The Creative Family Manifesto

The idea for this came about after reading The Creative Family Manifesto by Amanda Blake Soule*. Tom’s Mum gave me a copy of this for Christmas a few years ago, and after Littlest One was born I finally started dipping into it when I got 5 minutes here and there. It is the most wonderful book, and I wish I had started reading it sooner! If you want to live a more creative life and encourage your children to get involved at every opportunity, then I would highly recommend it.

Soule encourages you to use simple things around you to encourage creativity as a family. I love the part where she talks about imaginary friends, as Little One has an imaginary camel and he comes everywhere with us! He really is like a part of the family now, as is Camel’s friend Elephant and Elephant’s friend, Oscar the dog. Soule also emphasises the joy of sharing the tradition of handmade things, which is obviously something that is really important to me too.

Writing our own family manifesto

We are about to embark on our home education journey, as Little One will soon be 4 and would be going to school in September. It seemed like the right time to write our manifesto with this in mind, but also with everything that’s going on with Covid 19 too. It is a very surreal situation isn’t it? We are social distancing now, and it has actually been really good to think about what should be on our manifesto as we’re going to be spending much more time at home! It might be something that you can do with your family too as a positive activity to complete together. It doesn’t have to be framed if you don’t want to – even just jotting down your list of statements is a good place to start.

I used my personal manifesto as a starting point, as there were a few things that I thought would be good for our family manifesto. There were others I wanted to add to encourage things for our children and for ourselves. This is the list that I wrote, which contains 14 statements:

• Stay curious
• Go outisde
• Explore
• Make a mess – tidy up later
• Try again
• Learn from your mistakes
• Notice the little things
• Create together
• Make music
• Collect things
• Play
• Read every day
• Always be kind
• Love your community

This list covers things that we want for all of us as a family – things we want to encourage, and the ways in which we try to live our lives. I don’t see creativity as a separate ‘thing’ that we do, it’s in everything that we do. At the moment, Little One  frequently says that she can’t do things, so we’re always encouraging her to try again. We try to create things together when we can, whether that’s music, craft or something else. We read every day, and we emphasise the importance of being kind.

I wondered about changing the phrase ‘collect things’ as it reminded me of the phrase ‘collect moments, not things’. In the end, I decided that this is actually what I want it to say! Collections are great – leaves, stamps, feathers, colour charts – all of these things can inspire us in so many ways. It isn’t so much about having physical things for me, it’s about how we take inspiration from them. So I left that bit in!

Making your own creative family manifesto: materials

To make a family manifesto to be displayed like ours, you’ll need a few basic materials:

A big sheet of good quality card (we used an A1 size piece of card that I bought from our local art shop)

A set of watercolour paints and brushes

Some coloured paper

Stamps and an ink pad

A pencil

Scissors

Double-sided sticky tape or glue

A frame to display it in

Step 1

Take your large piece of card and set up the watercolours. Then get each member of your family to paint something on it! We went abstract and painted whatever popped into our heads. Littlest One even joined in too, and you can see where he painted with his hands in the corner. I think he was just 10 months when we did this, so it’s something that all ages can join in with. Leave it to dry completely.

Step 2

Now take your stamps and ink pad, and stamp out each of the creative statements onto coloured paper. I used a different colour for each statement, and chose 7 colours of paper for the 14 statements. When the ink has dried, carefully cut around each one in a rectangular shape.

Step 3

Remove the packaging from your frame. Take out the mount, but don’t discard it as you’ll need to use it in the next step!

Step 4

Once the watercolours have dried, place the mount on top and draw around it with a pencil. Then carefully cut it out, so that you have the right size to fit in your frame. If you prefer, you can use the mount to display – just do whatever works for you and adjust the size of the painted card accordingly.

Step 5

Position the creative statements on top of the painted card and work out where you’d like them to be. Stick them in place with double-sided sticky tape or some glue.

Step 6

The last thing to do is to put it in your frame, secure the back and then display. We have hung ours in the hallway, as we wanted to be able to see it frequently. Little One asks about it every time she goes up or down the stairs, which is great!

