how to make festive cake stands

Here's a fun little DIY from my daughter's recent first birthday party.  As part of her confetti themed party I wanted to have some food displayed on colourful elevated stands. I didn't want to buy something specifically for the party, so I set out to make something unique (and budget-conscious). Here's how I did it and how you can do it too...

how to make bath bombs

About this activity:

This is a fun activity to do with kids and if yours are anything like my 6 year old who wants to be a scientist, they’ll love mixing up this “potion” in the kitchen.  You’ll not only have fun making them, but you’ll also know exactly what you’re putting in the bath!  No nasties here.

What you need before you get started:

1 ½ cups bicarbonate soda (grocery store)
½ cup citric acid powder (grocery store or chemist)
Sweet almond oil (chemist)
An essential oil such as peppermint, lavender or your favourite blend
Herbal teabags (chamomile, lemon, rosehip) or dried flowers
Food colouring (optional)
Sieve
Rubber gloves (to stop the food colouring from staining fingers)
Silicone ice-cube tray with fun shapes – mine is from Ikea but you can get them elsewhere too

How to make it:
For the bath bomb base: In a large bowl sift the bicarb soda and cirtric acid to ensure no lumps. 

Let’s start customising: you can make a variety of different smelling bath bombs and the easiest way to differentiate them is by the food colouring you use.  From the bath bomb base you’ll get approximately 2-4 batches of different bath bombs, dependant on the size of your ice-cube tray moulds!

In a separate bowl add ½ cup of your bath bomb base.  To this you’re going to add any other dry ingredients you want to use such as herbal teas, pot pourri and dried flowers such as rose petals or pot pourri.  Be as creative here as you like. My son doesn’t like “floaties” in his bath, so we limited our additions to fine chamomile tea rather than flower petals which will unfurl and increase once added to warm bath water.

In a separate small mixing bowl or measuring cup add ½ teaspoon of almond oil, a few drops of your desired food colouring (if you only have a couple of colours you can consider letting the kids mix the colours to make a third!) and a few drops of your chosen essential oil.  Mix them well so that they bond.  Now you’re going to add your wet ingredients to your dry ones and mix them quickly so that the bicarb and citric acid don’t fix too much.  You want to save some of that fizz for the bath!

I had to help my kiddo with the mixing part to make sure that the small amount of wet ingredients were thoroughly combined with the dry ingredients so that the bath bombs set properly.  Otherwise you’re going to end up with crumbly bath bombs that aren’t solid.

Once you’ve mixed it thoroughly, you’re going to start filling your moulds.  The trick here is to compact them down into the mould with the back of a teaspoon as you go and when you think you’ve reached the top use your fingers to press the mixture down into the moulds even more.  You’ll get quite a bit in each shaped hole. 

Tip: if they’re not squished down properly, they’ll come out in pieces rather than a solid shape.

Depending on the weather and humidity in the air your bath bombs will take 24-48 hours to thoroughly dry.  To get them out, you just flip your ice-cube tray upside down and gently push each bath bomb out of its hole onto a paper towel.

The bath bomb base (of bicarb and citric acid) can be stored in an airtight container if you find that you only use half a batch at a time – like we do.  Then you’ve got it sitting there ready for the next batch.

I hope you enjoy making your own bath bombs in different colours, shapes and scents just as much as you'll enjoy using them.

Original recipe from Kidspot

tea towel cushion tutorial

What you need:

- thrifted tea towel (dish drying linen cloth)

- zip

- cushion insert (size 14 or 16 depending on tea towel size)

- scissors

- sewing pins

- cotton thread in similar colour to your tea towel

- sewing machine

How to do it:

I'm not a big measurer myself, so for this purpose I simply folded the tea towel in half (so the top edge is lined up with the bottom edge) to work out where the half way point was.  But you can be more precise and measure the length of the tea towel and divide it by two to get the length of where to cut your tea towel in half.  Yes, I said CUT!

Now that you have two pieces, you essentially have a front and back panel for your cushion.  The size of these two panels is how you will determine the size of your cushion insert.  I suggest you take your tea towel to the shop with you to figure out which insert size will best suit your particular tea towel (remembering to fold your tea towel in half if it hasn't been cut yet or using one of your panels to measure the size).  TIP: You want it to be snug, not loose.

