Candy Free Valentine Idea: Flower seeds

We can't seem to leave the idea of flowers behind for Valentines Day. This year our little Valentine tokens are again candy free.

We made little sacks out of burlap, tied at the top with red ribbon. The sacks are made from some burlap scraps I had - sewn together with a simple red zigzag stitch. They were very very easy and quick to make.

Tutorial: Valentine Egg Carton Flowers

I've been wracking my brain for cute ideas for valentines. Last year we made Lollypop Flowers. This year I decided not to make candy gifts - but how to package a little valentine something in a cute a crafty way? My brain seems to be stuck on flower crafts - this year we made our flowers from egg cartons.

You will need:
- paper egg carton
- green paint
- colored card or construction paper
- glue dots
- green pipe cleaners
- labels for your valentine messages (we made ours with a heart paper punch and added little bit of bling)
- scissors

1) Paint the cups on your egg carton green. We found it was easier to paint the carton before cutting it up.

2) Once the paint is dry cut the egg carton up so you are only left with the cups.

Make a hole in the bottom of each cup (I just pushed the closed scissor blades through the cup.)

3) Cut your heart petals.

Score the base of each petal by drawing a curve around a egg cup. 

Fold the scored line carefully and the petal should curve/fit nicely into the egg cup.

Make sure any pen line is on the underside of the flower or use a pen the same color as the card you are using.

4) Put a glue dot on the back of each petal and stick into your egg cup. (NOTE: The girls LOVE to glue - but glue dots help to keep the spread of glue under control. They also instantly stick - so no sliding or holding things together until the glue dries)

5) Wrap your little gift in a little bit of tulle or netting. Pull the netting through the hole in the egg cup - securing your little gift in the middle of the flower.

6) Bend your pipe cleaner into a leaf shape and thread your label on.

Wind the pipe cleaner tightly around the tulle + trim.

They do look cute - and you could adjust this idea and put lollypops in the middle of these flowers too. Or change the color of the petals - here is a yellow flower filled with potential Easter candy!

 

Next year I hope to give myself more time to come up with something outside of flowers!

There are hundreds of kid friendly crafts you can do with egg cartons. Just Google 'egg carton crafts' or 'egg carton flowers' and you will come up with a whole host of wonderful ideas.

Crochet your cares away

I've been struggling to motivate myself with my continuous cable border exploration. I find that that long stretch of time needed to really concentrate and make notes is just not available to me! Baby bunny (who is now nearly 11 months old - can you believe it?) is into everything - cupboards, toilets, bags, kitchen trashcan, drawers - anything and everything is of great interest and needs to be explored and explored now!

So I've put down my concentration-needy knitting and picked up my crochet hook. I found this idea on Ravelry and decided to take it on a bit further for the border of a blanket.
The petals are scattered at random on one corner. This method allows you to crochet the flowers as you go - so no messy strands or sewing flowers onto the blanket.

The trickiest bit of the border was working out how many crochet stitches were needed for the sides of the blanket.I used the same sized crochet hook as my knitting needles. For the starter row used 1 crochet stitch for every knitted stitch at the ends of the blanket ("sc into knitted st, skip next knitted st and ch1" repeat to end) ...
... and 7 crochet stitches for every 9 knitted stitches for the sides of the blanket: ("sc into knitted st, skip next knitted st and ch1, sc into next knitted st, skip next two knitted sts and ch1, sc into next knitted st, skip next two knitted st" repeat to end). The corners are made by sc 3 times into same stitch. I hope my scrappy diagram above explains it a little clearer. Once the starter row is complete just keep sc into every st - 3 sc at the corners - adding the flowers as and when you please. I crocheted 4 complete rounds of the blanket - adding flowers on rounds 2 and 4.