Done. It’s 9:00pm. We have officially finished up our valentines-for-classmates preparations. Things I’m thinking: 1) I have a lot of children. 2) Those children have a lot of classmates. We used a clever idea I found on Kirtsy — via 24-7-365. To those who are up late making stuff: I salute you with my exacto knife. untitled this perfect-for-summer project comes from brenna berger at paper + ink. she documents her amazingly clever custom invitation designs on her blog, so when it comes to paper it’s no surprise that she’s full of ideas. i love the simple, modern feel of these, and the fact that they cost next to nothing to make. on an semi-related note, i recently decided to have a movie marathon of all corporate “must make it big in nyc” movies from the eighties (wall street, secret of my success, working girl…you get the drift), but now i am definitely not going to start it until i have some paper and a thumbtack ready:) thanks, brenna! -kate CLICK HERE for the full how-to after the jump! materials: 1. paper (preferably cotton) 2. thumbtack 3. pony bead and hot glue (optional) 4. scrap cardboard (at least as big as your paper) 5. tape 6. image of choice (some options are available here) 5. cut to size and you are done!
Recycled Pillow Box Favors | Skip To My Lou - StumbleUpon You know that I save toilet paper rolls. They can be made into so many things — mummies, rockets, Uncle Sam hats, flower party favors………………. even cute pillow boxes perfect for a little favor! Fold in one side of the end. Then fold in the other side. Repeat on other end. Open back up and give the toilet paper roll a bit of paint. Give it a nice shine with a light coat of clear spray paint. Fill with candy and treats, fold back ends. How about some for Halloween? Surprise Balls This article is also posted at Squidoo! Inside this ball of yarn are all sorts of little goodies I chose for a friend. I wanted to send them to her in a way that’s entertaining, and since the gift will travel a long distance, I also had to come up with something that would take the abuse of going through the mail. My solution? First, I chose the items I wanted to send, inlcuding a printer’s block, some buttons, rhineston brads in a small watchmaker tin, and a bunch of ATC backgrounds. I usually choose to make the largest item in my pile of goodies the center of the ball, so here, I’m starting with the ATC backgrounds. Because this is going to a mixed media artist, I wanted to include lots of different fibers and trims. Next, I’ll add two shorter, thicker items, to pad the center out, and start turning this into more of a ball shape. On the other side, I wrapped the little tin of brads. By the time I have these two items securely wrapped, the ball is already taking shape.
Tea Light Lamps (an Easy Last-Second Gift) With a paper band, mark and measure the upper and lower diameters, and the height of the glass. Add 5mm to each length. In your favorite drawing software (e.g. OpenOffice Draw), create a trapeze of measured sizes to mark the borders, and import a picture of your choice. Personally, since I only had tracing paper on hand, and after some trials, I choose some black/white Japaneses patterns: tracing paper prints best with a laser printer (with inkjet, it will form a roll when still wet).
not martha - to make: papier-mache easter eggs - StumbleUpon For Easter I made papier-mache polka dotted eggs. I created them using small water balloons and tissue paper then I filled them with candy and toys and sealed them shut. The egg can hold a surprising amount of candy and the tissue paper seems delicate making for a delightfully heavy and yet fragile object, much like real egg. Also like a real egg you have to break the shell to get at what’s inside. I like things you have to destroy to open. You’ll need: water balloons (they make the egg-iest shape)white tissue paper (one sheet will make about three eggs)colorful tissue paper (one sheet will make many eggs, so you don’t need much)a 3/4 inch hole puncha paint brush you don’t care much aboutliquid laundry starcha sturdy shot glass to hold your egg while you’re working with ita way to hang the balloons to dryenough time to let these dry overnight, and a few hours to let them dry after filling and sealing them (you’ve been warned) Note: I tried a few variations on the starch. Why the loop?
Home made superhero fleece poncho-cape. These were one of the presents that I made for my girls this Christmas. They are pretty into the whole superhero thing. They have Batman and Superman PJs and wanted capes, so I thought it would be a nice idea if they had capes that could double up as cold weather ponchos. I used one yard of blue fleece for the superman poncho and one yard of black fleece for the Batman one. The fleece appliques on the backs were done by hand. Here's how I cut the shape of the cape to sew up. I cut out a smaller semi circle for the start of the neck part of the pattern. From here on out you get a faux tutorial using paper instead of the actual cape, because it was all done at stupid O'clock at night with pants lighting and I didn't think you'd be able to make out anything of the black and blue fleece. so here's the semi circle with the little semi circle cut out in paper. Sew up the shoulder seams and hem all around to give it a bit more structure and stop the bottom of the cape stretching over time.
