Easter crafting: shaving foam marbled paper and Easter hats with Marigold.

We've been busy crafting this past week ready for Easter.

Spring is a great time of year to craft, the sun is out and it's time for lots of bright colours too!

On a day where Alex had gone to a friend's house to play after school I took it as a good opportunity to do some crafting with Sam one-to-one. Which I will admit I've not done enough of over the years!

We collected some cards and papers, chose the colours we wanted and bought some shaving foam. (Please read the bottle when buying...we bought the gel one first time and had to head back to be able to make this project)!

How to make shaving foam marbled paper:

Things you need

• Shaving foam
• Paint (at least 3 colours)
• Thick paper or card
• Cocktail sticks/kebab skewers/fork
• Tray with foil (saves on lots of washing)
• Ruler or something else to use as a scraper

How to make it:

• Make sure you clear a space, thanks to Marigold we had plenty of sponges and cloths to wipe down the table and kitchen worktops. 
• Wear gloves if you want to...this would be advisable if you wanted to use food colouring instead of paints.

• Set up the trays, and squirt a generous amount of the shaving foam all over. 
• Choose which colours you want to marble together and dab small blobs all over. 
• Using the skewers etc, make patterns with the paint. Tip: start off with bigger gaps, when you reuse the same shaving foam over a few times you will get a 'tighter' marble affect anyway. 
• Once happy with pattern made place a piece of paper on top. Don't press too hard, but enough for the paint to take. 
• Gently peel off the paper, place on the table.
• Using the ruler scrape the excess shaving foam off, press firmly when doing this.
• Leave to dry
• Put the excess shaving foam back in the tray and mix with the skewer again, repeat until you want to stop. 

I will admit this is quite a messy make! But it is fun, and I will also admit that we aren't too precious about our table as it's on it's last legs. Again having Marigold to help with the clean up was great-as you can see our table needed it!

We actually used these papers this weekend, the boys used templates and cookie cutters to cut out spring shapes for their Easter hats. 

These were really simple to make as it was simply a piece of card for each hat, cut into 3, 2 stapled to fit their heads, and then the extra piece bridged over the top. The 'grass and box of carrots' were from Asda at a £1/e I thought these were pretty reasonable! Using my glue gun I got them to tell me where they wanted their shapes placed.  

Hope you enjoyed this, let us know if you will be crafting this Easter!

This is a collaborative post with Marigold

Posting handmade orders with Davpack

Now many of my readers will know that I have a small business, both on Etsy and Facebook.

With the Etsy shop especially I am often posting off orders across the country, as opposed to the Facebook page where it is more local orders.

My most popular items are the frames I make, mainly the baby name ones and the wedding lovebird ones. Since selling on Etsy I have been on the look out for a sturdy box to fit the frames as well as the bubble wrap layer too, most places I have found sell them in large numbers so I have always been reluctant to buy just in case I got the measurements wrong-especially with not ever having the biggest budget going.

So when I was contacted to try out some packing from Davpack I jumped at the chance.

I managed to find a box that fits the frames nicely, it is actually classed at a Brown Pizza box in the size 290 x 290 x 50 this is the perfect fit for the frames I use.

With the pizza style boxes I can now pack up  my orders much, much quicker. Before I was saving old cardboard boxes and cutting squares out to sandwich the bubble wrapped frame, and then covering with brown paper and lots of tape. So I now save a lot of time and also a lot of materials too!

I had a double layer of bubble wrap on the frame and as you can see the box still just about closed, ideally I could do with the box being about half a cm deeper so as not to be quite so snug but really that's just a personal preference for the items I sell.

I did cover the box with a cellophane bag, more to protect the frame inside from possible water damage, but if the product had been something else I would be confident in sending it with just tape along the open edges as the box itself is nice and sturdy.

If you have your own business and post off lots of orders I would definitely recommend Davpack, they have a huge range of products perfect for small and large businesses.

