on staying warm...or, I do like a cup of hot coffee on occasion too ...

Contrary to popular belief it is not all tea round here. From time to time (read that as every day at 10am) I like to make a cafetiere of coffee and indulge myself in a blast of hot strong caffeine but all too often my pursuit of this little indulgence gets interrupted (spouse/children/work/doorbell...you get the picture) and I get back only to be faced with the disappointment of a luke warm pot of coffee and a choice between throwing it away or microwaving it. Neither of which pleases me.

Obviously something needed to be done...enter the cafetiere cosy



I made this in less than twenty minutes while also watching Ms Bester do some drawing, so it really is a very quick and simple project (that may just revolutionise your life)

Here is how to make one:

From your collection of felted sweaters choose one whose colour fills your heart with joy.

For a small cafetiere (bodum one cup for example) you’ll get away with using a sleeve, for anything bigger you’ll need part of the body.

Measure the distance between the top and bottom of the handle (by eye, measuring tape, bit of string, holding a section of the felted sweater (whose colour makes your heart sing) up against it – these are all permissible techniques) and cut a long rectangle from the sweater. Make sure it is long enough to go all around the body of the jug and have a little bit (say two inches) to spare.

From your collection of beautiful wools and flosses select one whose addition to the felted sweater will enrich your warm coffee experience as much as you can bear. Use this to blanket stitch all around your rectangle.

Then choose a couple of nice buttons (from your extensive button collection) and cut slits in one end of the rectangle of a size generous enough to accommodate those buttons. Blanket stitch around the slits to make pretty buttonholes.

Attach buttons to opposite end of rectangle in the right places so that they meet the buttonholes when the rectangle is stretched snugly around your cafetiere.

Embellish the cosy to your hearts desire.

Put kettle on. Make pot of delicious hot coffee. Apply cosy to said pot using pretty buttons to secure.

Snuggle up with great book/the newspaper/a craft project/your darling/whoever was at the door (maybe omit the snuggling for this last one, unless you know them well of course) and forget about it for a while.

Remember the coffee, pour into your favourite cup (milk and sugar as you wish) and delight in the fact that is still toasty hot when you finally take a sip.

Enjoy!

Am off to Switzerland on Friday to check out my new nephew (and hopefully drink lots of nice hot coffee with my sister!).

ILoveArtClub...and my first tutorial

As some of you know I run a Saturday morning Art Club. It started as a favour to a mum at my daughter's school who had an 8 year old in need of a bit more creativity than the school curriculum offered. I have three constant pupils and a number of dropper-inners. I have to say without a shadow of a doubt this is one of the best things about my week. Come Saturday morning I can often feel a little exhausted from my week of commuting in and out of central London, those 6am rises, the manicness of trying to get home in time to collect the kids from their various establishments of education and care but by the time ArtClub is over I am re-energised and buzzing with ideas again. Ms Reva joins us very regularly and enjoys the whole process a lot. We talk about Art History in an accessible way, looking at examples of our weekly topics from the Art World past and present. We've done colour wheels and mixing, mobile making, printing, observational drawing, collages...you name it.

Dad's Hat by M - great sense of colour and shape, don't you think?

In an ideal world I would provide more classes and for different age groups. I am mulling over how I can fit this in with everything else I have on at the moment and hoping it will organically transpire at some point in the (not too distant) future. If anyone has any fabulous ideas please share them!

Mum's Fashion by L
mixed media on canvas
painted collage, stitching, ribbon, buttons, what more could you ask for?

Last Saturday was our last ArtClub for a while as we head off to do our different activities over the summer break. The children had been working on a personal project for some time and we managed to get them finished in that session and staged a mini-exhibition in my living room. The kids were so proud of their finished pieces it brought tears to my eyes (literally...it appears I am a total softie after all) I am looking forward to next term already.

look - stitching! I love this...

seaside triptych by E
- shame about the bad photo -
this is a lovely piece with great colours and a nice simple composition

One of the children asked me to come to her birthday party to do Art activities with the kids there. I thought there would be 10 guests so happily agreed. In the end there were 17 (gulp!) but it all went well. The children had a ball and I did too. After much deliberation we did
tye-dyed t-shirts
(sorry about teeny tiny photo)

painted plates

and a banner for the birthday girl (and boy - the extra guests came with an extra birthday person too!)
I don't have anymore photos of the tshirts unfortunately (hard to photograph AND manage 17 kids along with 4 vats of dye - these photos are courtesy of my friend Maaya who popped along to check out the action, thanks Maaya) but there were some truly fabulous creations

birthday girl with her wonderful plate

And now...drum roll please...my first ever tutorial...

Take some old china plates and a couple of shot glasses (my plates cost £1.50 total, shot glasses 20p each)

Add some 5 minute Epoxy Glue to your set of ingredients

apply Epoxy on top and bottom of glasses in thin layer and press together with plates for 5 minutes (or however long it says on the tube you are using)

to achieve something like ...

ta dah...

this cake stand

add some cakes
(and tea for the grown ups of course)

then unleash the hungry gannets...Bliss!

Of course we took it one or two steps further but you don't need to do that...

unless you really want to

...the idea for this cake stand came from my dear friend Ms D who had bought one a bit like this from a neighbourhood fair...'twas made by an SE London collective called "The Skip Sisters", unfortunately I can't find them anywhere on the web to include a link and I thought the idea far too nifty not to be passed on...

ps thanks for all the lovely comments a couple of posts back about the scorched capelet, yours truly and the shades. Unanimous vote that my co-workers exhibited symptoms of stylefreakery. I may have to share this verdict with them, now that I am talking to them again...

Updated to say I have just had an email to say my upcycled kids castoffs have been featured on The Crafty Crow. So I get a really dinky button to put on my sidebar. Way hay! A big welcome to anyone who finds me from that mention and thanks to Cassi for including me. I love The Crafty Crow, it's full of great creative ideas to do with kids - if you haven't already done so make sure you check it out.