Carry along art organizer – DIY

I can not believe I did not post this yet. It has been sitting in the draft folder for so long now ….
I made this carry along art organizer – or pencil case, or art tote or … I really do not know what to call it – a while ago. It was a gift for my daughter for Christmas and she REALLY loved it! Even though it was not on her wish list. ;-)

The tote is perfect for any child who loves to draw. And my daughter DOES LOVE to draw. ALOT! All the time. Therefore there are pens and pencils and papers everywhere. Now she has a place for some of them. And there is also space to store a notebook. Or two. :-)
The best part is if we want to go somewhere and I want to bring something for her to do all I have to do it grab the tote and – done! No searching for pens or for paper. Very mommy-friendly! :-)

To sew the art organizer was rather fiddly at times. I really should start planning out my sewing projects completely BEFORE I start. :-) But I was quite happy with the outcome. And seeing that the art bag is used pretty much every day – all the work was well worth it. 

Wall Christmas tree – or Christmas card recycling

Wall Christmas tree – or Christmas card recycling

 

I guess it is a bit late for showing photos of Christmas trees. But we put away our “real” Christmas tree yesterday which kinda put me in the mood to show off one last Christmas project that I had done: a Christmas tree for the wall.

 
  
I had put this one in the kids’ room and my kids really liked it. My first idea was actually to make a tree out of stars that are affixed directly to the wall. But then I saw this Walltree DIY by Matthew Mead via Oh my handmade:
And if you do not know Oh my handmade – go check it out NOW!!! Seriously, you are missing out!
 
Photo by Matthew Mead via Oh my Handmade
 
Wow! I loved it! But I did not have such cute patterned paper. And really did not want to buy any just for this one project. So … Christmas card recycling! ;-)
 
I do not get that many Christmas cards, but the ones that I do get I can not throw away. So I had collected a few over the years. This seemed like a perect way to use them.
 
And when I saw the beautiful “woolen” Christmas trees by Eline Pellinkhof it was the last inspiration I needed. 
Her blog by the way is also VERY beautiful. Very pretty pictures – so again, GO! :-)
 
So here is what I did:
1. Used a huge shaped “hole” punch to cut stars out of my old Christmas cards.
(If you turn around your “hole” punch you can see where you are cutting.) Put a hole into the star.
2. Thread all the stars onto some cotton thread. 
3. Started crocheting the chain stitch. After a certain number of stitches pulled a star to the crochet hook and crocheted “over” the star so it stays in place.
4. After the star garland was done I used masking tape to affix it to the wall. I added a straw star to the top as well. Done! :-)
 
 
(Of course you do not have to use crochet. You can also just knot the stars to some yarn. But you might want to use thicker yarn than I did if you wanna skip the crocheting part.)

The best thing is that next year I can use the garland again. Either as a wall Christmas tree – or as a garland for my windows or the Christmas tree or …
 
If you have not thrown out or packed away your old Christmas cards yet you could make a star garland now and pack it away for next Christmas. This way you have a nice new handmade decoration ready to use without doing anything when you unpack your Christmas stuff next time. 
 
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Buttons for witches, wizards and such

During the last weeks  I sold quite a few of these glow-in-the-dark witch themed buttons:
As you can see there are different pictures on them: bats, cats, hats :-), spiders and spiders webs, even a cauldron. Oh, and witches of course!
Who would have thought that witches or saucerers are going to shop at my little store?And yes, they really do glow in the dark:

Too bad, that my daughter does not want to be a witch for Mardi Gras/carnival in her kindergarten this year. ;-)

I actually did not think that I would sell many this time of year. Originally I have had the idea last year before Halloween. But I will not complain. ;-)

Last Christmas

… I made some Christmas crafts. Before I show you what I made this year I wanted to remind you of some of the crafts I did last year:

There is a tutorial for making strawstars

And I sewed a Christmastree pillow – especially fun for the kids as they can play with it:

 

And I made this Bascetta star out of musical sheets. Totally love it:

Wishing you a great 4th of Advent!

Now I better return to my crafts … :-)

 

Last-minute Christmas card

Last-minute Christmas card

 This was our Christmas card last year. Quick and easy! If you wanna make a similar one I wrote down the instructions. :-)

Last-minute Weihnachtskarte/ Last-minute Christmas card

 This is what you need:

Last-minute Weihnachtskarte/ Last-minute Christmas card

 -old sheet music
-blank cards
-colorful paper
-“holepunch” in desired shape
-pens (glitter or silver work great)
-glue
-chocolate for bribing a child ;-)

Last-minute Weihnachtskarte/ Last-minute Christmas card

 Punch desired shape out of the sheet music paper – or cut it out by hand. Glue this onto the colored paper.

Last-minute Weihnachtskarte/ Last-minute Christmas card

 Bribe a child to write “Merry Christmas” onto the colored paper. :-)

Last-minute Weihnachtskarte/ Last-minute Christmas card

Glue the colored paper onto the blank card. (Awesome cause if your child messes up while writing – no harm done!) 

Then all you have to do is add a few nice words to the inside of the card and mail them out. Easy, wasn’t it?
And you can easily adjust this to your liking – use different papers or punches or …

So are you going to send out homemade cards? 

 
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