Austrian Easter bread

Those of you who follow my blog will know I love Austria, we holiday there as often as we can and I can even speak the language, on a good day!!!

 Austrian bakers must be the best in the world, so many different breads and cakes, I love visiting them for kaffee and Kuchen in the afternoon. As I enjoy baking I like to use my language skills to bake Austrian bakes and most of the time they even work!   For Easter I made an Austrian Easter bread  

                                  

 

Delicious with a cup of tea!

 

Easter Bunny

Its not very often these days I make something just because, I am usually busy with design team projects, which I love to do, or family birthday cards etc. But today I have something to show you that I made just for me!    Last year or perhaps even the year before, in the sale on Create and Craft they had a set of Dreamees MDF Easter shapes along with a stamp set. The price was good and as I looked at the MDF shapes, an egg, bunny head, square plaque and a sign I knew exactly what I could do with them.    Here it is, all the shapes together to make my Easter bunny                                  

I used the egg shape for her body, the square for the base and the head and sign as you can see.

Her features and the word carrots were cut on my Silhouette Cameo, along with her pink inner ears.

Her jacket I cut from scraps of Scrapbook paper. The collar and pockets from scraps of coloured card.

A few buttons finished her outfit off.

To stand her up I glued a cloths peg to her back, hubbies idea, and disguised it with white paint and a strip of the paper I used for her jacket. I also added a little pom pom from some pom pom trim to give her a tail. The peg just made her easier to glue to the base.

The carrots I got from the £1 shop and the fence was cut out using an old Sizzix Ranger on the edge die called on the fence.

Her little bow was also cut with a die and finished with a glittery button.

It was such fun making this little scene and I am sure I will use it every Easter for may years to come.

Happy Easter x

Easter bunny broaches

As Easter is just around the corner I thought it would be nice to make something for Easter for my Fruit Pixie blog project this week. So I designed these cute little bunny broaches which I thought would make a nice little gift. As they are quick and easy to make they would make a perfect little project for the Easter holidays.

 

I made them with the Ranger sticky backed canvas, an amazing product that you can do so much with. Using canvas means they will be supple and so you wont have to worry about them becoming bent while wearing them.

 

Making them is very simple. 

 

I made myself a template using a scrap piece of card. I drew around 2 round objects  (I used my round die set) one smaller than the other to make the body. I then drew and bunny ear and drew around that to make my second ear. I glued the ears onto my bunny body to finish the template.

 

Then I cut a strip of the sticky backed canvas, using the template to judge how wide I needed it. I then folded the strip in half bottom to top, peeled off the backing paper and stuck the two halves together. If you start at the fold and smooth up, you wont get any bubbles.

 

Using my template I drew my bunnies and cut them out.

 

I used the Cosmic Shimmer paints in pastel colours to paint both sided of my bunnies.

 

When dry I drew around the outside with a crayon.

 

I decided not to draw any features on my bunnies but just added a little bow and a pompom from a pompom trim I had for his tail. You can add what ever you have to finish them off.

 

I added a broach back to the back using a small strip of the sticky backed canvas with a little PVA glue to add extra strength. If you don't have any broach backs then a safety pin works just as well

 

 

 

I made my bunnies into little broaches but you could put them onto slide backs, key-rings or on cards too. There are all sorts of ways to use them.

 

Here are the products I used from the Fruit Pixie shop-

 

Ranger Sticky backed Canvas -

http://www.thefruitpixie.co.uk/ranger-sticky-back-canvas-white-11684-p.asp

 

Cosmic Shimmer paint -

http://www.thefruitpixie.co.uk/cosmic-shimmer-paints-644-c.asp

 

Bows -

http://www.thefruitpixie.co.uk/craftime-enchanted-ribbon-bows-16531-p.asp

Or

http://www.thefruitpixie.co.uk/craftime-flower-bows-regency-20919-p.asp

Or

http://www.thefruitpixie.co.uk/craftime-bitty-bows-violet-21435-p.asp

 

Broach backs-

http://www.thefruitpixie.co.uk/30mm-gilt-brooch-pin-back-516-p.asp

 

 

Sunday walk altered tin

For my March blog post for Tangie Baxter & Co, as part of my creative team duties, I wanted to make something bright and colourful. It was quite ironic as the day I altered my tin snow was falling outside my window! Here is my project, an altered sardine tin using Tangie’s Wonderland kit and a few of her collage sheets. Her products are all digital but as you can see digital products don’t need to stay on your computer! 

You can find a full photo tutorial over on the Tangie Baxter and Co blog 

https://shoptangiebaxter.com/blogs/news

Snow fairy art doll

I really enjoy making art dolls and was inspired by the beautiful traditional dresses that the women wore for the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang this year.

  So my Snow Fairy art doll was born!  I made her as a project for the Fruit Pixie who I design for.

For the body of the fairy I used the Artistic Stamper Art Doll rubber stamp set - http://www.thefruitpixie.co.uk/artistic-stamper-art-doll-medium-8021-p.asp

For her dress and coat I chose to use the Craft Consortium Winter Woodland papers -

http://www.thefruitpixie.co.uk/craft-consortium-paper-pad-winter-woodland-27414-p.asp

Her wings were cut using my Silhouette Cameo electronic cutting machine. I cut them from card then glided them in places using the IndigoBlu Megaflakes-

http://www.thefruitpixie.co.uk/indigoblu-megaflakes-533-c.asp

Her wand was made by cutting out the flowers from the Craft Consortium Winter Woodland paper and then built up to look like a snowflake.

Once she had her wand she was all set to sprinkle her snowflakes.