Crafty Marie

Cookies decorated with a fondant icing can look elegant and stylish. The bonus is that they can also be particularly easy to make too. These heart-shaped cookies topped with red fondant are very simple designs to create. They use a type of icing which comes ready-made in a packet for you to roll out. Wow friends and family by making some of these gorgeous red fondant heart shaped cookies. They are a perfect expression of your love and your thanks at any special time of year. Perfect to bake up for weddings, engagements, anniversaries, February 14th and sentimental moments. Fondant icing is like an edible form of Play-Doh and just as easy and fun to work with as well. You can choose red, pink or even purple colors which would look great for Valentine's Day or another romantic occasion.

A real hands on approach to learning about Saint Patrick's Day for young children is to give them some fun crafts and activities to enjoy. Having a variety of easy to make and do crafts, especially ones that you’re not going to end up having to complete yourself, is a real bonus. The St Patrick Day crafts for kids on this page are easy and fun to do, quick to make and educational at the same time. These are ideal activities for people who care for children as well as both educators and teachers to use. This is a really wonderful way to learn and discover more about Ireland, the Irish culture and all of its folklore and its mythology with the super lucky leprechauns and their famous and prized pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Just in time for your Valentine's Day crafting sessions are two pretty cute paper folded origami heart tutorials that I want to share with you. There are also lots of ideas on how you can use these pretty origami designs once you've made them up. Both of these projects are simple and fast to do. One is to make your own set of mini envelopes which you can use to hold some small love letters and the other is to make up some easy to fold hearts from paper. One project is designed to be easy enough that kids can make it and is also particularly ideal to be made by someone who hasn't done any origami or paper folding before. The second is a little more challenging but creates more of a wow factor once done.

This leprechaun paper plate craft is ideal for St. Patrick's Day crafting. It is an easy and fun activity to do with younger kids and can teach them about shapes, colors and different materials. The items that you need are inexpensive and they are readily available which makes it a good group activity. Since not everyone has a printer they can use to create a template, I show you how to make this leprechaun paper plate without the need to use a printed pattern. Turn the finished leprechaun design in to a cool looking mask for St. Patrick's Day when it is ready - just make some holes for the eyes and tie on a length of elastic to fit it around the child's head. My daughter enjoyed hers as a homemade hanging decoration which she thought was nice and cheerful for her play room wall. Have fun making this lucky Irish motif.

For Valentine's Day, I wanted to make a heart garland from felt fabric that I could then hang across my daughter's fireplace. Although I can stitch by hand and machine and enjoy lots of sewing crafts, I wanted a DIY project that was quick and easy to make. I came up with a heart garland DIY project that requires the absolute minimum of sewing in order to make it quickly. Alternatively, you can skip any stitching and just stick to glue instead for a really easy no-sew option. Felt is an ideal fabric to use for garlands, bunting and banners because it is a fairly tough material and long-lasting. It makes for a much more permanent decoration than paper. Since the edges of it do not fray, it is easier to work with than most other fabrics and requires no hemming.

A quick and easy activity for St. Patrick's Day is to make some fused bead designs. Perler beads, or Hama as the European version, are great for children and adults. So this is a craft that is ideal as a family session and activity. These St Patrick's Day Perler beads include many Irish themed patterns and motifs including a leprechaun's hat, a rainbow, pot of gold, shamrock, cross and Ireland's flag. You can make up these patterns in school, at home and at scouting and club activities. Younger children from age 4 and up can make use of the larger beads and pegboards which are easier for them to work with: these are called the Biggie Beads in the Perler range and Maxi Beads in the Hama range.

There are lots of reasons why you may want to make some kind of temporary mark on fabric. You might need to: mark around a sewing pattern before cutting it out, draw on a freehand design to embroider or quilt, indicate or show where certain stitches will go, transfer a motif to the fabric, mark out where a buttonhole or dart will go or put down specific pattern symbols. There are some really handy fabric marking pens for quilting and sewing as well as some other tools and techniques which you can use. You can learn about the most popular methods here along with all the tools and equipment needed. Depending on what your actual requirements are, there are many methods to transfer pattern markings to fabric. Knowledge of the different techniques allows you to choose the most suitable way of marking fabric for the sewing task that you need to complete.