Look:

Please: Take care of yourselves. Life is shorter than you might think.

We chose a bright lamp which I decided to turn into one of my favorite children’s book characters, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Some scraps of wallpaper, cardboard, washi tape, acrylic paint and mod podge – voilà, before and after:

You want to try it, too?

You need:

• 1 empty plastic bottle (not too large, it should fit in your child’s hands) without the label
• 1 transparent container for mixing
• glitter glue
• transparent craft glue
• glitter from the stash
• hot water
• blue food coloring (or blue ink)
• duct tape

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:

Finally I got to order some of my postcards as digital prints, they’ll arrive next week. I’m very excited, so here’s a preview (click to enlarge, mouse-over for a translation):

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:

• a sheet of Scrapbooking paper (12″x12″)
• a piece of sturdy carton in the same size (old vinyl record covers work great!)
• Paper Glue
• scissors, cutter knife, cutting mat
• a 3/4 inch circle punch or stamps/stickers with numbers
• thin ribbon
• hole punch, for example the Crop-a-Dile
• 24 printedstories/recipes/quotes (I can’t offer mine for download because I don’t own the copyright).

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.

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?

I’d like to submit this entry to:

The little guy has a crazy stare, don’t you think?