Gorgeous fabric

Most of the fabric strips ready to be turned into kanzashi:

WIP - kimono silk flowers

Last Thursday I ordered some kimono silk pieces from kimoYES. They arrived on Tuesday, and last night I made 2 flowers using a couple of different pieces. It's gorgeous to work with! Now if I can just get this computer to notice when I plug the camera in, I'll post some photos.
Today is our day off from Playcentre, so for me and Helen it's our "lazy, busy day". That means doing washing, grocery shopping, cleaning, maybe some thrifting, a trip to Bead Bazaar for some bits to go in the centre of the flowers.... fun!

After School "Arts"

Every Tuesday, I take the girls to After School Arts, a programme we run at our Playcentre, essentially like Playcentre for our kids who have moved on to school. It's a chance for them to do some arty, crafty activities, maybe with different materials than what we would provide for our preschoolers. It's different from school curriculum art, at least what I've seen in Jen's classroom so far, in that the children are in charge of the creative process. They choose what they want to do: what paper, what collage materials, what paint, pens, adhesives etc. There are no stencils, or templates, or anything like that.

So, sometimes the kids choose an activity which is decidedly not arty. It might be cooking sausages over a campfire in the sandpit. Or, they might choose to play like pigs in mud on the hill at the back of the centre, which is what happened yesterday. As Jen said to her Dad later "it was totally awesome!"

Teeny Tiny Swap

So the other day I signed the girls up for a swap aimed at kids, organised by Amanda at Zhinka dinka doo. It'll be so much fun! We've had lots of interesting talks about their favourite things, and how we could share them with our swap friends - books, crafts, colours... heaps of fun, and the actual crafting hasn't even begun yet!

More flowers

Worked on these this weekend, which was lots of fun. I posted a photo step-by-step on Craftster, lots of people had been asking about how to get the flowers put together.

Fabric flower fever!

Yes! I've finally figured it all out. Made this other little flower last night. And it actually was quite quick to make this time, nothing like a bit of practice, huh?

Success!

I did manage to create a kanzashi style flower that I'm actually pretty pleased with!


I love making these tiny things, and now the level of frustration with them has gone down somewhat, I can see myself having another go at it tonight! Cheers!

It's a crafting drought

Yeah. It's been um, ages, since I actually made any crafty stuff at all. This week we've all been feeling blah (sinus thing, heads on the verge of exploding etc etc). So I've been spending less time running around town doing Playcentre stuff, shopping, After School Arts, (luckily it's break week at the college where I work - good timing!) and more time moping around at home with grizzly children, wishing I felt like doing something crafty. Or, doing anything, really.

A while back I had a go at making some folded fabric flowers in the style of Japanese kanzashi. Really, like the most basic, un-authentic kanzashi ever. It's something that drives me crazy. I can make the petals just fine. I can usually get them all joined together and spaced out so they seem to sit right. The back looks tidy. Then I go and stuff the whole thing up while doing the hot-glue/button centre part. *So* frustrating! I couldn't even bring myself to take a picture of the hideous thing. So, I'm thinking maybe this afternoon would be a good time to try to get it right.

I have a bundle of fabric from the Arts Recycling Centre (only 20c, thanks!). Cotton this time, instead of the polyester chiffon I usually use for making fabric flowers.
If I get a result I'm happy with, I'll post some pics. Don't hold your breath ;-)