Jikana Damaru

Winter Wonderland Advent House

When I saw the wooden advent house on Panduro Hobby's site I just had to buy it. The only problem was that time was getting on so when it arrived at the weekend I quickly got on with decorating it in time for tomorrow! Once I had painted the house and filled it with the pretty patterned drawers I fell in love! This is something I want in my house all year round; I think it would look great in my craft room and is an ideal place to store my bits and bobs! I decided to go for little glittered number labels that could be removed after Christmas instead of my original idea of numbered stickers.

Winter Wonderland Advent houseTools and Materials

Wooden advent house
White undercoat paint
Tilda design card - Winter Bird or printed card (230gsm)
Tilda design card - Flower Garden or printed card (230gsm)
Pink Clematis, tester pot of paint
Water, tester pot of paint
Washi tape
PVA glue, tacky glue
Scissors
Small paint brush
Mint glitter
Small tags
Glue pad
Number stamps

Advent House, How-to step by step

Remove the drawers from the house, and carefully pull out the handles that are glued in. Paint all sides of the drawers in white paint excluding the already painted white front, and leave to dry. Then paint the inside of the drawers in a colour and leave to dry (I painted mine in pink, duck egg blue and teal).

Cover the exterior of the drawers in strips of patterned washi tape and trim off any excess with a craft knife. Brush a thin layer of PVA glue over the top of the washi tape to seal it and leave to dry.

Place the drawer front onto a sheet of printed card and trace around edge. Cut the traced out shape from the printed card, leaving a 7mm border around edge. Brush PVA glue onto the front of the drawer and stick in the centre of your rectangular pattern piece and leave to dry. Brush PVA glue onto sides of drawer front and fold card over each edge, hold in place for a few seconds until card begins to bond. Trim off excess card at corners. Using a sharp pair of scissors, punch a hole through the card to the pre-existing hole in the drawer front. Dab the end of the drawer handle in PVA glue and push into hole. I covered mine in 24 different patterns.

Place the house on its back and masking tape around the edges of the roof to get a clean painted edge on the roof and chimney. Paint two coats of duck egg blue onto the roof and the top of the chimney and leave to dry.

Lay the tag on a flat surface and rubber stamp a number to the front using a glue pad. Liberally sprinkle the tag with glitter, tap to remove excess and leave to dry. Repeat rubber stamping until you have 24 number tags.

Tie the tags to the drawer handles and trim off any excess string. Place drawers back in the house in a random number order.

Fill with gifts like the hand-made cool mint lip balm

Hand-made sparkly strawberry lip balm

Have a sweet day!

Guest Blogging on Madeit!

Today I am guest blogging over on Madeit -- featuring a range of 'Summer' themed gift picks for the xmas season! I had a lot of fun choosing my picks from the gaggle of talented Aussie designers on Madeit... do check them out!

Here's a little sampler of my picks, click on the link above to view the rest! What handmade goodies have knocked your socks off lately? xx

You are my sunshine print

Beach bag

Pencil case in whale love

Party on down: Cake

Cake. Caaaaake. The very word sends most children into raptures, so it's no surprise that even with all the ridiculous fussing we parents do for kids' parties these days, the caaaaake still rules the day.

If it pleases you and makes life easier, you can buy in every decoration and every single other item of food at your child's party, but you better believe that a home made cake is a necessity. It doesn't have to be a difficult cake and it absolutely doesn't have to be perfect, but you've just got to have a go. Bringing out the shining cake at the end of the party and seeing the shining faces that go along with it - that's parenting nirvana to me.

Logistics. Depending on complexity of cake, start the day before, if not even earlier. Bake the cake(s) you need, cool them and then freeze the cake. Yes, freeze it. It thaws absolutely fresh and a cool cake is a lot easier to ice than an out-of-the-oven-on-the-same-day cake. Just make sure you allow it to completely thaw before you ice it. Condensation makes icing slide right off. Not that I would know...

Aim to serve the cake a good half hour before party closing time. It takes longer than you think to light up a cake, deliver the cake to much fanfare, sing the birthday song, do the X claps for luck, blow out the candles, take out the candles, search for the knife, cut the cake, fight off the many little fists that go grabbing for the bits with the most icing and serve the cake. Yes, longer than you think.

One more thing... remember to cut more pieces than you need so you can offer them to the parents at pick up time. It's a nice gesture and a great way of moving all that excess cake!

Easy cakes

Maximum impact can be achieved with no skill whatsoever. The key is packet cakes and lots and lots of lollies.

Easiest party cake I ever made.

No, wait, this one was... see, marshmallows are the king of cakes.

[Source]

Fondant icing cakes

For Capper's mermaid party back in the day, I forgot I had no cake skills whatsoever and attempted modelling with fondant icing. Do not attempt modelling with fondant icing for the first time on the morning of a 2 o'clock party. It's sticky and it's hard to colour (I don't care what the books say) and it just doesn't act like clay at all. Don't worry, you'll get there in the end, just make sure you keep putting that icing back into the fridge whenever it goes gooey and do leave enough time to finish the fish...

The mermaid and the blobs.

Ah, that's better... Unfortunately, it had nothing to do with me... [Source]

Little cut-out shapes seem like a much more sensible approach to fondant... [Source]

[Source]

Smoke and mirrors cakes

The 'smoke and mirrors' approach to cake decorating. A pretty banner, multiple sparklers, a well-chosen candle... tah dah!

When in all else fails, stick appropriate figurines on. They almost (almost) look like you might have made them along with your melting castle. A flag or two is also very handy for diverting attention away from epic fails.

[Source]

Shut the front door cakes

Some people are just uber talented and produce the sort of cakes that no-one wants to cut. These are the kind of cakes that we bookmark on pinterest with full intentions of rolling up our sleeves and having a go. And then we look really closely at the masterpiece in the picture and then go out and buy a Pattinson's Patisserie cake instead. It's not so much inspirational as depressing, you see. Divert your eyes...

This is also a Harry Potter cake, no figurines required... it's just tear inducing, really... [Source]

Do you think they were having a 'I'll take your Everybody's Doing It Rainbow Cake and raise you a Very Complicated Matrix Cake' moment? [Source]

Yeah, yeah, but does it taste good? (How's my life: I'm heckling cakes forgodsake). [Source]

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Of course, you could just go with the smoke and mirrors approach and stick a toy Buzz and Woody on top of a Greens Vanilla... [Source]

Ah, never mind. Cake is cake, right? Caaaaake... you can't go wrong, I promise.

You'll find loads more party cake porn on my pinterest board. If you need an invite to join pinterest, just drop me a note and I'll figure out exactly how one does that...

Next time: Tables

[First image found here]

November Sessions

I have been a busy bee! I have had so many wonderful sessions this month! I'm finally getting a minute to post my favorites. It has been fun~ some are friends, or friends of friends, and some I had pleasure of meeting.

A perfect couple and their ridiculously cute pups.