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With lots of animal hats in the shops I thought I would create one like a bear. I could have knitted one but I decided it would be interesting to try and customise a plain shop bought beanie. I bought a hat from a discount store for a £1, and with a couple of buttons, oddments of wool and scraps of felt I fashioned me a bear hat. I made three pom poms, two for the ears and a smaller one for the nose. I cut two circles from the scraps of felt, these go behind the buttons so need to be slightly bigger than the buttons. When I was happy with the position of the features I sewed them on.

What you will need to make a lantern

I bought a pack of polystyrene eggs (£1) to decorate for Easter. I used a wooden skewer, stuck through the egg, to make decorating and drying easier but I actually liked the idea of an 'egg on a stick'. To decorate the eggs I used tissue paper and paper napkins, stuck on and coated with a 1:1 ratio PVA and water solution. Once the eggs had dried I removed the skewer and added curled parcel ribbon, holding it in place by pushing the skewer back into the egg. I think the egg picks would be perfect in the garden as markers for an Easter egg hunt or just grouped in a vase.

With my lanterns being featured in St Albans Quarterley it has prompted me to re visit this idea for Mother's Day, this would be a companion to go with the tea lights in jar gift idea. You will find the basic lantern tutorial here. In the photographs you will see I have used a mixture of glasses and jars for the lanterns. Some of the jars, the round ribbed ones, once contained scented candles.

This idea is so easy, no sewing involved, just buy a roll of stockinette (it's mainly used for cleaning and polishing cars, Wilkinson sell it). Unroll a length about 60cm (24in) long and cut it. The stockinette is a tube, knitted in the round, just pull and stretch the 'loop' and that's it job done! If you don't like the unbleached colour you can dye it. I designed lampshades from stockinette for a book some years ago, I dyed it in lots of colours and it took dye really well. It's a nice scarf for spring/summer as it's made from cotton. 

All you need for this project is

1. An empty, washed, aluminium drinks can
2. A pair of scissors
3. Fine grade sandpaper
4. A ballpoint pen, that doesn't work
5. Cardboard, for a template  
6. Nail varnish.
7. Newspaper or kitchen towel to work on

In our garden we have a Scots Pine tree, a few weeks ago I picked up all the large (15cm/6ins) pine cones that had dropped on the ground. Now I'm making the cones into Christmas decorations, very easy and very cheap. First of all, with my handy Dremel, I drilled a hole in the top of the cone, to pass wire through for hanging. Using ordinary household emulsion I painted the cone white. While the paint was still wet I sprinkled white glitter on the cone, just to give it that touch of sparkle. When the cones were dry I added ribbon bows to finnish them off.

On Sunday 26 September, along with my friend Sue, I attended a one day Nuno felting workshop arranged by the IFA (International Feltmakers Association) Region 5 and run by Emma Jackson 

A couple of years ago I thought I would have a go at making felt beads, how hard could that be? Well disappointingly it proved to be more tricky than I anticipated and I failed miserably. Recently my friend Sue gave me what I can only call a couple of 'master classes' in felt bead making. It became clear where I had gone wrong, with my initial beading attempt, I was too quick to form a 'ball' and it separated. The secret is to take the initial forming of the 'ball' slowly then gather momentum.

To get started you will need