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Had parents, sis and gran over today for afternoon tea. So decked the house with an Easter tree:
I brought in the daffodils from the back garden (they just opened) and popped some Cadbury’s Mini Eggs in the rabbit dish Tom’s folks gave us for Christmas. Plus we bought some Peeps in the US last year so I had them out:
Looking forward this evening to torturing the brightly coloured mallow in some hot chocolate 
This months Lones newsletter is all about craft and the envelope ended up being more crafty than I expected. I failed miserably to buy A5 envelopes or bring home the A4 ones I keep stored at work so instead I had to come up with a envelope – a recycled Hello! magazine came to the rescue.
To finish off I added white sticker labels to the front for the address and I even made a little seal for the back – roughly drawn trefoil with ‘Lones Newsletter’ written around it
I went to the centenary launch today was was modelling my Shrink Plastic charm bracelet
. Simple to do just trace promise badges onto shrink plastic, cut them out, punch holes in them and shrink!
My Easter trip to Wisconsin was accompanied by a travel log which is bursting with what we did (mainly food, beer and friends!)
However I wanted something to have on display to remind me of the fun (and since a digital photo frame isn’t quite within my budget yet) I went old school with a pin board.
We’d kept bottle caps from the beer and soda we drank (from Wisconsin based breweries mainly Horny Goat, New Glarus and Sprecher) and I glued these onto drawing pins so I could use them to decorate the board.
I colour copied some of the items from our trip since the originals are in the travel journal (or in Tom’s case a large bag and unsorted). We kept a bunch of things mainly tickets, maps, food labels and similar – just stuff you can’t get at home.
I also marked on the map places we’d been or where things were from – i.e. Door County cherries which we never went to see but do feature in Sprecher’s Ravin’ Red.
I made this necklace as a kit to go out in the Lones newsletter. It was so fast to do I thought I’d share.
You’ll need: adhesive transfer sheet, acrylic pendant, jump ring and cord.
Remove the protective plastic covers from the acrylic pendant.
Get the adhesive sheet (Herma Transfer Adhesive Sheet) and remove the backing paper. Press the pendant onto the glue dots.
Carefully re-lift the pendant – it is now evenly covered in glue dots (which are easily visible).
Position the pendant over the paper image you wish to use and press down evenly.
Carefully trim off excess paper (you might find using a craft knife makes this easier and neater).
Pierce a hole carefully through the paper inline with the one in the pendant.
Thread a jump ring through and close (you’ll need pliers for this bit).
Thread a cord through the jump ring and wear.
NB: To improve the life span of your pendant carefully apply clear nail varnish or PVA to the back of your picture.
One of my favourite Christmas traditions (and it isn’t even mine) is the Krampus. It’s an Austrian thing and basically the night before good old Saint Nic comes calling to give the good kids presets the Krampus deals with the naughty kids. He beats them and takes them away in a sack. Anyway you can make a paper version (complete with naughty child) – created by Squealer Paper Toy (both that and the above image are from the Macula site). Absolute genius.
I did this for my Senior Section girls as part of the activities for the Mexican festival of Day of the Dead.
1. Draw your skull on the rough side of Shrink plastic using pens. This keyring used a 1/4 A4 sheet (the earrings an 1/8th). Beware the colour get darker once it shrinks.
2. Once your happy trim the skull (doesn’t have to be exact 3mm or less edging is fine). Punch a hole in the top for the keyring to go once it’s shrunk.
3. Place the skull in an electric oven (150ºC) on a flat baking tray, drawing side down and heat for 1-4 minutes until it goes flat. Allow to cool and add your keyring, earring or phone charm.
While watching the Olympics (bit of an Archery Widow due to it) I decided to find a crafty option and I have! The mascots are available as paper models so since I’m a bear lover I went for the panda (Jingjing).
I was inspired by a Etsy item from Lost Mitten to make my own version of her Pacman Coasters. I borrowed heavily from her design but I made my own verison of Mrs Pacman and I changed the eyes on a couple of the ghosts. I used Hama beads (and the generic Tesco equivalents for the orange one) and an iron. I must be one of the few adults my age who didn’t used these much as a kid so it was a bit of a first. It was bit like doing cross stitch – the trick was to do the outline and then fill in the colour. Still took me most of an evening but it was totally worth it since my coffee table is so much improved.
I got a new camera – it’s rather dull and black so I decided that to make it more exciting I’d make a camera case. 
It was just a simple rectangle 14cm by 26cm folded into three (or as required by the camera).
I used two layers of fabric and a bit of wadding as padding (cotton front facing each other, then the wadding on the bottom), with a quarter inch seam allowance.
Then a simple slip stitch up either sides to about a third of the way up.
I added a wee loop of ribbon (as I sewed up the gap created from turning it the right way round) and a button to keep it closed.
I even put in a pocket so I can carry a spare memory card/ battery/ credit card etc. Then I went a bit mad and quilted the top round the island and the cap in the map.
Best of all I got to use my pirate fabirc and the dubloons!