I now I have the confidence that my products will look more professional, which is always great when you have your own business and I am so pleased I have finally found something to fit my main product.

I received some of these boxes to review however all photos and words are my own

#QuirkyFurniture

Each home has some personality even if like us, it is mainly filled with hand-me-downs from family and friends or looks much like the show room of a certain blue and yellow furniture shop!

Most people own something quirky, whether it be furniture or an ornament, maybe you are attached to something more for the story behind it rather than actually even liking the look of it?

Now although this lives at my parent's house it is something that I would want to know about it if they were ever getting rid of it! 

I know what you are thinking, how ugly is that? What even is it?

Truth be told it was part of my year 13 art project, the topic was surrealism and I had twisted a Leonardo Da Vinci drawing on photoshop and then my teacher thought it would be a good idea to make that out of clay. 

I'd never made anything much out of clay before apart from the normal small school projects which were more flat pieces. 

It took many hours of playing around, layering up the clay, wishing and praying that all the air bubbles had gone when prepping the clay. There was a hairy moment when the whole face nearly caved in on itself...cue my teacher running over slapping on extra clay for support and wedging more newspaper in the hollow areas! 

The year 12's had named him Harold in the process, so this has stuck until this day, we were all nervous when putting the head into the kiln-one downside to clay is that if there is air trapped the whole thing could explode! 

Thankfully it survived, and I then painted it all a bronze/copper colour. 

After all the exams I was able to collect the work produced over the past 2 years, Mum came to help me as there was a lot of stuff, I nearly didn't take Harold with me, as well, at 18 i wasn't really fussed with it, but Mum persuaded me! 

I'm glad she did, nearly 10 years later it is still by my parent's fire place, every Christmas he gets decorated with a Santa hat, and my boys quite often make comments on it, or pretend to pick his nose for their amusement! 

Do you have something quirky in your house?

Something with a story behind it?

Wayfair would love to read and hear about your own #QuirkyFurniture pieces or ornaments, there must be something in your home with a story behind it, perhaps something picked up from a holiday, boot sale, or inherited piece? 

A Christmas catch up! (A little late)

OK, OK. It's January and I am posting about Christmas, I apologise, but this is the last post catching up before we get into the new year-promise!

Early December we popped along to a local farm to choose our Christmas tree, we got a slightly smaller tree than previous years and actually I am glad we did. We got a 4-5ft tree, so nice to support a local farm, and the boys loved choosing it and were very excited about decorating it when we got home-I wish I was but in all honestly I was so tired and didn't really want it up the first weekend in December! 

When we got home we let the kids have free rein decorating it, I will admit on the Monday I did re-decorate it (I know terrible!), and got my craft wooden tree out for them to decorate on the landing upstairs. 

The finished tree

I think this is actually the best tree we have decorated, I stuck to golds, whites and reds, and there are a few of my own makes on there too! This actually lasted amazingly well, we had it up until the 5th January and it was still looking very green and hadn't dropped that many needles at all. I fed it with some lemonade and water this year and I think the lemonade definitely helps (for whatever reason I don't know)!

December was crazy busy! We had James's Birthday, Sam's birthday, James went to America for a week, Sam's birthday party, and then the last manic week at school with plays, discos, Christmas parties, fundraising and more (or course this was the week James was away too)! 

Alex's play was born in the barn, unfortunately I have no photos, we were able to take them but as he was at the back and I didn't have the best view it was just impossible, I was really hoping they would take individual photos in their costumes like in previous years, but apparently they didn't this year which is disappointing. He was a bird, so was in black with a big beak, singing his heart out, the kids all did a great job. 

Sam's nativity was on the last day of term, and it was super cute, the 3 and 4 year old's did an amazing job. Sam was a shepherd, handy as Alex was at preschool too so had no worried when sorting the costume. Sam loves singing and kept smiling away at me. They had some stalls afterwards, and we got lucky on the tombola for a change! 

