diy upcycled holiday garland

I have been meaning to make this garland for more than five years! I'm not sure why I never got around to it as it is silly easy to do and super sweet to look at. It's a happy little bit of a memory boost as well since I made it from the holiday cards friends and family sent last year. Every year happy holiday cards arrive in the mail and once the holiday is over I fret over what to do with them. My cloudy middle-aged memory brings up a wee me creating a placemat with my dear Aunt Kathy using mod podge and happy hippy cards from the 70s and well who needs more place mats? One day as I was taking the cards down from the door of the tiny casa I thought, I should turn these into a happy garland to use to decorate next year! So I saved said cards only to not be able to find them the following year and then that year I saved those cards only to misplace them as well, and so on and so on. Of course, now that I had saved last year's cards in a place where I could find them (with the decorations, of course) I seem to have fallen of a great number of holiday mailing lists. But still, in a burst of creative energy, ridiculously stoked to find the sewing machine not only plugged in but also all threaded up with room on the craft table I got to it!

Here's what ya do...gather up your holiday cards and separate the fronts from the backs. Most cards do not print on the back so all you need is the happy printed front. Use an assortment of paper punches or one circle punch to punch out happy bits of color. If you have a stockpile of photo cards, punch out those smiling faces, if you have cards with embellishments on them, remove the embellishment in lieu of a circle (see the owl?). Gather up your punched pieces into a bowl, basket, or tray and bring 'em to your sewing machine. Set your stitch length to the longest there is and keep it on a straight stitch. Place your first shape under the foot of your machine and stitch a little forward and back to lock it in. Continue stitching at a slow enough pace to feed your other shapes under the foot with a little space between them. Don't let too much space happen unless you are all scientific-like and know how/why to adjust your tension (I am not and do not) or else your thread might jump and get all tangled causing you to abandon your project in search of a cup of hot tea or a pinterest perusal before you realize the light is fading and you should finish your project now before you abandon it for another year. Ahem. Stitch out a back and forth on your last circle and liberate from your machine!

 

Hang in a happy place perhaps over (or under) the mantel or on your tree. Another nifty idea would be to use one card per garland and use that garland to wrap up a gift for the person who sent you the card in the first place. This would be especially fun for those photo cards! Drats! Now I wish I did that! Sigh. There's always next year!

**the painted and stitched newspaper garland is also easy to make. I wrote up a diy for you back in 2010 and we still bring it out each Holiday season! 

5 easy holiday diys for you!

*washi tape gift tags

*pillowcase stockings

*stitched cheater potholders

*gluten free chocolate cashew ginger chews

*recipe board

diy: party wreath

This is another one of those projects that has been kickin' 'round the noggin for a few years now. After months of not being outside-of-school crafty I was determined to get it done! The party blowers were a dollar store purchase and the sparkly bits came from Target' holiday clearance. They were thirty-cents for two silvery puff balls. I bought five packs and if I had bought more, the wreath would have been larger. As it is, it is a mini wreath built upon a six inch embroidery hoop. I first attempted it on a twelve inch hoop but it was a mess so mini wreath it is!

Gather up your materials...blowers, festive bits, hoop (I ended up with a smaller hoop), and tacky glue. I suppose you could use a glue gun but I have such bad luck with them...nothing ever really sticks...so I used tacky glue. Play with the bits before gluing up the hoop. My first attempt was to create a wreath made from blowers only but I could not get the bits to round out and it kept looking like a pentagon. Everything was coated in glue from all the moving around I was doing I ended up fleeing the room with a frustrated scream, hands up in the air, fingers covered in tiny bits of tinsel. It was a mess!

Once items are arranged to your liking, add glue and affix. I used three blowers and extra tinsel from two other blowers that got eaten by the glue. The entire cost of the finished wreath was four bucks! The hoop was a fifty cent thrift find, blowers were a buck and the tinsel puffs totaled a buck fifty. Whoo-hoo!

Hang in a happy place or pro it up somewhere inside. Either way, it brings a bit of festive cheer to your day. Use leftover blowers and bits for a party or string 'em up into a garland! Happy New Year!

make: chocolate cashew ginger candies (guten-free!)

Just a few ingredients pack a powerful tasty punch! This is a roundabout recipe, something I make without measuring. There was a variation of the recipe once form a book I no longer have that used graham crackers and macadamia nuts but darn if macadamia nuts aren't so expensive, so I made up this recipe instead...

