DIY Hand Made Hen Do

This post will give you some ideas about how to use craft to make a lovely, beautiful and meaningful hen do.

This weekend it was a very good friend of mine Nadine's Hen do and I am one of the best ladies so I was very involved in organising and preparing for the event. Over the 10 years Nadine and I have been friends she has made me so many beautiful things (she is an amazing designer and maker) that I felt this was a great opportunity to show my appreciation and help to make her a beautiful day. I am so much looking forward to helping her make her DIY wedding this summer.

What we made in preparation for the Hen Do:

• Tissue Paper Pompoms in Nadine's favourite colours
• Paper Garlands in Nadine's favourite colours to match pompoms
• Cake Flags to match the garlands but also we printed on them N+T (for Nadine and Toby)
• Personalised Paper Cups: we rubber stamped N+T onto all the white paper cups 
• Her Favourite Food and dishes we knew she wanted to try (we looked at her pinterest boards for inspiration)
• Lavender Cocktails (using home made lavender syrup) and lavender biscuits (she loves lavender)

What we crafted during the Hen Do:

• Personalised Wrapping Paper: Each hen made personalised wrapping paper using rubber stamps. We each wrote a sentiment about love on a card and then used the sentiments as gifts between each layer to play pass the parcel! And there was a present in the middle!

What we gave as a special gift to Nadine:

• A Bag full of Love: We decided we wanted to give Nadine a special gift from all of us rather than lots of little gifts she may not need. We wanted to give her something that would be a real treat just for her (not for the house - Nadine and Toby are in the middle of a massive house restore so she is constantly thinking house stuff!). We decided on a handbag by one of her favourite bag designers Ally Capellino. We each wrote her a card and filled the bag with cards for her to read later and tiny little gifts of seeds (because she loves gardening and as as symbol of growth and new).

DIY Neon Pasta Necklace for You (not your kid!)

Last week my daughter Elfie made her first pasta necklace and I made a matching one too and we both proudly wore them for two days! It was so much fun - Elfie loved that we had matching necklaces especially when we wore them with our party dresses to go round for tea at her friend's house (Elfie refers to tea at friend's house as a TEA PARTY).

My friend Hannah from the blog Copper + Wood suggested that we dip our pasta pieces into neon pink, which I thought was a brilliant idea. However, it was a brilliant idea for me not Elfie as she would try to eat it!

So here is my first attempt to make a corral (my favourite colour) neon pasta necklace.

What you need to make a Neon Pasta Necklace:

• Pasta pieces that can be strung  (giant macaroni is good)
• Elastic or some other strong material for stringing
• Neon acrylic paint
• A cup to mix the paint in and a brush/ stick to mix it with water
• Kebab stick to dry the pasta on

How to Make a Neon Pasta Necklace:

1. Mix your paint with a little water to make it a bit thinner
2. Dip your pasta shapes into the paint
3. Put your painted pasta shapes on a long kebab stick to dry
4. Once dry string onto elastic or yarn etc (if not elastic you will need to make sure it is long enough to go over your head or can be easily un-tied)
5. Tie know
6. Wear it!

7 Brilliant Finds in T.K.MAXX

I had to pop in to my local shopping Centre in Lewisham (South East London) on Thursday to buy some art materials and as I was child free couldn't resist a quick visit to T.K.MAXX. I ended up leaving with 7 brilliant buys and I haven't stopped telling my friends about how pleased I am with them so I thought I'd share here too!

My 7 Brilliant finds were:

1. A beautiful and simple Le Creuset casserole dish as a birthday present for a friend for £10 (normally £24)
2. A gorgeous and good quality little day dress for Elfie (the yellow and navy stipy one) for £7.99
3. A simple but stylish navy thick cotton t-shirt for Nick for £12.99
4. An elegant denim and chiffon shirt for me for £16.99 
5. A tub of letter and number cookie cutters for £3.99
6. A large tub of edible confetti sprinkles for £2.49 (which I have been looking for everywhere since our visit to New York)
7. A large tub of mini multi coloured edible balls for cake decoration for £2.49

DIY Toddler Birthday Present: Craft Kit in a Tin

This tutorial will give you tips about how to make a Toddler Craft Tin as a birthday present or simply for your child.

