Birthday and Other Greeting Cards with Tags!

 How about making some Greeting Cards with Tags? They are very easy and can be made from a variety of materials...

 We made them at Mencap and they loved the idea of putting a message or greeting on the Tag - a surprise for the lucky recipient when the tag is pulled out...!

 For tags we used a variety of purchased coloured tags, as well common brown luggage labels.

As you can see the "Tag Pockets" were cut out of printed paper and attached to the cards with glue on only three sides.

Ribbons and stickers completed these pretty, fun cards!

Tutorial - Lollipop Halloween Spiders and Ghosts!

  




Lollipop Halloween Spiders and Ghosts were great fun to make!

Lollipop Halloween Spider

You will need...

A lollipop on a stick

4 pipe cleaners (chenille craft stems)

2 Googly eyes (we used 7mm) 

Double sided sticky pads

 How to make... 
 
Fold each pipe cleaner in half and twist the centre once around the stick of the lollipop, making a leg on either side - eight legs in all. 

Push the legs up towards the round lolly "body" and attach a small double sided sticky pad to keep them in place and on this pad attach the googly eyes.

Lollipop Halloween Ghost

You will need... 

A lollipop on a stick

A piece of old sheeting (or you can use tissue paper) about 25 to 30cms square

Ribbon - we used black, purple orange and yellow - 3mm width

A Loom Band or small elastic band

Black felt tip pen

A plastic straw (optional)

How to make...

Place the round lollipop in the centre of the white sheeting and fix around the head with a small elastic band. 

Tie ribbons around the neck and draw a face with your black pen. 

As the lollipop sticks are short in length, we used the plastic straw as an extension! 

Our groups at Mencap loved this easy, fun craft...

Have fun at Halloween...!
 

Paper Plate Dream Catcher Tutorial - Easy and fun to make!

These Paper Plate Dream Catchers are great fun to make and easy for any age and ability...

You will need... 

A good quality paper plate -  needs to be rigid enough to keep its shape

A length of Yarn - we Used Cotton Yarn DK - 2.5m plus 2 or 3 pieces for the dangles - each about 40cms long - Also about 30cms to make a tag to hang it.

Beads with large holes - we used Pony Beads

Feathers - dyed ones available at craft shops

Colouring-in pens or paints

Punch to make holes 

Sticky Tape

How to make... 

Cut out the centre of the plate.

Punch holes around the inside hole as per photo - about 2.5cm apart - no need to measure - don't have to accurate!

Working on the "bottom" surface of the plate - colour or paint the decoration - our plates had ridges which added to the effect!

Take your long piece of yarn and secure one end with sticky tape to the inside of the plate.

Thread the yarn through the holes - back and forth - no fixed pattern - just as you like! When about two thirds through, thread some beads onto the yarn (see photo above) 

When all the holes are used up, secure the end again with sticky tape, on the inside of the plate.

Punch a hole centre top and make a loop to hang up your Dream Catcher.

Punch two or three holes along bottom edge for dangles...

Tie a bead about a third of the way down on your yarn - then thread beads onto the longer piece above the tied bead.

Thread the end of this yarn, above the beads, through the punched hole and secure with sticky tape inside the plate.

Repeat with other one or two dangles.

Tie feathers onto the ends of yarn below the beads.

Sweet Dreams!

Nicola with her Dream Catcher

Andy painted his Dream Catcher with Acrylics

 

6 New Bookmarks to Print and Colour-In...!

We enjoyed making these simple Bookmarks at Mencap this week...

If you would like to make some with your group or with your children here is a tutorial with printable templates...

what you will need...

Thin card in light colours

Colouring in pens or crayons

Laminator and Laminator pouches (optional)

Ribbon (optional)

Single punch (optional)

How to make up the bookmarks..

Print the templates onto thin card. (If you are laminating them, then you can print onto paper)

Here is the link  Bookmarks

Colour in the pictures

Cut out each bookmark

They will last a long time if you laminate them (seal in a plastic sleeve) but not essential.

