Elf on the Shelf

Link to my Pinspiration

My Pinspired Creation



I saw all the Pins about Elf on the Shelf, and thought it would be lovely to introduce to our Christmas celebrations, despite some family members objecting to having a "Spy" in the house!  However when the girl Elf book and doll arrived it looked a bit boring, and not very girlie, so I returned to Pinterest to get some ideas to make her a bit more special.  I decided I needed to sort out her hair, and eventually found I could buy a Moxie Girl Doll curly wig, which fitted perfectly.  However, once the elf had her new haircut, her hat wouldn't fit!!  So instead I made her a headband in felt with a white ribbon rose as decoration.  She was still a bit plain looking, so I stuck silver stars to her ruff, added a tiny white ribbon and flower trim to her tummy and an organdie ribbon tutu.  I intended to add white fur/fluffy cuff to her gloves, and to give her some black boots with matching fur/fluffy cuffs, but I ran out of time.  I did add some practical velcro to her gloves, so that she will find it easier to hold things when she returns from the North Pole, and if I get chance when the children are asleep I will add wires to her arms and legs, to make her more poseable.

My Verdict
I'm pretty happy with how she turned out :-)

What I'd do Differently Next Time
I wish I had starting altering her earlier so that I had time to finish all my ideas (boots etc).

Giant Sun Print

LINK TO MY PINSPIRATION

OUR PINSPIRED CREATION


We used a large piece of sugar paper as our background, the Pinspiration recommended to use a darker colour and the darkest we had was pink!  This didn't please Little Prince very much, but he soon got over once we started though.  I gave each of the Littlies (and Drama Teen) a piece of A4 printer paper and some scissors and let them loose cutting shapes.  We didn't have any repositionable glue so we used small pieces of blue tack to stick the cut out stencils as closely to the paper as we could.  Then we sellotapted our creation to one of the patio windows, to wait while the sun does its work.

OUR VERDICT
Everyone had fun cutting and sticking their designs to the paper, especially Princess Lollipop whose greatest ambition is to use scissors!!  I will add another picture once our Sun Print once it has faded, which given the weather has turned cloudy and overcast could take quite a while!!

WHAT WE'D DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME
Unless our Sun Print doesn't work at all, I don't think we'd change very much at all.  All THREE Littlies (including not so little Drama Teen lol) had a lot of fun cutting and sticking their shapes, and they are excited to see how it turns out :-)

Cookie Ice Cream Bowls TAKE TWO

LINK TO MY PINSPIRATION

OUR PINSPIRED CREATION
We used he same UK Recipe as yesterday as taste had not been the problem, just my absentmindednes!!  I was more organised and before we even started I weighed and measured and made sure I had ALL our ingredients out and ready!!  This time it was just me and Little Prince making the dough, so it was a little less hectic!  We made the dough into both cookie bowls and into ordinary flat cookies.

OUR VERDICT
Once again the cookie bowls just spread all over the upside down muffin tin.  Despite copious amounts of greasing, I still couldn't manage to remove the baked dough in one piece, in fact it just came out in small lumps!  However, the flat cookies we made turned out very well and were very tasty :-)

WHAT WE'D DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME
I think we'll give up on trying to make bowls and we'll just stick to cookies!!  At least they turned out well!!

Cookie Ice Cream Bowls

LINK TO MY PINSPIRATION



OUR PINSPIRED CREATIONI decided that we would use a UK recipe for soft choc chip cookies, both so that I wouldn't have to "translate" the recipe and also so that the Littlies were more likely to enjoy the familiar taste.  Our experience with Jelly Biscuits was a bit of a disastrous start to our weekly baking challenge, so I'm trying to make this time a bit more successful :-)  We weighed and measured, sifted and mixed and then put our "bowls" in the oven to cook.  When checking the recipe to see what temperature to set the oven to, I noticed to my horror that we'd forgotten to use eggs!!!  No wonder the mix was too crumbly and I'd had to add milk!!  There was no way to rescue it by now, so we cooked it anyway to see how it turned out.

