Christmas Makes 2014!

Hello there - I've not had much chance to blog lately as I was busy organising a Handmade Christmas Market and of course making things for my stall at that market!

The Christmas market was last Saturday and was a great success.  We had some fantastic sellers and a brilliant crowd of people that came along to support us.  It was a very busy day and everyone that took part enjoyed themselves.

Now I can relax and have time for other things like Christmas shopping!  Yikes I have only just started mine!!  Will be off into town today to try and get as much done as possible!

Yesterday I made my Mincemeat Christmas cake - I just need to feed it lots of brandy and get some marzipan to cover it with!  We don't like icing so it will just be marzipan for us!  Very easy recipe and you can find it here.  It's a quick and easy alternative to traditional Christmas cake!

I thought I would share with you some of the tree decorations that I have made this year.

I also made my flannel reindeers - this year I used a variety of coloured pipe cleaners including red and white candy cane!

I also made some flannel crackers with soap inside of them as well.

I still have some great items available that are suitable for stocking fillers, Secret Santa, tree gifts etc over on my Facebook page Bumble Bee's Craft Den - pop on over if you are still looking to buy gifts!!

Well - I had better get myself prepared for some Christmas shopping now!!

Byeee!

Handmade Christmas Market - 6 December

Hi all

Just a quick one from me to let you know about the Handmade Christmas Market I am co-organising.  If you are in Bristol, UK and free this coming Saturday 6 December, pop along to it.  Lots of lovely handcrafted items from a variety of craftspeople so perfect for Christmas gifts. Details on the poster below or on our page on Facebook.

Hope to see you there!

Flannel Crackers

A quick post from me today.  I've been making something different with flannels or washcloths if you are not in the UK!  Flannel Crackers!  I made a few up to see what they looked like and was pleased with the result so took them along to a craft table last Saturday and they seemed to go down well.  So this year I will have reindeers and crackers made from flannels and I am using the most gorgeous smelling soap ever to go inside of them - Johnson Baby Soap with Honey.  I think I may start putting a bar of it in my clothes drawers, a lovely fragrance every time I opened the drawers!!

Anyway, here is the finished flannel cracker - abit more adult than the reindeers!!

I made a sleeve to go around them and glittered up a holly die cut and added ribbon to the ends.  I'm doing some different coloured ones as well and I think I will put little die cut gingerbread men on those!

These are easy to do - you just wrap your flannel around your soap and put an elastic band on each end!

Hope you like them as much as I do!!

Santa Gift Decoration

Good afternoon - I've not blogged for a few weeks due to the fact I've been sewing like a good un'!!  I have been trying to get as much stuff as I can together for the stall I am doing at a Christmas Market and as I get so easily distracted it has been tough lol!!

I was in the middle of sewing some little owl brooches when I got side tracked by a lovely Santa decoration that I saw on Pinterest made by Amber from Craftin' Owl!  It was made using Stampin Up products but I actually didn't use any of them for this.  I did use my newish Sizzix French Bow die that I told you about recently and it is very similar to the SU Bow die used in this tutorial.  I really loved how my Santa turned out and wanted to share it with you.

Here is my take on the tutorial

Cute isn't he!!

If you want to have a go at making him, the tutorial that I used was on Craftin' Owl here.

Thanks for stopping by.

Halloween Treat Boxes

Hi there - I'm busy sewing and making items to sell at a Christmas Market I am doing.  I took a little time off though to make some Halloween treat boxes for my 2 nieces.  I saw these boxes over on ChicnScratches Youtube channel and couldn't resist having a go!

They are easy to make and you don't need super fancy equipment to make them.  Here are the ones that I made

I popped them into a cello bag and tied it with black ribbon.

I also made a lolly cover for a chocolate lolly

These are very simple to make, just cut your paper to 2 inches x 11 inches and then score at 4 1/2 inches, 5 1/2 inches, 7 1/2 inches and 8 1/2 inches.  Use your bone folder to go over the score lines, they all fold the same way except the last score on the bit where the stick will go through.  You need to punch a small hole to put the stick through. You then stick the top two pieces together.  I used a Stampin Up Scalloped Tag Topper Punch to get the scalloped top and fancy hole but you could use any punch. Pop the lolly in and put the stick through the hole you made. I then tied a small piece of ribbon through the top hole to finish it off.

I've made a batch of these to give out to kids at the Christmas Market as well - obviously Christmas themed though rather than Halloween!!

My nieces were thrilled to receive both of these treat holders!

Christmas Clothespeg Elf

A while back I bought some clothespegs - you know the dolly style ones - with the intention of making something with them.  Anyway, they have been sat in a drawer doing nothing so yesterday I decided to make a Chrilstmas Elf using one of them.

I had a look through Pinterest and came across a lovely little fellow by Tara Dennis.  She has a great downloadable pdf instruction sheet along with the templates you need to make the elf.  You can find the details here.