Alex had Christmas jumper day on the Friday too, of course we had none and of course I then felt guilty and had to make one up on the Thursday night, sometimes being crafty has it's upsides! I had loads of people saying I should make these to sell next year...I'm not so sure after how long it took me to do!

As I mentioned above, James was away for a week in December, he went out to Florida with his family, his brother lives out that way and he whole family were heading out there until after Christmas. We all had the opportunity to go but in all honestly flying, especially long haul is one of my nightmares let alone when 4 month pregnant, and as it was for the week the boys were happy to stay home. With Alex being ill that week, and then seemingly developing big anxiety over eating and going out we were all very pleased to see James walk through the door that Saturday, he was so lucky with his journey home so was home about an hour earlier than we expected. 

That week before Christmas James was mostly off, we had our scan, and sorted the last of the Christmas bits, as ever we don't have the money for buying everyone presents so we did a big bake off on the 23rd! Photos can be deceiving though, it looks like we are happy families here, but in all honestly it was a day of the boys arguing and being hard work!

However we made lots, cranberry and orange shortbread, gingerbread with lemon icing, marshmallow, and cheese and rosemary straws. These all went down extremely well, I think my favourite were definitely the shortbread....although the other makes went down nicely too!

 Christmas eve was mainly spent having a quick tidy up, wrapping the last of the gifts, seeing a couple of friends and heading out to a Christmas service at the church we got married. It went by in a flash and it was soon time for pj's, hanging stockings, and leaving mince pies etc for the big man himself, Sam remembered we had reindeer food last year and was worried we hadn't got any this year so the boys quickly stepped out the front and sprinkled some oats out. It wasn't long before he visited!

I woke at 4am, and thought I could hear the kids, they were both up in Sam's bed chatting away like 2 old women, they sort of went to sleep at 5ish, Sam ended up in with us and I didn't get back to sleep, so was a bit tired the rest of the day! James and I didn't do gifts for each other again this year, and we purposely didn't get the kids much either, a. to save money and b. they just didn't need nor want much! The kids were happy with their bits, and actually didn't get a huge amount of time to play them as we went to my parent's for lunch, we were back there the following day as my grandparents were there, the following day we went to Reading to visit my other grandparents and all of my Mum's side of the family, as James' parents were back we also popped into them on the 28th, so it was a lovely but manic few days!! I will be honest even now in January the upstairs still has some of the boy's stocking fillers left on the landing as I haven't had the energy or time to sort much out!! 

So from our home to yours, we hope you had an amazing Christmas, a lovely new year and all the best in finishing those Christmas food gifts to make a start on healthy eating again (please say that isn't just us)!

Ninja turtle party on a budget

Another pre Christmas post to catch up on!

Sam's birthday was in December and it was the day before James was due to head off to America so it was quite a quiet day, he had preschool all day too which I felt bad about but actually I think he loved being with his friends! We had presents opened on the bed before school and my mum popped over in the evening, he requested a picky tea and I'd made him a ninja turtle cake-his favourite character being Mikey!

 He seemed so grown up, he was super excited this year too, so proud to show off his bag with his badge on as he walked through his school gate. 

I felt bad but Sam's party was a little rushed in the planning, with James being away that week and little money it was hard knowing what to do and when to do it, in the end I had to do it when James was away, which wasn't ideal but it meant him having a party and not missing out!

He is mad on Ninja Turtles at the moment, in fact given half the chance I think he would sit there all day watching it! So the theme was easy, and I decided having a few of his friends here with my Mum's help would just about be manageable!

With my 2 included I think we had about 10 people, it was manic, especially the first half hour, but once everyone was there we sat them down at the table. 

I'd bought some green paper plates in Asda and cut some printables out to make some ninja turtle faces. I'd printed off ninja turtle colouring sheets too. I got the idea from this post on Mum's and Munchkins.