OUR VERDICT
It was a MESS!!!  The eggless mix had spread all over the upside down muffin tray, and despite all the greasing I'd done it was stuck solid!!  Despite this the Littlies wanted to try and eat some, so they broke off some pieces and ate them - they were declared tasty :-)  So not a complete disaster, but pretty close!!!

WHAT WE'D DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME
I'd get all the ingredients out and weighed before the Littlies got involved, and I'd make sure not to forget any ingredients!!!

Jelly Biscuits

LINK TO MY PINSPIRATION

OUR PINSPIRED CREATION


As part of our Summertime Fun list, I decided I would cook something with the Littlies each week.  I found some fun and different recipes on Pinterest, that I thought they would like.  This was the first one we tried.  I had to convert the American baking terms to something I could understand, but once I'd done this we were away.  The recipe said to use a mixer, but to keep the Littlies more involved we used a large mixing bowl and wooden spoons.  Little Prince enjoyed making the dough balls more than Princess Lollipop, who didn't like getting her hands sticky!  We managed to keep the hand washing to between batches of flavour/colour instead of between each dough ball, as Princess Lollipop tried to insist she needed!!

OUR VERDICT
We used four different flavours of jelly powder mix - blackcurrant, orange, raspberry and strawberry.  And probably due to differences between US Jello and UK Jelly our flavours were overwhelming, and our colours weren't anywhere near as strong.  Princess Lollipop tried blackcurrant and orange, and hated both, she refused to try any other flavours after that.  Little Prince said they were "fantastic" and "awesome" but only really enjoyed the orange flavour, which coincidently is one of his favourite jelly flavours.  Mr Messy said they were "alright" but that the flavour was a bit overpowering.  We probably squashed our dough balls a little too enthusiastically too, as our biscuits were noticeably thinner than our Pinspiration.

WHAT WE'D DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME
The finished product wasn't a big hit really, so we probably won't be trying this recipe again.

Little Prince's Summer Fun Diary

LINK TO MY PINSPIRATION

MY PINSPIRED CREATION
So that Little Prince can practice his writing skills during the Summer Holidays, I decided to make him a "Summer Fun Diary."  However, to give him more direction than a daunting blank page, I printed out a question sheet for each day, with spaces for Little Prince to write his answers.  The questions asked him to write the date, stick in the "Summer Activity" card, say what was his favourite part of the day etc.

LITTLE PRINCE'S VERDICT
He isn't too impressed with having to write during the holidays, it feels too much like work, I think.  He has mostly co-operated with filling in his diary for the previous day after breakfast, although I'd prefer he took a little more care writing neatly and using sentences.

WHAT I'D DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME
I don't think I'd change anything, using questions for each day, rather than facing a blank page has been a huge help to Little Prince.

Menu Board

LINK TO MY PINSPIRATION

MY OWN PINSPIRED CREATION

I need a way to organise what we are eating each night, so that we can get the shopping right (and cheaper, without all the "panic buys"!!). We have been using a scrappy bit of paper, with the menu at the top and the shopping list at the bottom, but its not pretty and we keep forgetting to sit down and work out what we will eat for the week. After seeing all the pretty and organised Menu Boards on Pinterest, I decided we needed one too :-) After trawling through loads of different styles, I decided that this one would suit our family's way of working best. Although I am making it with space for a shopping list, instead of having two menu card holders.

I bought a flat pine frame on sale in the Supermarket, I Mod Podged pretty scrapbook paper to the pegs. Then I filled the frame with co-ordinating scrapbooking paper, and added the wording to the frame and letters for each day of the week to the pegs. Then I had to start work on the menu cards, I made a document with two columns and on the left hand side column typed the name of the dish, and on the right hand side the ingredients I would need from the shop.  After cutting out all the different meals, I folded the paper in half, so that the meal was on the front and the ingredients on the back and laminated them all.   I made a pocket to hold all the menu cards, by trimming down a small, slim cardboard box and then covering it in scrapbook paper and decorating it a little, I glued the box and pegs into place and added a decorated bulldog clip top hold the shopping list.

I kept the original glass from the frame, and placed it behind the "Menu Board" so that if I want to use it in the future its there waiting.

