Easter crafting with kids, or just one

This weekend I invited my almost 6 year old cousin to come crafting with me and he was so excited! When it was time to go home his mother asked him if he has had enough of crafting for a while now but he said no, he wanted to keep crafting!
I was very impressed by his creativity and focus. I think he made about ten figures and one card!

I have a special basket for all the crafting material I let him use or purchase especially for him, things that are suited for kids, mostly complete kits. I must say that Panduro is very good at this! I found a few Easter kits on sale at both Panduro and Slöjd-detaljer so I got away pretty cheap this year!

This was all that fit in the basket before we started crafting. I don’t usually keep the pens, pencils or brushes in the basket.
I also use a wax table cloth to protect my oiled oak table from any spilled paint or glue.

Leon in the middle of gluing punched stars on his card. In the front you can see most of the figures he made all by himself, I just helped holding them while drying.

For the next time I think I will buy more wadding eggs and other shapes, some googly eyes and wood buttons. These are the supplies he use the most and seem to have most fun with (except for my punches). I already have enough pipe cleaners, feathers and sequins to last a lifetime in case he want to decorate a bit extra.

Next time I feel like clearing out unused stuff from my stash (that would actually be the first time ever) I will simply add it to the magic kids crafting basket. I realized that he does not, whatsoever, see my things the same way I do. He said “you have sooooo much crafting stuff!” and yet he’s just seen a teeny tiny part of it all, *snickers*.

Easter celebrations and a birthday

So yesterday we went to our aunt to celebrate Easter with the family and to celebrate her youngest daughter who turns 14 on Tuesday.
My two youngest cousins were there too and I made them Easter bags with some chocolate and soft bubble bottles, I’m trying not to give them too much candy as their parents try to keep them away from sugar. I gave them handmade bags last year too with a small treasure hunting quest for the older boy. This year I made a trail with chocolate eggs for them to follow. They were super happy!

The bags are something I got from some kits and they’ve been lying around for a while now.. happy to get to use them and some other stuff in my stash!
I found some fun challenges to enter with these bags too!

The Ladybug crafts challenge: Anything goes
Alota rubber stamps #103: Springtime
Crafty creations #215: Easter
Magnolialicious challenge: All about spring
I love promarkers: Spring is in the air

A few of the items from my stash: the shaped buttons (helicopter and police car), bubble stickers and a butterfly sticker I found in Berlin at Karstadt I believe.
The buttons were a part of the Christmas calendar I got from my mother last Christmas, they have this ring on the backside which I cut off and that caused the button to fall apart! Glued it all together again and adhered it with some glue dots.

A closeup on the bunny, colored with pro- and flexmarkers. I colored the bow with a darker blue first and added a brighter shade on top, gives a nice touch!

And here is the birthday card for my other cousin who turns 14. Inspired by the Sweet stop sketch #204
So happy I got to use both some alphabet stickers and a few brads from my stash.

Least but not last I also finished off some cards to go with a few angels my other aunt ordered.

Pastel flowers

A mid week finished card for once! Just to be able to participate in a few challenges. For this card I had 2 sisters challenge #134: pastels, the crafty bloggers network #9: spring or pastel and a gem of a challenge #70: floral frenzy (I marked those words, he he) in mind. And a bonus was to use the never ending paper flowers and brads from my stash. One tiny step towards extinction, yay!

I do feel that something is missing in the background but I’ll just leave this as it is, there’s just too much to do both at work and at my spare time this week, that’s life!

The colors do look slightly darker than they are, me and my crappy photos again! I guess the lightning in my closet is worthless for photos.. Could have figured that one out earlier to be honest! One day I’ll make myself a lightbox or something similar, when I have the time.

Half hearted creations

This weekend left very little time for crafting and when I had the time I just couldn’t get the inspiration or peace in order to get something done. Forced and slow, that’s how this weekend’s crafting went.

I managed to create one Easter card, it feels like something’s missing, I just can’t figure out what so I’ll just leave it as it is. Inspired by the I love promarker challenge #158: Anything but square I made this egg shaped card.

Maybe a few butterflies would do it, I might take another look before sending it, there’s still time to make improvements!

This card was inspired by the Fab Friday Challenge #13.
I do feel more pleased with this one, maybe it’s the familiar shape and bold colors. Or the fact that it’s a small card, a creation fit for this lack of inspiration I’m suffering from at the moment.
Another thing I’m happy about is the fact that I managed to use two of my cardboard decorations I’ve somehow collected over the years. It was one thing I thought I could go for as a goal this weekend (if everything else fails).
When I found these brackets in my forgotten drawer, I thought they were extremely boring, pale and.. cheap. While looking at them I just kept hearing Jennie telling me “you can always emboss or color boring things, I do that with brads sometimes. And use color/mists on boring papers!” I gazed at my color shelf, imagined them all, one by one on my black brackets.. And suddenly my I found it; my black diamond stickles! I looked at the brackets, back to the stickles tube, grabbed it and went nuts. Love it!