I'd also made a 'pin the mask on the ninja turtle' game for the children to play, with some only being 3 I think a few of them were a little scared to wear the blind fold to play!

After that we had all the ingredients prepared and ready to go to make some muffin pizzas, if you know ninja turtles you know pizzas are their favourite food!

These were really easy to do and were a big hit with the kids, the adults thought it was great to get the kids making the bulk of their lunch themselves too!

Simply cut muffins in half, spread with a little of tomato puree (or a mix of tomato puree and ketchup if preferred). 

Sprinkle on some grated cheese, along with any veggies, and hams and pop in the oven for about 10 minutes or so. 

Whilst I sorted food, we played pass the parcel-I always do a few extra layers just in case so it took up a fair amount of time ;)

After lunch and mini Mikey cup cakes we played some dancing games and gradually they left, and I collapsed for the afternoon whilst the boys played with the new toys, all in all the party was actually not too stressful and the kids all seemed to have fun which is the main thing. 

Alex's 7th birthday, Thor hammer cake

Firstly, happy new year to you all! I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and a great start tot he new year too. 

Secondly I have a couple of catch up posts to write before getting into the new year posts so here is the first!

Alex turned 7 in November, he still really wanted a party this year, so we managed to scrape some money together for a bowling party, he had a few friends from school as well as James' younger brothers and Sam. They all had a great time, and it's the first party I've ever done where all I have had to do is supply the cake and party bags...apart from the price I can see why so many people do this as there was so much less stress. 

I just didn't think I could face a party at home this year with not long getting over the morning sickness stage, so bowling was perfect, and I think that age group is a great age for it too, anything younger I think it may have been more of a challenge! 

I made a simple Smartie covered chocolate cake for the party and then a 'Thor hammer' cake for back at ours later with our families. 

This wasn't the best cake I have ever made but Alex was happy with it, so that is all that counts really! I made a chocolate sponge, but the hammer was made from rice crispie cakes, really easy if not a little messy. I let the marshmallow/rice crispie mixture cool slightly before moulding into shape. I greased my hands up with butter whilst doing this and loosely wrapped in cling film too. For the hammer handle I moulded it around a kebab skewer leaving enough to stick into the hammer head. I let this cool in the fridge for a while before icing it. 

Alex loved it, but it had a couple of crude comments from my brothers haha.  

Snowed under!

It's been a busy few weeks! 

I'm trying to get myself organised for the Christmas evening at Alex's school, I have booked a table to hopefully sell my makes...! I'm hoping it goes better than the couple I tried in the summer months!

On top of that I have had some orders coming in too and I feel like I am juggling it all and panicking I won't have enough stock made up!!

With pregnancy tiredness and the dark nights I must admit I am getting a little stressed out about it. 

It's such a busy time of year at home too, it's Alex's birthday on Sunday, mine the following Saturday James the Saturday after and then finally Sam's on the 9th of Dec. 

As always money is at a tight squeeze, normally we try and cut costs on parties and have it at home but I just couldn't face that with Alex this year, we have booked bowling for a few friends, so all I have to worry about it making a Thor hammer cake on Friday or Saturday-I've not baked in so long so hopefully I get it right!!

Anyway I better get back to the making...

Do check out some of the latest makes on facebook.

Autumn half term fun, salt dough leaf imprinting

With any school holidays I am filled with both excitement and dread.

I love the lazy mornings and not having to rush around (no one likes the time limits of the school runs do they)! BUT the arguing between the boys and trying to keep them constantly entertained is difficult and wearing at times! Sam constantly asks to watch TV, Alex comes up to me every 5 minutes saying he's bored, and asks to play on some form of technology pretty much on and off all day!

Today was one of those days! Alex sneaked his tablet in the morning so was quietly playing that in his room, cue tears when I took it off him, after breakfast they started fighting over hot wheels cars and which one was the fastest or the best...this went on for some time!!

