DIY Gift Box

I started an Etsy shop last year, I sell mostly handmade jewelry and baby mobiles (look out for a giveaway soon). A follower of this blog and my Etsy shop commented that they would like to see a tutorial of how I make my packages.  I thought this was a great idea since it was my biggest dilemma  figuring out how I was going to ship my items.  My first sale came along I was so excited!  I hurried and scoured the city looking for a small, pretty box to ship my handmade earrings safely.  I couldn't find a suitable box.  I ended up going into a jewelry store and convincing the salesperson to sell me one jewelry box for $1.00.  I ran to the post office to ship my items and ended up paying more shipping than I had charged my customer.  I figured out the hard way the my packages had to be a certain height and had to fit through a certain sized opening for me to get the best deal in shipping charges.  My first sale wasn't a financial success.  I decided not to give up on shipping my items in a pretty way.  I didn't want to just throw them in a bubble wrap.  I wanted my customers to get excited when the open their envelope to find a pretty package.  I found the perfect pin to make my own pretty boxes that would be "flat" enough for me to ship. Here's how I make my lovely packages, these are great for gift giving and can be made any size.

 

You will need Bristol board or you can use patterned card stock(I just like white Bristol board so I can customize mine, and since I make lots of these the price is right), a ruler, pencil, eraser, scissors, and any extra things to decorate your package. I use a stamp,ribbon , and I make a tiny origami crane for mine.

 

use your ruler to make your box.  This should be slightly bigger then the item your packing up since this is the part your item will be in. Try and lightly mark your paper since you will want to erase your lines after its all finished. (I made mine a littler darker so you could see the lines in the photo).  *Tip* if you are using Bristol board draw on the non-shiny side it will erase better.

 

Use your ruler to extend your lines for each side of your box.  My square is usually a little bigger than a business card. About 3 inches. Your lines should extend far enough that when they fold down they overlap slightly, so you can tape them down. On my 3 inch square they are a little over the 2 inch mark.  These will become your flaps.

 

round off the ends of your flaps.

Cut out and decorate.

 

Pre-fold down your flaps, insert your item and tape down flaps.

Add ribbon and your are all done!  Sine my boxes are usually the same size I save one of my cut-outs as a template so when I need one I just have to trace my template and cut out and decorate. 

These can be made any size just increase the size of your box you make in the first step.  I haven't tried it yet but I'm sure you could even do this the size of the entire Bristol board to wrap a sweater or small blanket.  Give it a try next time you have a gift to give.

Watercolor Tree

I've really been getting into watercolors lately.  I started a watercolor board on my own Pinterest and started pinning what appealed to me.  So far I've been enjoying painting flowers the most.  I came across this tutorial on Pinterest a bunch of times and finally got around to clicking on the link.  The process looked so easy!  It was easy!  And the beautiful thing about this project is that every tree you paint is going to look different! It's completely unique, and fun.

Here's what you need.  I used three colors, Bright Yellow, Crimson and Ultramarine Blue.

Now in case you are wondering, that is a gift back in the picture above.  My original idea was to paint my tree on these gift bags I got from Dollar Tree.  This was a complete failure!  The bags somehow repel water, which is not what you want.  So I ended up painting my tree on inexpensive watercolor paper.

The first step for this project is to spray your paper lightly with water.  I tried to keep the water just in the general area I wanted to have my tree.  Then you "tap" in your colors.  Yellow, blue, then red.

 

When you are happy with the amount of color you've got going on, pull out your spray bottle again and gently begin spraying.  Above is just a couple of sprays.  Looking good so far! 

A couple more sprays and this is what I have.  Now comes the most important part...PATIENCE.

You have to let it dry completely before you paint in the tree trunk.

Here's my finished product.  This was so easy.  I'm going to give it a try with the little dude soon!  I think there might be a little more mess though!  I really love this Pin, so don't Pin it and forget it! Give it a try!

Wine Glass Lanterns

When I seen this Craft I immediately had to try it.  It looked so easy and I had everything on hand.  The link even had a printable template to make my shade.  I grabbed my scrapbook paper, printed and cut out my template, found a wine glass and got to work.