MY VERDICT

I think it looks very pretty, and fingers crossed it will make us a bit more organised - I'll let you know if a few weeks :-)

WHAT I'D DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT
I'd get on with it quicker and not faff about waiting for ages!!!  And I'm going to have to make a minor modification by gluing the scrapbook paper with the Menu Card box and bulldog clip glued to it, to a backing piece of thicker card.  In use the paper isn't sturdy enough to prevent it from becoming damaged with repeated opening and closing of the bulldog clip.

Summer Activity List

LINK TO MY PINSPIRATION

MY OWN PINSPIRED CREATIONSadly I am finding School Holidays increasingly hard to deal with, even a short half term break reduces me to tears at least once :-(  Both Little Prince and Princess Lollipop are strong characters with their own quirks and needs, and dealing with them during school holidays, especially in horrible weather when we are stuck in the house, has always been very difficult.   That is not to say that I don't love spending time with them, and even the worst days are worth it, I just feel I need a "plan" for the next break!

The long Summer Holidays are looming on the horizon, and I need to bring a little more structure to our time.  I found lots of "Summer Bucket Lists" on Pinterest, and I loved the idea, but it wasn't quite right for our family.  Little Prince would probably pester to do all the activities he wants (expensive trips out most likely!) in the first week, and then get bored with the whole idea.  Then I saw a Pin that gave themes for each day of the week, and again I loved the idea but again it just wasn't quite right for our unpredictable English weather!  So I decided to make a combination of the "Bucket List" and "Themed Days" types of Pins.  I used a large (noticeboard size), piece of heavy white card and covered it in sunny yellow fabric (hint hint weather!!).

I finally used my Cricut (I was a bit intimidated by it at first!) to cut out the letters for the board title "Summertime" and I used shaped buttons to spell out "fun."  I also used different shaped and coloured buttons to decorate around the title.

I made six brightly coloured box pockets (by covering mini cereal boxes in bright coloured scrapbook paper) to hold the different themes of activities, and then made pretty labels for them.  The "Day Out" and "Day at Home" were further split into "Sunny" and "Rainy" so that one each could be picked and the weather won't be able to spoil our week.  I printed the activities and placed them in the right pockets.  Each weekend the Littlies can take turns to pick out one activity from each box pocket, and peg it to the "This Week's Activities" section of the board.

The "This Week's Activities" section has 7 pegs (covered in matching paper to the box pockets) where the week's activities are placed until we have completed them.  Once completed I will give them to Little Prince to use in his "Summer Fun Diary."  If we have only used the "Rainy Day" Activities then the "Sunny Day" activities will be returned to their correct box pocket to give us a chance to do them in a week with sunnier weather (fingers crossed!!).

The seventh peg will hold the three different zones for "Clean Team" so that each week we will work together to keep the house tidy and clean.  I will rotate the zones, so that we clean a different one each week, the zones are - Upstairs, Downstairs and Garden.  I will still expect everyone to put their own clean washing, dirty dishes and clutter away each day, the zones are just for a big tidy up and clean, as when we are all at home all day the house tends to descend into chaos in no time at all!!!



MY VERDICT
From the construction part of this Pinspired Creativity, I wouldn't be so nervous about writing the titles in my own handwriting!  I don't like my own writing and wanted to print the labels, but my printer ran out of ink,  I emailed the labels I'd designed to Mr Messy, but the formatting got all messed up on the journey through the ether and didn't make any sense when he printed them.  In the end I used my Cricut to cut label shapes, then glued a toning colour square (with rounded corners - so much nicer looking lol) with the words written on.  I took my tme and wrote neatly and it doesn't look as bad as I feared!!

I'll let you know how using the "Summertime Fun" board went, when the Summer Holidays finish in September!!

WHAT I'D DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME
I wouldn't faff so much about printing the labels and just write them out - quicker and easier than keep trying different printing methods!!

