Handmade

I love having handmade things around my home that I know don't exist anywhere else in the world, and I thought I'd show you a few of the ones that make me happy.

 

My brother made me this chalk board for my birthday using a license plate frame the University gave me when I graduated and some chalk board paint.

 

When Mr. Nicholas and I were still dating long distance, my Oma and I sent him cookies, and this is how I decorated the top of his box. (you can also see the green wrapping paper from his one year anniversary present)

 

Last Christmas at my Mom's, we made salt dough ornaments, and this handsome fella made by 

nick earned himself a year-round home on one of our cork boards.

 

This is another gift from my brother-- for my graduation he made me a magnetized spice board with labeled cannisters. Awesome, right?

 

This one was made by me years ago, and is one of my favorite of the bird houses I've ever made.

Basically, I love having unique handmade items around, and I try to give handmade gifts as often as possible. The most recent was for another swap. I made a leaf scarf, cookies in a jar, and added a skein of yarn.

 

I plan on handmaking all my Christmas gifts too, as well as hand making the wrap! I think the package is half the fun. This one went in the mail wrapped and decorated.

Fun right? :)

Mini Photo Book

I know I'm not a kid but...sometimes I like doing things the way kids would do them :p

This album was something I put together for my Dad after I got home from visiting his family in Tennessee. It's super simple and only requires some glue, paper, photos, writing utensils, and staples.

A photo is exactly the height that fits into a standard envelope, so as long as the paper is cut to that same size, the whole thing can mail with a regular stamp. The book could be assembled beforehand, and then embellished later-- and since most photos now are digital, if the photos get ruined, no big deal.

Speaking of digital photos-- I've found that facebook is one of the best ways to keep in touch with my family. We all have accounts, and that's pretty much the way we share photos. The fact is, photos rarely get printed any more, so unless there's a way to share them electronically, all those photos you take might not get shared at all. If you're not into facebook, check out flickr instead. While you can only upload 200 for free, if you rotate the photos frequently that shouldn't be a big deal.

Handmade Paper

Another fun craft Mom and I did when I visited her is make our own paper! Nick and I are very interested in using handmade paper for a...special future project, let's call it. So I wanted to see what would go in to making a very large batch of it.

Our first batch was made with three sheets of white, a sheet of blue paper, and a sheet of green paper.

To make the pulp, we blended one sheet of paper with four cups of water using the "liquefy" setting. Then we set the paper making screen into the pulpy water, and slowly pulled it out to drain the water, leaving a layer of pulp. After that, the remaining water has to be squeezed out, while the sheet of paper is still between the two screens, using a sponge.

 

After the water is mostly gone, one screen can be removed, and the paper transferred to a cloth.

Where another cloth can be placed on top and the dampness ironed out.

Finally the cloth can be removed, and the paper ironed directly.

 

The process was fairly long, but very enjoyable, and I had fun playing with the colors. I eventually added a sheet of yellow to the original mix, and then my Mom added lavender, and I added several sheets of white, just to play with the color. When we were out of that pulp, we started a whole new batch with only white paper, and flower seeds and petals. 

My brother pointed out that ironing flower seeds would prevent them from sprouting, so if I wanted the paper to sprout when planted, I would have to let the page air dry, and find a way to press out the water instead of heat drying it.

Here's our final batch of paper:

 

Pretty, huh? I'm really happy with the results, and am looking forward to trying more ideas!

Birthday "Card"

I loved the Thank You banner so much that I wanted to use the idea for something else: my brother's birthday "card". What do you think?

It was tons of fun to make, and I love that it makes a plain blue bag a lot more fun :)

Thank You Note/Banner

I've been slowing down on posting because in a few days all I'll have left to post about is a couple hand made birthday gifts, and I can't possibly post about those until the people open them to see them first, can I?!

But in the mean time, here's a thank you note/banner that I sent to my Oma for helping us out while I was in Tennessee:

Isn't that fun? I used yarn to crochet tiny flowers (called Mollie Flowers) and then clued the letters over the yarn to create a little banner. I got the idea from the Decorated Cookie's bunting. And I realize that what she did and what I did look nothing alike. But that's still where I got the idea.

Oma loved getting the note in the mail, so I consider this a good idea :) I have a few other Thank You notes I want to send out, so now I have to decide if I want to copy this idea, or do something else...such a conundrum.

Card for Daddy

So this shows you how behind I am on posting my crafts: Here is my Father's Day Card! But this could be used for pretty much any holiday, I promise.

