Emergency Gift Wrap

OOoh, my arms have been hurting today after playing Tennis on the Wii yesterday, they're not used to exercise! What's embarrasing though is that my soon-to-be-8-year-old can whop me at it and I don't even let him win!

Actually, tonight I haven't had a lot of time for crafting, I'm preparing for his party which is happening tomorrow.  Eight lots of 8 year olds descending on our house for mischief and mayhem no doubt, before we take them to Pizza Express to make their own pizzas.

I'm in the middle of putting banners up and other room decs so I just broke off to do this:

It's handmade wrap using just white paper and dot stickers.  I got the idea from today's Martha Stewart blog, although on there they used florescent circles which were all of the same size.

I think my 8 year old will like this paper - although he will probably not take any notice of it and just rip it open in seconds to get at the Club Penguin books!

Anyway, its a good idea if you run out of wrapping paper, just use plain white paper and stick circle stickers all over it.

Best get back to my party decorating,

Have a great weekend,

See you tomorrow,

qwiksave

More Filofaxing and Fingerprinting

I'll be honest today I haven't had chance for much crafting because I've been clearing out all the surplus charity shop stuff I've been buying over the years  our attic room in the hope that I'll be able to use it as a craft room - yay!  At one time we used to have a lodger living in the room, now you can barely get in the door!

With the sunshine today showing  those early signs of Spring, I couldn't seem to help but get domesticated (its the only time of year I do, lol) and finally decided to make a start on clearing this room.   But Rome wasn't built in a day and despite me slaving for hours, I've only managed to clear one corner (we are talking LOTS of stuff here!)

But I couldn't not do any craft, because that was my New Year's Resolution and so far I have been keeping to it - so I snook downstairs to do a litle work on my filofax pages:

This time I stuck some fun stickers to the pages, but I may decide to ink the edges at a later date.

I love this range, but  never see them anywhere. These ones I got years ago, from Belgrade.

I also cut some scrapbooking paper out and used my Big Bite to punch the holes:

I know its not a lot, but once I get my crafting room sorted they'll be no stopping me!

qwiksave x

PS. I also found this picture in an art book in the attic, isn't it great in its simplicity? Mainly just fingerprints, rubbings and ink dots. (By Clifford Bayly).

Personalised pens

On the crafty forums of  MSE (moneysavingexpert.com) we strive to find gifts and crafts that don't cost us too much money, and obviously making our own handmade gifts is a good way of achieving this.  The crafters amongt us also like to source craft supplies that also don't cost us too much either so we are always on the look out for sales and bargains which we like to tell each other about!  (Come and join us on the 'Moneysaving Special Occassions Board' and swap some of your crafty ideas, its very friendly!)

Today's activity uses something I paid very little for, it is a 'Personalised Pen'.  I'll be honest, I had to make something very quick and easy today because we had visitors.
In our local cheap shop called 'The Depot' they had in the children's craft section, some  'Make your own Glitter Liquid Pens':

What you are meant to do with them is to put glitter, sequins and water (!!) into the plastic tube of the pen and close it up.  (I did actually try one of them for research purposes and it came to no surprise to me that it leaked!) I can't imagine these working in the hands of little ones, as I could see glitter and water going  everywhere!  Not such a good idea, but then for 99p for four what can you expect?  Actually, I didn't expect the biro part of them to work at all and was pleasantly surprised to find it did!  Which is why I used them for my project.  I found some decorative paper and, covered it with some very small stickers (an old range called  'Monstars,' from Paperchase), rolled the paper around the inside of the tube, put the top and bottom on and there you have it, a BIG personalised biro (they are 9" long).  You never know, it might even encourage my boys to write more and that is a BIG task too! lol.

You could also make a theme with them, valentines, easter, or match them up with notebooks, files etc.