Off To Do Their GCSE’s

The girls I have worked with for the past year helping in their Food Technology lessons have now gone on exam leave to prepare for their GCSE’s, so to mark their last lesson we feasted greatly on pizza and I made them each a small ‘Good Luck’ card and embroidered badge.

The cards measure 3ins x 3ins which I covered with a cookery themed paper called Bake Off by Flair Designs.  The tiny paper plates were a find on e-bay and the cup cakes were from Sainsbury’s children's department a while ago.

The badges are made using my faithful Bandai Badge It and an old embroidered table cloth that I found at a card boot sale for £2.

Diamond Jubilee Crafts – Jubilee Badges

No celebration would be right without me getting my Bandai Badge-It to make a few badges …….

I’ve done a bit of computer jiggery pokery by putting a circular union jack image and a cartoon of The Queen together …..

I can’t wait to wear mine!

Framed Badges

Please excuse the nail and I apologise for the quality of lighting in my craft room.
 
After fiddle farting about making badges/buttons yesterday I was wondering what to do with some of the ones I’d made.

Then I remembered this picture frame I had bought as a set of three from a car boot sale for £1.00. A quick spray of cream enamel paint and a piece of ribbed Kraft card as a background ….. and Bob’s your Aunt Fanny!

Bandai Badge It

I had an e-mail from Becky asking if I had tried using fabric with my Badge It and not using the plastic covers ….. well the answer is yes, I bought mine for that very reason as I wanted to make badges like I had seen in Accessorize, (but couldn’t afford) that could be worn or put on bags etc.

 

As you can see from the first picture I have a several materials to demonstrate it’s versatility. First I’ve used a light cotton.  All you do is use the template to draw round the material and cut it out.

…. and then pop it into the drawer marked 1, on top of a badge front, slide it all in and turn the winder on the top until it stops, it makes some weird and wonderful noises which almost convinces you that you’ve broken it, but touch wood It hasn’t happened yet!

The next stage is to add the back, which you do in exactly the same way, but using the drawer marked 2.  That’s all there is too it ……. but I have to stress this is sold as a toy, not a craft tool, but I have had mine for two years now which isn’t bad going.

This next piece of material is a little thicker and a very small sample obtained (ahhhhem, cough, cough) from a lovely material shop in Shrewsbury, I dread to think how much it was a metre …. but let’s say I couldn’t afford even a fat quarter, but it is exquisite.

The material for this final badge has been cut from an old embroidered table cloth, bought from a car boot sale for 50p, sacrilege I know ….. and perhaps I’ll live to regret it … but at least the beautiful embroidery lives on and can be admired in another guise.

You can buy Badge It’s new for about £20 from many toy shops, or Amazon but it’s worth looking on e-bay first, however charity shops and carboot sales are good hunting grounds too …. I got a spare machine for 20p, including badges because the lady said she didn’t want to take it home again!  Badge It refill sets are also available direct from Bandai or Amazon for about £9 for 30.

http://www.bandai.co.uk/brand-home.aspx?BR_ID=9

Again – I stress this is sold as a toy not a craft tool.

I Love Tea Badges

Sorry, sorry, sorry, Blogger is playing up again leaving me with no pictures….. aghhhh… fingers crossed I’ve sorted it …….

My sister saw the badge (below) and really, really wanted it, but it was in a set of three and cost £10, which was a wee bit expensive.  So I said I would have a go at making her something similar using my Bandai Badge Maker (I have two, one bought from e-bay for about £5 and the other from a carboot for 20p including a full set of badges because the lady didn’t want to take it back home with her!)

It took a bit of computer jiggery pokery to get the size right so that it was centred in badge template but I got there in the end.
 

  I myself prefer coffee, white with two sweeteners!!

Royal Wedding Badges

Well ……. I had to make something to celebrate the Royal Wedding …..

Monkey Merchandise

My “Mum’s Monkey” blog is slowly catching on …. so I have made some badges for small gifts/blog candy, perhaps this is the start of a whole range of Monkey merchandise!

It may be intended to be a child's toy but my Badge It (10p from a carboot sale) is one of the coolest bits of kit I have!

A Touch of Embroidery

My embroidered badges never really took of when I made them.  I used my Bandai Badge It and scoured car boots and charity shops for old embroidered tray/table cloths to cut up and use for them.  But now I have noticed that Primark are selling fabric earrings and Assessorize put various badges on their some of their bags, so perhaps I am a bit ahead of the trend!!!!

I passed a lot to follower Marc who is doing very lovely things with them, so I am hoping he will send me a picture for the gallery very soon.

I did  keep one or two back and  decided to revisit them,  taking the pins off the back and using the body as an embellishment on a card, adding some flat backed gems.  I am quite pleased with the result and will probably now make a few more, especially with Mother’s Day in mind.

Just For Fun …. Tour T-Shirts and Badges!

As you know I’m off on a ski trip soon with work ….. and thought it would be fun to make some tour “merchandise” for the staff who are going.

I can’t believe that I got the first one horribly wrong …(which was mine fortunately) …. first rule of transfer printing …. is to reverse the writing ……. DOH!!!!

This is the design I came up with but unfortunately it didn’t transfer quite as distinctively against the grey  as I had hoped ….. but as the shirts only cost £1.90 each  from Primark and are  probably going to  be worn once as a joke or in bed I am not going to be too precious about the not  so  perfect results.

I made some badges too, that hopefully will be worn a lot of the time.

The Only Way Is Up? That is our theme, a song by Yaz  , which we will play every morning before we hit the slopes to get in the mood!

Recently, I bought a Bandai Super Badge It badge maker on e-bay for about £10 and then, would you believe it, found another smaller version at a carboot a few weeks later, for which I paid the princely sum of 10p, because the lady didn't want to take it home again!

Its a brillaint piece of crafting kit, (not just a kids toy), easy to use, with endless crafting possibilities, but here's the sad bit ........ Bandai have discontinued it! Badge refills are still available from their website, but when these sell out, that's it! Needless to say I have amassed a small stock.