Imprinting messages on homemade treats Instead of enclosing a greeting card with your baked goods, how about embossing your message right on the sweets themselves? I love this technique! It produces very professional-looking results, even for those of us whose handwriting is sketchy when using a frosting piping bag. You need to use fondant and […]
Carpe diem! Words are powerful things. They can inspire us, or touch our hearts. For most of my adult life, I have collected quotations and posted them where I will see them daily, in an effort to absorb their messages. Typically, I jot them on wipe-off boards, or print them via my computer’s inkjet printer and then tape them […]
Love on deck I ran across this idea on the Craftster web site last year, and instantly fell in love with it. (The artist of that “52 Reasons I Love You” card-deck book said the idea had been around a long time, but I’d never seen it before.) What a great way to make someone […]
Spiraling swirls of hearts and flowers My husband, Bill, and I have been married many years, and he is not only my True Love, he is also my dearest friend. The other day, I was reminiscing about our romantic courtship and the early years of our marriage. We didn’t have much money back then, but we […]
Cute pyramid-shaped felt coin purse This ingenious little coin purse makes a great gift, stocking stuffer, or favor-box for a wedding. It is incredibly inexpensive and easy-to-make — so also a great craft for youth groups. I am calling the shape a “pyramid”, but the mathematically-correct term is actually “tetrahedron”. Here’s what you need: Felt Embroidery thread Needle […]
Courtside cookies! A co-worker asked me to make some cookies for her daughter’s basketball team banquet. She wanted maroon-colored basketballs with white numbers (incorporating the team colors and the individual players’ numbers.) I was more than happy to oblige. I have an embarrassingly vast collection of cookie-decorating paraphernalia, and happened to have a “sports ball” cookie […]
I was enchanted when I saw some wonderful, roughly-quilted scrapbooks on one of my current favorite web sites, Craftster. The creator of these lovely books, Craftster’s Phizzychick, credited Teesha Moore, who has a series of YouTube videos showing how to make these gorgeous journals and scrapbooks. I owe my cousin a wedding present, so it was […]
Bottlecap necklaces These are so cool I wish I could take credit for the idea, but they are all over the Internet. All you do is collect and clean some bottlecaps (or buy them at a craft store), glue little pictures inside, then turn them into jewelry! Here’s what I used for mine: A one-inch […]
How to give an egg timer a tri-metal upgrade There is just something magical and enchanting about hourglasses. Can’t you visualize the witch’s giant hourglass with blood-red sand, counting down the minutes to poor Dorothy’s demise in the classic movie, The Wizard of Oz? Or imagine Hermione’s “Time Turner” necklace from the wizarding world depicted in Harry Potter and […]
How to make a customized letter opener The other day, my teenage son (who is at an age where he is getting lots of mail from different universities who sincerely want our money) was asking for a letter opener. We looked around the house (I know that there is one around here, somewhere…) to no avail. […]
When I was in junior high school, I worked in the school’s library. I think it was actually an elective course I took, to get out of taking a foreign language. While I now regret that I do not speak foreign languages, working in the library had its own rewards. Re-shelving required me to focus my […]
How to make a sweatshirt scrapbook The other day, I was sorting through some old clothes to donate to charity, and I ran across a sweatshirt from my son’s elementary school days. On the one hand, it seemed silly to keep a child-sized sweatshirt when my son is now in high school, and stands over six feet […]
