Tag Archives: craft

Tealights with a secret message – tutorial

By | |
1 Comment
Tealights with a secret message - tutorial by Ursula Markgraf

Today I have a little tutorial for your for a very sweet gift idea. It’s not my typical “thing” as it doesn’t involve any paints or such … but it’s quick and easy, you can send it via mail and even kids can help. So I just thought I had to share.

As you can see in the photo above I made a little tealight Advent calendar with this idea and mailed it out. But you can also easily create candles with your wishes for a new year for New Years Eve or candles with secret messages, wishes or even gifts for birthdays or just because … I love that the tealights look like ordinary tealights … until you light them and they burn for a while and reveal the secret message.

You have to let the tealights burn for quite some time until all the wax has melted. Then the white wax becomes translucent and you can see the secret message underneath. (Just a little warning – it takes quite some time until all the wax melts. It’s not done in 30 minutes!)

You need:

-tealights
-paper and a dark pen
-scissors
-optional a Candle-Liner

How it’s done:

First you cut out the message. You can print out the pdf below if you like and write your message into the circles. But of course you can also simply draw some circles (a bit smaller than your tealights) on some paper and write down your message on those.

Hint:
I wouldn’t recommend writing your message in the middle of the circles as that’s where the flame of your tealight will be and that might make it hard to read. Also, you should use a darker color to write down your message so it will be easy to read it through the liquid wax. A light pencil does not work too well.;-)

Once you cut out the message, take the candle out of the metal tealight capsule. Put your paper into the capsule and put the candle back on top. Done!

Hint:
With some tealights you can very easily take the candle out of the metal capsule. With some it takes a bit more persuading. If possible already check when buying them whether you can disassemble them easily. I had some that were quite persistent not to be parted …. so I actually needed some metal pliers to persuade the candle to come out of the metal …

If you wanna make an Advent calendar then you need to make 24 (or 25) tealights with secret messages. Once you’re finished you can write the numbers on top of the tealights with a Candle-Liner. I had a glittery one, which I really liked. But you can of course also use any other color. I think red would also be very pretty for example.

If you just wanna give them as a gift, obviously you can make any number you want. And you can either draw little symbols or such on top – or just leave them as they are. I would however recommend to add some sort of instruction to them when giving them as a gift as they really look just like ordinary tealights and really takes some time until they reveal their hidden secret. And it would be rather sad if the person you gave them to missed their secret message just because they didn’t expect it … and didn’t look.

What do you think of this idea?

Write me a comment and let me know who’d you like to give a tealight with a secret message to?

Or tell me what little gifts that are easy and quit to make you like to give?

P.S. Here’s the pdf – just right-click and choose “save as”. Have fun creating!

Blanc circles PDF

Quickest Advent wreath

By | |
1 Comment
Quickest Advent wreath

Today comes the last Crafty Christmas post. Here are the links to all the Crafty Christmas posts:

free crochet pattern to make gingerbread house tags

inspiration for making Christmas cards

making scented Christmas ornaments

my tiny gingerbread house

tiny origami stars

Today I do not have a tutorial for you but “just” some inspiration. This was my Advent “wreath” for this year. :-) 

(If you like, check out my “wreaths” – do not take this too literal –  from last years HERE and HERE. )

It looks rather different compared to the traditional German Advent wreaths. But you know what else? It is EASY and FAST to make! 

And that is actually what I wanted to show you today: DIY and craft does not always have to be elaborate, costly, and take forever. It can also be quick and easy … and I think it looks pretty good, too. Especially right before Christmas quick crafts can be such an sanity saver! :-)

Do you agree? Leave a comment, I’d love to hear from you!

 
More Inspiration via email for you?


 

Cuteness alert! Teeny origami stars

By | |
8 Comments

If you know me, you know I like “tiny”. No idea why. So after yesterday´s tiny gingerbread house I have another “tiny” one today. Have you ever made origami stars? They’re adorable! What could make that even better?

