Gift Ideas for poor creative souls (6) You know how it goes, a friend calls you and invites you to dinner at the last minute. OMG! What gift can you take?! You scrabble around the cupboards trying to find a box of chocolates or a bottle of wine but find that most of the chocolates have been eaten and the wine has gone. I thought this was a wonderful idea. You could make a few of these and keep them to one side for just such an occasion. Supplies : Patterned paper-one 12 x 12" sheet. These directions will give you one flower. 1. 4. 5. Tip: For single sided paper. 6. Note: Florist tape is stretchy, just play with it and pull gently but firmly as you move down the stem. 7. Note, you will have to play around with the height of the petals, and where on the petal you start your tape. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. For tutorials on how to market yourself online, go here.
map love i love maps...and look at all the amazing things made with them... i can't remember how i found this site....but i love, love, love all the map goodness going on there...especially that heart broochand, of course, i had to include the union jack.check out more herenote....they have a great etsy store, too! 8 Clever Uses for Plastic Straws Have you ever pried a straw out of the mouth of a young child, only to find it macerated and dripping in saliva? Let’s all let out a collective “eeeewww.” In general, my “clever uses” articles are meant to teach people how to get a second use out of something disposable. In the case of straws, I’m honestly going to have to suggest that you be very picky about which straws you reuse. I really don’t expect anyone to reuse chewed up, spit-covered drinking straws. Now: It is not too gross to wash plastic drinking straws and save them for DIY projects. When the plastic drinking straws are clean and dry and you’ve amassed a decent-sized collection, try your hand at one of the following projects. Drinking straw lamp shade: The L.A. The straw cluster chandelier: Design Sponge featured a spiky-looking straw cluster chandelier. Woven coasters: According to Country Living, woven drinking straws are a great material to make coasters from. Do you have any great uses for drinking straws?
Wedding Mason Jar Lanterns I spent today with my Mom, sister Brooke, and Marcie, my sister-in-law and and Jen, sister-in-law-to-be. Can I just say I love those women. We were busy with plans and decorations for the upcoming wedding of Josh (my brother) and Jen. I am so excited about the creative “Make it Do” ideas we have for the wedding… it’s going to be beautiful. The reception will be outdoors on a patio of a local restaurant. We are so lucky that the restaurant has a large pergola and trees surrounding the patio from which to hang lanterns. So the project of the day was to make Mason Jar Lanterns. We found a wonderful tutorial for the lanterns on one of my favorite websites One Pretty Thing. Here is the link to the tutorial. Mason jar2 1/2 – 3 1/2 feet of wirewire cutterspencilplierssand or potting soilvoltive candle Here’s how we made the jars: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. One down and 39 more to go. These are going to look great lit up and lovely all around the wedding reception.
Recycled Magazine Page Nesting Bowls I love recycling crafts, and finally had a chance to try making some bowls from recycled magazine pages. It's really quite simple and even youngish kids can help fold the pages while those old enough to handle a glue gun can make these themselves. And there are really no steadfast rules, so you can use this technique to make many kinds of shapes. And though I hesitate to mentions Passover cleaning, since it's still Purim in Jerusalem today, I thought I'd introduce this craft before some of you toss all the old magazines into the recycling bin! You'll Need magazine or catalog pageshot glue gunbone folder or small ruler for scoring along edgesmodge podge or white glue/water How To: Fold magazine pages according to the following instructions: Fold page in half vertically, unfold and fold the two edges towards the center and score the edges.Fold those edges again towards the center, and score. To assemble bowl proceed as follows:
DIY Magazine Envelopes As promised, here is a tutorial on making your own envelopes for stationery sets. While this template makes a rectangular envelope, you could certainly modify it to make squares as well, and as usual this image is scalable (the actual jpg is quite small, I printed it at 250% to make the cute envelopes shown in the tutorial--I just like cutesy small stuff, my original envelopes were much larger). To make these envelopes you will need: Paper or magazine pages of your choosing. scissors or an X-Acto knife a ruler Envelope template (below) glue (elmer's or glue sticks work just fine--if you do not have glue, you can go without and use stickers to close your envelope as well) Start by printing the following template to your desired size: Cut out your template and trace it onto your paper of choice. Once your image is cut out, as show above, you will want to take a ruler or other straight edge to aid you in folding your envelope flaps in evenly.
Toilet Paper Art « This Handmade Circus This is absolutely the most popular piece of artwork in our home, so I decided that this would be the perfect tutorial to start with! This is made from all recycled paper towel and toilet paper rolls, but everyone thinks it is made of iron. It is super light weight and you can change it to look anyway you would like and costs less than 1$! I found a picture of this on pinterest and LOVED it! There was no tutorial that I could find, so I figured I would just figure it out and it turned out to be super simple and really fun. The hardest part was the looooooong wait that it took to gather and hoard and “steal” enough toilet paper/paper towel rolls. First gather as many paper towel/toilet paper rolls that you need (mine took a LOT) and then begin cutting them into 1 inch strips. Then form your center flower with as many petals as you would like with the tips touching and pushing them as close together as you can. Once you’re done, head outside with your spray paint color of choice.
DIY Eco Friendly Packaging February 26th, 2013 Have you ever needed to find a box to package up a gift in a hurry? Look no further than the simple plastic PET bottle you have in your kitchen. Certainly don’t throw it in the bin! What you will need: - Plastic bottle - Cutting Mat - Craft Knife - Scissors - Marker Pen - A Plate - A pointy thing (I used a blunt sewing needle) Step One The first thing you need to do is cut the top and the bottom of the bottle off. Step Two Flatten the tube by pressing down on it with your hands and then flatten/crease one edge with your thumb. Then re-inforce the crease using the edge of your craft knife. Next do the other side. Step Three Place you flattened tube onto a cutting mat so that you know where the center is. Step Four Next you need to use the plate again to score a curved line at both ends of the tube on the front and the back – so you do this 4 times. Step Five Start forming your pillow box by creasing along the scored lines you’ve just drawn. Step Six