Crafting by not a very crafty mum - Christmas vests

A recurrent problem parents with older children have is, "Oh no, school want them to come in costume tomorrow!"

I thought we would be spared this for a few years, but no...Little E's nursery were having a Christmas party and the children were allowed to come in their favourite costume. Nursery kept reassuring us that they could dress Little E up if we didn't have anything...

Isn't it amazing, that you want to be laid back about these things, but that little voice inside your head starts saying, "What kind if mother are you? Your child doesn't even have a Christmas outfit for nursery!"

I did have some outfits for Little E, but they were for Christmas Day and there was a good chance anything he would wear at nursery would be filthy by the end of the day.

There are so many places to buy cute, cheap, festive outfits now, but I can't help feeling it is a waste of money for something that is probably going to be worn once.

So...I did this last minute.

I'd seen the phrase on serveral Christmas outfits for kids and stole it for my purposes!

Nursery were really lovely about the top. They had a face painter who then decorated him like a little Christmas pudding! I got lots of other positive comments from friends, which is always nice for me.

I think it goes to show how infrequently we make our own things now, which is a shame. I wonder, is it due to embarrassment? Are we worried our kids will be teased for their parents' shabby efforts? Luckily, Little E is too young to worry about this yet, but we shall certainly see what the future brings.

Until then, I will enjoy making him these simple things. I look back at my childhood and I did so much drawing and painting, until I hit my exams and I just didn't feel I had time for it anymore. I'm glad I can reclaim some of this back.

So...I made another one!

My learning points:

1) Place the design as high as possible. The writing on the Christmas pudding one tends to disappear under the waistband.

2) Fabric pens are definitely so much easier than the paint and gel pens I have used before, but still very tricky to write anything.

3) I tried to use an embroidery ring to tighten the fabric across and make it easier to draw, but I found pulling the vest over a cereal box easier.

I used these pens: 

And have a few more ideas for other vests. Needs to be something very simple that I can actually draw!

Crafting by not a very crafty mum - Christmas fun - scribbly snowflakes

At last! We are scribbling! This is something Little E has only just started doing at 14 months and I was so excited that I wanted to keep everything.

I see a lot of posts about creating memorable keepsakes with your little one. I think this is a bit odd. Isn't the best keepsake the spontaneous one that comes out of your little ones own imagination?

Also, have you tried? Most of the memorable keepsakes seem to involve perfect foot or handprints. These are then artfully decorated to become animals, etc, etc.

This will NEVER work with a one year old!

However, this does mean I am slowly collecting reams and reams of cute, but not very interesting scribbles.

I am now aware, I can't keep everything! However, I want to enjoy them for a while before I bin..I mean recycle them!

I like cutting out snowflakes to put up in our windows. I started doing it a few years ago, as I used to make tons as a kid and wanted to capture the magic again.

When I first started doing this, I just used to fold the paper up, cut out some bits and hang it up. Big E then said, "You know that snowflakes usually have radial 6-fold symmetry?" Er...no.

Big E then showed me how to fold my paper to create said symmetry and, I must admit, they started looking a lot more like snowflakes! Why had no one taught me this before?

So, I've been taking Little E's scribbles and turning them unto snowflakes for the windows. It's lovely to display them in a slightly different way over Christmas.

Here is what I do...

Step 1 - scribble!

Step 2- cut out a circle

Step 3 - fold in half

Step 4 - fold into sixths

Step 5 - cut your design

Step 6 - open!

Step 7 - display proudly!