Prettyfying a Plain Magnetic Noticeboard

LINK TO MY PINSPIRATION



MY OWN PINSPIRED CREATION
I bought a cheap, metal magnetic noticeboard for my Craft Room.  To make it prettier, I Mod Podged wrapping paper onto it.  Even using a brayer, I had a lot of trouble getting the paper flat, and it has a LOT of wrinkles, especially on one of the bottom corners :-(  I didn't want to rip it all off and try again, so I fumed over it for a few days!!  Then I fumed EVEN MORE when one of the cats knocked over my newly prettyfied Charity Shop vase!!  When I'd calmed down, and was working on finishing a different project, I decided to re-use the materials I had used on the now smashed vase, to disguise the wrinkles on the noticeboard.

Once my noticeboard was looking so pretty, I didn't want to spoil it with ugly, plain metal magnets.  So I found some big buttons (the magnets are large!!) and glued those onto the magnets - much prettier :-)

MY VERDICTI'm going to have to practice getting my Mod Podging smooth!!

WHAT I'D DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME
I don't think I'd change much, as my "mistakes" made me add even more prettiness to my noticeboard and I like it a lot more than if it were just covered in the wrapping paper :-)

Under Bed Tent

LINK TO MY PINSPIRATION

MY OWN PINSPIRED CREATION
I made the Under Bed Tent for Little Prince's 9th Birthday

After seeing all the super creative "Card Table Houses" on Pinterest I decided I would give it a go. We don't have room for any more furniture, and Little Prince has a "Cabin Bed" so that's where I decided to make the tent. Bearing in mind Little Prince's special needs, I opted to use "stick and sew velcro" to attach the tent sides to the bed, rather than curtain wire. This way if he gets angry or clumsy the sides will just detach, rather than be damaged. And it can also be easily removed for washing. I bought some white rope lights, and cable clips to fasten them to the underside of the bed, as Little Prince hates the dark and would probably refuse to use the tent if he decided it was too dark.  The cable clips didn't work very well so I ended up using cable ties, to fasten the rope lights to the underside of the bed slats.  This solution works well and the lights are still secure some time later :-)

I made the tent walls from some heavy cream coloured cotton canvas I already had in my stash. I cut the pieces to cover only the front and foot of the bed, as the other two sides are next to the wall. I made two walls, leaving a space between them for the door. I sewed wide 3 inch seams on all the edges, to give them more stability, and 3 inch hems to give weight to the bottom of the pieces. Depending on how it goes I may add curtain hem weights to the bottom hem too, but so far it doesn't seem to need it. To avoid too much thickness at the top edge I used the fabric's own selvedge unhemmed.

I made a window in the door panel, with a piece of mesh from a laundry bag acting as the "glass" to stop Little Prince being tempted to climb through and hurt himself or rip his tent! I appliqued felt "Star Wars" shapes onto the outside for decoration. I made these by printing out pictures of the ships/characters/symbols from the internet to use as inspiration. Then I spent a whole afternoon freehand drawing the shapes much larger on lining paper (and using a large dinner plate for the curves and circles). I used these drawings as a pattern to cut out all the pieces I needed in felt, and then sewed them together, before sewing the completed decorations to the tent.

LITTLE PRINCE'S VERDICT:

"Its just some cloths on my bed"!! Note to self - remember how autism affects the imagination :-)  This was when he saw the bed as it is in the first picture, with no door window or Star Wars decorations.  When I finally added the Star Wars decorations he told me "You are the best sewing person I know" YES :-)  He has taken some cushions from the sofa bed in his room and put them inside the tent to make a little reading, calming down area for himself too.  I think he likes it :-)

WHAT I'D DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME
I'd fully complete it before unveiling it to Little Prince, I ran out of time before his birthday (due to family issues and my own procrastination) and gave it to him partly finished, which contributed to his not so thrilled verdict.

A Scratchy Toy for Princess Lollipop

This idea wasn't Pinspired, it was born out of trying to ease Princess Lollipop out of co-sleeping in gentle baby-steps. She now consistently falls asleep in her own bed (at a reasonable 7pm-7.30pm), and stays there until about 3am-4am most nights. However, the next step will be for her to get herself to sleep, without needing me or Daddy to lay next to her bed, as she soothes herself to sleep by sticking her hand inside our sleeves and "scratching" our skin. I keep her nails very short, so it doesn't really hurt, unless she finds a tender spot!! While thinking of how to help her transition to this next step, I started to wonder how she could "scratch" without needing me or Daddy. I came up with the idea of a Scratchy Toy and thought that a Sausage Dog would be the perfect shape :-)  


I searched Pinterest for a pattern and didn't find one I liked, but after a search of the internet came up with the above (free) pattern and Pinned it to my Crafts board.

