Design by Night

Being a child of the 70's insured two things… 1. I had white roller skates that I used every Friday night at Skateland and 2. those white roller skates were accessorized with handmade pom poms. I made pom poms in every color imaginable to match my outfit. What a Skateland fashionista right?

So you can imagine my joy when recently I received a present topped with a trio of wonderful handmade pom poms in lieu of the traditional bow! How freaking clever of my wonderful Secret Santa, Kristen to wrap such a cute present and put to good use the long forgotten (at least to me) craft of pom pom making. Not to mention her fore site to take an adolescent craft and make it all grown up.

Needless to say, I ran home, whipped out some left over yarn and resurrected my pom pom making skills. With Kristen's blessings I would like to share this clever gift topper idea with you.

Supplies:
Cardboard (can be from the recycled bin, old soda 12-pack or cereal boxes work great)21 yards worsted weight ya…

XOXO Valentine Card by LindasPaperie

Valentine's Day is coming up soon, and with it comes an opportunity to extend some love and kindness with a little help from Etsy. Etsy is continuing their yearly partnership with Citymeals-on-Wheels to bring nutritious meals, handmade greeting cards and companionship to elderly New Yorkers through the Special Delivery project.

If you would like to share the love you can make your own card, send vintage cards or if you don't have time to make cards, you can buy them and have them delivered to Etsy. I have taken the liberty to pick out a few Valentines you can purchase from local artist to make things a bit easier!

For more information visit the Etsy Storque.


FuzzyMug Mini Valentines - Set of 8 - School Style


Sweetie Pie Collection by Sugar Paperie

One of the great things about where I work is that I am surrounded by a group of very creative people who are very open with sharing their ideas. So to give credit where credit is due, the inspiration for this tutorial came from Susan from Sew Country Designs.

Supplies:
Recycled metal bottle cap
Recycled color magazine
Scissors
White Glue
1 Quarter
1” wide clear tape
Recycled magnet (free business card magnets or giveaways will work, if not you can buy magnets at craft stores)
Aleene’s Paper Glaze
E-6000 Adhesive
Ruler

Use the quarter to trace a circle around an image from the magazine. Take the tape and carefully place a piece over the circle.



Take a small piece from the cover (which is usually a heavier weight paper) and mount it to the back of the traced image with a light coating of glue. Trim out the image circle.

Glue the back of the circle and place it in the bottle cap. Place the quarter over the image to stop curling until it is completely dry.

Starting along the edge and moving in a circle…

More than a few gifts this year to friends and family were gift cards and although they possessed monetary value, I felt the enjoyment of receiving a wrapped gift box was somehow lost. So after purchasing several two dollar gift boxes just to put gift cards in I came up with a packaging idea that would cost next to nothing.

Supplies:Recycled file folder or other cover weight paper from the recycle bin*X-acto™ Knife or ScissorsWhite Glue2 or 3 binder clipsRuler PrinterPencilBone folder or butter knife
* I used a recycled folder in this tutorial, however any cover weight paper will work. Some suggestions are:
light weight cardboard from boxes and packagingmagazine coversold paper back book covers
Download puffpillowtemplate.jpg and print it out full size (a scale has been placed on each jpg to help with printing at the correct proportions). Cut out the template for A. Puff Pillow Body and B. End Fold Template. Using template A, trace the outside of the puff pillow on the file folder or cov…

So Christmas has come early for me this year, one of my tutorials is featured on the How-Tuesday edition of the Etsy blog! I'm in some fabulous company, so check out the great ideas.

How-Tuesday: Last Minute Packaging Round Up

Saturday night we went to see the Holiday Burlesque show at the Creative Alliance. I am a big fan of Trixie Little and the Evil Hate Monkey. So to show my fan appreciation I whipped up a special Trixie/Monkey headband that I wanted to share with everyone.