Santa Gift Card Holder

I made this simple gift card holder in like 2 minutes - can't beat that! You just need a strip of red cardstock large enough to hold a gc when folded in half, a tab off the top of a pop can, a strip of black cardstock wide enough to fit thru the pop tab, a couple gems, 1 glue dot, and some elmers.

This would also be cute on a small box or as a gift tag.

Make a 'belly band' out of the black strip of paper (a belly band is a circle of paper that fits around the paper holder to keep it closed), feed one end thru the pop can tab and attach one end of the paper strip to the other with a glue dot. Slip the belly band over the folded red paper. Attach the gems with a bit of elmers glue. Once dry, insert the gc and you're good to go.

Paper Pumpkin

Sitting in my craft room literally waiting for paint to dry (spider earrings coming up soon!) and looking for a quickie project -  this pretty marbled paper from Stampin' Up reminds me of a squash so I whipped up a paper pumpkin that I'm going to put on my desk (and if I get out to Ronda's studio any time soon I'll make one to add to her seasonal display table!). This is a very easy, kid friendly, cute Halloween or fall decoration - cheap and quick too! That kinda makes for the perfect craft in my book.

Supplies:

•  decorative paper
• 2 brads
• small hole bunch
• scissors and ruler,  or cutting board
• 2 green pipe cleaners (chenille stems, whatever - I've always called them pipe cleaners!)
• pencil to curl the pipe cleaners
• twine
• cork
• round cardboard to give the bottom some stability

Cut 1 inch strips of paper (how long the strips are will determine the size of your finished pumpkin). My paper is 12" square and I cut 24 strips (2 pieces of paper) and that's as big a pumpkin as you're going to get with standard 12" square paper.

Hole punch both ends of each strip and thread all of one end onto a brad, then all of the other end onto a brad. Spread the strips apart evenly to form the pumpkin.

 Glue a piece of cardboard to the bottom to make it more stable and it'll help keep the strips in place.

Glue a wine cork to the top like a stem - you can paint it if you want but I wrapped twine around mine instead. I also found the cork sat better on top of the brad by carving out a little circle from the bottom of the cork - then fit the cork over the brad.

Curl both ends of the pipe cleaner around a pencil, then twist around the cork. Glue twine around the cork if you want - I like how it looks but painting the stem cork would also be cool - how about glitter paint?

10.5.17 make a mummy picture

10.5.16 m&m cookie bars
















10.5.15 squash ghosts

Paper Pinwheels

I made these simple pinwheels from cardstock and paper fasteners - the only other supplies you need are a ruler, scissors, hole punch, and a pencil. They don't take long at all to make, you still have time to make decorations for Independence Day decorating next week!

Start with a square of cardstock (or I think lighter weight paper would work good too), any size as long as it's square. I made 3 different sizes - 3" square, 4.5" square, 5.5" square. Draw a faint pencil line from corner to corner (making an "x") and cut up each line stopping maybe 1/2 inch or so from the center. The paper is now cut in 4 triangles (still connected in the center), hole punch one side of each triangle and in the center. Your paper should now look like this:

my red pinwheel has one corner of each triangle rounded off, I drew it out on this sample to show you. If you like how that looks make sure to just round off one corner and the opposite corner gets hole punched for the fastener to go thru.  

After you hole punch the 4 corners and the center you can form the pinwheel two ways:
(1) gently fold each hole punched corner to the center hole and then push a paper fastener thru all at once, or (2) hold the paper fastener and feed each hole punched corner onto the fastener and then push the fastener thru the center hole - whatever's easier for you. Then spread the 2 sides of the fastener apart to hold the pinwheel in place.

Above is the front and back of the 5.5" red pinwheels, the back of the pinwheel is before the fastener is spread open to hold it - see the next photo for what it looks like when the fastener is correctly in place:

To make the double pinwheel like the red one above and small 3" white one below,  I just fed two single pinwheels onto one fastener.

5.5" red double pinwheel, 4.5" single blue pinwheels, 3" double white pinwheel

I can think of many uses for these pinwheels - hook them to paper straws or bamboo sticks and put them in a vase, hang them on ribbon or twine for garland, attach streamers and make parade wands, use in place of bows on presents...look how pretty they look combined with the paper fireworks from last July (click here for that post):

What a pretty bouquet - I'm off to make a vase to put them in!

one year ago: pompom earrings! you know you want them...;)

Layered Paper Shamrock

It's the week before St. Patrick's Day and I just decided to have friends over for corn beef and cabbage to celebrate - so of course I need to make a few decorations (I call making decorations "another reason to have a party" - along with hanging with my friends I also love to have a party just so I can make stuff!). I googled for some ideas and was inspired by this project - as usual I ended up changing a few things and I love how it turned out. I took tons of pictures which might make it seem harder than it is - this isn't hard and didn't take very long.

