Category Archives: craft ideas

Award Ribbons

March 24th 2014

This is just a quick post about some Award Ribbons I made for the Stuffed Animal Night contest at Awanas last week at church!

Awanas is a children’s ministry that helps to develop spiritually strong children through games, fun activities and most importantly bible verse memorization and teaching. You can read all about it here!

I’ll be posting a tutorial soon, start collecting your papers, ribbons, some cardstock, posterboard or cardboard, Mod Podge and hot glue! You can make some too!

This was a great craft for using up extra papers in pads (so you can make room for more!)

Cute as Some Red Buttons

February 7th 2014

Whew! Day 7 of the Valentine tutorials thanks to all of you who stopped by every day.

Today’s project is super easy and can be kid friendly with different glue option.

What you’ll need:

Wooden frame ($1 at Michaels or Joann’s)

Acrylic paint (I used pink) and brush

Decoupage finish (optional) and sponge brush

Craft Tweezers (to hold buttons near hot glue) optional

Hot glue (Fabri-Tac if kids will be making it)

bag of red buttons

Firm or sturdy felt in white (4″ x 6″) piece or size of your frame

metallic or coordinating trim

adhesive jewels (4)

Trace your 4″ x 6″ felt using the card board from the frame as a guide. DO NOT THROW THAT AWAY!! Insert the felt into the frame, center your heart template and trace onto the felt with light colored pen or pencil. (Template can be made by tracing half a heart onto a folded paper or card stock)

Take the felt out of the frame and paint the frame the color of your choice. Lighter colors need more coats, so do at least two. Once your coats have dried on the front and back, apply one coat of decoupage finish.

I got a bag of assorted red buttons and I removed the shank for several but some I used with shanks. (the loop on the back)

Glue around the outline of the heart a little at a time, adding buttons as you go. Use tweezers! That glue is hot!!! Wanna see my blister? okay never mind! Remember to overlap buttons and cover the nooks and crannies!

Attach the felt to the white side of the cardboard for support. ( I did white on white to avoid transparency) You could cover the back with plain or decorative card stock so it looks pretty. That was an after thought on my part.

I also hot glued the trim (dotting the surface with a broken line) and secured it around the back of the frame and added red jewels to the corners to tie it all together.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t sew fast enough so here is a sneek peek of what’s coming later!! I love HSTs and I bought lots of red and pink just for this little number.

So I hope my quilting readers will return for Valentine’s day!

Please post to the Flickr group so I can see your projects!

I heart shells!

February 6th 2014

Wow! I can’t believe it’s day six already of these Valentine tutorials!

I hope that you have enjoyed these projects, today’s is one of my favorites using seashells I collected on vacation!

Some materials that you will need are:

A glue gun

Craft tweezers (mine have rubber ends)

A 12″ x 12″ shadow box

a 14″ x 14″ inch piece of red felt (a couple of inches extra to wrap over)

Lots of small bivalve shells (buttons will work too!)

Some 1/8 and/or 1/4 inch ribbon

A doll needle. (pointed, large eye, about 2-2 1’2 inches long)

seed beads (optional)

In this picture you’ll notice the ribbon I selected initially does not work with the needle so I had to modify to 1/8 and 1/4 inch ribbons.

First, cut a square piece of felt 14 inches. It should be couple of inches larger than your frame size. Trace the heart in the center of your felt piece. Take into account you will add ribbon around it.

Start with larger shells around the edge.

Lay out your shells or buttons just to get a “feel” and make sure you have enough.

I glued about 4 inches at a time.

Lay the shells side to side around the perimeter. You may think to do them in one direction, but later I had to “make like the ocean” and just let them tell me where they should go. It’s all good!

Afterwards, I blasted it with an air can to get rid of unsuspecting sand grains that appeared during the process.

You may have noticed these shells have holes….

I filled them with white and red seed beads using Craft Bond Glue.

Next, thread the ribbon through the needle (I worked with the whole roll then cut at the end) starting at the top center stitch about an inch over and under with the ribbon. Don’t pull it too tight it should just lay flat looser rather than tighter. Continue until you get to the starting point.

Repeat with second ribbon, using the same openings from the first ribbon. The second ribbon should be loose, I twisted it a little to give a little texture and movement.

