How to upcycle christmas crackers

Hi Everyone,
I went to a christmas tea party and came across pretty xmas crackers that the cleaning staff was going to discard so I took a couple home with me.

I decided to use a few of them to make xmas cards.

The rest I brought to one of the crafty recycling workshops I organised with kids and we made xmas tree decorations out of the christmas crackers ( stapling a ribbon out of one end of the almost discarded crackers.)

We also made gift bags out of the brown bags that I collect from buying some of my lunches in town and the girls were able to put their xmas crackers decorations and cards into their newly made gift bags. They were delighted with it and I was delighted for them. It is very inspiring to inspire creativity in others.

How to make a pretty christmas tree out of a single branch

Hi Everyone,
I found this pretty naked branch on the ground in Dublin 8 and thought this could do a perfect little Xmas tree. I had a large candy cup which i thought I could fill with stones to use as a base for the tree.

I had pretty ribbons which I had already bought to make xmas cards. The great thing about those ribbons is that I can use them for many purposes ( for gifts bags as bows, on cards, as tinsels ect...)

I also found in a local market large xmas snowflakes stickers for very cheap and instead of using them as stickers I use them as xmas decorations.

and this is the result- simple but nice.

Of course, you can wrap the base (the candy cup) with a nice wrapping paper but i didn't.
Happy St Stephen's Day everyone.

Upcycling card making workshop with kids

             

  

As part of the Upcycling card making workshop I did with the kids last week, I brought a Postal Ad from Tesco and we cut the bottom and upper part of the pages ( which had nice Christmassy designs) to make cards of our owns.

We also used the shapes of Christmas balls and gifts and snowflakes printed in that Tesco Ad and we cut the shapes into divider tabs and here is the result of one of my young creative students ( card to the right) Quite proud of her.

I also showed the kids how they can reuse their old Christmas cards this year to make new ones for next year.
Here's an example of an old christmas that I got. I cut the bottom part of this card and stuck nice ribbons around it and voila!

                 

Angel Card Tutorial

Hi Everyone
I researched on the internet how to make an angel card and found this great website from Laura Howard
 ( Another Laura ;-))

http://centralfoothillsmommies.blogspot.ie/2012/12/angel-christmas-card-tutorial.html

I followed her instructions ( which were very visual and easy to follow)
I changed it slightly for the wings ( too long to cut those curved shapes)

I used a paper plate.


For the Halo, I used a gold pen because I didn't have any gold paper and Voila!
I think my angel is a lot thinner than hers. ( It wasn't my intention to make it look thin but it happened that way. ;-)

Project Recipe:
- Brown paper from a brown paper bag.
- Scissors
- A black marker for the hair
- Pritt stick or other paper-friendly glue
- Gold pen for the Halo.
- Silver pen for the Wings
- White paper doily set for the intricate design of dress.
- White paper to consolidate the dress, round shape for the Face and remaining of the paper for the Feet.
- Thick White paper for the angel's face and feet
- Card blank.

Making Xmas Cards out of Packaging materials and Workshops

Card Making and Recycling two things that I really like.

Soon I was thinking: "Why not try to make 1 or 2 Xmas cards out of packaging materials?" and then I made another and another and before I knew it, I had lots of ideas and cards and was thinking of sharing this fun activity with kids.


So this is one of my ideas:
I started cutting triangle shapes out of the Baked Beans Heinz packaging, Peppermint tea packaging and perfume packaging ( any white packaging that i could find around the house)

Then I used a coloured tab divider that I had and cut a rectangular shape for the background and stuck it to a blank greeting card.

Then I bought some foam squares to raise the triangle shapes. I also bought  1 meter of  nice ribbon where it said"Merry Christmas" on it, glued the little stars and a little golden ribbon and star for the tree to make a nice finish  and voila!

 Project Recipe:

• Scissors
• Glue
• Foam Squares
• Little colourful stars
• 1 meter of  a "Merry Christmas" Ribbon that you can buy in any Crafts shop (Inspiring ideas Shop in this case)
• Food Packagings
• 1 star and a golden ribbon but you can cut a Star or a snow flake design out of a magazine or advertising that comes through your letter box and it will do nicely.  
• Colourful Tab divider

I will be doing a Christmas card making Workshop for kids ( 9 to 12 years old)  in:

• Hunstown Community Center - Wednesday 11th of Dec  - from 4 to 5:30 pm
• Mountview Youth and Community Center - Friday 13th  of Dec- from 5 to 6 pm. 
•  Hunstown Community Center - Wednesday 19th of Dec  - from 4 to 5:00 pm
• Mountview Youth and Community Center - Friday 20th  of Dec- from 5 to 6 pm.