You'll need:

-strips of paper in 3 different colors/patterns

• 7 strips cut to 2" x 8" (mine are white)
• 7 strips cut to 2" x 10" (note I used 7 different patterns)
• 7 strips cut to 2" x 12" (mine are green)

-glue stick or other adhesive

-hot glue

-paper circle for support, mine is 2 1/4" diameter

-stapler (unless you have more patience that I do waiting for the glue to dry!)

-length of ribbon to hang it

-optional: letter beads, gold washi tape

Directions:

Stack one long strip, one medium strip, and one short strip of paper - glue the bottom ends together (about 1/2"). Fold the short one back on itself (you can glue it to keep in place or just hold it), then the medium one, then the long one. I stapled the bottom of the loops together instead of waiting for the glue to hold (you won't see the staples). Make a total of 6 loop bundles.

Glue 2 loop bundles together to create a heart shape. Repeat for a total of 3 hearts.

For the stem: fold the remaining long strip at 5" from the left and 5" from the right, so there is a 2" space in the middle. Fold the remaining medium strip at 4.25" from the left and 4.25" from the right so there is a 1.5" space in the center. Fold the remaining short strip at 3.5" from the left and 3.5" from the right so there is a 1" space in the center. Layer them and glue (or staple) the ends together. (See the picture). Oh, and I put the middle piece of paper in upside down! You can't see the pattern so it looks like there are 2 whites and a green in the stem...oh well.

Glue the 3 looped bundles/hearts and the stem together using the paper circle in the center to give the edges something to stick to. I ended up using hot glue to get them to all attach, regular glue didn't cut it.

To finish, I cut another paper circle, stuck a piece of glittery gold washi tape in the center and hot glued the letter beads on top. Then glued the whole thing over the circle that's anchoring the shamrock (you could also glue on the backside, which would then make it the front side).

I didn't think of it at the time and followed the inspiration project directions to attach a ribbon to the back for hanging - but the paper shamrock is too heavy and hung forward awkwardly! So I removed the ribbon and stuck the ribbon ends down into the center of the top and hot glued in place. Now it hangs correctly. If I make this again I'll glue the ribbon in between the top two loops before gluing them together!


one year ago: blueberry chutney
two years ago: shamrock shake recipe

Heart 'felt' Valentine Wishes

I made the first of these cards based on an idea in a craft book my sissy got me (apparently she thinks I need more ideas LOL!), then like usual it changed into something else after I started playing with it. The original one is a small red felt heart stitched with white thread onto a white notecard - really cute and very easy. I changed it a bit by using gray sparkly thread, and adding a piece of sequin ribbon.
For the other ones I used different color felt hearts and papers, and changed the stitching to up the middle only so both sides of the heart are left unattached and stand off the card a bit. For the sentiment - heart 'felt'  har har ;) -  I just typed the words in my word processing program (font is CAC pinafore), cut the strips out, and attached with sticky foam dimensionals or glue stick.

                

                                       to make a heart template - trace half of a heart on a folded piece of paper, then cut it out

to cut the heart out, fold over a piece of felt and hold the folded paper heart with both folds together.

I made a bigger one for Ronda's seasonal display table but since I haven't mailed it out yet she won't get it in time for it to be useful! For hers I folded a Stampin' Up paper doily in half and put it under one side of the felt heart. 

Folded Paper Pouch

I forgot about making these cool folded paper pouches at Ronda's a while ago, sorting thru photos today I came across them and thought I'd share - looking thru my photos I realize I am quite behind blogging a bunch of things! Apparently I make more than I have days to share hahah!!

I still love the other open top pouch I made for Ronda (all 120 of them - click here for that post) and continue to make them; the last time was at Christmas when I made one with a cover which I figured out how to do all by myself (!) to hold a few gift cards. See it at the bottom of this post (I forgot how cute it turned out!).

For this folded pouch you'll need a piece of cardstock 4 1/2" x 12".

Score both of the long sides 3/4" in, then turn the paper and score across the narrow side at 2 1/2" and 8". Starting at the top where the 2 1/2" score line is, remove 8" of the long sides as shown (leaving 3/4" x 4" piece that forms tabs at the bottom edge where the other score line is - see picture).

Fold the two side tabs in, apply adhesive to the back sides of the tabs (the white strips in the below picture shows where I applied double stick tape), then fold at the bottom score line so the tabs stick and create the opening. You can notch the top corners if you want a little more detail. Once again, look at the picture to try to figure out what I'm saying - it's not hard I just have issues describing what I'm doing!

To finish, put whatever goodie you want into the pouch (Ronda's held Stampin' Up gem embellishments which fit perfectly) and fold the top part down at the remaining score line (the one that you made at 2 1/2"). It will overlap the pouch opening a little bit.

She had me make these cute tags to stick on the front overtop of some twine I wrapped and tied to hold the flap down.

A few days later I made the same pouch to hold a gift card using double-sided patterned paper, I like the contrasting pattern on the inside. You can see I didn't notch the corners, tied pretty ribbon around to keep the flap closed and attached a card to finish it.

Here is the other paper pouch that I learned to make from Ronda, I added a cover over the open end to sort of turn a gift card holder into more of a present. Cute, right?