CREATIVE CRAFTING

Archive for October, 2008

Family Fun.com

I just came across these cute votives for Thanksgiving.  They would be a cute inexpensive craft for the kids to do for Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, Church groups. They can be used to decorate Thanksgiving tables or just as a decoration for a side table. Make a trip to your local senior center and give a homemade gifts straight from the heart!

Create a flock of these bright votive holders: they’re a great project for kids and, filled with battery-operated tea lights, a luminous addition to your table.

Be sure to check out more ideas for a fun-filled Kids’ Thanksgiving.
CRAFT MATERIALS:
Hot glue
Glue gun
1 1/4-inch wooden doll head (available at craft stores)
Small glass bubble votive holder (ours is 4 inches wide by 3 1/2 inches high)
Brush
Mod Podge
Tissue paper
Scissors
Tacky glue
Beads

Time needed: About 2 to 3 Hours
1. Apply a dab of hot glue from a glue gun to the wooden doll head. Then adhere the head to the votive holder.

2. Brush Mod Podge over the head and body, then cover them with overlapping tissue paper scraps. Apply another Mod Podge layer and let it dry for at least 45 minutes.

Step 3 – Glowbird 3. To make the tail feathers, cut 9- by 2-inch strips of tissue paper, bend each in half without creasing it, then twist the ends together. Use a dollop of tacky glue to attach each feather to the body.

I have never understood the need to scrapbook. I have friends that make page after page of photos, but never saw the allure of cutting and pasting pictures on top of one another.  At least that is how I saw it.

Although I do like doing things with my hands and letting the creative juices flow, the traditional method of scrapbooking never appealed to me.  Digital Scrapbooking, however, does appeal to me.

About three years ago, I started going through photo albums looking at the pictures of my children as they grew and they were in a hodgepodge of order.  Some were marked others were not, as I never seemed to have the time to put any order to the albums.  There were pictures in shoeboxes that just sat.  Pictures of the rest of my family when they were young, including pictures of my parents when they were children.  Pictures of grandparents I barely remember.  Some were fading, some were bent, and some even got stuck together because of dampness.

I thought I should preserve them for my children, and grandchildren.  So I set about organizing them on my computer by scanning each one in, using a photo editor to fix any of the more serious problems, and then saving them one by one to discs for each of my four children.

Here is a cute project for you and you children. I made the pig and the skunk and put them in some of my houseplants. They are so cute. Very easy to do and a lot of fun.

by Laura Torres
Few craft materials let kids express their imaginations as easily as polymer clay. It’s squishable, comes in dozens of colors, and hardens permanently once it’s baked. So whether you want to mold an army of ants, sculpt a swarm of silly little bugs, or make your own mini menagerie, this material lets you get spectacular results. Have your children try their sculpting skills on this zoo of super easy critters to learn techniques they can apply to any creature imaginable.

Polymer Clay Basics
Simple tips and techniques for creating these clay creatures

Selecting clay brands: A number of varieties and brands of polymer clay are sold in craft stores. We find that Sculpey III and Fimo Soft are the softest and easiest for little hands to mold.

Choosing colors: If you can’t find the color you’re looking for, just knead together different clay colors to get the shade you want. If you’re using different colors that you don’t want to mix, however, be sure to use a damp cloth to wipe your hands when you switch clays.

Sculpting the creatures: Clay fuses during baking, but the better you press the pieces together, the better they will stay together.

The girls on one of the many forums I belong to have got me hooked on Digital Scrapbooking. I tried traditional scrapbooking, but soon ran out of room for all the supplies, and after a while could not figure out what to do with the book I had made. One of the reasons I wanted to try scrapbooking was to get rid of books, not make more. The pages were cute, and I liked them, but I soon lost interest.

I am relatively new to Digital Scrapbooking, so I have nothing to show you as yet, give me a few months as I work slow. I did find this wonderful article and it pretty much explains why digital, at least for me, is better than traditional.

Digital Scrapbooking Versus Traditional Scrapbooking
May 20th, 2008 | By Articles | Category: Scrapbooking

You may have heard about the latest craze scrapbooking. And yes while scrapbooking is a fantastic hobby lets take it a step further and explore Digital Scrapbooking.