I didn't have a zip in my zipper stash which was long enough, but I did have one that was red and matched the main colour of the tea towel, so I decided to use it.  I suggest using a zip which is at least the width of your tea towel and no shorter than two thirds of the width.  It needs to be wide enough so that you can insert the cushion insert when you're done.  So just keep that in mind when selecting the length of your zip.

Take your "front" tea towel panel and lay it with the print/pattern facing up.  Now take your zip and lay it facing down (with the zipper pull facing towards the print) then align the bottom edge with that of the tea towel making sure that it's centered across the width of the tea towel's bottom edge.  Now take some sewing pins and pin the zip and tea towel together making sure that your pins are all facing with the pin head away from the direction which you'll be sewing so that it's easy to pull them out as you go (you don't want to be trying to pull the pins out against the foot of the sewing machine).

Then making sure you have the zipper foot attachment on your sewing machine, sew about 1/2cm from the edge of the zip and tea towel using the edge as a guide to sew in a straight line and pulling out each pin as you reach it.

You should end up with something that looks like this (it's difficult to tell, but there is a line of red stitches along the bottom of the zip)...

Now it's time to sew the other side of the zip onto the "back" panel of the tea towel.  Gulp.  Don't sweat it if you've never sewed a zip onto anything.  I promise to make this as painless as possible.

Lay your back tea towel panel with the print facing up, as you did with the front panel earlier.  Now, take the front panel with the zip sewed onto the bottom edge, line it up (print side down) with the width of the back panel of tea towel.  The idea is that you use the edges of both panels to line up the placement of where you need to pin your zip onto the back panel.  Confusing?  Take a peek at the images below if you're like me and need a visual aid.  

Now just stitch along the bottom edge of the back panel and zip as you did with the front panel.

When you're done and you flip your panels back out, you should see a nice, neat centered zip like this...

Now that you've inspected your zipper, sandwich your panels back together (print facing in), but before you do, unzip your zip almost all the way to the end - this will make it possible for you to turn your finished cushion cover the right way.  If you accidentally forget this step, you'll have no way of turning your cushion cover! 

Now comes the fun part.  Starting with one end of the sewn zipper, you're going to start pinning your front and back panels together along all of those loose edges.  

Start at one end of the zip (HERE'S THE TRICKY PART) and with the metal teeth of the zip facing out and visible against the raw edge, pin the zip right at the part where you're going to sew (near the small metal stopper where the zip can't zip-up or unzip any further).  You don't want there to be a finger-sized gap between where the zip ends and the fabric of the cushion starts, so get in nice and close when pinning either end of your zip.

Once you've pinned both zip ends, you can pin all of the loose edges together making sure that you're keeping the front and back panels aligned as much as possible AND making sure you're pinning in one direction with the pins pointing sharp end towards the direction where the foot of your machine will be sewing.

Before you get all excited and start stitching, make sure you've removed your zipper foot and attached your regular foot back onto your sewing machine.  If you haven't, you're certainly going to notice how difficult it is to sew the fabric with a zipper foot attachment.  I've made this mistake before!

Ok, now go.  Position the needle of your sewing machine at the left edge of the end of the zipper and on both panels and zipper edge.  You're going to stitch a line straight across the zip until you reach the stitch line of where the zip is attached to the tea towel panels.  Once you reach this line, lift your sewing foot and spin your fabric around so that the foot is facing along the edge which you're going to stitch along.  Essentially you're going to stitch an upside down 'L' to ensure there is no gap between the teeth of your zip and the part where the fabric sides of your zip end.

Stitch along the outside of your panels and when you get to the other end of the zip, lift the foot and turn your fabric around so that you can finish in the same method as you started - by sewing a line along the end of the zip near the metal stopper.

When you're done stitching, you need to snip any loose thread ends and then...

CLIP - clip each corner on an angle so that when it's turned, the edges which you've stitched sit flat on the inside

TURN - turn your cushion cover inside out... or right way out! 

PRESS - give your cushion cover a nice steamy iron to get it looking nice and crisp

STUFF - insert your cushion insert into your newly created tea towel cushion

FLUFF - give your new cushion a nice fluffing to plump it up and get it into shape

and lastly... the most important step of all...