MY OWN CREATION

I downloaded the pattern to make the Scratchy Sausage Dog Toy, however, when I took it to my local photocopying place to get the pattern enlarged, they made a mistake and its not as big as it should be.  On reflection I decided to carry on and make the smaller size  Sausage Dog (and reduce the size of the seam allowance) as it will be much easier for 3 year old hands to carry around, and if Princess Lollipop does become attached to it, it won't take up too much space in a bag when we are out and about.  


I made the Sausage Dog from soft fleece fabric and cotton (instead of the wool and cotton suggested by the pattern). At the last minute I also decided to make a "spare" as we all know the heartache if a child loses their precious toy!!  Once I had cut the body and inner body pieces, I sewed french knots randomly all over the pieces, before finishing constructing the toy. I sewed buttons on for the eyes, making sure they were very firmly attached. 

PRINCESS LOLLIPOP'S VERDICT
She has been involved in every step of the Scratchy Toy construction, and was fascinated watching me sew, especially when  I used the sewing machine.  She has named her Scratchy, and will sometimes ask for her at bedtime and at others is adamant that she doesn't need her and will throw her out of her bed!  She is managing to get herself to sleep without scratching me, whether or not  she has Scratchy in bed with her or not.

MY VERDICT
I don't like how Scratchy has turned out at all.  Her ears mostly stick up and out (like a pair of aeroplane wings!) due to the difference in scale of the pieces to how they are supposed to be.  Also I can see all my mistakes and it seems to glare out at me where I've had to make last minute repairs.

WHAT I'D DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME
I wouldn't try to cut out four pieces of fleece at the same time, it might be a lovely soft fabric but it isn't easy to cut through that many thicknesses!!  It was extremely fiddly to sew too, so I'd probably get the pattern enlarged to the correct size and not try to use such small seam allowances either.

Ribbon Storage

LINK TO MY PINSPIRATION

MY OWN PINSPIRED CREATION
At the moment my ribbon is all stuffed in a tin higgeldy piggeldy and I have no idea what is in there!  So I was poking around on Pinterest looking for a better way of storing ribbon most of the Pins I found were for storing spools of ribbon, not lots of different lengths like I've got, so when I found the above Pin it was perfect :-)  Even down to the idea of fastening the ribbons with hair grips instead of pins :-)

After a LOT of trial and error I found that the flat bobbins I wanted were called "floss bobbins" and ordered them.  Once everything arrived I set off sorting and winding my ribbons, and hanging all the similar colours on the same book rings.  Then all I had to do was hang them on the wall.  I didn't want to have them hanging from plain picture hooks, so I used the same idea as in my Pinspiration and used plastic headed drawing pins.

MY VERDICT
A great way to store and display ribbons.  I can see exactly what I have and hopefully this will stop me buying more of the same ribbons over again!

WHAT I'D DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME
I'd try to find larger plastic floss bobbins, as the cardboard ones I bought were quite flimsy and I have to use two together to make them sturdy enough, and the ones I bought are only about 1 1/2" long and they are too small really.

Craft Room Chair Re-vamp

LINK TO MY PINSPIRATION

MY OWN PINSPIRED CREATION

I love the look of the room in my Pinspiration, with the pastel walls and dramatic black and white damask curtains. However, I don't want curtains in my Craft Room, as they would block too much light, and when I started to look at the price of damask fabric I was shocked at how expensive it was! I did want to add a touch of black and white damask somewhere though without it costing me a fortune. I decided to recover the seat of the chair I'd bought for the room (second hand) as it wouldn't take up too much fabric, it would be quick and simple to do and I don't like the dirty looking pink toile that's on there at the moment!