Tiny origami stars!

tiny origami stars by ursula markgraf

Look at them! They are SO cute!!!

And more tiny origami stars!

tiny origami stars by ursula markgraf

And with a teaspoon for scale! I LOVE these.

Once you have figured out how to make them it is really easy. To me it always takes a bit to wrap my head around such stuff … But it really is not that hard. Now even my daughter loves making these.

And it is so easy to decorate with them. Just put some in a clear glas container … or on the table … It always looks good! I love easy decorating! :-)

tiny origami stars by ursula markgraf

If you want to make your own tiny origami stars –  there are MANY tutorials out there. I used these:

video instructions and written instructions

And as you can see I made them using old music sheets. Flea market score! :-) I am a sucker for everything “musical”. Just look here. 

But you can use ANY paper to make these. Old magazines, printed paper, newspaper … anything really!

Do you like origami stars?

If yes, don´t be shy and leave a comment! It makes my day! :-)

Interested in more crafty and creative fun? Why not try out some mixed media techniques and make some uplifting affirmation cards?

free-affirmation-card-workshop-ursula-markgraf

Easiest Christmas ornaments to make with kids

By | |
2 Comments
Easiest Christmas ornaments to make with kids

Here comes another post in my Crafty Christmas series. Another quick and kid friendly craft – how to make cute and SCENTED applesauce-cinnamon ornaments. You might have already seen this wreath in my tutorial on how to make crocheted gingerbread house tags. But this time we focus on the cute cookie-like ornaments. :-)

Now please – these are not meant to be eaten! They may look tasty! I am pretty sure they are not. But the good thing – they last several Christmases if you are not throwing them around too much. :-)

So how to make them? It is SUPEReasy. You can either google for applesauce-cinnamon recipes. Which I did. And then just ditch the recipes and throw together applesauce and cinnamon. Which I also did! *lol*

(I love google. But I get overwhelmed quickly.) 

1. Make dough:

So, I did not add other stuff. If you do search you will find all kinds of recipes … some call for glue and other things. I literally just mixed together the cinnamon and the applesauce. Now, you do need ALOT of cinnamon so you might not want to use the best and most expensive one you have around. I used about 2 parts cinnamon and 1 part applesauce. But it does depend alot on what consistency your applesauce has so I encourage you to just play around and add a little at a time.

 You wanna end up with something dough-like that is not too sticky. I only made a rather small batch but it made quite a bunch of ornaments! 

2. Cut out shapes with cookie cutter

Now let your kids get “dirty”! ;-) Sprinkle cinnamon on the table to prevent the dough to stick to it.

 (WARNING! Do NOT use flour for this AT ALL! I did that last year – I thought I am clever – and the ornaments with the flour ended up with some rather not so pretty mold on them. :-/ You do not want to have that believe me! Especially not if it is followed by a discussion with your 2-year old WHY on earth you are throwing out HIS amazing work!)

You can roll out the dough with a rolling pin – but you can just as well press it flat with your hands. That is what we did and the kids can help!

Then go nuts with your cookie cutters!

(Smaller shapes work best. Also very intricate shapes might break easily.)

3. Let your “cookies” dry

In order for the ornaments to harden I just put them on a plate and let them sit near the heater for a couple of days. I have read that some people bake them. I never did that. 

I was never in a hurry AND if you let them sit and dry your house will smell AMAZING like cinnamon.

So if you happen to get sick from the smell of cinnamon – please do not do this project. ;-)

After the ornaments are dry (it does take a few days) you can draw some “icing” on them with acrylic paint if you like. Then hang and enjoy! 

If you like this post you might also like yesterday’s post on how to make fingerprint Christmas cards … or just hop on my email-list to not miss anything! :-)

Comments are highly appreciated as well. ;-)

 
More Inspiration via email for you?


Sneak peak into our Christmas mail

By | |
2 Comments
Sneak peak into our Christmas mail

Have you already sent your Christmas cards? 