Here's what I used...
*1 pack (8oz) of gluten free ginger snaps from Trader Joe's
*2 10oz bags bittersweet chocolate chips (guitard)
*2 10-12oz  bags milk chocolate chips (guitard is a fave)
*1 1/2 cups or so of lightly salted cashew pieces
*1/2-1 cup candied ginger chips
*flake sea salt

 

These chocolates are not labor intensive but do take a while to make as the chocolate needs to set between dippings. Make sure to clear space in your fridge or freezer for a cookie sheet to rest without toppling over. Fill a medium to large soup pot with water and place a heat proof bowl on top making sure the water does not touch the bowl. Dump both bags of bittersweet chips into the bowl and let them melt. Stir every now and then to distribute that heat. While the chocolate is melting, place cookies into a plastic bag and roll over with a rolling pin to crunch them up a bit. They will crumble a lot so don't roll until you have only crumbs, leave a few chunky bits in there. When chocolate is melted, remove from heat and add your cookie pieces, ginger chips and cashews. Stir until combined. The chocolate will be glossy and the mixture will be loose.

 

 

Use two spoons to drop very small blobs of the mixture onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment or wax paper (they will not be pretty). You can go bigger but they are very difficult to bite through and enjoy when they are more than a mouthful (but cutting them half has its advantages). Think almond sized blobs. You can place the blobs fairly close together to use up as much space as possible on the cookie sheet. Place in your refrigerator or freezer for fifteen minutes or until set. I had to use three cookie sheets for this but only had room for one sheet at a time in the fridge. This part can be done a few days before the next round of dipping.

 

 

Once the chocolate is set it is time for round two of dipping. Pour one bag of milk chocolate chips into a microwave safe bowl. I use a four cup measuring cup. You want the container to be taller than wide so that the chocolate, once melted, is deep enough for dipping. Melt in 30 second increments and stir in between. Make sure your container is absolutely dry and that you check on your chocolate. Both water and over heating can seize it making it unusable. Once your chocolate is melted, use a fork and your fingers to coat each piece of candy, placing it back onto your covered cookie sheet. To make this easier, remove all of the to-be-dipped pieces and put them on a plate or in a bowl before you begin. When your cookie sheet is full add a pinch of sea salt to the top of each candy. Return to fridge to set. To use up as much chocolate as possible, use a spatula to scrape sides of container. I usually abandon my fork by the third piece and end up with one hand completely covered in chocolate. To finish of the remaining chocolates, add your second bag of chips to the container and return to the microwave for melting. By the time you finish dipping the last round your cookie sheet in the fridge should be set.

 

These are crazy good candies! I made these gluten-free as I was bringing them to a potluck where I knew someone was gluten-sensitive. Not all chocolate chips are gluten-free so do your research before you get to melting the whole shebang. The ginger chips from The Ginger People are gluten-free and super tasty. If you do not need gluten-free chocolates, go wild! Chop up a fancy candy bar and use nutter butter cookies or pie crust or oreos! I did up one batch last week and ran out of milk chocolate for dipping (I only used one bag) so I popped the candies that needed to be double dipped into a container and did them a few days later when I had more chocolate. I also had only used two-thirds of the crumbs so used made up another whole batch. By the end of all the dipping I was left with three candies un-double-dipped. They were pretty tasty too, not so pretty to look at but yummy all the same.

Pop a bunch of sweets into a wax bag, add a pretty tag and gift away!  Throw a candy making party where people bring different nuts and cookies, customize the candies for friends with allergies, add dried cranberries or chop up candied orange peels...soooo many ways to make these! Happy Holidays!

diy: washi tape gift tags

I know there are a zillion washi tape projects out there and amongst them there are probably a lot of gift tag diys too but here's what I made for this holiday season to go with my silver and gold gift wrap (which I still need to get to, wrapping, that is).

 

 

Gather up yer washi tape, don't worry about using all of the same color or making sure it matches. The more colors the merrier. Grab a sheet of card stock and get ready to layer.

I have a nifty tag-shaped paper punch so I layered my tape pieces in all sorts of direction for more variety when punching out. If you do not have a punch, don't worry, you can cut out your own shapes or use an online template. Layer your washi pieces in a manner that pleases you. Have scissors handy if you want clean cuts.

 

When I got to the awkward part of my paper, I flipped it over and trimmed off all the excess tape and used that to fill in the white space.

