crafts

Colorblock Glitter Eggs

03/30/2013 by Jennifer 4 Comments

This morning, I woke up ready to decorate some hard-boiled eggs. I was feeling extremely ambitious.

Note to self: paint pens and stencils don’t work on eggs that are still wet from the refrigerator. Anyway…! I decorated many eggs that I wouldn’t say were too cute. Then, when my colorblock glitter idea was a success, I painted over the rest of the not-so-pretty eggs. :)

(Supplies: Hard-boiled Eggs, Glitter, Painter’s Tape (or a steady hand), Mod Podge, Acrylic Paint)

I marked off half of the egg with some painter’s tape – the really skinny kind. Then I painted half of the egg in 3-4 coats of acrylic paint. Once it dried, I removed the tape, and painted the rest in Mod Podge. Then, I sprinkled it with glitter! Piece o’ cake.

Here are a couple of other ideas I tried:

Are you decorating eggs this weekend? I want to see pictures!! :)

DIY Instagram Calendar

02/03/2013 by Jennifer 7 Comments

For my dad’s birthday last month, I made him an instagram calendar! It was a quick project after I gathered a few supplies. I chose pictures of my sisters and myself, as well as a few nature type of instagrams.

I bought big squares of cardstock, poorly cut them in half with a rotary cutter (oops), layered them, glued on the photos and calendar squares, punched some holes, and tied some strings to fasten the whole thing together. This project was done at night, hence the lack of photos/proper DIY process.

Here are some more instagram calendar DIYs that I love:

Printstagram Calendar
Wood Calendar – Artifact Uprising
2013 Instagram Photo Calendar – Lingered Upon
Emma’s Annual Instagram Calendar – A Beautiful Mess

Crochet Cowls on Etsy!

01/28/2013 by Jennifer 8 Comments

As of last night, a few crochet cowls are now in my shop. I’m excited about them! They are very comfy and pretty useful if you live in a place with back-and-forth weather like I do. :)

Check out my shop if you’d like to see the other colors. I’ll be adding some other cowls later this week (including a pretty goldenrod one!). Also, can I just say I’m really excited about living in a house with plain white walls? I plan to re-photograph many of my Etsy items to make them more simple.

ps. Thanks to everyone who wanted to swap ads this month! I’m so excited that I have more wonderful blogs to read and bloggers to connect with. :) I still have medium and large spots if anybody is interested.

Knitting Lessons

01/22/2013 by Jennifer 5 Comments

My grandma is going to teach me how to knit this week! We were planning to have a lesson up in the cottage, but we lost the knitting needles for a while. Knitting is a big goal of mine this year – at least getting the basics down. Then, I’ll probably stick with the hook.

In a dream world (or in many years, fingers crossed), here are the things I would love to make:

one, two, three, four, five

Do you knit or crochet? Which do you prefer?

Also, I’m hosting a giveaway on Smile and Wave this week! $25 to my shop and it ends tomorrow. Hurry, hurry, go enter!

Crafty Christmas | Sparkly Star Garland

12/18/2012 by Jennifer 8 Comments

You guys. There is one week until Christmas. One week. Holy moly, right?! It always sneaks up on me. It has been so wonderful to decorate our house with simple diy projects. Like I said, I normally don’t do this. Over the past few years, I lived on a college campus and had a tiny gap between finals and Christmas day. So decorating was exhausting. Now, I’m college-free, living in a house that is begging to be decorated. Yay!

One of my favorite holiday decorations this month has been this sparkly garland:

I picked up a bunch of pretty pipe cleaners without knowing what to do with them. One morning, I got inspired and thought they would look pretty as a snowflake garland. The thing is, each “snowflake” ended up looking more like a asterisk or sometimes…a spider. I thought this was a DIY bust. Like one of those things you’d find on Regretsy.

Thankfully, I found a way to make this work. It’s not really a snowflake garland. More like an star garland. I had to improvise. :)

Supplies needed: Cotton yarn, ruler, metallic pipe cleaners, scissors, tapestry needle.

First, cut your pipe cleaners into three-inch sections. Then attach the sections by twisting them together, one at a time, until you have connected five pieces of pipe cleaner.

If your little star looks uneven, just trim the edges. I probably trimmed every star to make sure it was even.

Next, string your stars onto a long piece of cotton yarn.

Space them out evenly, cut the cotton yarn, and hang your garland somewhere nice. I hung mine above my new desk. Please excuse the mess :) I’m still trying to create my crafty station.

I hope you are having fun making your living space sparkly and festive in any way!

Crafty Christmas | DIY Felt Star Tree Topper

12/14/2012 by Jennifer 6 Comments

My roommate Sara and I decorated our Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving. I have never started decorating that early before! It was a fun evening of cider and Christmas music (mostly Mariah Carey). However, we didn’t have anything to put on top of the tree, so I thought I’d make a handy felt star.

Supplies needed: felt, embroidery floss, fiber fill, a star template, and a pen.

It was super easy. I made it just like I made the heart ornament the other day. Just cut out two stars (I traced a star shape from google images), sew them together, stuff with fiber fill, and place it on top of your tree. I left the bottom of the star open, so that I could stick it onto the top branch of the tree.

What is your Christmas tree topped with this year??