Cardboard Spring decor

Nothing can take the place of spending time with family and friends, but due to COVID19 a lot of us aren't able to be together. That's hard, especially if you are celebrating Spring holidays. Crafting is my go-to thing whenever I'm celebrating a holiday or whenever I'm struggling with hardship. Since I'm currently experiencing both, I thought I'd take some time to share this project with you.

Before the pandemic, I was lucky to get together with my friends Julee and Patty to make some Spring decor. We used corrugated cardboard to make different Spring shapes. I chose to make a bunny and an egg. They are super cute, lightweight decorations. I decided to display mine on my mantel with some Spring flowers. 

Now I'll show you how you can make them, too.

For supplies, all you need is glue, a foam brush to apply the glue, and strips of corrugated cardboard (if you don't have any corrugated cardboard, think creatively--using cardboard packing material, or strips of paper or posterboard).

Beginner cardboard shape: Egg

The egg shape is the easiest to make with the cardboard. 

1. Begin to roll the cardboard in a circle (corrugated/bumpy side facing out). 

2. If you need to tighten your circle, place your thumb on the center of the circle and use your other hand to pull the cardboard tighter. 

3. Make the circle as small or as large as you like.

4. Once your circle shape is complete, squeeze one side to create the pointy end of your egg.

5. Glue the loose end of cardboard to the egg.

6. Coat the rest of the layers of the egg with the glue. Let side dry and repeat on opposite side.

Advanced cardboard shape: Bunny

The bunny shape is a little more intricate to make, so if crafting with kids, they'll probably need some assistance.

1. Using shorter strips of cardboard, make an oval for the head and a longer oval for the ears. Glue the ends of the cardboard strips to the shapes.

2. To attach the ears to the head, use another strip of cardboard to wrap around the pieces.

3. One layer might be enough, but if it's not...

4. ...wrap a second layer of this strip around the head and ears.

5. Secure the end of the strip with glue. Coat one side of the head with glue and hold the shape you want in place for a few minutes. The glue dries pretty quickly since you're working with cardboard/paper. Repeat coating of glue on opposite side of head.

6. To make the bunny body, roll strips of cardboard into circles or ovals. The number is up to you. Secure ends of strips with glue.

7. To keep the circles together for the body, wrap another strip of cardboard around them all.

8. Play with the shape to give it the look you like.

9. Coat both sides of the body shape with glue.

10. Attach the head to the body with the glue and hold in place until secure. Coat both sides with glue. 

As you can see the backside of my bunny stuck to the paper because of the glue, but that's okay because the front side looks fine!

You don't have to stick with eggs and bunnies. You could try chicks or flowers or anything for Spring! It's a fun and easy project to make and hopefully you already have some supplies on hand to make this.

Rainbow Pop-Up Card for St. Patrick's Day

St. Patrick's Day is a great holiday for crafting. This year I decided it would be fun to make some pop-up cards. You could really use any motif for these pop-up cards: shamrocks, a pot of gold, a leprechaun, or a rainbow like I did. 

All you need for this project is paper in rainbow colors (I used cardstock), scissors, and some glue dots. You could use liquid glue or a gluestick, but I didn't want the paper to warp at all, so I decided to use glue dots.

For this project, I free-handed all the shapes, but if you don't want to do that you can use a template from the internet. An easy way to remember the rainbow colors in order is "ROYGBV" (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet). Cut out a half circle or gumdrop shape of each of those six colors, making each one a little smaller than the next. The white paper is for the cloud shapes.

Once your shapes are cut out, you are ready to prepare your card base. Fold the piece of paper (mine was 8.5x11") in half. On the folded side of the card, use scissors to cut four slits (two on each end) of the card as shown below.

Start with one cut on the left end of the folded side of the card...

...then cut the other three notches as shown below.

Once you've cut your notches, you can open the card and pop out the paper tabs. This is what you are going to attach your rainbow shape to for the pop-up card.

First use the glue dots to assemble your rainbow in ROYGBV order.

It's optional to cut out the center of the rainbow. I think it could look cute either way. Once you are satisfied with your rainbow shape, place glue dots on the bottom part of the tabs cut in the card.

Line the bottom of the rainbow shape up with the bottom of the paper tab slits, then press onto the glue dots to secure.

You should now have a functioning pop-up card. Hooray!

 Now you can embellish the rainbow card with clouds and a happy message for St. Patrick's Day.

I plan to send these happy cards to my grandmothers for a little love via snail mail. Who would you make a rainbow pop-up card for?

Be mine, Valentine!

Valentine's Day is upon us once again. I love love! And I always feel it's best to use this holiday to show my love with cards, candy, or even text messages to people I care about. I'm fortunate to have not only my husband to share it with, but my parents, siblings, and plenty of friends I like to call my "Galentines." One of my Galentines hosted a brunch for us gals over the weekend, which was a lot of fun!

Another one of my very best Galentines, Julee, is known to many of you for her blog DIY Louisville. This year the two of us have decided to take our love of holidays, crafting, and party planning to the next level by collaborating on a new project called Party in Lou! I hope you'll check out our website and follow our Instagram page @PartyinLou!

My creation for this Valentine's "Smooch" party decor was an ombré pink pom-pom banner. I love making pom-poms with yarn. It's so relaxing, and which a plastic pom-pom maker it's super easy, too! All I did was buy one skein of the pink ombré yarn and made several pom-poms in varying sizes (from 3-4 inches) in diameter with the pom-pom maker. Then I trimmed the pom-poms down with scissors, which is how you get such a soft, fuzzy look for your pom-poms.

Using a large sewing needle, I threaded the pom-poms onto a length of yarn to turn them into a pom-pom banner. It is a great decoration, and easily customizable for your theme. Julee came up with the idea of a "Smooch" lips theme for a Valentine's Day party. With her crafted cake toppers, my pom-pom banner, and some simple red, pink, black, and white decor, we were all set to have the cutest party decor.

It didn't hurt that there was cake to match the theme as well! Julee and I agree that handmade items go a long way to make a party feel special. That's why we're so excited to be collaborators on Party in Lou. We hope you'll join us on Instagram and follow our website.

Not it's your turn: What is your favorite party decoration to handcraft? Or, what is the party decoration you would like to learn to make?

What's up, witches?

It wasn't the best lighting situation when I snapped these photos on a rainy day recently, but I had to share my latest witchy creations, Agatha and Kitty! These poor dollies had to wait a long time before they got their hair and hats. I tried something new for Agatha (the witch with the orange hat), creating her hair by sewing a knitted rectangle of purple yarn to her head. I like the way she turned out! Both dolls stand around 16 inches tall from hat to toes. 

Agatha

Kitty

Well, I was going to link to the posts of my other witch dolls creations from over the years, but it seems I've never posted any of the other witch dolls that I've made besides Winnie! I will just just go ahead and upload past Halloween dolls I've made here, too.

Esmerelda

Minerva

Elora

Luna, Esmerelda, and Erwina

I hope you find these dolls as BOO-tiful as I do! Happy Craftoween!