I gathered four colors of construction paper (two neutrals and two colors), markers, scissors, an envelope, and some "extras" (yarn, a sea shell, some buttons, a cool tag, and a little heart left over from Valentine's Day).

My first step was to cut the neutral colored construction paper to the size of the envelope. I made sure to leave myself a little room, since I intended the card to be pretty thick. Then I cut the two colored papers a tad smaller than the neutrals.

 

I made several of each of these so that I would be sure to have plenty of extras if I needed them. (P.S. See my Cup Cozy? It's a love thing :) )

After they were cut, I glued (just with a plain glue stick) one piece of colored construction paper onto each piece of neutral. I decided to keep the colors consistent, so all the greens are glued to white, and the yellows to black.

 

I had a couple pieces of colored paper left over, so I set them aside. Then I made my "Title Page." I wanted this to be the first page my Daddy saw.

This could be an introduction to a list, like I did here, or the beginning of a story, or even just a name or title, which would leave you with a lot more freedom inside the card. As you can see, I added a small embellishment by stitching over the first letter.

On the next page, I listed my first reason, added another embellishment (buttons this time) and then connected it to the first page, like so:

  

I kept adding pages, punching holes in the top and bottom and tying them together, to get a longer card.

 

On the last panel, I went ahead and added a real letter that was less playful.

 

And then I folded the whole thing accordion-style, so that only the title page was showing:

And tucked it into the envelope.

 

Remember the remaining sheets of colored paper? I used one to create a "Yay for Daddies" tag on the back:

And I glued the last one on the front of the envelope to make it less plain and boring :)

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out-- especially because my Daddy liked it!

Thank You Notes

I don't do Thank You notes for everything, but I thought for the graduation party, it was just a logical thing to do. I started out just handwriting the notes on pretty colors:

And while I like that they're colorful, I thought sticking a colored piece of paper in an envelope was a little lame. So I talked to Mom and she came up with a much better idea! First, I arranged some pressed flowers and my thank you note on my scanner:

Then, I put one of Mom's handmade papers as the background:

And the result was a pretty, handmade thank you note that matched the feel and idea of the original party! 

I suppose the hardest thing to get a hold of would be the pressed flowers (I was lucky Mom had some on hand), but really you can buy them at Michaels, along with pretty papers etc. I wonder, would it be possible to do this on a computer if you wanted to? I don't have the skills to go there, but it might be something interesting to look into.

Graduation Invitations

So I decided I wanted to make my own graduation invitations for college, because I feel that the ones offered by my school are way too formal. Here's the process:

The first step was to draw flower shapes on the felt I bought from Micheal's. I used flower fondant cutters to make the shapes, and I made something like 10 large, 30 medium, and 15 small on each sheet of felt, 5 sheets of felt. It took a couple nights to do draw the shapes and then I have to:

Cut out all the flowers. Cutting the flowers out took forever. I think I (with some help from my brother, Mom, and boyfriend) spent about three nights cutting out the flowers. It took some time, but It wasn't particularly difficult, so I watched TV while I did it-- no big deal.

Next, I printed the announcements and the party invitations on precut/creased cards that were paired in the package with envelopes. I cut the invitations from the announcements so I could mix the colors.

Next, I prettified the edges of the party invitations. I wasn't going to do as much to them, so I wanted to make it a little more special all on its own. I used an edging scissors for this.

So now I have the flowers cut, the party invitations edged, and the announcements ready to be decorated.














Next I cut my vellum into the right size and edged it like I did the party invitations.














After cutting all the pieces into the right shapes, I finished off the party invitations. I used flower stamps on the corner to add more color and happiness (my Oma and I are rather fond of clear stamps because you can see where you put them!) and then added a magnet to the back so that the invitations can be stuck up for people to remember. That was the last step for the party invitations!














Then I added a stamped flower (and by "I" I mean "my boyfriend") for a little more color.

I went ahead and put the party invitations in the envelopes to clear up a little workspace...and so I wouldn't lose them!














Then I got to work on the graduation announcements; First, I sewed the vellum on two sides (with two different colors of thread, one for each side) and then I lined the felt flowers on top of the velum along the other two sides and added two more colors of thread to attach them. Voila! Combine and:










Hand address!! I'm so happy with how they turned out, it was worth how long they took to make! And soon...back to my regular crafting schedule :p

Binders

Call me crazy, but I'm posting something I did for work today!

My supervisor asked me to put together binders to help organize her paperwork for her semesters. We only have a black and white printer, so I went ahead and put in clip art and then boosted it with colored chalk. It's a little more work for such a simple job, but now every time she pulls out a binder, it's pretty and makes her happy! To me, that makes it important.

Paper Mache Bowl

I really enjoy crafting, but I find that I have mostly time for knitting and less time for other crafts. This is not a bad thing, I suppose, but sometimes I find that there's a lot of other cool stuff out there that I'm missing. This was one of my fun forays into other crafting fields. I made a paper mache bowl out of newspaper strips and colored magazine, with a metal bowl as my form. I would suggest a rubber bowl instead, because it was fairly difficult to get the dried paper out of the bowl. I would also suggest doing the newspaper layer in the morning, and then pulling the dried paper out of the form the following morning. I don't have the patience for anything like that, though, so I went ahead and pulled it out before it was dry and then had to re-place a couple layers of paper (I don't suggest impatience). 

I used white glue mixed with water, although there's lots of options out there for what you can use.Since I was working out of my book I was kind of following directions, but the directions called for 10 layers of newspaper and 1 of colored paper, and I did 7 of newspaper and tons of colored paper. It also called for wrapping paper on the outside (for a solid color) and magazine on the inside for a more varied look, but I decided to go ahead and do magazine on both the outside and inside. To make the inside interesting, I arranged the strips of red paper in a spiral. I think it gave the whole thing a very interesting look.

If I were to do it again I might look into using a smaller bowl. This one was so big that I'm not sure what the heck to do with it now. I have to find someone to give it to so I can get it out of my closet!

Valentine's Day Cards!

Happy Valentine's Day!...Ok, I know it's not February yet, but if you're going to hand make everything, you have to start early!

These cards are made with precut card and envelope  packages from Michael's, and stickers from Target's dollar spot. I made about 10 cards for about 20$, and compared to 3$ a card at Hallmark, I think that's pretty good-- Plus I had the fun of making them!

I think that this is a good thing for kids to do, too. If they feel like they have to buy the packaged Valentines cards for their classmates, at least encourage them to make some for their closest friends, relatives, or teachers. Handmade cards are very sweet, and it doesn't force a teacher or relative to store something.

I like the mix of textures and prints and colors. I have some true red, bright pink, and pale pinks, cardboard stickers, layered stickers, metallic stickers, and traditional flat stickers. It makes the whole thing just a little more interesting.

I'll be posting the gifts I make too-- so keep an eye out for those!

Relationship Scrapbook

I love doing scrapbooks, but if you don't keep up on photos, it can be a little overwhelming. When I'm scrap booking old photos, I go through them and pile them into "general" categories, like Christmas Photos, Vacation Photos, or School Portraits, etc.

My favorite way to do scrapbooks, through, is by keeping up with current photos. For example, this one is from mine and my boyfriend's relationship scrapbook. Every time we're together (since we live apart) we take photos and I print the best ones. These I put in a scrapbook for us to remember everything we do together.

When we do live together, I am hoping to update the scrapbook on a "once a month" basis with my favorite photo from that month. This way, the scrapbook will grow different as our lives grow different, with new homes, new lifestyles, and children. I also keep one for my Mom and one for my Dad, which I update on Mother's and Father's day. These scrapbooks contain photos from the various things we've done together in that year. I'll make sure to post photos from those next time I update them :)

Dollar Store Wrapping

I know earlier I did a post on FREE wrapping, but if you don't feel too creative, the dollar store is another great place to buy wrapping paper. We bought 6 rolls of wrap, 4 boxes, a bag of white tissue paper, 4 rolls of cellophane, and a huge roll of ribbon for less than 15 dollars. The only thing to be careful of is the amount of paper on each roll. While a regular priced roll of paper wraps multiple gifts, a dollar store roll might wrap two gifts-- if they're small. The only main benefit of this is that you can do several gifts in all different wrapping and not have tons left over.

Mom uses dollar store wrap as a medium for making Christmas boxes. She picks up the wooden boxes from Micheals and then paints glue over the pictures cut from the paper. This way, the box is just as cool of a gift as the thing inside!

Many many ways to make cheap paper go a long way :)

Homemade Wrapping Paper

So after my last final yesterday, I drove up to Mom's house, and this is what she showed me. Isn't it beautiful? She took leaves out of her yard and weighted them with bolts before spray panting over them all. I think this is definitly a cool approach to making everything yourself!

As an added bonus, the leaves turned out amazing, so she saved them all and we've been using them with bows as package tie-ons! Now you know where I get my creativity :)

In case you missed it, my previous wrapping post is here.