craft

This is a quick and easy gift idea to make, well put together! All you need is a beer glass and two pairs of socks, a black pair and a white pair. For the white pair I bought sports socks, turned inside out, the texture resembles bubbles perfect for the beer's frothy head. Now all you do is roll and manipulate the socks into the glass until you are happy they look like a pint of Guinness.

*To avoid disappointment, for the recipient, include a bottle of beer as part of the gift too!

What you will need to make a lantern

Recently I bought some standup teapot shapes made from MDF. I was thinking how I could decorate them when I came up with the bright idea of making one side a blackboard. Once I had bought the blackboard paint I was contemplating what else I could paint with it. Well on Wednesday Alice and I were in the market and saw cherries being sold from little wooden boxes, they were so cute. We asked the stall holder if we could have the boxes he said yes, take whatever you want. Alice liked her boxes with the cherries on but I had blackboard paint and I was going to use it!

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.

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.

A couple of weeks ago I bought a Union Jack rug in Poundland and this weekend I turned into a cushion, backing it with unbleached calico. Very happy with how it turned out.

To get started you will need

If you haven't tried crochet but would like to, this is the perfect project to begin with, it only uses two basic crochet stitches.

Chain, ch - Wrap the yarn over the hook and draw the yarn through to form a new loop.

Double Crochet, dc (US single crochet, sc) - Insert the hook into the work, yarn over the hook and draw the yarn through the work only, yarn over hook draw the yarn through both loops on the hook.