Punch a single hole centre top and tie in your ribbon.

Valentine Padded Felt Hearts - Tutorial and Printable Templates

 Sewing Valentine Padded Felt hearts on a cold Winter's afternoon, with a cup of tea and donuts to follow - our Mencap group really enjoyed this project!

What you will need...

One A4 size piece of felt - for the 2 large heart shapes

Smaller pieces of felt in contrasting colours for small hearts

Buttons

Embroidery thread and needle

Ribbon (30cms or longer if you wish)

Polyester fibre filling (toy stuffing)

Pinking shears (optional)

How to make it...

Print out your patterns  

3 x Heart Template Shapes

Cut out two large hearts 

Cut out one each of the smaller size hearts (per side **)

Place the button on top of the two smaller heart shapes and sew them 

together, leaving your thread hanging down underneath.

Place this in the centre of one of the large hearts and sew together, through the three hearts and the button.

If you want - do the same with the other large heart (you will then have small hearts and buttons on both sides of your finished padded heart **) 

Place the two large heart shapes together and starting at the bottom point, stitch them together - either using blanket stitch or a simple running stitch.

When you reach centre top of your heart, slip the ends of your folded ribbon in between the two large hearts and sew through them to attach the ribbon to the heart.

Continue sewing down the other side, stopping when you have about 4cms still open. 

Don't end off - leave your thread hanging.

Stuff your heart at this point and then continue sewing until you reach the bottom point again.

If you have used a running stitch (as in the purple sample), you can trim off the edges of your heart with pinking shears (optional) 

Here are some our group made... Hope you all enjoy this 

project!

Click on these hearts for another Tutorial >>>>>>

Easter Face-Cloth Bunny and Hand-Towel Teddy to make!

Easter is coming around again soon, and so why not make a few gifts - easily made by just folding towelling...

Using a face-cloth for the Bunny and a hand-towel for the Teddy,  they will both be useful gifts, after the little choccy eggs have been  devoured...!

I have made the face-cloth Easter Bunny before...

for tutorial see here and here

I decided to make him again this year, as we now have a hand-towel Teddy to add to the fun...

The Easter Bunny has button eyes this time, but you can us googly eyes of course!

The hand-towel Teddy is easy to make and all you will need is a hand-towel, elastic bands, ribbon and buttons or googly eyes.

Here is an excellent tutorial showing how to make it - just folding....
No sewing involved!

Hand-Towel Teddy

Have fun with your groups or families, making these Easter Gifts...

 

Winter - Celebrate with a Wall Mural...!

We made our Winter Mural at Braintree Mencap, with strings of artificial ivy, red poinsettia and white tissue flowers. 

Then our table of members, coloured-in various winter-themed pictures, which we added, to give the mural some lovely points of interest...!

Wall Murals are fun to put together and there are endless themes you can develop. 

Try, as we did, the Seasons or maybe Holiday themes - Religious or National. 

Popular also are Sporting themes - Winter or Summer Sports. 

Geographical - work on a country, showing highlights of what that country is known for...

Whatever you decide - enjoy working together with your groups - young and old.

  

 

Memory Wire and Bead Bracelets

We found these Memory Wire and Bead Bracelet Kits on eBay (they come in a range of colours) - what a great afternoon we had making them up in our Craft Group at Mencap. 

We placed the beads on white poly plates to make them easy to see and to pick up and then threaded them onto the memory wire coil. The best thing is, they fit any size wrist and are just so pretty...  

You do need "jewellery tools" however to make a loop at each end of the wire as it is not possible to bend by hand (this loop stops the beads from falling off, so is essential!)

Here are a couple the girls made...

Kavita

 

 

 

Jenna

An Autumn Wall Mural at Mencap

 We put together an Autumn Wall Mural at Mencap this week - with temperatures in Essex topping 30C it still felt like Summer, but now a few days later and after some very welcome, steady rainfall, we are back to normal weather - Autumn - "a season of mists and mellow fruitfulness"

 Our centre piece (Autumn Wreath) was made using an excellent tutorial from this website In the New House 

We added the wording in the centre wreath.

