Christmas treasure map

For the school Christmas Fair, I have made two games for the children to play. The first is a treasure map, which took a bit of thinking about. I decided to make the islands on the map look like a reindeer outline, to make it a bit Christmassy, but making the map took a bit of trial and error.
I ended up using thick off-white card and drawing the details on with coloured Sharpies. I then made up washes of colour using transparent inks so the details showed through. I wasn't completely happy with the way the water had overlays of the ink which caused darker patches, but it was difficult to keep the colour flowing around my wobbly coastlines.

To make the grid, I bought a cheap acetate fronted picture frame in Hobbycraft and drew the grid on the acetate. I drew the letters and numbers on backwards so that the grid and writing would be on the side of the acetate that the map was on, so if people touched the acetate they didn't rub any of the ink off - I used a Sharpie again to draw on the acetate. If we decide to do another treasure hunt the map can be taken out and a new one placed under the grid.

The second game is not quite finished, but I will post a picture when it's done.

Back to the blog

I've been away for nearly 18 months, time for a bit of a catch up now I have some time to myself.

I'll start with the most recent makes - the Frozen dresses. Both my girls wanted dresses to be just like the girls from the film. I refused to pay £65 for the official ones and decided it was time to get making again.

I went back to my roots and made the patterns from scratch, which fascinated the children, who had never seen dot and cross paper or a pattern master before. The dress patterns were relatively simple to design and the cape for Anna was based on a jacket from their wardrobe. I bought the fabrics from Ebay and got to work, two weeks later, here they are (with their heads photoshopped, obviously!)

ps. that Elsa fabric was the worst fabric I have ever worked with - never again!