When possible I like to make gifts for people's birthdays but sometimes I do see things I really want to buy as gifts so often I try to do a bit of both. More often than not the making element is just making a quick card but that is much better than nothing handmade!

It was Elfie's good friend Estelle's 2nd birthday last weekend and I'd already bought her a Moomin cup and drawing book but at the last minute I really wanted to make her something little too. I thought about her and her mum and how they both love to craft (her mum is an amazing craftsperson who I learn a lot from) and I decided to make Estelle her own little craft kit in a tin. 

The Craft Tin contained tissue paper, pipe cleaners and stickers and I customised the tin with her name on it. The idea was she might make tissue butterflies but there are many more things she might make with it and I hope she will add to the tin with time.

Ideas for Craft Tin Contents:

• Pritt Stick Glue
• Stickers
• Child safe scissors
• Pipe Cleaners
• Gems that can be stuck
• Feathers
• Glitter tubes
• Pasta shapes 
• Rubber stamps and ink
• Washi tape

A Visit to Discover Children’s Story Centre, Stratford

Recently Elfie, some friends and I visited the Discover Children's Story Centre in Stratford and had a really lovely time. We especially enjoyed the amazing outside Story Garden, which I couldn't take Elfie away from! The Discover is an independent hands-on creative literacy centre for children under 11. It was described to me as a museum for children but it felt much more like a creative children's centre than a museum especially as it has a nursery within it, which is very visible.

The Discover Children's Story Centre is a short walk from Statford Rail Station making it very easy to get to. It was smaller than I thought it would be but actually you probably wouldn't want it much larger as it would be exhausting and overwhelming. Its quite expensive to get in - both adults and children pay £4.50 each but it should cost that much really, we are just used to everything being subsidised by external funding.

There are three main activities:

1. Story Trail: A free play large space with lots of interactive objects and toys all relating to children's stories. 

2. Story Studio: Bookable artist lead session, which ticket price includes (we didn't have time to do this)

3. Story Garden: An Outdoor play zone, which I think was by far the best feature. It is a beautifully landscaped garden with amazing and well sized wooden climbing frames and other wooden outdoor play elements including a wooden car, pirate ship, stage and viewing platform. 

Next time I go I will definitely plan to spend longer so we can try out the Story Studio and afterwards I will treat Elfie and I to a Franco Manca pizza in Stratford - yum!

4 Brilliant Badger Etsy Finds for Brockley Folk

Here are four brilliant Badger inspired Etsy finds for Brockley families or just simply people who love badgers!

I live with my family in an area called Brockley, which is in South East London, Zone 2 so not too far from the centre. We have lived here for over ten years and absolutely love it.  There is a very strong sense of community, which since having Elfie I have experienced more than ever and really appreciated. Brockley is also very green and leafy, in fact it is overladen with fruit trees and maybe most importantly is saturated with beautiful Victorian houses with large gardens and secret mews.  

The origins of the name Brockley comes from either 'Broca's woodland clearing', or a wood where badgers are seen. Because of this there has been quite a lot of play with the idea of badgers being a symbol of Brockley (as well as broccoli - more about that in another post).

4 Brilliant Badger Etsy Finds:

1. Personalised B for Badger babygrow by bioME5
2. Felt Badger in a Bag by Oooh Betty
3. Badger Play Dress by Wild Things Dresses
4. Ghetto Badger Side Plate by Jim Bobart

DIY Quick Fabric Feature Greeting Card

This tutorial will demonstrate how to make a quick and easy fabric feature greeting card using bondaweb. Both my husband Nick and I have always made cards since being young children and now we continue the tradition and when possible get Elfie involved in making cards too. I always have a stash of blank greeting cards in my craft cupboard as you never know when a card might be needed.

I made this card for Elfie's friend Estelle's 2nd birthday yesterday.