The beautiful pennant hanging above our manifesto is by HouseofHooray on Etsy*. The Pride of the North hoop is designed and stitched by me as an exclusive for For the Love of the North, an amazing shop which supports creatives from the North East of England. You can purchase one here! The pink pineapple embroidery was stitched by me, and you can read about that on my blog here.

Share your manifesto!

I would really love to see your manifesto if you make one – let me know in the comments below, or tag me on social media @hellohoorayblog. I hope this project brings you joy, especially during this really tough period. Stay safe, and wash your hands!

Please note that links marked (*) are affiliate links.

The post Our creative family manifesto appeared first on Hello! Hooray!.

When I say ‘simple’, this first set wasn’t actually as simple as I’d hoped in the long run! Although I really loved making them and how they turned out, I found them quite time consuming to make. I used mini rubber stamps to stamp the text and cut out numbers from scrapbook paper for each card, which looks lovely but took time. I used to make them month by month, and often found myself making them last minute to be able to take the monthly milestone picture! So when Littlest One arrived, I knew that I wanted to make a set for him too, but they needed to be a bit easier to make so that I could try to make more of them in advance. I looked through my paper supplies and realised that Project Life baby milestone cards would be the answer – the cards are lovely quality with cute designs, but there is still scope to personalise them. Yay! 

In this tutorial, I’m making the 4 month card because I had made the first 3 already without taking any photos! I have just included the cards for monthly milestones here, but there are some suggestions for other cards to include at the end of the post. Do let me know any other ideas you have in the comments!

Materials

12 Project Life cards – I’ve used the 4×6″ cards 

Coloured papers in a variety of colours

White paper

Double-sided tape (or glue if you prefer)

Fine pen

Scissors

Craft knife and cutting mat

Number templates (click to download)

Step 1

Choose which Project Life cards you would like to use for each month and match a coloured paper for the numbers. I decided to use a contrasting colour for the numbers on each card, but you can coordinate however you like – you could use the same colour for the numbers on all of the cards, for example.

step 2

Cut out the number templates and trace around them onto the coloured paper with a pencil. Carefully cut them out, using the craft knife for any tricky bits in the middle of the numbers.

step 3

Take the white paper and a fine pen and write the words ‘Today I am’. Cut out a rectangle around the words – I did this freehand but you could measure it if you prefer. Repeat with the words ‘months old’. Position the number(s) and text on the Project Life card and then stick in place with double-sided tape or glue.

step 4

Repeat with the remaining numbers and cards that you have chosen. 

I’m so pleased with how these cards turned out – they were much simpler than my first attempt! And this time around I’ve made the cards ahead of time which is great.

Additional Project Life baby milestone cards ideas

These milestone cards can be personalised to fit your baby, and because the cards are ready-printed, you can make them so easily and quickly as your baby learns new things! Here are a few more ideas:

Today I…

Smiled for the first time

Learnt how to roll over

Sat up on my own

Slept in my own room for the first time

Got my first tooth

Ate some solid food

Started crawling 

Took my first steps

Said my first word

I really love that these cards can be made and personalised to suit your baby. It’s a lovely way to document their progress and to make something that is really personal to them and to you. You could use the reverse of the cards to make notes about what they love to do on the back, just as a special way to keep a record of the little milestones and everyday things too.

Show me your project life baby milestone cards!

If you make these cards for your little one, I would absolutely LOVE to see them! You can tag me @hellohoorayblog on Instagram, or find me on Facebook or Twitter if you prefer.

If you want to find out more about Project Life, see my posts from the archives about getting started and Project Life storage too. You can also visit the Project Life website for an overview of available products.

The post Project Life baby milestone cards appeared first on Hello! Hooray!.

