Category: crafts

Just wanted to drop a quick note that, due to a business trip, I had to change some of the late January projects to be more travel friendly. I also swapped the Chakra Jewelry day this Wednesday with the Incense Cone day a couple weeks out, as my husband has a day off work and wanted to help out with the cones.

Here are the changes:

January 8  : Incense Cones (was Chakra Jewelry)
January 23: Chakra Jewelry (was Incense Cones)
January 28: Embroidery Floss Friendship Bracelet (was Flower Clippies)
January 29: Embroidery Floss Washer Necklace (was Bottlecap Candles)
January 30: Embroidery Floss Wrapped Bangle (was Flower Wire Rings)
January 31: Embroidery Floss Tassel (was Flavored Salts)
February 1: Embroidery Floss Wrapped Hair Comb (there was nothing planned yet, but I’ll likely be on a plane this day)
February 2: Flavored Salts
February 3: Flower Wire Rings
February 4: Flower Clippies
February 5: Bottlecap Candles

All of this month’s projects can be seen here.

I haven’t scheduled anything further out yet, but I have a list of at least 20-30 more projects to do so far. They’re a mix of general crafting, jewelry, hair clips and a lot of yummy sounding recipes. As always, suggestions for future projects are appreciated as well!

I’ll be tackling today’s project of a Cardstock Notepad this afternoon, so expect to see that later in the evening.

My day four project was Paint Chip Jewelry, inspired by this pin by Minted Strawberry that made the rounds last year on Pinterest. This project took a bit of extra time and I ended up just making a few pairs of earrings, but I had a fun time doing it. This is another craft that you could probably do with kids, though it may require a touch more patience!

Your supplies will vary for this craft, but the one constant will be to have at least one or two paint chip (sample cards), which you can pick up from basically any hardware store. The samples are free but be polite and don’t go overboard cleaning them out, as I doubt crafts are their intended use!

Once you pick out your paint chips, other tools you may use would include glue or Mod Podge (optional), shape punches (I used a heart shape and a 1″ round) or scissors, and either a bottlecap hole punch (which is what I used and recommend for this) or a small paper hole punch. After that the only other thing you need is the appropriate jewelry supplies, which will vary depending on what you choose to create.

Start out by punching out the shapes you want, then punch a small hole for jewelry attachments to them. I punched one, then lined up a second one in back of it and punched again to ensure the hole placements were identical.

Optional: 
The backside of these aren’t colored, so you can optionally punch out extra shapes and glue them together. Remember to punch out the jewelry attachment holes first, and line them up while gluing and don’t accidentally clog the holes with glue. Set something on top to flatten them (I used my phone and stamps). On the first pair I made (the green circles, pictured above) I also put a matte Mod Podge coat on both sides, which I think gave them a better appearance.

I tried pre-gluing together the hearts before doing my shape punches, and while they’re functional, they were a lot harder to deal with and ended up with more imperfections. I just don’t recommend doing it this way. Punch those holes first!

Another alternative method is to use some acrylic paint on the backside, but it will take longer to dry and is more difficult to keep from curling.

After you have your shapes how you want them, attach your jewelry bits and show off your new style! There’s a lot of variety you can pull off with these so I can foresee me doing it again in the future.

Tomorrow’s project is a Cardstock Notepad!

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While I was working on this, my youngest child decided he wanted to make something with my shaped hole punchers, so I thought I’d share that as well! =) If you can’t read the second photo, he had written “10 Snowflakes.” The black circle on the green paper is “a full moon.” The glue has since dried and they’re now hanging on his door.

My day two project is Paper Beads. I have a confession with this one: I actually started it yesterday, since it’s time consuming, I had a day off work, and I wanted to have time to make a final product with them today.

Paper Beads are something I’ve seen from time to time on Pinterest. I’ve repinned this pin showing various techniques, this pin showing how to make them using a calendar, and this pin for making round scrapbook paper ones with Mod Podge Dimensional Magic. The round ones are different than what I did here and I may try those in a future project since in the end they look more interesting to me.

While these were fun to make, mine obviously look like rolled paper, compared to pictures I’ve seen that look like normal beads and not paper at all. I can definitely see doing it again in the future if I have a very specific project that requires a highly custom look, but overall I don’t think the time investment paid off for me.

Here’s the process I took!

I started out by choosing a piece of extra scrapbook paper, a skewer, a paint brush (which I later changed up for a foam brush after recalling that Mod Podge kills paint brush bristles) and a clamp to hold the skewer. Not pictured are a measuring tape and scissors. Google landed me on the wikihow page, so I used that for a guideline.

The first ones I cut were about 4.5″ long and varying widths. In the long run making a long yet narrow triangle probably would have been best.

The first bead I rolled (on the right) proved I didn’t really read the instructions beyond “roll” and “glue”, because I did narrow to wide. Oops. The second (left, covered in Mod Podge) turned out better, but I was surprised at how long they were.

I ended up hacking some of my triangles shorter and came up with a variety of widths.

Next I figured I’d try a magazine. I had a National Geographic issue from December 2009 that had long outlived its usefulness, so I hacked up some triangles from that.

I tried to keep the magazine triangles shorter, around 2.5″ long.

I covered the rolled beads in Mod Podge and left them to dry overnight. After about 10-15 minutes I was able to take them out of the clamp and had them propped up inside a storage bin. I also checked by gently trying to slide and/or turn each one to ensure I didn’t glue it onto the skewer.

While gluing on the ends of the scrapbook paper and the magazine paper, I definitely noticed a difference. The scrapbook paper made a quick bond, whereas the magazine paper I had to hold about about 20-30 seconds before it began to make a bond (likely due to the glossy surface).

This afternoon I took the beads off of their dowels. Only one gave me problems sliding off and it still came out in one piece. They make an interesting clattering noise if you drop them on the desk!

On the left is the first bead I rolled the wrong way and on the right is the second one rolled the correct way. the difference is pretty obvious!

Since I had messed up that first one anyway, I decided to see what happened if I trimmed the ends to be even. It didn’t horribly mar it but there is definitely a touch of obvious damage to it.

Finally, here’s the earrings I made a little bit ago. It was difficult finding beads I have that actually worked well with the paper beads. They look nice and it’s unique, but these won’t be something I’ll dive into making a massive amount of.

Tomorrow’s project is Paper Bows. If you haven’t yet, remember to follow the Aira Artistry page on Facebook!