No? 

Well, here comes an inspiration for some quick handmade cards that are really easy and fun to make. Especially if you have kids that you can employ have fun with. ;-)

Just get out some paint – preferably not the water proof one! – let the kids dip their finger in it and make some fun marks on the cards. Then connect them to make Christmas lights and write a short message … DONE!

This was actually not my idea. I found it last year somewhere on pinterest and a google-search pointed me to this tutorial as the original source. Hope that is correct!

When you read the tutorial you will notice that I did change up it up a bit. I just let my kids put colourful blobs onto the cards with their finger (not thumb) anywhere – and I connected them later with a dark grey pencil instead of drawing the line first. That way no “Oh no, you put the light ON the line”-incidents could happen! ;-)

So, have you sent your cards yet?

 

This is actually part of a small Crafty-Christmas series. Yesterday I posted a tutorial on how to make crocheted gingerbread house tags. Check it out HERE. And tomorrow … well, you will have to check back tomorrow … ;-)

More Inspiration via email for you?


 

Wall Christmas tree – or Christmas card recycling

By | |
7 Comments
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. 
 
More Inspiration via email for you?


 

Cute Christmas-DIY – gingerbread candle

By | |
5 Comments
Cute Christmas-DIY – gingerbread candle

Isn’t this the sweetest Christmas-DIY? A gingerbread candle!

Keks-Kerze - schöne Bastelei für Kinder / cookie candle - cute craft for kids

It’s super easy to make – all you need is storebought gingerbread, a waffle roll, an almond and some sugar icing to glue it all together. The gingerbread candle in the photo is the work of a 6 year old and a 2 year old. So it really is SUPER easy to make!

And if you don’t wanna eat all the gingerbread candles you’re making … just gift some to your neighbour, the postman or post woman, your lovely library worker … a teacher … grandma?

The idea for the gingerbread candle isn’t mine, though. I saw the gingerbread candle on this blog “titatoni” and just had to try them.

And if you’re interested in more quick and cute Christmas DIYs … why not try some easy and quick recycled gingerbread house tags?

free-affirmation-card-workshop-ursula-markgraf

Last Christmas

By | |
Leave a comment

… 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 … :-)

 

Advent “wreath” tutorial

By | |
9 Comments

Have a wonderful 1st of Advent!

 

If you still do not have an Advent wreath but would like one – here comes your post! :-)

I show you what Advent wreaths I am using this year. And yes, this year I have TWO! Last year we used an Advent “box”:

To find out more about the Advent box click HERE.

This year I made two – one for the kitchen where we eat and one for the living room. The basic idea for them is similar to the Adent box above. Here comes “wreath” number 1.

Cake pan Advent wreath: 

Tiny tutorial:

1. Search for (old) cake pan.

2. Fill the pan with bird sand.

3. Put candles in there.

4. Put some nuts on top … or something else decorative that will cover the sand.

5. Light candles and admire your great work!

I have to admit though that this wreath was more a collaboration than my idea. I started out and did everything until step 3 and had left it at that. Then my kids decided that the nuts that we had collected that day would look good in the pan and just started to fill up the pan. I did not want to start a big fuzz so I decided to let them do it – I could change it later. But when they were done I loved so much what they had done that I just left it like that. :-)

And wreath number 2.

Big glass bowl Advent wreath:

Tiny tutorial:
see above ;-)
Just exchange the pan with a big glass bowl. And instead of sand you use sugar or salt – looks prettier in the glass bowl. Kinda like snow. Then decorate whichever way you want. My kids used pine cones cause they were everywhere in our apartment from our last walks in the woods.
What I love about these “wreaths” – you can use pretty much anything you find and you like. So if you do not have an old cake pan or a big glass bowl – just search for something else. You will probably find something in your kitchen or basement that you can work with.

How do you like my untraditional Advent “wreaths”?

And what does your Advent wreath look like this year?

More Inspiration via email for you?