How to make a Fabric Feature Card in 5 easy steps:

What you need:

• Blank greeting card (or folded card DIY style)
• Bondweb (you could use glue but bondaweb is better)
• Pretty fabric
• Fabric scissors
• Stencil (optional)

Instructions:

1. Work out how big you want your fabric feature to be and cut out the bondaweb slightly bigger than desired size.

2. Iron the fabric of your choice (cotton or felt is best) and then iron the cut out bondaweb onto the reverse side of the fabric at the heat setting required by the fabric.

Note: Make sure you iron the textured side (glue side) of the bondaweb onto the fabric otherwise your bondaweb will be glued onto your iron.

3. Now draw out your desired shape in reverse onto the bondaweb

4. Cut your shape out as neatly as you can.

5. Un-peel paper from the bondaweb (to leave you with your cut out fabric coated with glue on the back of the cloth) and place the fabric shape right way up in desired place on card and iron down on heat setting recommended for fabric. 

A More Beautiful way of Shopping with Supermarket Sarah

I first discovered Supermarket Sarah when I went round to my friend Imogen Luddy's house for a cup of tea and saw her amazing wall display of her work, which she was preparing for her Supermarket Sarah Wall (see above image).  Its such a simple and beautiful idea. The founder Sarah Bagner started by selling vintage wares in Portobello Market, London and then she set up www.supermarketsarah.com in 2009, where she sells and displays all her items on walls. Sarah invites selected designers to create their own walls of products they wish to sell and then visitors can simply click on that object - genius. The wall display gives the shopper a much better idea of the designer's practice; one get a feel for their style and passion through the way they have curated their wall and their own individual choice of products to sell. 

Above is the wall of JONNAXKANGAN, which is a collaboration between two textile designers Kangan Arora and Jonna Saarinen. I really love their use of bold bright colours and overlapping printmaking. It feels very current and really fun. 

Here is an example of a more famous designer Rob Ryan sharing a wall for Supermarket Sarah. Its brilliant to see so much of his work layered up like this and out of the context of a gift shop, which is where I normally see it now. It reminds me how much I like the style and aesthetics of his work.  

Holidaying without Kids

My husband Nick and I just got back from a five day break in New York City and the important bit was it was child free! Not everybody would want to go on holiday without their child and I am sure some people might even judge us for doing it but is was so good for us as a couple. I have really struggled with the change having a child places on a relationship - you go from being centre of each others universe to colleagues in parenting of a child that takes all your attention and so much of your love. Its not to say I haven't enjoyed it, I have but I have also missed being Nick's favourite - now I have to very much share him.So the decision to go to New York on our own was to for once prioritise our relationship and give quality time to each other and it was so wonderful to do that.

We are both so thankful to our parents for making it happen. Nick's parents for moving into our house and looking after Elfie and my parents for contributing massively towards the cost of the trip (it was our 30th birthday present). Thank you all so much.

My Top 10 Things to do in New York City

1. Go for a walk in Central Park. If you visit in Spring the park is full of magnolia trees - so beautiful.

2. Visit Brooklyn Flee Market. This market is full of absolute treasures including vintage finds and Brooklyn based designer makers as well as delicious food (Nick had the best doughnut ever there - salted caramel chocolate ! My favourite stalls were Hazel Village handmade woodland soft toys (for which you can choose a handmade outfit for) and Winter Water Factory printed organic clothing.

3. Walk along The High Line, Manhattan. This was five minutes away from our Airbnb apartment in Chelsea. I had heard about it before our trip but had absolutely no idea how beautiful and thoughtfully designed it would be. I'd actually probably say it was my favourite thing in New York.  

The High Line is a public park built on an historic freight rail line elevated above the streets on Manhattan’s West Side. It is owned by the City of New York, and maintained and operated by Friends of the High Line. Founded in 1999 by community residents, Friends of the High Line fought for the High Line’s preservation and transformation at a time when the historic structure was under the threat of demolition.

