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When I made my bib necklaces (free pattern)  I incorporated fabric yo-yo puffs (Suffolk puffs) into the design, decorating and embellishing them with embroidery.

This is a guest post by Maggy at Red Ted Art. I think it's a lovely idea to make and create characters from children's books together, it brings them to life and enables children to have more interaction with the story.

Over at Red Ted Art , my son (Red Ted (2)) and I (Maggy (old)) do lots of crafts projects. Sometimes Pip Squeak (0) joins us. Usually we are inspired by books that we read - the tagline from another crafty mum being – story + art = great stART.

Last week I wanted to make some pom poms from fabric, in particular try out some purple organza I had. I have noticed fabric pom poms seem to be a popular decoration at weddings at the moment. I get a lot of hits, from search engines, looking for fabric pom poms. To start with I tore the organza into long strips (the width of the fabric) of about 1.5cm wide, tearing makes the fabric nice and 'hairy'.

In charity shops you can often see a pile of doilies languishing unappreciated in with the linens, it's a shame as obviously a lot of time and effort went into hand crocheting these cotton doillies. Pondering their plight I had the idea of up-cycleing them into jug/bowl covers, to keep flies off food and drink in summer. All you do to give them a new lease of life is attach, by sewing, glass beads* around the edge. 

Here's how to create your own fantastic crystal cake stand. A one tier structure would be good to display a cake. Multi tiers would be perfect for a very individual cupcake stand for a wedding, christening or birthday. You could even use it for a floral arrangement or as a tiered fruit bowl!

These bright flowers couldn't be easier to make, just a little sewing involved.

Following my diagram make a pattern.

Cut out the felt.

The petals are formed by folding the main oblong of felt in half, making six cuts as indicated, giving you seven petals. Sew a running stitch along the bottom edge, pull thread to form a circle. Sew the two ends together, at the base.

For this Easter decoration I took the basic Scandinavian woven heart basket pattern and instead of using traditional red and white felt I used felt cleaning cloths, in pastel shades. I decorated the baskets with flowers, made from the same felt, and placed a piece of tissue inside to nestle small eggs in.

You will need: Facecloth, rubber band, ribbon, small amount of white wool and black embroidery thread.

This is a bit like origami with a facecloth. First fold the facecloth in half diagonally.

Tightly roll the facecloth triangle up, start with the pointy corner so that you end up with the long fold at the end of the roll.

Fold the cloth in half.

Fold in half again, this will form the head and ears. Place a rubber band tightly around the cloth about 2/3 of the way down.

Adjust and play with the cloth until you are happy it looks like a rabbit's head.

I saw this idea for a card on Frugal Family Fun Blog, Valerie has created a lovely tutorial, showing children making the cards. I just like the clever way she has not only utilised the concertina effect but also the curve of the cupcake case, to such good effect.