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Showing posts from 2013

Covering cone party hats to match your theme!

I had a huge amount of trouble finding tissue paper hats to put in my Christmas crackers this year. The party shop that I always use for these things, disappeared over night and my source of ideas and people to chat to about entertaining décor dissolved with them... Its very sad. I tried every other party shop in the area but to no avail - they simply didn't have tissue party hats and couldn't "order them in". It was really weird. Then I turned to the internet in my attempt to buy these hats and discovered that I can only get them from the UK or the USA and, although the price for the hats was on the high end of ok, the postage made them simply too expensive for what will be a throw away item. I have tried making them before and despite it looking like a simple and easy thing to make, mine didn't live up to expectations... So I was reluctant to spend the time and energy to make the 20 I was going to need for Christmas day. Whilst despairing to my neighbour

Quick easy christmas tags!

This year I am making some Christmas biscuits to give to workmates and various friends as Christmas Gifts. I have found clear bags to put them into and then decided that I needed a small gift tag to go with it. Its probably quicker to buy 40 gift tags for $2 from a cheapy shop but it seems silly to me to give a handmade gift and then to attach a shop bought tag to go with it. So after a quick look in the craft room - I decided that I was good to go and had enough bits and bobs to make a few super easy Christmas-y gift tags for my homemade hand made presents! Here's what I did... (Please excuse the bad photos. My phone does not take good photos and the camera battery goes flat 1/2 an hour after it is charged up...)     I found 4 pieces of red and green A4 card and chopped them in to 12 pieces to give me a tag base to work from. Using a piece of last years wrapping paper that went with the tag colours, I cut some 2cm wide strips from the wrapping paper.  

Tips for making your own christmas crackers or Bon-bons!

I like making my own Christmas Crackers! I like being able to get the colour that I want to match the rest of the table as I rarely got for the traditional colours. I also like to be able to pop my own "surprises" in the crackers instead of getting a piece of plastic rubbish that just get trashed immediately. Some years I get excited and go all out with my crackers- other years, its pretty basic and laid back. Over the years I have developed some short cuts (and long cuts) for making crackers and thought I would share them with you. Here's what I do... This year I am going for a lavender and mint colour scheme and I can not find any crackers in those colours. I thought about white or silver for a while and then when I looked through the various papers I had in my craft room - and I found the lavender! The white Fleur-de-lys pattern actually came from the wrapping from a bunch of flowers that I had saved. I cut the plastic up into strips that happened

Making a home made, hand made watch strap...

I'm really rough on watches! I wear them all the time and they often get immersed in water, banged and scratched and generally worn out! I buy them for $10 from the local Big W/K Mart but its not the watch itself that gives up the ghost. Its usually the watch strap that breaks. Its very frustrating to have a collection of watch face's - albeit a little dinged - but not be able to wear them. I went through a phase of buying new watch straps for them and ran into that old age problem of the strap being more expensive to replace than the whole watch...?! The cheapest watch strap I could find was $12 and it lasted about two months. I did go and buy a proper leather strap for $25 and reckon I might have got an extra three or four months out of it... Its been an ongoing problem for me for a while now and I think I have finally I solved it! Here's what I did...   This is the $10 Big W special watch with the current broken strap!   (Sorry photos are bad. My ca

Sorting computer cords in drawers!

I'm sure I'm not the only one who does it.... I either have a desk full of cords and leads that connect various devices to the computer or I stuff them all into the drawer and pretend its all good! Of course the problem is when you want to connect the camera or maybe the phone, or even the other camera or some other device to the computer to download/upload/reload/unload some files.... Then you seem to spend for ever untangling a cord, plugging it into the computer and then discovering it doesn't fit into the device!!?? I found a way to stop that happening in my computer desk drawer! Here's what I did... Its a variation on what I did to work out what cord was plugged into the power board behind the couch - I used the bread tags to identify which cord is which! Not the most stylish method in the world - although some crafty people might colour code them with matching paper, paint or icon decals...     Now all I have to do is find the right ta

Things to try when your chickens arent laying...

From time to time chickens go off the lay for many reasons and it can be very frustrating for those who want or rely on their eggs. As my husband puts it - they become feathered free loaders! All that love, attention and grain and no eggs!      As I have become more experienced with chicken owning and a touch obsessed with egg production I have figured out a few things the hard way about what puts chookies off the lay and how to get them back on. Here's what I did... The first thing I think about was when was the last time that they got wormed? Pretty basic stuff. If the worms are taking all the goodness then they cant possibly produce and egg each day! I have a few different wormers and rotate them so that the worms that do survive one worming get blasted by the next wormer that goes through the chookie. I also use a different system to the usual "replace the drinking water for a day" as I have discovered that even with 34 degree heat in the height of sum
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