ADMIRE!

Stuck?  I'm happy to help.  Just drop me an email and I'll do my best to explain any steps in greater detail.

Happy vintage tea towel hunting lovelies!

canvas shoe makeover tutorial

Hello lovelies

Have you been enjoying your weekend?  Have you made anything?  I've been making lots of things.  Lots of things which are not for sale.  It makes me happy to have time to make things for myself and my loved ones.  I still haven't booked any markets for this year and you know what... I'm not fussed at all.  There's no hurry for me to compelled to do so either.  It feels great.

I've been engaging in some back to school shopping this past week as my 5 year old starts school this year.  While out shopping last week I picked up some plain white canvas shoes at Kmart for $3.  I couldn't go past them.  Then I had an idea... let's snaz them up a little.  They are for my son after all and he does like lots of character in the things he wears.

They turned out so well, that I thought I'd share this tutorial with you in case you feel the urge to transform some plain canvas shoes in works of art for your (or your kids) feet.

What you need:

• plain white canvas shoes
• Faber-Castell Big Brush artist pens (they're colour markers with pigment ink which means they are water proof once they dry)
• pencil with eraser end
• Sketches or rough design for your shoes

Let's get started:

My son is into the grungy kind of design... lots of skulls, splats, stars and that kind of thing.  So I started out by taking a pencil and roughly sketching some designs lightly on each shoe.  Using a pencil means that you can fiddle around until you are happy with the design, rubbing out any parts which you're not happy with. 

Once you've finished this part, take a black Pitt Artist pen and go over all of your pencilled-in sketches.  Make sure you use nice even lines so that the design looks neat.  I went over each outline a few times to ensure I had nice thick black coverage.

Be careful when you are using the Pitt Artist Pens as they can smudge or transfer onto your hand while they are dry. They are a unique ink formula which means they can be blended when they are wet and a permanent once dry.  Once you have all of your outlines in place, let the ink thoroughly dry.  If you start using colours before the black ink dries, it will bleed into the coloured areas (like you can see in some parts of my finished shoes).

Using as many colours as you like (I had the 24-pack of Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pens so I had fun using many different colours), start adding colour to your designs.  But also make sure to let your colours dry especially if adding a few different colours into one design - remember they bleed into each other (see the blue green and yellow rings in the below photo for example of what I mean)!

I chose to leave the area in between the pictures white, but you could colour in between in grey, black or your child's favourite colour.  It's up to you!

If you're stuck, here are some design ideas to get you started:

• trees, sun, grass, house, sky
• graffiti
• birds
• monster face including razor sharp teeth and crazy eyes
• polka dots
• cupcakes
• bows
• skulls and cross-bones
• stars
• cars

And voila... you have some funky one of a kind shoes which look like they cost a lot more than $3!  My son LOVES his new shoes and wants to wear them to child care.  Had to let him down gently and tell him that they're only for "going out".  I know that if they go anywhere near child care they will get trashed within a day.

So what do you think?  Will you try some yourself?  They're fun, cheap and easy to do.  If you do, I'd love to see them (send me a link)!

P.S. the canvas shoes are in the current (Australian) Kmart catalogue which is on sale until 12 January... so hurry into your local Kmart store and pick up a pair quick-sticks!

tutorial: snowflake garland

In my Creative Space this week...

I've been saving up all of my opened security envelopes - you know, the ones with the great patterns printed on the inside to make them more difficult to spy through - knowing that one day I would come up with a use for them.

I've covered sketch books in them and used them to make designs on cards... but the other day, an idea came to me which I had to try out.  The varying patterns on the envelopes make a great Christmas garland of snowflakes.

I thought some of you would like to try this at home, so I've written a tutorial on how to make this simple yet effective snowflake garland.

Snowflake Garland Tutorial

1. Round up some security envelopes.  It works best if you have a few different patterns otherwise your snowflakes won't stand out against each other.

2. Using a circle template, trace and cut out as many circles in various sizes as you'd like for your garland.  Don't worry if you don't have a circle template at home.  Just use anything circular you can find around the house to trace around: hairspray can, drinking glasses, bowls, food tins, formula lids... you get the idea! 

You can also use square pieces to mix it up a little and to give your garland some varying shapes and designs.