 Stacy insisted on the Pink Tail - as was a girl squirrel...! And why not?? Even squirrels can have fashion tints!

A Simple Little Felt Purse - Tutorial

Here is a very simple little felt purse - we will be making these at Mencap when we start the new term in September - so more photos to follow when we see what they come up with - always delights me to see their ideas and creations!

What you will need...

Felt

Embroidery thread

Charm (optional) Can use buttons or anything else as an embellishment

Magnetic clasps (we got ours on eBay)

How to make...

Cut out  your two pattern pieces and your heart (or any other shape such as a flower or something geometrical)

Felt Purse Pattern

Attach you magnetic clasps positioned as below (instructions will be with clasps)

 Stitch your charm or button to your heart shape.

Sew your heart over the back of the magnetic clasp, on the outside of the flap as below, using blanket stitch.

Join the two purse pattern pieces - again, I used blanket stitch.

 Easy to make and useful for coins, lipstick or a spare tissue!

Here is Jenna with her felt heart purse - and wearing such a pretty floral dress - Jenna is such a pleasure to sit and do craft with - always has a big smile for everyone and tackles everything with such enthusiasm...!

 

Felt Bunnies Wall Hanging - Tutorial and Templates

 A simple little felt wall hanging - here is how to make it...

You will need...

A4 sheet of felt for background

Scraps of felt for bunnies and flowers

Buttons

Pom pom or cotton wool balls for tails 

Double-sided sticky pads to attach tails 

Embroidery thread

Wooden dowel and ribbon to hang

 How to make...

Print out the Bunnies and Flower templates 

(my flowers were cut from a die on my Big Shot, but if you want to cut by hand here is a flower template to use)

Bunnies Template

Flower Template

Take your A4 sheet of felt and turn over a hem of 2cm (width of hem depends on the thickness of your wooden dowel - we used green garden stakes trimmed to size)

Stitch across leaving ends open - either on machine or by hand

Cut out your bunnies and flowers

Stitch the bunnies onto the background, using a running stitch

Using double-sided sticky pads, stick on the bunny tails

First stitch both layers of flowers, together with the button and then stitch onto the  background felt

Stitch stems with embroidery thread

Slip the wooden dowel through the hem and tie on a ribbon for hanging

 
 Here are some we made at Mencap - enjoy making yours!

We Made Tissue Paper Flowers at Mencap for Braintree Carnival

Mencap is putting together a float, to join in with the annual Braintree Carnival, which will be held on Saturday 11 June.

Our Thursday Art and Craft group was asked to make lots of bright colourful Tissue Paper Flowers to put on the float and so we had a lovely afternoon making them.

We followed this excellent tutorial...

Tissue Paper Flower Tutorial

Our tissue paper came in A4 sheets, so using 5 sheets for each flower, we made them up as per the tutorial. 

Because we used a slightly bigger sheet of tissue paper, our flowers were larger, but it worked just as well.

Tea and Tissue Paper Flowers

Jenna with her flowers

Andy painting Union Jacks

Queen Elizabeth's 90th Birthday Wall Mural

Using the Daily Mail photos in the various magazines they published for the Queen's 90th Birthday, commemorating Her Majesty's life, we made a Wall Mural.

And then on the same theme, we completed three Pop-Up pages in Our Project Book.

If you want to make your own Pop-Ups here is the link Pop-Up Tutorial

Three Thursdays of great craft, celebrating a great occasion, by the Mencap, Braintree Art and Craft Group...

Valentine Wall Mural...! Hearts and Glitter!

We had great fun putting this Valentine Wall Mural together...

at Mencap Art and Craft group in Braintree!

As the Beatles say "All You Need is Love"...!

Happy Valentines Day!