Upcoming Classes...

Now with the Easter holidays I wanted to let you know about the current classes and those we plan to run!

Tuesday Morning Scrapbooking Group:

During the holidays there will be no classes on tuesday mornings as Kim is in Australia

Thursday Morning Scrapbooking Group:

Even though Kim is in Australia sourcing the latest Kaisercraft goodies for us :-) we will run the classes as normal.

Kim organised that Karen will run the classes on thursday for her.

Karen has got years of scrapbooking experience herself and she knows Kim and her style for a long time. 

I am sure she will enjoy it as much with you "regular" ladies :-) to meet all of you from 9 to 12 and create more stunning pages!!!

!!! NEW !!! NEW !!! NEW !!!

EVENING CLASSES STARTING ON THURSDAY 8th of APRIL with MANDY

We are happy to offer now also evening scrapbooking classes on thursday evening from 7 pm / 7.30pm till 10pm !!!

Mandy - our new teacher -  is originally from Jo´burg but lived for some time in Dubai. She recently returned back home to South Africa and is now in Hout Bay - ready to light your creative fire...

Mandy has got a lot of experience in teaching papercrafts as she did so in Jo´burg as well as in Dubai and even participated successfully in Scrapbook-Competitions! 

No matter if you are a beginner or advanced Scrapbooker - 

you can all sign up for the evening class!

For beginners the class will start at 7pm and for the advanced of you at 7.30pm. 

This will give Mandy some time to introduce you as a beginner to some necessary basics....

Costs for the class are R 100 for advanced and R 150 for beginners.

As the evening class requires more planning BOOKING IS ESSENTIAL !!!

Please send me an e-mail to freshlycrafted(at)mweb.co.za or sign up in the shop and please leave us your telephone number that we can confirm if the class has got the required minimum participants.

We have also 2 weekend - holiday classes up the sleeve....more about it here within the next days.....so make sure you check back!!!

New "crafty" stock arrived !!!

Finally we received the long awaited order for new stock in the kiddies section ......

As for the children gifts we try to have always a nice selection of little gifts that have an artsy or crafty touch.

Something for them to introduce them to MAKE things.....

So I am totally happy with the new stock from Melissa & Doug!

Here is a preview of some of the new more crafty products we have got now on stock- decorate your own heart box, race car bank, suncatchers, beadsets and much more...

Also from Melissa & Doug we got again the popular wooden peg puzzles as well as some of the classic wooden toys like the take along toolkit, wooden stackers, fruit play etc. ...

If you are not familiar yet with the Melissa & Doug brand you can look up more about the company and their values on their website  http://www.melissaanddoug.com

We like this brand especially because they take the safety aspects of their products really serious. They might be a bit more pricey then some other wooden toys on the market but after all we have a good feeling about their products especially for the younger ones.

They regularly test their products and have an audit, inspect and test routine at various phases of their production process implemented.

Additionally, they specifically test their paints and coatings very frequently, to be sure that their toys meet or exceed government recommendations limiting heavy metals and lead in children’s items.  To be on the safe side they also get their results verified by 3rd party independently accredited testing laboratories, considered by many to be the best scientific laboratories in the world.
Statements and more can be looked up on their website, too.

BRAND NEW and never in the shop before are

the Bambury Sticky Mosaics from the Orb Factory!
Those craft sets are ideal for children (as the mosaics are made of a foam like material) and they come in all sorts of different themes - single packets and full sets (ideal also for entertaining the kids at parties)....

The products of the Orb Factory also comply to the CPSIA standards for child safety. These standards are generally considered the most rigorous in the world and are recognized by toy industries and government agencies globally. If you want to learn more about the CPSIA standards click here for more info.

We hope you like our new products as much as we do!

All feedback, ideas and recommendations are highly appreciated - let us know what you like!

Ideas for Easter (1)

Easter is approaching fast and we had customers looking for ideas for Easter Crafts and others were looking for inspiration for a Easter Hat.....

For the Easter Hat we came up with the following idea:

The hat our customer has got is made of straw in a turquoise color....we thought about ideas that would be easy to do and also wouldn´t break the bank. So we came up with a handful of pretty colorful paper flowers (from the scrapbooking section), a pretty ribbon (1m) and a little wooden cutout duck shape.

The duck shape will be painted in yellow (just use regular craft paint), the flowers can either be glued on the hat or sewn (if you would like to use the hat afterwards without the flowers) and the pretty ribbon tied around. The duckling goes on top of the petals.

As the work is for sure in progress at the moment :-) I haven´t got a photo yet.

For more ideas on Easter Bonnets I searched the web and in case you look for a similar hat idea here is a tutorial I found at 

http://www.makingfriends.com

 You can look up at their website or use the following supplies:

-  a hat that you have got at home (it could be any summer hat)

-  pipe cleaners

-  felt in pink and white (or chose brown and white for the ears)

-  eyes

-  and some pompoms

-  project glue

All the crafty supplies you can find in our craft section - want to give it a try?

in love with felt...

...as some of our customers might have realized - one of my personal favorite materials to work with is felt.

We had already quite a lot of books about felt craft for sale and it seems as some Hout Bay´ers seem to share this love...

I see a lot of school market days these days and often moms come to the shop looking for ideas and supplies. A great source for ideas is indeed the web. Many really talented crafters out there generously share ideas and often provide free tutorials (but check out if they are allowed for selling the items!).

Today I wanted to share with you an easy but very cute BUTTERFLY BROOCHES tutorial from Laura which I found on her blog and feltshop:  www.lupinhandmade.com .

I think it is a lovely project you could also do at home with your girls, at birthday parties etc. !!!

You will need:

- two pairs of buttons, one pair slightly larger than the other

- some colourful felt. Any felt will do for the decorative detail but thicker/stiffer felt is better for the main butterfly shape - eg acrylic felt is also available at our shop in the crafty area.

Laura used acrylic felt. If you're worried about your felt not being sturdy enough, just add an extra layer between the front and back piece.

- matching sewing thread

- a brooch back or safety pin

First cut out your pattern pieces - if you print the pattern sheet (see end of Laura´s post) at 100% your brooches will be the same as Laura´s, approx 6cms across, just print it larger to get larger butterflies and to be able to use bigger buttons. You need one body piece in black or brown, and two colourful wing shapes. 

All the pieces she has cut out for her "in progress" shots are brown as she decided to use the pattern to make some moths.Next choose your buttons to match - again, hers are brown to suit the moth but you can have lots of fun playing around with colours.

Curious to give it a try? You can get felt and buttons at our little place and read the complete tutorial in Laura´s original blogpost!

Photos and Tutorials copyright by Laura www.lupinhandmade.com

Paper Goodies Tuesday!

Just as a reminder and info for all new here on this blog:

TUESDAY is not just another tuesday - in November last year we introduced the freshly crafted PAPERGOODIES TUESDAY !!!

What does it mean?

Every tuesday we will have new paper or new stock for the Scrapbooker / Cardmaker Community!

And now NEW: 
Kim - our new scrapbook teacher - will now supply a new layout together with the new paper and accessories!

So come in and have a look... :-)