3. Once you have your circles, you need to fold each one in half, over and over as many times as you can without it getting too bulky.  You need to be able to cut through them with scissors without too much hassle.

4. Now the fun begins. Get your sharp pair of scissors and start cutting small shapes into the folded edges.  You can basically use any edge of your folded shapes to cut into.  You can also use a hole-punch to punch out areas in the middle of your surface that you can't get into with your scissors.  Try cutting triangles, half-circles, half-hearts and squares.  If you cut the tip of your folded triangle off you will get a hole in the middle of your snowflake.

5. When you're satisfied that you've cut enough cheese-holes out of your folded piece, set down your scissors and carefully unfold the snowflake making sure to remove any bits of cuttings still attached to your main piece.

6. When you have made enough snowflakes, it's time to get the creases flattened out.  The best way to do this is to spray each snowflake with a little water from a spray bottle before carefully ironing both sides.  You'll find this also stiffens up the paper a little.  Make sure you spray each snowflake with water individually prior to ironing otherwise you'll find that the snowflakes waiting to be ironed will have curled up from the water which will make it harder to get them flat to iron.

7. Snowflakes ironed? Now it's time to string them together.  Using white cotton thread in your sewing machine and a mid-size stitch length, pull out a decent lenght of cotton from the machine (top and bottom) so that you have something to string them up with when you're done.  Insert your first snowflake into the foot of your machine and making sure to stitch through the centre of the snowflake otherwise you'll have a lopsided garland that doesn't look quite right.

In between each snowflake, let the machine run at least a dozen stitches to space the snowflakes out.  You don't want them too close to each other or they will not hang or look right.

8. When you're done, you can hang your new upcycled Christmas decoration on the wall using blu tack or sticky tape - depending on your walls.  You can hang a few strings vertically to create a feature area or string them up like you would bunting.  It's up to you.

I hope you this inspires you to make your own garland and if you do, drop me a comment or email me pics of your finished garland.  I'd love to see what different snowflakes you come up with.

For lots more creative peeps and inspiration check out this great place

owl cushion: tutorial

***Please note that I've started a Flickr Group for you to upload photos of your finished owl cushions using my tutorial.  Click here to check out the photos uploaded by others and to share yours too!***

Firstly, I want to thank everyone who entered my owl cushion giveaway as part of the Sew, Mama, Sew giveaway day. I feel overwhelmed by the 265 comments which I received and have had so much fun reading all of your comments on what you'd like to see more of on The Craft Revival blog.  

Being the spreadsheet enthusiast I am (yes, a little nerdy, I know) I will be tallying up all comments and will post the results within the next couple of days. But from reading the comments over the past few days, I am hearing a resounding request for more tutorials.  You must all think that I'm much more technically skilled than I am!  

Well to be honest with you, I only really and truly started sewing in January of this year.  My only hint of formal training was back in high school when I took 'Home Economics' for a year and we learned how to sew boxer shorts and a vest.  That was some 14 years ago.


So it is fair to say that I am self-taught and owe many of my skills to a simple process of trial and error and of course picking up tips from other crafty bloggers who are generous enough to share their creativity, tips and projects.  So, at your request I am going to share tutorials with you.  It is only fair that I share my own mistakes, hints and tips with you crafting enthusiasts so that you can learn how to and how not to make things. 

I have been working on a couple of tutorials for the past couple of days which I will share with you shortly.  But first I must announce the winner of the owl cushion giveaway.

Thanks to the random number generator, lucky commenter #2, Kat, has won herself my cute owl cushion, which is great because she mentioned in her comment that it's her birthday today!  Happy birthday Kat!! 

But my dear Kat, you didn't leave any details for me to contact you, so can you please get in contact with me before the end of the weekend?  Mr Owl is ready to take flight right on over to your place!

Now, secondly - to all of you who entered but did not win, I'm hoping you will be just as happy with the runner up prize.  A down-loadable tutorial on how to make your very own owl cushion!   What do you think about that!?

So here's the link to the owl cushion tutorial complete with printable instructions and template pieces.  If you do happen make one (or more) using my tutorial, I'd love for you to share the photos with me.  They can be emailed to me at: magdalena[at]thecraftrevival[dot]com[dot]au.  If I receive a few, I will post them on my blog to share your handiwork with others.  How exciting! Share the love I say.  