 Instead of tracing my template onto my paper, I just rolled a piece of tape to make double sided tape and stuck it on.

After I cut it out , I wrapped my paper around the glass to see where the two ends of the shade would meet, then I taped them together.  You could put some glue too at this point if you didn't want to see tape on the outside.  I took the extra step of gold leafing the bottom of my glass.  I just put tape where I wanted my gold to stop and painted it on.  I then lit my tea light and placed it in and put my shade on top.  Wow so pretty!

 I got a little worried with the fire and paper combination, so I bought a two pack of fake tea lights (the battery powered ones) at the dollar tree and they flicker like real candles.

I love this project and will be placing them all over tables at my next party!  Wedding season is almost here and I think this project would be so pretty as table decor!  Use paper different patterns in your wedding colors.  The best part is you can just make a new shade in a different color after, you already have the template.  Or just use the wine glass for their original purpose to have a drink after your event.  This one is a keeper!

It glows really pretty too!

Secret Hollow Book

I have wanted to make a hollow book forever now!  I love the idea of hiding something special right on your bookshelf.  I also have a slight obsession with antique books.  When I say slight I mean a serious obsession!  I have to be careful walking into the thrift store because I usually end up walking out with a vinyl record in one arm and a Dickens or Austen in the other.  But please don't worry, I didn't destroy an antique book for this project.  You may have noticed I tore out some pages from a Sherlock Holmes book for my DIY wall art project.  I had this in the back of my mind as a future project at the time.  And this book is by no means an antique.  I think it was printed in 1984 or something.  

Here is the link for the step-by-step. 

Here's what you need for the project.  Plus patience, lots of patience! 

First lesson learned from this project, DO NOT buy the 2 pack for school glue from the Dollar Tree.  It smells awful and the glue had separated.  I didn't even know that was possible! 

First step is to use plastic wrap to protect the cover and a few of the first pages from the glue.  Then you close it and brush glue all around the outsides of the pages.  I did this pretty liberally.  

The moisture makes the pages spread so you need to weigh it down while the glue dries.  In the tutorial they use a 5 kilo weight.  My stand mixer was the heaviest thing we could find.  I laughed every time I saw it!  

Now people, listen up!  The tutorial says to leave it to dry 15-30!  That is crazy!  There is no way the glue will dry that fast.  I let mine dry over an hour and it was still damp.  You'll see what happens if you don't wait.  Honestly, if I do this project again I will let it dry overnight! 

So, I don't have any pictures of the cutting of the pages process.  This is because it was incredibly frustrating!  It was frustrating for three reasons.  The first is that my knife was really dull, I need a new blade.  The second is that the tutorial suggests that you first draw the rectangle that you want to cut away, then use a drill to drill a hole in each of the four corners.  The corners were the hardest part to cut away so I can see how this will be very helpful.  Finally, the third reason was because my glue wasn't dry after the hour.  So I had sticky fingers and the pages were not staying together.  Also, the little shreds of paper got stuck to the outside of the book!

Once you have the hollow compartment cut away (you can make it as shallow or deep as you want/need) you need to glue the inside of the compartment.  You also have to take one of your saved pages that you protected with the plastic wrap and glue it over the hole.  This didn't make any sense to me until I got to this stage.  It's because you need to put glue in the inside of the book at this stage and you obviously don't want plastic wrap glued to the book.  You'll cut your compartment out of this page when everything is dry.  When you are all done, put your weight/stand mixer on the book again and let it dry overnight.

Here's my end result.  See the little bits of paper all over!  I was really disappointed.

My inside compartment isn't that pretty either!  Use a sharp, sharp knife.  You'll be glad you did!

Here's the book on my shelf.  At least it looks good from this angle! 

 I like this project!  I got the job done in the end.  But the tutorial really needs updating.  Give it a try, but don't do what I did!  LET THE GLUE DRY!

