetings.

It has been a busy second half of the year, filled with mostly good things and an extra special blessing.

Not much has been happening on the crafting front, except for a last minute dash before Christmas.

There is a table cloth, that may have been rumoured many moons ago...that is finally a work in progress, but sadly will not deck the Christmas table this year...but maybe next, but at least it's no longer just a bundle of fabric...it's now piles of lots of little bits of fabric that have been stitched with "X"'s (all shall be revealed in good time..well maybe not good time, but at some time)

A successful project though that has been completed in time this year is my tins of Christmas treats.
The tins were purchased along with some Christmas napkins and then the biscuits, meringues, millionaires shortbread and Santa's buttons were baked and tucked away into the tins, complete with little "Home-made with love" tags (well 1/2 home made cards and 1/2 bought labels).

And here they are:

With that I wish you all a Blessed and Merry Christmas and all the best for 2012

At long last...

At long last here's an update of the recently completed crafty projects...

 First up is the bag I made for my 21 year old niece. Her bag for her study books is starting to wear through , so I sneakily took it's measurements when I did a repair job on it and used them to make her a new bag. Complete with a lining and an inner pocket which is even sub-divided to take a pen and it has a loop with a carabiner to attach car keys.

And...it is personalised with her name on the front and a little red cross as she is studying nursing. I only sewed the name panel on loosely in three places so that it can be removed without too much trouble if my niece doesn't fancy having her name for all to see :)

Then (a project which was mentioned ages ago in my blog) I finally finished the long awaited baby blankie for my nephew.

It is so soft and snugly that I want to keep it for myself.

It was quite a challenge for me, never having worked with binding and silky/satiny binding in particular...so apart from it being a bit wonky, I am pretty pleased with how it turned out.

It has a quilted patch on the front. It's a pity the print didn't have frogies instead of turtles as that would have made it perfect... "Frogs and snails and puppy dogs tails, that's what little boys are made of".

And that's the back :)

Anyway now it has been washed and dried and packed into my suitcase as we are off on holiday to go visit our family back home....Yippeeeeee!