4. Visit the Flagship Marimekko shop in Manhattan. Marimekko is by far my favourite fashion/ interiors label. I did a residency in Finland a few years ago and my love for the label grew then but at the time I couldn't afford anything in the shop and now I do still struggle. The shop in New York is new, its only been there 2 years and is absolutely devine. Its by far the largest I have been to and beautifully and boldly curated. It almost feels like a gallery - there is so much space to view the products and they are so artfully displayed. I am actually going to make a seperate post about the shop soon as I have so many great photos I want to share.

5. Vist Smorgasburg - Brooklyn Food Market. This was something Nick really wanted to do and I wasn't that fussed about initially but it turned out to be one of my favourite things we did. Its just under Brooklyn bridge so we combined it with a walk over the bridge, which was also lovely. Its a market you go to for food to eat there and then not a farmer market style market, which we have more of in London. There was so much choice and it smelt so good! And actually what I liked best was that they had live music being played. They had this amazing band playing kids songs but in a reggae style for the adults - everybody was dancing and looked so happy. It was just lovely. (It made Nick and I want to move to NYC!)

6. Visit the New Museum, which is one of New York' s most influential contemporary art galleries hosted in an amazing multi layered cube like building. I really wanted to go to this to see the building more than anything but then I was given the amazing surprise of being able to see this Janine Antoni artwork Lick and Lather, 1993 which consists of busts made or chocolate and soap. I studied this at art school so was briliant to see and smell it in real life!

7. Treat yourself to a visit to Purl Soho the haberdashery shop of the blog Purl Bee. I have been following this blog for some time now and always wanted to visit the shop and in fact the lady in the shop said they have many international blog followers making a pilgrimage there. It was absolutely beautiful and it was great to see the craft objects from the tutorials there on display!

8. Stock up on Stationary because you won't find anything like the choice in the UK. I have never seen anything like it - practically entire department stores dedicated to stationary with whole floors dedicated to envelopes!  There were many good ones but I think I liked Paper Presentation the best. 

9. Browse the beautiful shop windows in Bleecker Street and near by shops. Many of these shops are too expensive to shop in but lovely to look at! There is also a Magnolia Bakery so you can treat yourself to a cupcake to help you deal with the fact that you can't afford anything else on the street!

10. Walk along Brooklyn Bridge. Its cheesy but has to be done and its where Miranda and Steve got back together!

Excited to be shortlisted for the Craft Brit Mums BIB Award!

I am really thrilled to have been shortlisted for the Craft BIB Award. Thank you so much if you are one of the lovely people who voted for me. I only started The Making Home in January so this feels like a real achievement to get this far. If you have the time I would love you to now vote for me to win the award. Exciting!!!

You can vote here. Don't feel you have to vote for a blog for every category but if you have time then of course that would be lovely for the other bloggers. 

Thank you!!!

Davina x x x

DIY Reusing Envelopes

This is a very simple tutorial to give you ideas about how to recycle envelopes and personalise them at the same time.

I always keep any large or padded envelopes that I get sent. It just seems such a waste to throw them out. I constantly take them out of the the recycling bin as Nick seems to think its easier just to recycle them but I am a firm believer that reusing is the best form of recycling.

How to Reuse an old envelope:

1. Choose a piece of paper (I like to use coloured paper) and cut it out into a square that is bigger enough to cover the original address.
2. Write new address on this piece of paper and embellish it - I like to rubber stamp mine. Make sure you leave a border so you can tape it down.
3. Use masking tape or wide washi tape to stick down the paper over the original address.
4. If original seal is damaged use tape to seal the envelope together. If this isn't sufficient you may want to make a new envelope flap - do this by cutting out a new piece of paper the desired size of flap and taping it onto front and then folding that round to the back and taping the other side. (see photo below)

My New Favourite Toy Shop

Nick and I are in New York for a five day break (without Elfie) to celebrate our 30th birthdays. Today is actually our last day, which I am feeling sad about as we have had such an amazing time but I am looking forward to seeing Elfie. I am going to post about the trip when I get back but in the mean time I wanted to share my favourite shop of the trip, Acorn: A Brooklyn Toy Shop. 

