Sfeltaccessories Review & Giveaway

I am so very excited to be able to review my first item- A felt bead kit from Sfeltaccessories. Plus, Ann, the owner of Sfeltaccessories has agreed to let me giveaway a kit as well, so you can have fun making this at home.

This is off of Ann's Etsy's profile page:
"I am a designer, a knitter and felter and I hope my unique, original designs bring a modern edge to knitting and felting.
Having studied at Cardiff University I worked as a Textile teacher.
I design and make quality items using wool and felt including unique neckwarmers, collars, necklaces, handbags and handmade felted soaps. I also produce a number of kits to enable people to produce felt items themselves."

I was thrilled to receive my package in the mail from Sfeltaccessories! She package it beautifully and made sure that my item made it unharmed. After opening the box, I found this:

Inside, was EVERYTHING I needed to make the beads. It was all beautifully wrapped. 

  The felt she included was gorgeous! The pictures do not do them justice. The colors were so vibrant. I almost didn't want to touch them. (Notice the word almost!)

 S was just as excited as I was to make these. She wanted the beads for her ever expanding dress-up bin. 

Because S, is still younger and has, well, not much of an attention span yet, I started a few of the beads before she woke up:

 S, Loved playing with the felt. She loved how soft it was!

We had a blast making these beads. It was also a great learning experience. I think to say that we are beginner felters that we did pretty good:

We currently do not have them stringed...S decided that she was having a lot of fun juggling with them, so when she tires of that then we'll turn it into a necklace. :)

So who wants to win one of these kits??? 

(not yelling just super excited!) 

 

Fill out the entry form below to enter. The first two questions are mandatory but the rest are optional. Here are some links to help you fill out the entry form:

SFeltAccessories Etsy Shop

SFeltAccessories Blog

Crafty Mom Blog

Crafty Mom Blog on Facebook

Contest will be open until Monday, December 19th.

Update on the Halloween Costumes!

It's a little late but better than never right? I think the girls looked adorable!

S's costume:

 

C's costume:

Halloween!!

I love Halloween! So many fun activities & things to make!!

Sophia is obsessed with everything Hawaiian, so it was so surprise when she said she wanted to be "Hawaiian". I took that to mean "hula girl". So I am in the process of making her costume- flowered headband, anklets, bracelets. I want to make her grass skirt out of 2 colors of tulle but I'm not sure If I will have the time.

I have been agonizing over what to have Camille be. I want them to have themed costumes, (you know, while I can get away with it.) I have a lobster costume, but she looks a boy in it. I really want something girly. So I thought of the perfect costume.. A Flamingo!!

I have all these ideas running through my head. I'm sketching out wings & headpieces. I cannot wait to get home so I can start making it! She is going to look flippin' adorable!

It's been a year...

..since I posted last. Wow! So many things have happened since then!

We starting trying for baby #2...
and had 2 miscarriages. :(

We lost a dear pet, our cat, Juliette.

We celebrated Sophia's 4th birthday! (My baby is getting so big!)

And, we welcomed new baby Camille, 7 weeks ago!

 She is already getting so big!

I've been thinking of lots of ideas for the blog, so please check back with me soon!

Painting Party Part 2- Homemade Paint

I didn't want to spend a ton of money on purchasing paint for S's pary so I looked around for some homemade paint recipe. It was very hard finding a recipe but I found one that was a no cooking one. 

It's just a few basic ingredients so making this paint should be FREE!

All you need is:

Water

Flour

Food Coloring

Mixing Bowl

Spoon

Mix together the water and flour until you have the desired consistency. Add food coloring until you have the right color. That's it!!! It's so easy! I found that the Wilton Food colorings made a nicer color but regular food coloring worked well. 

S and I tried it out. She had so much fun using it. We went through about 10 sheets of paper.

The paint came out like a water color consistency and was a little grainy. On the plus side, it seemed to dry faster than regular paint does!

Birthday Idea- Painting Party! Part 1

My daughter choose a painting party for her third birthday. I got the idea from this Parents Magazine article.

It was a fairly cheap and fun party to prepare for. The color scheme was the primary colors- red, yellow and blue. I bought majority of the paper goods from the Dollar Tree. I bought red, blue and yellow plates, cups, utensils, table clothes and balloons.

I also found paper gift bags at the Dollar Tree in the colors I needed. I wrote each child's name on them and placed them on a table with a red tablecloth. I used the bags to put each child's artwork in as part of their goody bag.

 Decorating the "art studio" was fun! I had planned for it to be an outdoor party but unfortunately, it poured on S's party day. Nevertheless, the party went on. We ended up using my parent's garage so that we didn't make a mess in the house. 

I bought clothes line and clothes pins from the Dollar Tree. I hung the line up around the garage so that when kids started making pictures, we could hang them up to decorate the place as we went along. It was also great to have a place to hang the wet paintings so they dried before the kids went home. I wrote Live, Laugh and Create on 3 sheets of paper and hung them up on one line and it looked really cute. 

The kids started off coloring with markers and crayons. I bought crayon and paint pads at Target for $1.99 each. Next, the kids painted with a cool hopmemade paint recipe that I will share in the next blog. Then, they ended with playdough. I also made the playdough from scratch. I used this recipe from teachnet.com.

Kool-Aid® Play Dough

• 1 cup flour
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 package unsweetened Kool-Aid
  
• 1/4 cup salt
  
• 2 tablespoons cream of tartar
  
• 1 cup water

Mix flour, salt, cream of tartar and Kool-Aid® in a medium pot. Add water and oil. Stir over medium heat 3 to 5 minutes. When mixture forms a ball in pot, remove. Knead until smooth. Put in a plastic bag and refrigerate.

 

After the kids were done with the play dough, I separated them into sandwich baggies and gave each child a bag to take home. For more favors, I also included recipes on how to make homemade play dough and homemade paint.

The big hit was the cake I made myself. First time that I ever made a cake for a birthday party. It came out awesome and I'm really glad I did it. I'll write a larger post on how I amde the cake, the icing I used and how I made an art easel out of clothespins to hold the "Happy 3rd Birthday S" sign. 

 

Monday's Etsy Find

Etsy is an awesome place to purchase handmade items. I've decided to feature a new Esty item/ shop every Monday.

So this Monday's feature is stunningannak!

She has some very unique items that caught my eye right away. All the items are very reasonably priced. Her items range from fabric brouches and headbands to soldered charms.

This is one of my favorite items from stunningannak's shop.

It is a beautiful orange and yellow fabric brooch.

 A few other samples from her shop

Chicken Wire Hot Pink Flower Headband

This one made me laugh...

Sisters are Chocolate Chips Soldered Charm

 (Front)

 

(Back)

 haha! Isn't that cute?

Please visit stunningannak's shop here!

 

(If you would like to be featured on my blog, send me a message with a link to your shop, a little note about why you should be picked and a pic of your favorite item. Your shop will be featured from Monday to Sunday. I just ask that you promote the feature on your blog or facebook page)