 So join in!

Warm Regards
Laura A Speedwing

Happy Children's Day!

Hi Everyone,

It's Children's day today! As it is a special day, I'm making all my children's stories FREE.

So take some quality time with your child tonight and make that special evening special.


 The children story includes:

• Saving Ordenia
•  
• In the land of the Pumpkins
•  
• Far Below Our Streets
• 
  
• Au Pays des Potirons (In French)
   

All I am asking is that you share it as much as you can with your friends and family if you like it.

Enjoy and Happy Reading!

L.A Speedwing

Halloween last night in Dublin

Halloween seems to mean as much to the Small Ones as it is to the Big Ones.

You just had to be in town last night to see how much effort the Grown ups had put into dressing "horribly."

Even better I noticed that when it came to costumes, there was no rule.

Apart from the Zombies and the Ghosts and Undead costumes, here's a list of how people were dressed:

• Pink Cow-Girl Costume (Her whole outfit was pink. I wish I had taken a picture of her)
• Rat Costume (Really? yes Really)
• Panda Costume
• Banana Costume 
• Top Gun Costume ( What's the link with Halloween? I don't know!)
• Dalmatian Costume
• Spider-man Costume
• I saw a bunch of Prisoners hanging together (;-))
• Indian Girl Costume
• Heidi Costume
• Sultan Costume
• Builder with safety yellow hat costume
• Court Dress Costume
• And a guy with a pretty cool zip cutting his face with fake blood.
• Superwoman Costume

1. Even Dublin City Council had dressed their building nicely...
2. And shops. Check out Bewley's Pumpkin carving artwork!

Day -1 before Halloween Night! Are you excited yet?

 Day -1 before Halloween Night! Are you ready for the scariest night of the year? And Trick or Treat your neighbors to death? ;-)

Here's a checklist for you:

• Is your house decorated and looking mightily ghost-like?

• Have you chosen your Halloween costume yet? Did you go for the coolest outfit this year? Fairy style? Witch style? Pumpkin Style? What about a mix of all styles: A Pumpkin Fairy Witch style?

  

  
  

• Is your Face paint ready? Are you going for Black? Red or White?

• Are you going to bring some Spray blood with you? or are you wearing some fake cobwebs on your costume?

• Do you have 1 Bag or many bags candy to carry with you?

• A flashlight can be a cool thing to bring along. It can help you to see in the dark but you can also put it below your face to look even spookier! 

  • And Water bottles! With all those sweets, you'll get thirsty!

  
  

  What is the coolest costume you ever wore or made?

   

  Mine was the costume of a Dead Pirate!

1 Halloween Story for Kids Coming Up!

For me Halloween is about the magic of one colour: orange. It's one of my favourite colours. I don't know how the story came to me. I think it wasn't so much that the story came to me. It was more like a scene or a painting that came through with one specific color: an orange setting.

I started to think of orange pumpkins. I love their variety in shapes and the warmth of their colours.
I thought about how I love the Autumn and orange leaves and then one thing lead to another and I thought: "Hey, what if they were little creatures living in these Pumpkins?"

One creature emerged, a Pumpkinet!
From that, I started to think of baddies and about a fairy coming to the rescue and the story developed nicely.
Before long, I had written the whole story in 2 nights in French which I hadn't done in a very long time.

Then I let the story on the side. But this story always was in the back of my mind. Inspiration was still deserting me after 6 months so I read back the story.
I still liked it! In fact I was liking it more even!
It is a cute story for 8-9 years, girls especially!
I corrected passages, grammar and then thought: "Hey I could translate this in English!"
I used Google Translate.
Google Translate does increase the speed of translation but it also butchers sentences to such an extent that I couldn't understand the meaning in English. I had to re-read in French to understand what I meant to say.
After many editing in French and in English, I have a story almost ready for Halloween!
I am quite excited. I will have it self published tomorrow or Saturday if all goes well on Smashwords.
So Keep tuned!