Enjoy lovelies.  Oh, and stay tuned for the next tutorial on refashioning an embroidered vintage linen tablecloth (which I found in a recent trash and treasure hunt) into a cushion.

stamped tea towel tutorial

Ok, so it's time for me to pony-up with the goods.  The tute-goods that is.  I've been promising that I would share how I made my tea towels and now the time has come where I can no longer hold out.  So here goes... my first tutorial.  And on one of my fave subjects too... tea towels!

Stamped Tea Towel Tutorial
Here's what you need before you get started:

1. household sponges 
You can pick up a cheap 5 pack at Coles for a couple of dollars.  Just use the cheapo brand, nothing fancy needed here.  You're going to use the sponge as a stamp pad.

2. rectangular takeaway container lid
I'm sure you'll have some of these laying around from that take-out dinner you had a few nights ago.  If you don't have any used an old plate or something of similar non-porous quality. This will be used as a base for your sponge (so the colour doesn't go everywhere)

3. setasilk fabric paint 
you can purchase these in a range of colours at your local Spotlight store.  They can be found in the paint section for around $7 per colour.  This is going to act as your "stamp ink".

4. foam stamps 
The best stamps to use for this project are foam stamps because they are more pliable and respond better to filling porous fabric.  You can use an alphabet set or shapes stamps or both to create your masterpiece.  Your local craft store (try Lincraft) should have a range of foam stamps between $5 - $25.

5. tea towel blanks
You'll want to find yourself 100% linen blanks.  Linen is more resistant to continuous washing, drying and general use.  You can still use the cotton tea towel blanks, but they won't last as long and I personally haven't tested this method on cotton.  You can go scouring for some on the internet, or go direct to where I bought mine - Linen Line Australia (email them for a quote).

Method
Prep: Ensure you have washed, dried and ironed your tea towel blanks first.  This will give you an easier surface to work with.    Then prepare a clean and flat area to work on. 

• For each different colour you want to stamp onto your tea towels you will need a separate sponge for your "ink pad".  Hence the reason purchasing a 5-pack of sponges is not only more economical, it's also handy to have a few on standby.  Take one of your sponges and place it on the lid of a rectangular take away container lid so that the sponge sits within the raised edges of the lid (helps to catch any overflow of ink). 

• Pick which colour you're going to work with first, then take the fabric dye and apply it to the sponge working from one end of the sponge to the other until the sponge contains enough dye to successfully ink a stamp.  Remember that less is more and you can always add more if needed but it's a little trickier to take away excess!

• What works really well for me is having a paper napkin ready to test my inked stamps onto before I attempt stamping directly onto the tea towel.

• Now onto the creative part.  Work out what design you want to stamp onto your first tea towel.  Whether you're using letters, pictures or patterned stamps, foam stamps are the best as they pick up the fabric ink well and transfer onto the tea towels with ease.  Rubber mounted stamps just don't work as well especially if they have fine detail in the image.

• do a dry run with an un-inked stamp if you're going to make a border with a stamp so that you get an idea of how many times you need to stamp a repeated image to make up one side of the border.  That way you avoid getting to the end of one edge and realising you are going to lose half of your image/pattern or have a gap left where there's not enough room to stamp another.

• Ink your first stamp and make sure you test it on your paper napkin or a scrap piece of light coloured fabric first to see if the colour strength is right.  

• Then away you go. Be as creative as you like with your designs and don't be afraid of minor imperfections.  It all adds to the finished product.

• Once you have finished stamping your masterpiece, allow it to thoroughly dry before you stick a hot iron onto it.  Make sure you follow the instructions on the fabric dye you're using to correctly heat set it and don't keep the iron in one spot for too long otherwise you could get a nasty light-brown burn mark on your tea towel.

• Once heat set, pop your tea towels back in the washing machine for a good old fashioned wash.  Once dry, iron each tea towel again to give it that crisp clean look.  And voila, you have your very own customised tea towels which make great gifts for housewarmings or for that special friend, who no doubt will appreciate their very own kitchen masterpiece.

If any of you make stamped tea towels using my super easy tute, I'd love for you to share some photos!