So after my shower and a bit of a shouting match I decided it was time to do something fun, I made up a batch of salt dough and we went out to collect some leaves (short walk to clear the head ache for me also)!

The recipe I used was simply, 1 cup flour, 1 cup salt and about 1/2 to 3/4's cup of warm water.

After returning i sprinkled flour over the table, got some geometric cookie cutters out and a couple of rolling pins. I let the boys pick the leave and also a couple of acorn cups they had found.

We rolled the dough to about 1cm thick, and then laid a leaf down upon the dough and lightly rolled over the leaf-hard enough to leave an imprint but not too hard to flatten the dough (this happened a few times with my two)!

They then cut with the cookie cutter, using a straw I poked a hole in each shape made in case we want to hang them at a later stage.

We placed them on some baking paper on a baking tray.

The boys also used acorn cups for making imprints, Alex had the idea of making circle indents in his dough which Sam quickly copied, we tried rolling the acorn cups to leave a pattern but this didn't really leave a great effect.

Once all the dough had gone I popped the shapes into the oven at about 140C and cooked for about 2-2 1/2 hours turning them over half way.

They came out reasonably well, whenever I have cooked salt dough in the past it has puffed so I am glad it didn't this time!

We may draw or paint on them another day...will update if we do :)

This was a fun and cheap activity to do and they had a great time.

Tips for craft stall first timers!

So the past few weeks have been busy, not only with the end of school fundraisers (and the long list of days where the kids need to bring in bottles/raffle tickets/chocolates and tombola gifts...) but also because the end of the school year has been busy with teacher notebook orders, and I took a first step. After a year and a half of trading online, I finally did a stall (in fact two)!

So obviously I am a complete newbie at this type of selling, and with some social anxiety chucked in the mix it was always too much for me to contemplate. But I thought long and hard, and this was the next step I needed to take! I chickened out of proper craft fairs but went along to a local school fete and Sam's preschool fete, I mean I couldn't chuck myself into the deep end first time could I!?

I had quite a lot of stock made up already (internet selling is also proving more difficult than I thought it would...) and I made up a fair amount of smaller and cheaper items up for the summer stalls. 

Thankfully both my venues I knew I was inside, and with them being school fetes the tables were cheap at £10-15, so were good for a taster to starting out. 

My top newbie tips!

Before you get there

1. Target Audience

Find out who your target market will be at your event, these were at schools, so I did some lower priced items (hair clips, bookmarks, piggy wallets etc) alongside my more expensive frames and hoops). 

2. Stock
Make up enough stock, although you don't want to be overloading your table, you want there to be enough to show, excess stock can be kept hidden under the table if need be and restock should things sell.

3. Practise setting up
I don't know about you, but sometimes I can't visualise something until I am actually physically doing it, I did a mock set up which helped me see what I needed to do, what was missing, and any changes I needed. I also took a photo to help me for future reference.

4. Insurance
You should have it already, and all venues should ask for it, but if you haven't set it up now, it isn't worth the risk these days!

5. Storage
I got myself two plastic tubs as well as the crates I was using for displays to store my makes in, makes for easier travel.

6. Money
James bought me a reduced lockable cash tin/organiser in Makro, and although it's massive, it is practical. Take note of how much money you have before you head off, and make sure you have plenty of change too.

7. Card reader
This is up to you, and depends on the price of your items also, I took my iZettle along with me, sadly no one bought an expensive item at my stall, but I do know of other crafters who love them at proper craft events.

8. Remember a snack and a drink and comfy shoes if it's a long event

Once you are there

1. Time
Leave with plenty of time, I always get into a bit of a flap if I'm running behind. Most places leave you an hour to set up-it's amazing how fast this hour goes by!!

2. Set up
Deep, breath, work out your surroundings and table space (varies if you don't have your own to bring) and work out how best to set up your makes.

