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?

Kentucky State String Art

A few years ago I was able to do a community craft at BlockParty Handmade in downtown Louisville. The craft that we made was Kentucky state string art. We were lined up on the sidewalk with our hammers and nails, crafting away. It was so much fun that I wanted to share a tutorial on how to make this easy project. 

What you will need:

1 wooden board (from craft store or hardware store)

1 small box of nails

String in the color of your choice (should contrast in color to your background wooden board)

1 hammer

1 computer print out of your state shape (in this case, Kentucky)

tweezers (optional)

Start by selecting a surface to hammer on that won't cause any damage. Here, I've chosen a tile counter top but places a piece of cardboard between the surface and the wooden board to protect the counter.

Next, take your print out and begin to hammer nails along the outline of the state's shape.

Continue hammering around the outline until you are satisfied with the shape.

Slowly tear away the paper from the nails. (Tweezers can help pull out stubborn pieces of paper if needed.)

Once all the paper is removed, you are left with your state shape!

Now for the really fun part! Get comfortable on a couch watching your favorite show, and go to town running your string through the nails. Start by tying off a piece of the string to one nail and then tightly wind the string in a random way around the nails to create your string art.

Your string art can be woven through the nails as thick or thin as you like, it's up to you! 

When you are finished, tie off the string on one nail and clip the string from the spool leaving a tail. Weave the tail ends of the string through the string art (try the tweezers again if you need help).

Now you are finished! Look at the beautiful project that you created!

Feeling stressed in the New Year already? Try this satisfying project and hammer your frustrations away!

The Kentucky state string art piece can be displayed on a shelf or mounted to a wall. No matter how you display it, you can proudly tell everyone that you made it by yourself!

Emoji Birthday Party

As a crafter, I love to make things, and that's no different when it comes to planning parties. I love working on coordinating food and decor around a party theme. That's why I was excited to plan an emoji-themed birthday party for my nephew a while ago. 

At the time, his favorite emoji was the "cool dude" smiley face with the sunglasses, so I used that as inspiration for my emoji cake. I just used a boxed cake mix and white icing mixing with food coloring. Fondant probably would have made a neater presentation, but I went with what I had on hand. Yellow plates and napkins, paired with a pizza print tablecloth and emoji Pez party favors made for a fun tablescape.

An easy DIY project for an emoji party is hanging lanterns. All you have to do is cut out pieces of felt for faces and hot glue them to yellow paper lanterns.

*Tip: Use a stack of coffee filters to hold the lantern while you are gluing on the face pieces. That way, the round object won't roll away as you glue!

This lantern is one cool dude!

I also made the winking tongue-out smiley and heart-eyes smiley to hang over the table.

A homemade emoji banner would be easy to make but I chose to use a gold Happy Birthday banner that we already owned. Some emoji pillows doubled as decor (making great seating on a bench in the dining room) and gifts for the birthday boy.

Party games including emoji jewelry-making and a board game called "Googly Eyes."

Playing "Googly Eyes" the board game.

Here I am with the birthday boy!

Pizza, watermelon, and wings were on the menu as fun, finger-friendly foods.

Some black and white candles topped the sunglasses emoji cake when it was time to make a wish!

Angry pillow photo-ops aside, this emoji party was nothing but happiness and fun! With a combination of store-bought items and homemade touches, it's easy to tailor this party theme to the emoji fan in your life!