If you are anything like me you have been to the stores and seen scrapbooking supplies. They are just so cute and charming. Almost irrestible! The only trouble….it seems you may need a second job just to enjoy this hobby! I was at a bookstore and saw a ready made album that came complete with elements and cutouts all you needed to do was open get some glue and some photos. Well this book was completely sealed and outside of the fancy cover you really had no idea what was in it.

Once I decided I wanted to do some scrapbooking, I had to think what I wanted to accomplish.  Did I want it to be just page after page of really cool looking photos, or did I want those photos to tell a story of our family.

My sister and I have embarked the last few years on a history of our family, we have taken our geneology back 150 years to our great, great grandfather on our mother’s side.  Considering they did not have photographic equipment back then, I wondered how I would incorporate those names onto a scrapbooking page? I found on the web a free pedigree site: http://www.misbach.org/pdfcharts/.  With these charts you can fill in the names of the ancestors that you have no pictures for, along with either current pictures of your family, or pictures of other ancestors in that line.  There are literally hundreds of possibilities.

I read somewhere that scrapbookers are also genealogists; and no wonder, since scrapbooking is a way of preserving our lives, and the lives our families. With care and consideration genealogy and family history can very easily be incorporated into scrapbooking with or without photos of your ancestors!

Getting Started

Candle holders are very easy to make and they’re a great gift idea. I have been making them for years for just about every occasion and person.  The materials are inexpensive, you can even use items you have around the house.  Just use your imagination and come up with some great ideas that match your lifestyle.

Basic materials required:

·  Small glass candle holders
·  wrapping paper (thin if you can find it)
·  tissue paper
·  Decoupage medium
·  Small scissors (I use cuticle scissors)
·  Small paintbrush
·  Damp paper towel

You can purchase whatever style of glass candle holders you like. You can also find them at thrift stores, yard sales or in your own home.  At one time I even used glass baby food jars.

You can select whatever design you’d like, keeping in mind the tastes of the person you’re making them for. You can cut out pictures from calendars, greeting cards,  magazines, or other sources that you may have handy.  Go to the craft store and you can find scrapbook paper that works really well.  Thin paper for the decoupages work best, so keep that in mind when getting your designs.

When you have found pictures you would like to have use a pair of cuticle scissors to cut out them out.  Cuticle scissors work best on small pictures as they are easier to use on corners than regular scissors. Store any pictures you are not going to use in a small plastic storage bag.

I have a lot of friends who do crafting and when I said I was going to do this blog about crafting, once the laughter died down and they realized I was serious, the ideas and product recommendations started pouring in.

Here is one that my friend Jen recommended. Jen is into scrapbooking everything and anything she can find. She has a new baby, and every step of that babies life is documented in a scrapbook. I think it is great, so I asked her to help me with my scrapbooking pages, as quite frankly I don’t have a clue what it is a person needs to do scrapbooking.

The first thing she said she bought was a “mini-paper trimmer” to trim the edges of small photos for her pages. So I asked her about this one, and it is the exact one she uses. She said that the larger paper trimmers were too big for small photos, too cumbersome to use, took up too much room but this one was the perfect size to trim them. She has no complaints about it, and in fact recommends it highly.

When did the habit of wearing jewelry begin? Who were the first to pierce their ears or wear colored beads around their necks? Where did it start? Have you ever wondered about any of this when you are making jewelry or putting it on? I have; but then I tend to like the history of everyday life, so I looked into it.

I spent some time last month at the Detroit Art Institute and with every exhibit there seemed to be a piece of jewelry or ornament of some kind. While all were different according to region and time period, all of the ornamentation had something in common; it was made by someone who wanted to create something beautiful.

Recently in a South Africa cave jewelry has been dated 75,000-100,000 years ago and were made out of Mollusk shells that had a hole drilled into the center and then were strung on a strip of leather or something I don’t really want to think about. It is thought that jewelry from this time was worn more for function such as holding clothes on rather than decoration. After some time it became more decorative and used for spiritual purposes, status symbols or a way to ward off evil and/or illness.

In ancient Egypt, gold was standard in jewelry making, and was often used to create everything from necklaces to head ornaments. When the tomb of King Tutankhamen was excavated in 1922, it was discovered that the Egyptians used gold to adore the tombs of the deceased. The ancient Egyptians were also some of the first to include gemstones in their jewelry, and they mainly used turquoise, amethyst, and lapis. They also used the process of enameling.