3. Smile
Once set up smile and look approachable. This is probably the bit I struggle most with if I am honest, I'm not rude just very shy and self conscious

4. Hand out cards and leaflets
Even if people aren't buying try and engage and hand over business cards if you can, with any purchase I made I tried to remember to add something with my details on it also. Here's a leaflet I made up

Tips and things to remember

A flat sheet is great as a table cloth.

There are many places online to get business stationary. Mine were done through Essah Aitch and I have been so pleased with my stickers, cards, tags and notes, nice to know you are helping another small business too. If you don't have money make your own leaflets on word or pic monkey.

Use shelving, crates, and boxes to add height to your table (this is one thing I need to work on in the future).

Buy a frame and print off your logo and basic info to put in it to show it all off.

If you can, get some one to help you, a). to keep you company and b). give you a helping hand if you need

Try not to get too disheartened if you don't sell much, I have learnt that school fetes people don't really spend much, but again they are a fairly cheap way to be seen too, it just depends where you are positioned too I guess.
.............................................................................................................................................
In terms of my events, the first was in a primary school and it was very busy, I had some lvoely comments about my work, but I only sold £29 worth of stuff (table was £15) if you exclude the £30 frame someone had pre-ordered off me that is. I thought the hair clips would have sold like hot cakes but sadly not!

The second was my son's preschool, much smaller footfall, £10 table and I sold £11.50, so not the greatest success, but in all honestly I didn't expect to do well there. I was a bit miffed as I had to turn down a day trip with James and the rest of his family to the Isle of Wight for it but ah well. You live and learn.

Hope these tips are of some help to someone :)

Handmade valentine's gift ideas

With Valentine's just around the corner I thought I'd show a few of my makes which would be perfect for the occasion!

Here is one of my personal favourites, hand stitched love heart on an embroidery hoop.

If you just like saying it with a card then I have three designs this year:

Love balloon.

LOVE.

Love you felt heart.

Do you celebrate Valentine's day, or do you just treat it like any other day. I know this year James is working all day and into the evening so no celebrating at all here, but as some say who needs a day to show someone you love them!

How to gain orders in small business? And a special offer on Danielle Louise Designs

That is one question I have been asking myself recently.

I set up Danielle Louise Designs almost a year ago, now I knew that it would be slow going and hard work to get seen etc, I just had no idea quite how much!

Apart from a couple of small orders I have still only sold to friends and family. A lot of the things made on my page have been for gifts for us to give-in hope that those that see it will either order that thing, or those who see the gift in it's new home will like it enough to check out my work.

It's so disheartening to see other pages do so well, so quickly, I have had a lot of feedback from networking that has been really positive, but my 'like' counter doesn't move up much compared to other pages, and I am lucky to get an order or two a month. I'm not really sure what I am doing differently.

Towards the end of last year I set up an Etsy page in hope that, that too would boost my sales a bit, but had no views for months. Etsy has been a HUGE learning curve, I have realised it is very hard to be seen, that selecting the right category probably makes a huge difference to views, keywords and SEO are something I need to learn more about! With that in mind I have recently joined a facebook page Etsy resolution which is full of hints and tips, this week it was photography.

When I look at my pages I know my photography isn't the best, not the worst, but not stand out enough, a lovely lady messaged me with lots of help for photographing my frames and yesterday I put this into practice!

I know real photographers would probably still pick problems with these but I am really pleased with them, it took some time but now I know what to do it should be easier in the future!

Now when people see my items in the Etsy search the thumbnail photos will hopefully stand out more-at least they look more professional now!

Now that I have changed these photos in the listings I am wanting to update the photos of my other listings. So I have an offer on my page 10% off the items I have listed in my facebook post, it's 1st come 1st serve as only 1 of each available.

For the full details please look here but these are the items I'd like to make so that I can photograph them better (personalised to your colour/names):

If you like my makes please do visit me on facebook or Etsy (or both!) and please share with anyone you think may like it.

If anyone has any tips on trying to make it 'bigger' and more 'successful' I'd love to hear it :)