We found Acorn quite by accident and completely fell in love with it. Its essentially a Waldorf (Steiner) inspired toy shop but with a difference. It has a very contemporary edge, selling a range of  very current handmade toys and kids stuff and is beautifully curated by its artist owner.

Some of my favourite brands that Acorn sells are:

• Jess Brown Dolls
• Yellow Owl Workshop Rubber Stamps and Ink
• Stockmarr Wax Crayons
• Hazel Village beautifully made Woodland Creatures that you can buy separate clothes for that come in a little canvas bag!
• Winter Water Factory Organic Screen Printed kids clothes made in Brooklyn
• Egmont night lights - including the Goose that I really want!

DIY Spice Jars: A Story of Homemaking

When my husband Nick and I were dating at Art School we both really loved caramelised onion relish and would put it on anything to make it taste nice (mainly lots of sandwiches). One day I noticed that he was starting to collect the jars and I asked him about it and he explained that he was saving them to make us a collection of spice jars.

A year or two later we moved in together and Nick presented me with his Spice Jar collection made from all those jars of caramelised onion that we had shared and a simple DYMO machine. Seven years later we still use them and the DYMO labels are still perfectly stuck on.

How to make Spice Jars:

1. Make a list of what spices you want in your jars and work out how many jars you will therefore need.
2. Collect up jars and lids (ideally matching ones - this could take some time!)
3. Use a DYMO machine or something similar to label jars
4. Fill jars with spices

Rubber Stamped Babygrows

This week I have had the exciting news of two new born babies being born. My cousin Brook's wife gave birth to a beautiful little boy called Boris and my friend Emily from The Start Up Wife had a beautiful baby girl called Rudi. I had some new stamps by Donna Wilson and wanted to try them out so it was the perfect excuse! I used the cloud stamp from the set and then used my alphabet stamps to spell out the babies' names as if the clouds were raining out the letters. 

Here is a Rubber Stamping Tutorial I wrote recently that gives you tips about rubber stamping onto clothes.

DIY Glitter Play Dough Recipe

This tutorial will share with you how to make play dough with young children with a very simple recipe.

This week Elfie and I had a spare afternoon to ourselves as a friend had to cancel at the last minute and the weather was again pretty horrid so we needed to think of something indoors to do. We were going to make cakes or cookies (as usual) but had no eggs or butter so I thought we'd try play dough instead. I researched recipes on line and used the simplest I could find. We added glitter for fun but its not necessary. 

Simple Play Dough Recipe:

• 1 cup of Plain Flour
• 0.25 cup of salt
• 0.25 cup of water
• Food dye
• Glitter (optional)

Instructions:

1. Mix flour and salt
2. Add water and a few drops of food dye
3. Mix with hands and knead into dough
4. Add more food dye if you want at any point and simple knead in

Tips:

If you have dry hands the salt contents may hurt your hands so wear rubber gloves when making the dough. This recipe for play dough goes a bit sticky after a few days so add more flour to make it more dough like. 

Win a Lost My Name Personalised Children’s Book

I am very excited to be able to offer one Lost My Name book to one of my readers. 

Elfie received her Lost My Name book last month in the post as a complete surprise to her and me (her dad Nick is friends with one of the founders Asi and arranged it all as a surprise). 

It was such a magical revelation to both of us to read the story and realise the story was all about Elfie! She is now so excited to have a storybook about herself and she often asks for the Elfie Story!

A bit about the Book:

Lost My Name is a children personalised adventure book like no other.  A little girl / boy wakes up one morning to a nasty surprise — her / his name has gone! So she / he embarks on a magical journey to find her / his lost name — and discovers the missing letters, one by one, through fantastic, fabulous and often very funny encounters with weird and wonderful creatures. Every book is as special (and almost as wonderful) as the child it was made for, and is based on the letters of their name.

The Lost My Name project is an initiative set up by three dads (David,Pedro & Asi) and an uncle (Tal), who started this as a DIY project for their own kids but soon realised the potential to offer it to a wider audience. 

