Design by Night

Ever get tired of the same ole bows on top of those presents? Well change it up a bit with this recycled package topper. This topper can be made from the card board rolls that you have left over after you have finished your wrapping paper and they are super simple to make. Supplies 1-card board roll (or paper towel roll) White glue Ribbon (long enough to fit around your package) Scissors (I used both plain and fancy edged) X-acto knife Scraps of colored or scrap book paper Compass Ruler Take the card board roll and flatten it. Measure out eight 1.75" wide sections and cut them. Put white glue on about a half inch of the bottom of one of the card board pieces then glue it to another of the card board pieces. Continue glueing the card board sections together to form a circular star. Cut a circle out of your scrap paper that is 2.5" round. (NOTE: I used scissors that had a fancy edge but regular scissors would work fine. I also cut a second 2" circle from another color and ...

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 weigh...

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 Scissors White Glue 2 or 3 binder clips Ruler Printer Pencil Bone 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 packaging magazine covers old 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 f...