Ruby Slippers/Wicked Witch Bookmark - POTTERY, CERAMICS, POLYMER CLAY Hooray! My first project in the polyclay board! I was reading "Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West" and had this idea for a funny bookmark I'm sure someone else has to have had this idea before, but I couldn't find it via google, so I had to make one. The legs are formed of polyclay, but I had to paint em white after baking because they turned brown in the oven :/ Oh well... Then I painted the rest of the details with acrylic inks. I could have made a more awesome bookmark part of the bookmark, but it was late last night, and I couldn't be bothered... Hi ho, the witch is dead! Thanks for looking
12 Days Handmade Christmas Tutorials Day 8|Alphabet Crayons & lifeingrace - StumbleUpon If you’re new to the ’12 Days’, you may visit the previous days by clicking on the day you like: Day 1 Crayon Roll Day 2 Zippered Pouches Day 3 Appliqued Placemats Day 4 Quilted Potholders Day 5 Camera Strap Day 6 Embellished Dish Towels Day 7 Bean Bags Today’s guest poster needs no introduction to my readers. i am so happy that Edie asked me to be a part of her 12 Days! my name is meg duerksen. i blog over at whatever. i do not use capital letters because it’s easier not to. i am a mom to five goofy kids. i am a photographer. i love to do crafts with my kids. i love to sew. i love mr. duerksen. i love movies. but that’s enough about silly me and all the things i love….lets get crafty. i am going to show you how i recycle old crayons into really cute alphabet crayons. normally i would use a big box of old crayons….you know the kind…half used…kind of a mess. the kind that kids don’t want to use anymore. but today i used new crayons because i have used up all my old crayons. and happy too.
Kodachrome Curtains - Updated! Now with lampy goodness! So, it's been a while since I've made anything Craftster-worthy, but my husband and I busted out the Dremel tool a few days ago and we made this: It's a pair of curtains made out of old Kodachrome slides! I'm really interested in photography, and will buy old cameras in antique and thrift stores in order to develop film that's inside of it. From time to time, I'll find collections of old slides and will buy those, too. I hate the idea that these pictures would just be resigned to the garbage or something, and wanted to display them (besides just scanning them in and putting them on Flickr - here's a link to my old found negative/slide collection, though, if you want to check that out: ). Travis has this neat drill press set up for the Dremel tool, so he taped a cardboard jig to it and started drilling all of the little holes. Then I connected them all together with chainmail rings. Each panel is made up of 114 slides.
A Geek's Yarn by ageeksyarn Happy Valentines Day! This year I made this adorable gift for my boyfriend. On a deck of cards, I thought of 52 reasons why I love him soo much (I could have easily come up with 1000 <3) I typed them out and cut them up. Some cards I glued the white paper on and cut out patterned hearts. The other cards I backed the white paper with the same patterned paper and glued them on. Both designs looked great together. It was a super creative, super personal gift from the heart. d20 Handbag of Holding: How to build it By popular request following the d12 bag, here it is: the d20 bag! Now you can make your very own icosahedron. We’re making a pattern and kit for this project available in two sizes: darling and practical. There are a deceptively large number of parts to cut out, which is one of the main reasons that a kit makes sense here. Our kit includes twenty canvas pieces, twenty iron-on stiffener triangles, twenty cotton liner pieces, a cord for the handle, a zipper, and iron-on numbers 1-20 in the lovely font BPreplay. d20 bag instructions: If you’re using your own materials, the small pattern is available here (26 kB PDF) and the large pattern is available here (24 kB PDF). There are two sizes of iron-on stiffener panels: little ones (eight of these) and bigger ones (twelve of these). Arrange your numbers and fuse them under the iron for 5-8 seconds. The first set of pieces to sew together are the ten that form the band around the center of the bag. Follow the same pattern as for the bag body.
Design*Sponge » Blog Archive » welcome julia and how to make a repeat pattern hello hello. thank you Grace for having me this week! I am very excited to be here. Besides introducing you to some cool artists, giving sneak peeks and before and afters of some friends homes, and sharing my favorite new product finds, I thought it would be nice to share some of the things I have learned along the way of being a illustrator/pattern designer. One of the questions I frequently get emailed is -how do you make a repeat pattern? I thought it would be fun today to do a little tutorial showing you how simple it is even with a very complex drawing. On a clean piece of paper draw a design in the middle of your paper without letting any of the drawing touch the edges- this is very important. Once you finish the middle space as much as you want you are going to cut your drawing in half- scary I know- but that’s why computers are helpful. Next you are going to cut your drawing in half again the other way- (yikes!) And here’s my finished design: