One cable for the iPod, one cable for the mobile phone, another one for the laptop… sometimes it’s hard to tell all those cables apart.
When I came across some plastic plant markers which I had bought for my garden herbs, I had a lightbulb moment. The plastic can easily be cut with scissors, and a permanent fineliner was close at hand. Only the holes in the markers weren’t big enough for the cable ties, so the hole punch came in handy. Tadaaa, easy-peasy cable identification!
Look:
As I’m a huge Pinterest fan, I recently came across the project: “The Pinterest Project: A Calming Glitter Bottle”. Thanks for the inspiration, Jamie! Our junior loves playing with plastic water bottles, so I simply had to give this project a try. It’s easy-peasy and looks marvelous! Adding blue food coloring (well, I guess it would work just fine with ink) lets the glitter look like a swirling galaxy.
You want to try it, too?
You need:
I didn’t have any exact measures, it was an experiment after all. On the container, I marked the level of liquid I would need to fill the bottle.
First, I squeezed all the contents of two old glitter glue tubes (silver and gold) into my bowl, then half a tube of craft glue. It makes the liquid more viscid so the glitter won’t settle too quickly. You can add glycerin for that reason, but I didn’t have any. Jamie says that she prefers non-water soluble glue, but mine was water soluble – I didn’t have any problems with foam or suds, so I guess it’s just worth a try whichever brand you use.
Using boiling hot water, I filled the bowl up to the mark and mixed the “potion” thoroughly. It still looked a little lame, so I emptied two small tubes of holographic and gold glitter into the bowl. When some of the glitter clotted, I simply squeezed the clots with the back of a spoon.
In the end, I added a shot of blue food coloring which made the water dark blue. When the potion had cooled down to room temperature, I used a funnel to fill it into the bottle. I secured the cap with a strip of duct tape because I don’t want any dark blue surprises on our furniture :)
Anyway, the bottle is a hit! If you shake it and move it around, it sparkles like crazy!
As it’s not easy to capture the effect photographically, I made a short video for you:
Time flies, and it’s only a little more than a month until Christmas. If you need a last-minute advent calendar which is easy to make, looks great and doesn’t cost a fortune, go on reading:
You need:
The basis for each calendar is a simple 12×12 sheet of scrapbooking paper glued to a 12×12 piece of sturdy cardboard. I used a 3/4 inch circle punch to create numbers in matching colors. If you like, you can download my numbers-in-circles design, print and punch (3 color schemes on one sheet).
Beneath the numbers, I used my crop-a-dile to punch small holes through the calendar. If you don’t have a crop-a-dile, you can use an eyelet tool or a hole punch out of daddy’s toolbox. Punch two extra holes in the upper left and right corner, so the calendar can be hung to the wall.
As you can see, I chose to stamp the numbers directly on the dots of this beautiful paper.
I chose 24 short stories, poems, recipes etc. and printed them on high quality paper. I folded and/or rolled the sheets, tied them to a pretty ribbon and threaded the ribbons through the calendars’ holes. A square knot on the back – that’s it. I used a small IKEA Allen wrench to push the ribbons through the holes. If you give the calendar to a couple, you can use two different ribbon colors for them to take turns in opening the gifts.
Here’s another version …
… with a tinted mirror snowflake as an embellishment.
This tutorial was first published in 2009.
How is it possible that a new lamp including the lampshade is cheaper than a lampshade alone?
Anyway, I was glad that my parents gave me their old lampshade including a fully functional lamp. I needed a new one since my old lamp took a lethal flight onto our living room floor…
Ugly as the lampshade was, it needed a thorough makeover. I took some photos of the process. You can click on the images to enlarge them.
That’s what the thing looked before. What you can’t see is that the fabric was covered with yellowish stains – eeew!
I had the idea to use my collection of Washi Tape (aka Masking Tape) for the makeover. Full of confidence, I ripped off a strip of tape and attached it to the lampshade. The strip didn’t stick at all, it simply peeled off. Aaargh!
I needed a primer. My choice: Ordinary wood glue – it dries fast and works great on fabric. With a broad brush, applying the primer was a snap.
My idea was to attach the tape in the order of rainbow colors. But the bell-bottomed shape made it difficult to arrange them evenly – I always got a gap towards the bottom edge. A neutral tape with polka dots was the perfect solution as a fill-in between the colored tape strips.
After a while I had worked out how to get an even result.
Having covered the whole lampshade, I carefully lifted the first strip to tape it over the last strip. A first test with light: Yaaay!
To prevent the tape from peeling off again, I covered it with a thick coat of Mod Podge, carefully smoothing it with my fingers.
I trimmed the edges of the tape …
… and glued them around the lampshade’s edge with Mod Podge.
To give it a neat finish, I covered the inside of the edge with a simple cotton ribbon.
So this is the illuminated lamp <3 ...
… and again in daylight before a neutral background. Yippeeh!
Here’s the direct comparison:
How do you like it?
My main job in the offline world: I’m a teacher for early music and art education and for recorder.
Here’s a tutorial I originally posted on my other homepage, but I wanted to include the English version, too. So here you go:
The children’s favorite rhythm instruments are the jingle bell bracelets. Mine are made of plastic, and they are almost broken from wearing them so often, so I decided to craft some new bracelets with the kids.
All you need are thick terry cloth hairbands, thin hairbands, and large jingle bells. I found mine at Ebay.
For one bracelet, pull one thin hairband halfway through a bell’s ring. Pull one of the loops through the other one. Now, while holding the bell on top of the thick hairband, pull the loop through the hairband and over the bell – that’s it. You’ll have to attach at least three bells to each hairband for a good sounding bracelet.
The tutorial in pictures:
Even the kids’ toy pets love to play with the jingle bells! :D
onestly, I’ve never had a professional manicure. But last year I bought a UV light box like the ones used at nail studios —>
It belongs to the “Stampmaker Kit” by Teresa Collins and allows you to make your own stamps using sachets filled with UV polymer as you can see on these pics – my pictures turned out blurry.
My selfmade motif is an elefant floating up in the air, hanging on a balloon (in halftone printer look). I printed my design as a negative on a transparency, placed it on top of a sachet and “sandwiched” them together in a clamp. Then I put it in the UV light box for 3 minutes before I could cut the sachet open and wash the liquid polymer off in hot and soapy water. Poor elephant got his spine dislocated by my scrubbing, so I had to fix it by positioning it correctly and putting the stamp in the light box for some more minutes.
I cut around the balloon and the elephant, as you can see here. The stamps are transparent, but they have to be mounted onto an acrylic block or similar. Other than the usual clear stamps, these don’t have a sticky back.
In the stampmaker set, two sheets of cling foam were included. I mounted the elephant onto an acrylic block, and the balloon found its home on a leftover stamp handle.
The first impression you make with your selfmade stamps is always exciting – if something went wrong, you can hardly correct it. So I got my ink pad and …
It turned out great! The twine must be drawn by hand, so here’s what the final design looks like:
Nicey-nice!
Making your own stamps with this method has its flaws. Here in Germany, I’d have to order re-fills from the UK which isn’t very cheap. And you never have the guarantee that your design turns out exactly how you planned it.
But it’s lots of fun :)
Paint swatches are wonderful! You get them for free at the hardware store, and you can use them for craft projects, for example a colorful reminder of upcoming birthdays (click to enlarge):
It’s easy as pie: use some large stamps (I used “Simply Sweet” foam stamps by Doodlebug Design) and black ink (Staz-On) and stamp the first three letters of the month on a card (I chose colors which resembled the mood/temperature of the months).
Now attach a printed list of the days to the card. Use good glue, otherwise they might curl upwards after some months like mine did…
Anyway, if you’d like to make such a calendar, here’s a free download for you as a PDF :)
Print it (12 copies of page 1 or, to be correct, 7 copies of page one, 4 copies of page two, and 1 copy of page three) and cut it to the width of your paint swatches. Trim to get an equal height. Choose a nice place for your calendar and attach it to your wall or door.
I always mark the current date with a little arrow (“Book Dart”), so I can see upcoming birthdays at a glance.
By the way, the icing on the cake is the cat on top of my door. I cut it from vintage wallpaper scraps. And it covers a dent in the wall *g*.
Or should I call them “spoon penguins”? Anyway, they’re cute as a button :)
I found a pack of wooden spoons at the supermarket, and they begged me to please buy and repurpose them… The oval shape was perfect for my current subject in my early music education course – penguins! So here’s how I made them with the kids:
You’ll need
If necessary, pour the ink into a glass with a wide opening. Dip a spoon into the ink until the bowl is completely covered. Allow the excess ink to drip off …
… and put it on a piece of paper to dry. Prepare as many spoons as needed.
In the upper third, place two hole protectors next to each other. That’ll be the eyes.
For the white belly, I cut a piece of foam to fit into an empty tin and drenched it in white ink. You can simply use a kitchen sponge.
Cut a small triangle from the yellow felt and glue it between and a little below the eyes. From the black felt, cut a crescent-shaped piece and attach it to the spoon’s back. I decided to skip the feet because it would’ve been too complicated for my kinder students.