It is a little on the pricey side if you’re purchasing outside Holland, but as with the first book, I think it’s worth it. There are so many different papers, tags, stickers, bunting, postcards…the list goes on! It’s one of those things you won’t want to use for a while, but when you need the perfect paper for a special project, no doubt you’ll find it here. Below is a mini gallery of a few of my favourites, but it was so hard to choose![/vc_column_text][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” interval=”3″ images=”6459,6460,6461,6462,6463,6464,6465,6466,6467,6458″ onclick=”link_image” custom_links_target=”_self” column_number=”2″ grayscale=”no” choose_frame=”default” img_size=”large”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1417370704908{padding-top: 30px !important;padding-bottom: 30px !important;}”]If you would like to buy a copy, you can get it on the Flow Magazine website. You might also want to consider getting the Flow Calendar for 2015 – its’ a quote a day with beautiful illustrations. Love it![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

The post Flow Book for Paper Lovers 2 appeared first on Hello! Hooray!.

Making my own rubber stamps was one of my top crafty plans for 2014, and today I had my first attempt! I received this amazing book for my birthday (thank you Helen and Keith!) – ‘Making an Impression‘ by Geninne D. Zlatkis. The photos are so inspiring and the instructions throughout the book are really clear, so if you’re a beginner or more experienced I’d highly recommend it! I really love these stationery ideas:

And when I’m a bit better at stamp-making, I’d love to make this bird cushion:

For my first stamps, I decided to go for a simple plant pot and flower stamp. I had designed some funky geometric patterns (see first photo!) but I realised that they would probably be a bit tricky. The first step was to transfer the design on to the rubber (I bought mine here).

Then I used the size no.1 lino cutter to mark out the basic edges:

After that, I dug out a bit more around the edge using the no.2 and no.5 size lino cutters:

When my pot was finished, repeated these steps with the flower design.

Then I just had to test them out, keeping my fingers crossed that I’d done it ok!

I’m really pleased with my first attempt, but this is definitely something to keep working at, so I’ll keep trying…with these stamps, I drew in the flower stem with a pencil. I think that this would make really nice cards!

The post Making my first stamps appeared first on Hello! Hooray!.

You will need:

A selection of 6 x 4 photos
A selection of A4 card in colours of your choice
Some double-sided sticky tape
A pencil and ruler
A paper trimmer
Scissors

Step 1. Measure half way along the card and trim it so that you have two smaller pieces. Carefully fold in half again to make your card.

Step 2. Trim the photo to fit the card. I like to leave a fairly large border around the edge, but you could leave a narrow one if you prefer.

Step 3. Measure two lengths of tape and stick them on the back. Carefully stick the photo onto the card, and turn it over to press it down so that you don’t get fingerprints on the photo.

And that’s it! Super easy but really effective. This photo is of a Queen of the Night tulip that we had in our garden a couple of years ago, but you could use any photo for any occasion. This was the willow tree we had in our garden (before it blew over!):

And these were some holiday snaps!

Why not take some snaps at Christmas for cards next year? Happy snapping!

The post Tutorial: How to make photo cards appeared first on Hello! Hooray!.

Before our wedding, I had hoped to make these lovely little bunting cards to use as our thank you cards – but by the time we got back we were back at work in a flash and I didn’t have the time. But they would have made excellent thank you cards! In fact, they’re great for any occasion, because, let’s face it, you can’t beat a bit of bunting! You can customise them for any colour scheme, or make smaller bunting – the options are endless. If you’re using patterned paper then try to pick smaller patterns to get as much as you can on the card.

You will need:

A5 card (for as many cards as you want to make, folded in half)
Some paper scraps in colours and patterns of your choice
A glue stick
Scissors

1. Fold your card to the desired size – I’ve used white card because it makes the bunting stand out really well. Select the paper for your bunting and cut out some small triangles.

2. Open out the card (face up) and lay out the triangles so that you can work out where they should be. I’ve used 6 triangles here, but use as few or as many as you can fit on the card, depending on the size.

3. Glue the triangles to the card, starting from the triangles in the middle. Don’t glue right to the point of the triangle so that you can curl it up a little at the edges.

4. Ta-dah! That’s it – easy peasy!

Here are some others that I’ve made to give you some ideas:

You could send these little cards in handmade envelopes – check out my tutorial here.

The post Tutorial: How to make your own bunting cards appeared first on Hello! Hooray!.