A bit about the Competition:

I have one Lost My Name book to give away, which will be personalised with the winner’s choice of name and I have fifteen 20% off vouchers. To enter the competition:

1. Follow @davinadrummond and @Lostmynamebook on twitter 

2. Share or Retweet on Twitter about the competition

3. Tag #lostmynamebook

The competition closes on Thursday 11th April at 6pm

Making Easter special with Family Traditions

We spent this Easter with Nick's family in Sheffield. All nine of us were there for the first time, which was so lovely and very exciting for Elfie. In fact, it was so exciting that I think she was a bit overwhelmed by it and consequently she hasn't eaten all weekend (at least I am hoping that is why she hasn't eaten - the constant worrying of parents! ). 

Despite Elfie's lack of eating it has been a really special Easter Weekend full of lots of Easter traditions both old and new. Our old favourite Easter traditions are making an Easter Tree with blown eggs, Easter Egg Hunting and Egg Rolling (which involves painting hard boiled eggs and then rolling them down a hill with the person whose egg survives the longest winning). Nick's mum Annie also carried on her old tradition of buying each of us an Easter Egg with our names on it, which is always so lovely. 

We also introduced two new traditions. We set up the Easter Table with an Easter Bunny Rabbit holding Elfie's Easter Egg in its arms and Hannah and I made for the first time Hot Cross Buns, which I can now see why are only eaten at Easter because they take so long to make!

I'd really love to hear about your family's Easter Traditions - please leave a comment below or email/ tweet me.

DIY Easter Gift: Eggs in Nest in a Jar

Here is a little tutorial to show you how to make an Easter Jar using brown paper to form a nest with Mini Eggs in it. 

My husband Nick really loves Mini Eggs so I decided this year to make Easter Jars full of Mini Eggs rather than buy traditional large Easter Eggs that are a nightmare to wrap once opened. I thought it would be nice to put the mini eggs in a jar as its an easy way to keep them fresh and it shows off how beautiful they are. I started to play with filling jars with mini eggs and then thought it would be so sweet to try and create a nest for them so here it is!

What you need to make an Easter Jar:

• Mini Eggs
• Brown paper
• Jam jars
• Paper and yarn (optional)
• Crayons (optional)

How to make an Easter Jar:

1. Use a guillotine (if you have access to one - maybe at work?), scissors or a craft knife to cut brown paper into fine strips
2. Place a bundle of the paper in the jar to form a loose nest (you may need to cut down the paper into small pieces)
3. Gently poor a handful or two of mini eggs into Jar
4. Place lid back on and make sure its closed tightly to keep eggs fresh

Make a Happy Easter Tag with your child:

1. Draw or find a template of a chick and repeat it on a sheet of thin card (I just found one online and copy and pasted it several times onto a word document)
2. Ask your child to colour the chicks in or just draw over them depending on age
3. Cut out
4. Write/ stamp Happy Easter on them
5. Punch hole where eye of chick should be and use yarn to tie to jar as above

6 Easter Gift Ideas

Easter is one of my favourite times of the year because firstly its an excuse to take part in celebratory and crafty rituals like egg hunting and egg painting and secondly it allows me to indulge my hobby of collecting egg cups. Easter is also another key date in the calendar to spend some time thinking about those we love by making/buying little Easter gifts. 

Here are six great Easter gifts to meet all budgets (if you don't have time to make something):

1. Fortnum and Mason's Rose and Violet Creme Egg £37.50 and unbelievably delicious (I speak from experience as last year Nick and I bought them half price on Easter day!)
2. Hotel Chocolat Beau Bunny's Easter Egg Hunt £25 and so cute! I saw these in the shop and really wanted to buy them (just for the bag!)
3. Marimekko Egg Cups £20 and I really, really want to add these to my collection.
4. Rococo chocolate egg designed by Donna Wilson £17.50 and what a lovely collaboration. I have one of these but have not given in to eating it yet. Saving it for Easter Day.
5. Egg Saucer by Yoyo Ceramics £12.50 and so simple and beautiful. We have the Yoyo butterdish and love it.
6. Lindt gold white chocolate bunny £4 and a winner every time.

Note: This is not a sponsored post - I just really like these gifts!