**Watch that the needle doesn’t go through the first ribbon on your second round, or the ribbon can split.

When taking apart the shadow box, I used the cardboard it came with to secure the now “heavy” felt piece with hot glue around the edges and especially behind the heart.

I gently centered the felt over the cardboard, and hot glued the overlap to the back. I cut my felt shorter, your margin should be larger based on measurements I gave you. : )

Lastly, I glued that cardboard to the back part of the shadow box the sits on the lip away from the glass.

I’m really happy with how this one came out! Don’t forget to post your projects on the flicker group!

Tomorrow….buttons! Oh have you seen what Sheri is up to at Sunshine in the Attic? Go on, take a look!

Valentine Corks

February 2nd 2014

Welcome to day two of the Valentine tutorials. I hope you are learning something new and making your own projects.

If you happen to collect corks and were waiting for a craft idea to use them, here are a couple I came up with. If corks aren’t your thing, Sheri has an entirely different project on her blog and I’ll link to it at the end of this tutorial.

A 3D Valentine.

And heart to hang and decorate your home.

These projects are pretty easy and can be as simple or complicated as you like.

Some of the things you’ll need for the 3D Valentine are:

Heart doilies

corks

word stickers

glue gun

ribbon

Mod Podge

Card Stock

Patterned/decorative cutting scissors

First, decide what side of the cork you want to “show.” Corks have a “tainted” side (if it was a good Cabernet-LOL) and a clean side.

Corks also have vintage years and the name of the wine or vineyard on them. It would matter to my husband so I tried to make the different wine names visible.

First, start with your doily and put whatever accent word you want in the center.

The center cork of the heart will be the hanging point, so before you start gluing the corks together, make sure you glue the ribbon on and tie it and make sure it’s just how you want it before you continue.

The doily will guide you to make the heart shape.

You will add glue to the bottom of the doily as well as the vertical side of the cork. (see below) Press corks together for a few seconds to secure.

Continue gluing around until your heart of corks is complete. I used the tainted side, I liked the variation in stain as well as height, when the corks were glued together. Looks a little “vintage” to me. Pardon the pun.

Then select a decorated piece of card stock for the base of your Valentine.

Paint your doily with Mod Podge and glue onto your card stock.

Once they are stuck together you can draw a line about an inch away from the doily to make another heart shape and cut with decorative scissors for texture.

There. You can write a nice lovey dovey note on the back of the card stock. I don’t think this Valentine will be getting lost.

The next project is even easier, what you’ll need besides the corks and hot glue:

Wide Ribbon and jewels

heart template (optional)

For this project I am using the plain side of the corks.

I am also using a template to guide me in making the heart shape.

This project is tricky in that you kind of have to glue the corks together “in the air” because you have to line up the edges at the front, which means they will be uneven on the back.

Once your heart shape is complete, just glue gems onto the cork centers and attach a ribbon around the center of the heart and tie a knot or bow at the top.

Nothing could be easier. Please add your projects to our Flickr group, I’d love to see what you’ve made!

Today, I want to introduce you to Sheri from Sunshine in the attic. She has joined me with her own tutorials and you don’t want to miss what she’s been making.

Please hop right on over here and see how she made this quilted T-shirt. I love that!

May I have your vote?

October 25th 2011

Hey Readers,

May I just say how encouraged I am that everyday there are a few more page views. Thanks so much for popping back in regularly to take a peek at what’s new. I promise new crafts are coming! I want to make sure I have enough quality pictures that you can appreciate.

Please vote on the top right hand side so I can keep this blog going with crafts or posts that interest you. Please leave a comment or email me summercrafter@yahoo.com if there is something you want to see, or you have an idea and you are not sure how to make it concrete. I would be glad to help!

Here are some of my craft books, the collection has grown since this photo, now I also have craft magazines. I started with Christmas Crafts books by Mary Engelbreit just because I love the colors in her artwork. Then it just took off and I have been collecting all sorts of craft books, anything I want to learn or improve my skills on: Watercolor, felt, Scandinavian Style, quilting, sewing, gardening, kitchen remodeling. I also have some poetry, nursery rhymes and great picture books. Illustrations are great to pull craft ideas from; plus, I am a librarian I love books, and look at how nice they look just by the color of the spines!

Summercrafter

Craft. Quilt. Unwind.