As I am not a big fan of gluing fabric together, I stitched mine instead.  I cut my pieces smaller than the template and did an over stitch on the outside whilst placed on the peg.  For the trousers, I cut the pattern in half and slotted each piece through the gap and again stiched them and then moved the felt around so that the stitched parts were between the slot where you couldn't see it.  I made the gloves smaller as well and I did glue those into place.  For the songsheet, I cut out a small piece of musical notes paper and glued it to some card and then glued the gloves to that.

Here is my finished elf

I am really pleased with my elf, he is rather cute I think!  My niece has now decided she would like to make some so she will be coming over this afternoon!

Thanks for popping by!!

Felt Pencil Toppers

The weather is starting to turn although here in the UK, I think we have been quite lucky this year as we had a nice September and although we are having rain and a few storms now, we are also getting sunshine in between.  It is getting quite chilly in the evenings though and alot of people have already started to turn their heating on!

I am in Christmas mode but not that motivated so having to push myself to make things for the Christmas Market I am co-organising.

I've been making these cute little felt pencil toppers.  They don't take too long and are ideal kids to buy at the market or for stocking fillers.  Anyway I've made a batch of them and will make some more as I am hoping they will sell well!

Here are the ones I have made already

I especially like the monster ones as the colours are bright and anything goes!!

I've also been making a start on tree decorations.  I wanted to do some felt snowflakes this year and found the perfect die by Sizzix except that is is discontinued and no one seems to want to part with it!  I can't believe that there isn't an unwanted one out there!  The die is a Sizzix snowflake die 657055 and I believe it was a Basic Grey Bigz die and it looks like this

If anyone in the UK has this and wants to sell it, please let me know!!  You can email me bumblebeescraftden@gmail.com or if you see it on a craft selling group on Facebook, I'd also love to hear about it!  Thanks!

Ok, that's all for now!

Fantastic New Sizzix French Bow Cutting Die

I love bows and think they alway give a more finished look to gift wrapping especially my gift wrapping which is not the greatest!!  Some people love to gift wrap and I remember seeing in a tv show called Orphan Black that one of the characters had a gift wrapping room with things on the wall to hold her rolls of gift wrap and a big table in the midde to do the wrapping!  As much as I love the idea of making your gifts look nice, mine never look great and if I am wrapping a whole batch of gifts they gradually get worse and worse!!  But that is about to change, thanks to a new cutting die that Sizzix have just released.  It is called 'French Bow' and is designed by Brenda Walton for Sizzix.  It makes lovely, large bows - the largest bow part is 10.5cm x 5.5cm (4 inches x 2 1/4 inches).  It's a standard Bigz dies so you don't need to use extended cutting pads.

The large size of this bow is achieved by folding over your cardstock/paper, you then position your fold on the die so that it is joined on the fold when it's cut.  Here's the cutting surface so you can see what I mean!

There is a large bow and a smaller one and the ribbon tails which you can either cut with a single piece of cardstock or again fold over and cut depending on how you want your bow look.  There is also the middle piece which had fold lines marked on it for you.

Here is the assembled bow

I used this die to make a bow to jazz up a gift bag.  The bag was one I recycled so just needed abit of decoration to make it prettier!  I made a matching tag using my new Stampin Up angled top tag punch (a very nifty and useful gadget!!)

I bought this at a craft show last week but I think it is being released this month so should be available in most craft stores.

Sorry the pics aren't great but the light today is weird :)

The 'C' Word is Coming!!!!

Well as the title says, Christmas is coming - it is frightening to see how fast this year has gone.  I have been trying to avoid thinking about Christmas as I hate doing things too early!  Over on my Facebook page I've had a few people ask me about what things I am making for Christmas this year so I thought perhaps I had better get cracking, especially as I am arranging another Handmade Christmas Market locally so will need a good amount of things for that!

So here are a few of things that I have made so far for Christmas 2014.

I've also done some flannel reindeers ready to decorate, they are all folded into shpae with the bar of soap secured in the midde.  They just need their antlers and faces which i will do nearer the time!

All available on my Facebook page.

Lavender Fragranced Flower Brooches

Hi - I've had a little break from blogging as I haven't been up to too much.  August was a terrible month weatherwise, which, after the lovely hot July we had here in the UK was very disapointing!  We've had alot of rain and wind and most days you just couldn't plan anything as the weather was so changeable.  Lots of summer events were cancelled as well which was a shame. 

Anyway - it's been alittle warmer and is supposed to be 'hotting' up over the next week so this will improve my mood for sure!

I've realised we are getting closer to Christmas and I will need to start making things ready for the Christmas Market that I am organising with a friend!  I really don't know where this year has gone, it's just flown by!

I've been making some felt flower brooches and decided that I wanted them to have a fragrance to them so the middles are stuffed with lovely freshly dried lavender from my garden.  A quick squeeze to the middle of the flower releases a gorgeous lavender smell.   These will be great to put onto winter coats as they are nice and bright and the lavender will keep the moths away!!

These are available to buy over on my Facebook page for £4 each plus postage.

I think I am alittle obsessed with lavender this year!!  I bought a tray of 10 lavender plants last week as they were on special offer at Lidl for only £3 so a bargain 30p a plant!!  I've potted them all up now so just hope they grow into nice, healthy bushes.