Crafty Marie

Goldfinches are a real delight to have in your garden. These small birds have a tropical look about them despite being fairly common across most of the UK and they are pretty to listen to as well. Included are personal tips on how to attract goldfinches into your garden and encourage them to pay a regular visit. The only areas where goldfinches are not present in this country is in the in the far North and West regions of Scotland. Although they are not rare or endangered birds, they're not especially easy to attract into personal garden spaces. These are timid and shy birds who are fussy about the type of food that you're offering as well as with how your outdoor area is laid out. It took a while before we managed to encourage them to feed in our backyard but they're now daily visitors.

Rubber stamping is a brilliant craft that both kids and adults can do. This beginner craft tutorial shows you step by step how to start rubber stamping. Combine this technique with other paper crafts such as card making and scrapbooking for wonderful creations. Getting started with stamping is fairly easy and you can learn new methods gradually as you feel more confident with it. Stamping on paper is very easy to do but there are also many challenging techniques that you can progress to. As you get more confident with this activity, you can learn new techniques such as heat embossing and making cracked glazes.

I assumed that it would be easy to attract birds into the garden after putting some feeders up. We filled them all up with seeds and I thought that would be enough. Unfortunately it's not that simple. Encouraging and attracting birds to feeders in order to eat in your outdoor space can take days, weeks or even months of patience. It was 6 weeks before any bird came to feed. The whole episode was very disheartening. Unless we'd been particularly determined, we might have just given up on the idea entirely. Reading about our experience should help you to avoid our mistakes and have a better idea on what to expect. Discover how to get birds feeding in your garden - in the winter and all year round.

Rubber stamping is a brilliant hobby that can work really well on its own and when used with other crafts such as scrapbooking, card making and coloring. Discover all the essential rubber stamping supplies useful for beginners to this craft here. You can use rubber stamping to decorate greeting cards, gift wrap and tags, stationery, favor boxes, bookmarks and more. Special stamping inks can now work on materials other than paper too which makes it useful to more than just paper crafters. Starting out with this paper craft is often confusing and particularly when it comes to the inks that you need to use because there are so many available. Learn about the main types of inks along with the tools, materials and supplies that you need to begin rubber stamping and take it just a bit further.

Paper mache, also known as papier mache, is a fantastic paper craft that you can do even on a very small budget. This craft only needs a few tools and items so you can get started. If you're new to this craft or even at an intermediate level, you'll really benefit from these 15 detailed paper mache tips and techniques. It's amazing how just paper, adhesive and some imagination provide all you need to create anything from paper mache that you can think of. It is just as suitable as a fun activity for kids as it is for adult crafters and artists too. There are all sorts of flat items and three dimensional models that you can decorate or even build from scratch using this paper craft. Many people start by making simple masks for Halloween, Mardi Gras or even cosplay costumes. I prefer to make items that I can then display as unique home decor.

If you're new to bird watching in your garden or if you're not impressed so far with the progress you've made in attracting some birds to your backyard, it could well be to do with the placement or positioning of the feeders. We've learned a huge amount on backyard bird watching simply by trial and error over the years. Learn everything that we now know so you don't make the same mistakes that we did right at the start.  It matters an awful lot as to where you put your bird feeders in the garden. The placement of them could be the main reason why you are not getting as many birds in as you would like.

If you spend any amount of time working on knit and crochet projects, you'll need to sew up clothing, squares and motifs, toys and amigurumi, blankets and more. The best needle for sewing up knitting and crochet is a darning needle. Darning needles have rounded and blunt tips which means that they can pass through yarns and wools without snagging or catching on the individual fibers. They also have large eyes which makes it easier to thread thicker yarns through for easily sewing up your knitting and crochet. Get hold of the exact darning needles I recommend for knitting and crochet right here on this page as well as tips on how to store and use them.