Party Time!

What a busy week!  On Sunday I was back up in my hometown of Skipton to do a very special children's birthday craft party for my niece Ashley who turned 8.   Way back in the summer she asked if I could do her a craft party for her birthday and of course I jumped at the chance. Ashley and her little sister Alice love crafting with me whenever they visit me or I visit them so I knew that they would both be happy but I didn't know how crafty her friends would be.
Last month I had a little 'consultation' with Ashley and we decided what project would be good. As there would be some boys there as well as girls she thought it was really important to make something that they would love too. We used Pinterest and I had pinned a few ideas there, she immediately fell in love with the idea of a dreamcatcher.  So I designed this one:

I used an inexpensive bamboo embroidery hoop as the frame and then took one of the masks by Stampin' Up! from the set 'Pattern Party Decorative Masks' and used it as a stencil for acrylic paints and using sponges everyone had fun making a paper 'mandala' for the centre of their dreamcatcher.  I punched holes all round and then with the help of a couple of other grown ups we assembled the basic frame.  The children then had to thread lengths of yarn and ribbon through the holes and onto these thread some beads. The feathers were attached by making loops in the yarn and ribbon and tightening around the feather quills. 
The dreamcatchers did take a while to assemble as each child had differing abilities; some could tie knots and some couldn't - same with loops so it was handy having my Mum and Sister-In-Law there to help out.  Everyone had enormous fun though and as I supplied sucker hooks for each child they couldn't wait to get their dreamcatcher home to hang on their bedroom window! (you can just see my example hanging on the window in the large picture).
If I was to do this project again I would eliminate the hole punching and just tie the yarn and ribbon straight to the hoop and then assemble the paper in the middle.

Birthday Girl and her BFF!