This project took less than 20 mins to complete! The longest part was removing the staples holding the toile fabric in place! Once I'd done that I used the toile as a template to cut my damask, carefully positioning the fabric so the pattern had a pleasing placement :-) Then I cut it out and used a heavy duty stapler to staple it to the chair seat. I stapled opposing sides, making sure the fabric was pulled tight and then finished the rest of each side, again taking care to pull the fabric taut and keep the tension even across the whole seat. It was a bit of a faff doing the corners, but after a bit of folding and tweaking I got them finished to my satisfaction and I was done :-)

MY VERDICT

Super easy project, which makes an instant and dramatic change to my Craft Room chair - much more to my taste now :-)

WHAT I'D DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME

I'd ask Mr Messy for some pliers sooner, rather than ruin a pair of scissors by trying to use them to first lever out one side of the original staples and then pull out the second!

Medicine Cabinet Re-organised

LINK TO PINSPIRATION

MY PINSPIRED CREATION

I regularly browse Pinterest looking at various cleaning and organising tips, and this one grabbed my attention, probably due to the number of health problems in our family at the moment! Our Medicine Cabinet has always been a largish white shoe box with a Red Cross drawn on the side, and everything shoved inside higgeldy piggeldy, making it almost impossible to find anything quickly or easily. The picture above looked so well organised and inspiring :-) So when me and Mr Messy went to the Supermarket that evening we bought some cheap plastic food storage tubs, I hadn't measured the space so we only bought four. I started off by completely emptying the Medicine Cabinet and getting rid of everything that had expired, I was surprised at how much there was to throw out as I regularly go through this cupboard!! I found that I could fit 6 boxes in the space, rather than the 4 I'd bought and definitely need the extra two, as we have way more medicines etc than will fit in the four! I also needed to revise my original "categories" as I had way more than six! I went out to buy the extra two boxes and reorganised again and now my Medicine Cabinet is much more user friendly :-)

MY VERDICT

Great idea from Pinterest. Great result at minimum costs (£1.75/box = £10.50). Thrilled with my new organised Medicine Cabinet :-)

WHAT I'D DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME

I'd measure the space before buying the boxes, so I'd know how many I needed first time!

Introducing My (future) Craft Room

This will probably be a series of posts for quite some time, as its going to take me a long while to sort the whole room out! I can only work on it when Princess Lollipop is at Tiny School (her name for the childminders) and she's only there for two mornings a week! And I have plenty of other projects that I'm working on too!!

Anyway my Craft Room started off as Mr Messy's Office, and you can see from the photos why he got that nickname!! Since he opened OUR shop he has spent less and less time in the office and it has gradually become a dumping ground for even more mess!! So at Christmas I asked Mr Messy if I could have an extra present - his office!! He agreed pretty quickly, but getting him to move his "stuff" wasn't quite so quick!! I don't mind as he is working his socks off at OUR shop and his asthma has been bad since we returned from our Disney holiday last November.

However, in the last week or so we've made some more progress :-) And here is a photo from today - can you "Spot the Differences" :-) I love spending time in there and tidying and rearranging things a little bit more each time.

Curly Ribbon Hair Pretties

LINK TO MY PINSPIRATION

MY OWN PINSPIRED CREATION

I decided to make Princess Lollipop curly ribbons for school, in school colours. I used some 10mm green gingham ribbon, 5mm plain white ribbon and 5mm plain green ribbon. As instructed in the above pin, I wrapped all my ribbon tightly round my dowelling rods and cooked it in the oven at 135 degrees C, for 25 minutes. Princess Lollipop looked at me very strangely when I told her I was cooking ribbons "Can I eat it?" was her eventual puzzled response lol.

I took them out of the oven after 25 mins, and let them cool for about an hour before checking if they were cool enough to work with. Then there was the "oh my gosh will it have worked?" moment when I started to take the ribbon off the dowels!! And it DID :-) I showed off my ribbon worms to Mr Messy, and played boinging them too :-) I couldn't believe it had worked so well :-)

I cut the curly ribbon into roughly 3 inch lengths and then split them into two equal groups. I centred the groups of ribbon one at a time, on a long piece of dental floss and gathered them up and tied a knot. I then got Mr Messy to hold the bunches of ribbons at either side of the knot and wound the dental floss round and round, tying knots every now and again to secure it and finishing with a tightly tied knot. I cut a circle of felt and covered it in hot glue, then put it between the teeth of the hair clip, added a bit more hot glue and pressed the bows onto the felt. The glue holds really securely and I don't think even my rambuctious 3 year old will pull it apart easily :-)

MY VERDICT

I think they are great for a first try, and aren't too overwhelming to wear to school.