Now here’s the complete penguin! Isn’t he adorable? Depending on the age of the kids, you can decide how much you want to prepare. I decided to do all the cutting work because we didn’t have much time.
A
s you might guess from my projects, I love recycling and repurposing, making everyday-stuff into something new.
I have a gazillion old CDs which I saved for “the light-bulb moment”, and it came last week. Why not make a cool wreath?
I guess this wreath would look great on any office door or at your entrance if you love music.
You need:
Step 1: Arrange your CDs
Put one CD on a flat surface. Then group 6 CDs around it. To state the obvious: the shiny side of the CDs should be on top ;)
Step 2: Glue the outer CDs together
Rip strips of your double-sided tape and connect the six outer CDs as shown in the picture.
Step 3: Add the second layer
Now remove the protective foil from the tape strips and, centering the CDs directly between two of the first layer, attach the second batch of 6 CDs (the final CD will be the one from the center).
Here’s an example of some ornaments I used. Remove the ribbons if you use ornaments… Get something with a nice shape, you’ll need it for the next step:
Step 4: Now comes the fun part – spraying!
Be careful to cover your working space with foil. Place the wreath in the middle and put your snowflake ornaments or stickers (upside down and without removing the stickers’ foil) nicely on top of your cds. Arrange the items carefully, you won’t be able to change it later. Now spray an even coat of matte white spray on top of your wreath. You might have to repeat this step one or two times until the color is opaque.
Step 5: Let dry…
… be patient! Let the paint dry completely, then remove the ornaments and/or stickers. You’ll see the shapes of your ornaments sparkle in a nice contrast to your white paint. Now turn the stickers or ornaments around and attach them to the wreath. I chose to only attach the mirrored snowflakes, the others looked too intricate for my taste. I found some cute felt stars in my stash which I attached instead.
Step 6: Now hang and enjoy!
Thread a nice organza ribbon through one of the CDs’ holes and hang your creation to greet any guests.
Have fun!
Before I upload another batch of fonts, here’s a new tutorial. Last month I bought a Pick Punch which is basically a large punch for guitar picks. It can punch old credit cards, placemats and other materials, and you can create picks with your own pictures, too! And here’s how it works:
<- A small selection of my picks. You need:
First decide which image you want to have in (yes, in) your pick. Print it on a transparency.
To save your material, print many pictures at once onto one transparency. (Here you can download a pdf with images and the right pick size.)
To keep your image from blurring, place the printed side of the transparency facing the inside of a laminating pouch. Place a simple sheet of paper on top and let it glide through your laminator. This way, your printed image is safely laminated one only one side, and you can peel off the paper.
This is what happens if you don’t laminate the transparency. The super glue is a little too strong for the printer’s toner… yuck!
With the Pick Punch, punch out a pick from a polycarbonate sheet and peel off the protective foil.
Take your super glue and apply a thin coat of glue to your pick. Be careful not to glue your fingers to the pick :)
Alternatively, you can spread some glue on your image.
Now carefully place the pick with the glue-covered side on your laminated transparency. Don’t move it too much, the glue sets quickly. When the image is centered correctly, press hard on the pick. The excess glue will squeeze out at the sides, so take care and wipe it off with a kleenex (moving from the pick’s center outwards). Yes, it’s messy.
When the glue has dried, trim the transparency around the pick’s edges. Now you can sand the edges with a file or sanding block. Use a medium grit first and proceed with a fine grit. Rinse off any sanding dust (your pick is totally waterproof!) and enjoy your original pick!
The edges should be evenly curved.
If you like, sand the backside of your pick a little to give it a matte finish.
Be proud of your work!
If you decide to use paper images (comics work great, for example – thin paper is better than thick paper), be aware that the super glue will make the paper transparent, and images or text on both sides of the image will become visible. Printed napkins work great, just separate the printed layer.
Glue your pick onto the image. Let it dry and trim around the edges.
Now glue a second pick to the image’s backside so it’s sandwiched between the picks.
Sand the edges, and enjoy your pick!
Another great effect can be achieved by using one layer of an old DVD which has been crackled in the microwave oven. It sparkles much more than you can see in this photo.
The possibilities are endless – have fun!
Questions, suggestions? Leave a comment!
Hi, I'm a German creativity addict who loves typography, art, crafts, music, literature, good food, and whatever makes life pleasant.
This site is a growing collection of my fonts, craft tutorials and stuff I made, so take a look around and grab some freebies, if you like.
Ask me anything :D
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