Clementine Candle

The other day a reader sent us a special request to test out a pin.  A pin that's been floating around Pinterest for years and re-pinned A LOT! The Clementine candle Pin.  I remembered trying this pin when I first started a Pinterest account and it was a total fail.  It was actually in my Pinterest fails board when I checked. So I clicked the link and watched the tutorial to find out that when I had done it the first time I hadn't watched the tutorial.  In fact I don't think I even clicked the link. So I was ready to try again in hopes of a success story.

I cut around the clementine (not all the way through just through the skin), then I carefully put my finger in and pulled the skin away from the flesh. I thought this would be the hard part, it wasn't.

 The hard part was getting what would end up being your wick out. It's that long piece of white pith that runs up the middle of the orange.  I kept getting both "bowls" off but no wick. This time I gently rolled the orange  and squeezed it and the wick came out  (I don't know if this helped or if my orange was just more ripe).

You then put olive oil in your bowl end with the wick, I made sure to drip a few drops of oil on my wick. Let it sit a few minutes so the wick soaks up the oil.

 In the meantime cut a design or just a hole in the top end of your clementine. Then lite, place lid on and enjoy.

 SO it worked! I was pretty surprised, I was thinking this was going to be a fail again. But it worked and was really pretty.

Only one catch, it doesn't smell pretty.  I know what you're thinking, nice warm orange smell, what's not to love.  It smells burnt, nothing like you think it will.  Mine burned for 30 minutes with the lid on, then I couldn't take the smell anymore.  I let it burn a bit more with the lid off for a total of 1 hour. I would say you need to try this at least once.  Be prepared to eat a lot of oranges and to not enjoy the smell.

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Tote Bags

Every second week I host an art/music class for kids 4 and under (yes I'm slightly crazy).  It's a "mommy and me" class as I like to call it.  All my crafts are Pinterest projects and I usually test them out on my almost three year old before we do them with others.  We've had some great projects. This weeks project was a huge hit, every single kid loved this one.  I know I sound surprised but I have a large age range (1-4) and so sometimes it's hard to find something that everyone can do and will love to do.  This project was a great success!  This is the original Pin.

Now unless you have a very meticulous child your bag will look nothing like this, but it's really not about the end result it's about the process and how much your child enjoyed it! 

All you need is a blank canvas bag, acrylic paint, and some fruits and veggies. We used apples and limes cut in half and we cut the root (bottom) off of a bunch of celery and lettuce to make our stamps.

I really think the key to this project was using fruits and vegetables as stamps. Everyone was excited to see what kind of shape an apple, lime and celery would make.

 PS. Don't skip using the bottom of a cut celery as a stamp it made the coolest most flower-like print.

We found our blank canvas tote bags at the Dollarama. 

DIY Wall Art

This week I attempted to create some art for my home.  Here's what I was going for.

According to the tutorial the idea here is to pick up some thrift store art, a painting, canvas, whatever inspires.  I really love the red one in the middle that looks like it has sheet music in the background.  So I decided to play by my own rules. 

I found the 'keep calm and carry on' decal at the new Dollar Tree that opened up in my city.  My idea was to glue some pages from a Sherlock Holmes novel I had lying around to a canvas.  Very British! 

First I pulled out the pages I wanted to use, and placed them on the canvas.  Once I had them organized how I liked I started gluing them down.  Note that you really don't need too much glue.  If you use too much you could cause the pages to bubble.  You'll see in the picture of my finished product that this is what happened to me.  

Next place your letters on the canvas, making sure you have enough room.  Don't start sticking them on until you have it just right.  You don't want to run out of room.  These decals were very delicate and might break if you have to take them off and restick them. 

All that's left to do is paint the entire canvas in one solid color.  It's up to you whether you paint a thick layer so you can't see any of the background showing through or a thin layer.  I personally liked to see a little bit of the pages showing through.  

Here's my finished product.  Sorry it's not the greatest picture.  The flash added a bit too much shine.  Notice the ripples on the left side of the canvas.  If I do this project again I'll use less glue.  

I was very happy with the result when I pulled off the letters.  The paint didn't bleed at all.  Not to bad for a decal that cost me $1.25.  This pin isn't fool proof, and would definitely be easier using an art piece from the thrift store as in the tutorial.  But its fun, and I'm excited to hang it under my book shelf.