In 2017 my friend Tash (and probably my most loyal supporter) and I decided we need to get together and try new crafts (you should see our pinterest boards) as opposed to only getting together to drink Vodka! which always turns into a sleep over as we live 40 mins away from each other.
We both love the idea of crafting but never get the time, Me a Mother of 3 boys under 8, and Tash who works full time has 3 cats and has a hubby that actually likes to spend time with her!
So 2018 was going to be the year whoo hoo

Well it did not start great at all. January was a bust and never happened. With the Christmas rush of visitors and family moving closer yay, It’s so nice to be able to see my Nephew his wife (Hana) and their baby my great niece more often!!

And to be able to add another Girl to our craft days
So we book in for Feb 10  just us 3 girls NO Children or Men!!

So now the decision of what to make? where should we meet? What food drinks etc?
Well the food was easy another friend had made a cob loaf dip so I messaged Sanne “Hey how do you make that dip thingy you made at that BBQ,” and as soon as i hit send I thought how have i not thought to invite her to our craft days she loves DIY and has a candle business, and then we were 4

And another craft we could all learn candle making.

What did we make? Macrame plant holders

from left to right Tash, my great niece, Me, Sanne and Hana

We did managed to make a Macrame plant hanger each it was harder than we all thought it would be. But that may have been the wine……

This weekend we are going to be making Nail Art you know hammer, nails, wood and yarn we will see how it goes …….. stay tuned

Craft #2 Nail Art! 

What a success! we all accomplished out nail art pieces NOT! haha well nearly, It took a few glasses of wine to get motivated

but with hammers in hand we did finally got started 2 1/2 hours after we arrived, tummy’s full and all caught up on the everyday stuff that had happened in between seeing each other last

Hard at it trying to get the stubborn nails in

On to the yarn wrapping

Tash’s cacti

Sanne’s nearly finished Lenyx

Hana’s & for her bedroom wall and below my heart for my Great niece

April 14 we made be making dream catchers!

Craft #3 Dream catchers!

Knowing that we would be making dream catcher I got in the grove by designing 3 new mandala patterns

This is # 1 https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/hanging-mandala

#2 Diamond hanging mandala is doing well on Ravelry and was in the top 50 “hot right now Patterns” and can be found here https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/diamond-mandala-dream-catcher

 

#3 and finally Cockle shells mandala

These are all made to hang using a hula hoop and are a huge 78cm round!!

We all made something to eat Sanne made a delish salad with sweet potato, chick peas and quinoa, Hana made club sandwiches some scrummy garlic cream cheese and salami bites, Tash made an apple slice and I made ginger slice after we had had our full, we got on to the serious business of learning a new craft

Hana had me make her a centre for her Dream catcher and it turned out great it is now hanging proudly on her Bedroom wall.

Sanne managed to complete hers on the night and as you can tell she was super stoked to beat us all haha

Unfortunately Tash did not finish hers and I am still waiting for a pic ……………

May 27th we will be making Jam!!

Jam

Well May has come and gone that was quick!

Jam was a lot easier than we all thought

Rhubarb and apple

Ingredients

10 stalks of rhubarb, which was about 5 cups of chopped rhubarb

3 apples, unpeeled and diced – which was about 3 cups diced

1 cup of water

2 cups of sugar
Put it all in a large pot and simmer for fruit is soft
Whilst it is simmering wash jars and boil them to sterilize 

The second one was Blackberry

This was probably the easiest as we just used frozen berries  
Ingrediant

2 cups of frozen berries
2 cups of suger
1 cup of water
1 packet of jamsetta

Put all ingredients in a pot and simmer for around 15-20 mins mash the fruit and transfer to sterilised jars, Turning the jars upside down helps to seal them!

June we will be doing wood etching!!

In June we failed to meet so never got a chance to do wood etching

July we did Photo onto wood transfers

This was a fun experiment none of us had done this before so it was a learning curve

Supplies needed to transfer a photo to wood:
Unfinished Wood Painting Panel the smoother the better(so we found out)
Photocopied Image on Regular Copy Paper (you must use a photocopy of your image or it will most likely not turn out correctly)
Mod Podge
Sandpaper
Clear Glaze Spray
*If you want the wood grain to show through, use regular Mod Podge Matte. If you want a white background with no wood grain showing through, use Mod Podge Photo Transfer Medium.

Step 1: Apply a generous amount of the transfer solution to the image. You’ll need a thick layer.

Step 2: Press the image, photo side down, onto the wood panel. Rub firmly to smooth out the image and remove air bubbles. Let it dry completely. Ours took 12 hours

Step 3: Use a damp cloth or sponge to wet one section of the paper at a time. Begin rubbing gently to remove the paper and expose the transferred image below. I like to remove the top layer first, let it dry slightly, and then repeat the process as needed to remove the “fuzzies” that were left behind.

Step 4: Once you are satisfied with the image, sand the edges lightly. Seal the photo to wood transfer with a finishing spray.

August was Canvas painting

We thoroughly enjoyed this more than we thought although one of us did go to art school, we would and I will definitely be doing more of it

September 22 we will be up to 6 members and are doing Fluid art