PRINCESS LOLLIPOP'S VERDICT

At first she didn't want to wear them, but now she won't take them off :-)

WHAT I'D DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME

The length of the ribbons is right (for school clips), but they aren't as full as I'd like, so I think I'll have to make one clip at a time, or double my number of dowel rods to make two at once. And for clips to wear out of school I think I'd make the ribbon lengths longer too, so I'd definitely only be able to make one at once.

UPDATE
After wearing for a few months the ribbon wasn't holding its curl very well, and one of the clips was very loose and almost falling apart.  I've checked on craft forums and found people recommending using starch. 

Method One:  Soak in liquid starch, or spray with starch then bake.
Method Two:  Bake and then spray when still hot from the oven.
Method Three:  Either of the above, but use hairspray instead of starch.
Method Four:  Soak the ribbon with water, then spray with starch

I've also read various different time/temperature variations:
100 degrees C for 45 minutes
120 degrees C for 30 minutes
135 degrees C for 15 minutes

The other tip I've found is to use very strong thread and sew the ribbons together in the centre with a single stitch, before gluing the ribbons to the clip.

Magnetic Dolls

LINK TO MY INSPIRATION

This was an idea that has been brewing for a loooong time, well before I got addicted to Pinterest. On a Disney holiday planning board there were LOTS of fun ideas to keep children entertained and busy on the long journey to get to WDW and I managed to complete quite a few for Little Prince and Princess Lollipop. One that I didn't get round to was making a Magnetic Doll for Princess Lollipop, so I intended to make it for her birthday instead and that didn't happen either! So I am finally getting round to it "just because..."

MY OWN CREATION
I bought two prettily shaped metal trays from a Car Boot Sale for 50p each! I didn't take a photo of them before I spray painted them, but trust me they were very gaudy and not pretty at all. They needed 4-5 layers of spray paint to completely cover up the horrible pictures, but that went pretty quickly as the paint I used (Rustoleum Painter's Touch Satin in Green Apple) only needed an hours drying time between coats. I then left them for 24 hours to make sure they were completely dry. I had printed out a doll ready to Mod Podge to the tray, and lots of clothes and accessories to stick onto magnetic paper.

Then I decided to have a look on Pinterest and see if anyone on there had any good ideas. BIG mistake lol!! I found one Pin which used an actual picture of the child as the Doll! I loved the idea, but the idea of then photographing Princess Lollipop in all sorts of different outfits was daunting to say the least. So as much as I loved the idea I put it to the back of my mind. I did carry on looking and found ANOTHER personalised Doll, however this Pin suggested turning the cut out photograph over and using it as a template to draw outfits on scrapbooking paper and gluing those to magnetic paper! GENIUS :-) A totally perfect idea :-) So that is now what I'm going to do!!

So I'm going to finish this post here and start a new one for the ACTUAL magnetic dolls I am making. And what happens to the trays you say? I'm thinking of using one to Mod Podge a saying or picture on to hang in my Craft Room and the other as an actual tray for Princess Lollipop to use in her Pink House :-)

WHAT I'D DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME

I think I should completely research what I'm going to do and come to a final decision BEFORE starting something lol :-)

Pattern Storage

LINK TO MY PINSPIRATION

MY OWN PINSPIRED CREATION
This was one of the first Pins I saw that I knew I HAD to make :-) I scoured the shops for a metal kitchen roll holder (well a couple anyway) and couldn't find one, so I turned to Ebay and found one very cheap even with the postage. I also bought my book binding rings (took ages to find the correct search term lol) at the same time. When they had both arrived I realised that the rings were too small!! Back to the drawing board, well Ebay, to find the right size. I also bought some mixed pastel coloured card, to stiffen the file protectors (which I already had). I had all my supplies for ages, before I got round to putting them all together, no idea why as it was simplicity itself :-)

MY VERDICT:

A VERY easy project to complete :-) It looks great :-) And its flexible enough to be able to add more protectors as needed.