 

Punch or cut out your shapes using as much of the paper as possible. I begin on the far left of one side and punch all the way around. Next, I use scissors to trim the funky bits left-over and punch around again repeating until all of the paper is used up.

 

 

Use a hole punch to punch a hole for lacing. I have misplaced my regular hole punch and so pulled out this tiny punch and was not happy with the results. I then went off in search of another only to find a vintage three-hole punch in the mama-a-go-go's room and so made do with that.

Aren't they pretty? I think they would look great tied to craft paper packages and boxes.   I have two sets of gift wrap to use. One is a store bought black paper with vibrantly colored snowflakes and the other is plain white paper I have drawn designs on with metallic markers. I think the color of these tags will work with both. Make a bunch and gift them to friends to use throughout the year. I can't wait to finish (ahem..begin) wrapping!

diy dillydilly: cheater potholders

Years ago when I ran the five things group we had a potholder swap. I worked my gifted arse off stitching up five chicken potholders, wrestling with the thick insulated padding and breaking needles on bias tape that did not like me one bit. The pay off would be five awesome handmade potholders from five crafty internet friends only the person hosting the swap never mailed them out and that was that. Since then I have wanted to make potholders but have dreaded the idea of all that wrestling. When I decided to make the recipe boards I knew I wanted a stitched potholder but how would I do it? The answer came to me at a very random moment (I think I was at school)...make slipcovers fro dollar store potholders (or other, older potholders you already have). So here is my cheater diy...

Select a pale or plain potholder from the dollar store, thrift store, or your own stash of potholders. Measure the top and one side of your potholder and create a pattern from newspaper with a 1/2" seam allowance on three sides and a 1" allowance on one side. Make sure your pattern is on the fold of the newspaper with your longest sides running perpendicular to the fold.

 

Iron your fabric if you need to, pin pattern and cut. I used a light-weight mock denim that I am quite in love with (I want to buy a bolt). Fold fabric in half with right-side facing in, pin to hold and stitch along three sides (include the fold) leaving the end opposite the fold open.

Turn right-side out and poke those corners out as much as possible. Fold in the open edge as evenly as you can and press with a hot iron.

Slide your potholder inside, adjust folded opening, pin if you need to and stitch closed. Go around the entire holder with a zig-zag stitch for fun, use a contrasting thread if you like and snip all visible threads. Mister said I should have used chalk to mark my lines but I like it wonky, if you prefer a nice even stitch, use a ruler and chalk to mark your lines.

 

To add decoration, thread up an embroidery needle with all six skeins of your embroidery thread color of choice and stitch away. Leave all knots on one side of your holder or not...they can add to the design element. Tie off and snip threads and you now have a swanky potholder/trivet!

**if you do not have any potholders and do not wish to purchase any, three or four layers of wool from a felted sweater should do the trick. If you have only two layers, whip up a trivet or coaster set instead and go felt crazy!

diy dillydilly: recipe board

This year I really wanted to make a few holiday gifts for my co-teachers. They are such an amazing team I just wanted to spoil them silly. After much hemming and hawing on what to make I settled on this nifty project found via pinterest and sprinkled a bit of scrumdilly dust on top. I decided on this nifty board for purely selfish reasons. Most of my recipes nowadays come from the internet and rather than scribbling it all down on scrap paper or relaying back and forth between the laptop and the kitchen, I thought that this board would be a neat way to use the internet for recipes, just write it down and wipe away...and it could be used to leave notes for family about dinner plans, errand running, etc.

 

The boards were purchased from Michael's as was the clear chalkboard paint (clear chalkboard paint!) and the rest was what I had on hand...paint, sandpaper, twine...

 

I followed the instructions from Sugar & Cloth with a little help from the mister on the order of painting...note...paint a clear coat first, allow to dry then add your tape and paint a clear coat just at the point where the tape meets the wood. The clear coat will seep under the tape but you won't be able to see it thus protecting your clean line of color once you had you paint color. Otherwise your paint color will seep and your clean line will be a little less clean. Also, priming the board with chalk left it a wee bit scratchy which I like to refer to as rustic....oh and the boards are not as flat as they could be and they do warp a bit when paint is added...

 

I added a homemade potholder/trivet (diy coming soon) and a nifty bamboo utensil and the gifts were ready to roll!

Now I just need to make one for myself. Clear Chalkboard Paint!