Birthday shaker card

COVID-19 really put a damper on my craft blogging resolution for 2020. It's not so much that I haven't made things throughout the year, but mostly that I haven't taken pictures of the projects or created any content for this blog. So, now it's November, and I'm attempting to get back at it. 

Because Coronavirus cases are not under control in Kentucky, my cousin won't be able to have a birthday party this year. Social distancing can be hard, especially for teenagers, so I wanted to make her a special card to make her smile for her birthday. 

I decided on a shaker card in the shape of a balloon. Who doesn't love a little sparkle? Especially when it's contained! Shaker cards are perfect for that. Inside the balloon, I used purple micro beads, pink heart confetti, and blue/purple confetti dots against a blue background. For some extra fun, I added a twine string detail to the outside of the card. 

You'd think with all the extra time at home, I would have created a lot more, but I'll admit to a lot of binge-watching movies and shows. Sometimes a fun and easy paper project like this shaker card can get you back into the crafting spirit. What are you doing to keep up your crafting this year? 

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?

Upcycled gifts for Valentine’s Day

I like to celebrate the people in my life with small tokens of appreciation during holidays like Valentine's Day, but sometimes I don't have a lot of cash in the budget for gift giving. This year I decided to get creative, upcycling some items I had around the house to make special gifts for my Valentines.

The items that I used to make my upcycled gifts included:

-pink, metallic cardboard from a body soap gift set box

-used candle tins (from Aldi)

-used fruit cup (from Panera Bread)

I decided that the piece of pink, metallic cardboard would make a sweet Valentine card and used the Cricut machine at my local library to cut out the heart shape. I'm still learning with the Cricut, but I was able to take a free heart image from Cricut's Design Space and slice out half circles around the border to make it look like a lace/doily card.

I love the way that the heart Valentine turned out, even though it is a harder item to photograph because of the metallic finish on the cardboard! It's the perfect shade of pale pink, and I am glad I was able to repurpose or upcycle this piece of cardboard from a bath set box.

For my next upcycle, I cleaned out candle tins from Aldi to make little gift holders. I used a candle warmer to melt the last of the candle wax and then wiped out the tin. I also used soap and water to wash them out, since I wanted to use some of them to give candy.

I used some gold ribbon to package the candies inside some of the empty tins. In the others, I used tissue paper to give some heart earrings that I made specifically for Valentine's Day.

The design on the candle tins were so cute, I couldn't bear the thought of throwing them out, so I'm glad that I was able to recycle them to make these Valentine's Day gifts.

The last item to repurpose was the plastic fruit cup. I washed this out with soap and water and peeled off the fruit label from the lid. The plastic cup would be a cute way to gift candy, cookies, or even a cupcake! I decided to show a way to repurpose the food cup with a non-edible gift. These adorable llama (or are they alpaca?) socks were actually a gift to me from my sister-in-law, but they look sweet as a cupcake rolled up inside.

You may not have the same items on hand for upcycling your own Valentine's Day gifts, but you can get creative! I think upcycled gifts and packaging are good for the environment, and make your gift stand out. What do you think? What items do you have around the house that you would repurpose for gift giving?

Happy Valentine's Day!