WHAT I'D DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME:

I'd get on with it straight away and not leave it for ages before starting! I'd also buy the kitchen roll holder first, and measure what size binding rings I needed, before buying them! And I'd add plenty of extra file protectors, as I've already filled them all, and it is a pain adding any more without all the original ones falling off the book binding rings!!

Knight Costume

This wasn't actually Pinspired! It was inspired by Princess Lollipop's love of the TV programme "Mike the Knight" (pictured above) and the lack of suitable Knight costumes anywhere! Although I doubt if I would have even thought of making my own if I hadn't already been a regular on Pinterest :-)

MY OWN CREATION

I bought a painting tabard to use as a pattern, as despite searching under all the terms I could think of I couldn't find a suitable template for one online. I decided to make a quartered design, rather than the solid colour that Mike the Knight has. Using the folded tabard as a pattern, I cut out the felt, instead of a shoulder seam I cut the front and back in one piece with the fold as the shoulder "seam." I cut one top in pink and another in blue, and then cut two bottom quarters in pink and two in blue. I sewed the pink bottom quarters to the blue top and vice versa, then sewed down the centre seams. Not forgetting to press the seams open between sewing the different parts. I then top stitched all round the edges and around each quarter. I drew a small shield shape, and cut that out in blue and appliqued it to the front top pink quarter, just using a straight stitch (the beauty of non fray felt).

Again using the painting tabard as a template I sewed two small lengths of 1 inch elastic to the sides to fasten the front and back together.

I bought the sword and shield from the Toy Shop :-)

PRINCESS LOLLIPOP'S VERDICT:
She opened the sword and shield pack first, and knew immediately what they were and grabbed them and shouted "I Mike the Knight" She also recognised the tabard as soon as she opened it, but isn't as keen to wear it as the Superhero cape.

WHAT I'D DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME:

I would remember that this costume was for a 3 year old, and not leave the ends of the top stitching open (ie. not reverse stitch over the ends) and hand sew them, so there isn't a double lot of stitching! It was the fiddliest part of the whole costume, and totally unnecessary! I'd also check the size against the child I'm making it for - the tabard reaches past her knees (plenty of growing room lol).

Super Hero Costume

LINK TO MY PINSPIRATION

MY OWN PINSPIRED CREATION

I made the Super Hero Costume for Princess Lollipop for her 3rd Birthday, so I had to make it in her favourite colour - PINK.

I used felt for the whole thing, and found it wonderful to work with, especially as it needs NO hems :-) I used a bib as a template for the neckline and then cut the rest of the cape to the size recommended in the Pinspiration. I found another Pin that had free printable templates for Super Hero motifs and chose a lightening bolt. I cut that out in white felt and appliqued it to the cape, using just a straight stitch. I top stitched all around the cape in white, just to give it some extra stability, and because I like how it makes it look more finished. I then sewed velcro to the neck to fasten it (so that it will easily come undone if grabbed when playing). I rounded the edges of the velcro square, so that it won't scratch Princess Lollipop's neck when she puts it on.

I also made Super Hero Cuffs using this Pin again in pink felt, with a white heart motif appliqued on, again with just a straight stitch. I sewed velcro along the short sides to fasten the cuffs, again rounding the corners so they don't scratch. And I top stitched all round the edges in white.

And lastly I made a simple pink felt Super Hero mask, from a template online, but I can't find the Pin I linked to it from, sorry. I measured Princess Lollipop's head and sewed on 1/4 inch elastic to hold it on.

PRINCESS LOLLIPOP'S VERDICT:
"I a Super Hewo" shouted before running up and down the room with her arm raised in a "Superman flying" type pose :-) She likes to wear the cuffs (which are a bit big and fall off) but isn't too sure what they are. She is also convinced that the lightning bolt on the back of the cape is a Christmas Tree lol.

WHAT I'D DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME:
Practice sewing curves more! And I'd check the size of the neckline against the child I was making it for, as its quite tight and has no room for growth.