Tag Archives: DIY gifts

DIY Valentine’s Bookmark

Need a last-minute Valentine idea? How about a bookmark!

S&S bookmark

What you’ll need:

– scrapbook paper

– cardstock

– ribbon or yarn pom (optional)

P&P bookmark

What to do:

Measure and cut both your scrapbook paper and cardstock to the same dimensions; the ones I made are about 6-inches x 2-inches.

Glue your scrapbook paper to your cardstock. Add any extra shapes, letters, whatever you please. I “embellished” mine with some scrapbook paper hearts I made with a paper punch.

If you want to add a tassel, yarn pom or ribbon, use a hole punch at the top of your bookmark, and thread through.

Add a little hand-written note on the back to your special Valentine <3

vday note

What’s your favorite romance novel or romantic story? Mine is clearly of the Jane Austen variety 😉

Scents of the Season: Homemade Potpourri

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I’ve seen a few of these simmering stovetop potpourri recipes floating around Pinterest lately, so I thought I’d give one a go. I looked up a few recipes to gauge amounts of ingredients, but ad-libbed the one above.

Cinnamon, Clove & Clementine Potpourri:

– 2 clementines, cut into fourths

– 2 sticks of cinnamon

– 3-5 whole cloves

Cover with water, then bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce to a simmer for as long as you like!

After doing a bit more reading, I think I should have used just the clementine peels instead of the whole fruit (the pulp starts to disintegrate after a while). I kept it out on the stove (but turned the burner off, of course) to see if I can fire it up again over the weekend. Hopefully it holds up! If  not, it was pretty easy to throw together. I’d also like to experiment with lemons, limes, apples, herbs and spices. I bet adding vanilla or peppermint extract would be awesome, too.

Have you ever tried a stovetop potpourri? If so, what’s your favorite recipe?

Inspiration via: Picky Palate / Make It Do / JanDee Crafts

Linking up to:
The Shabby Nest

Chalk It Up to the Holidays

If you saw my recent Weekly Wishlist, or follow me on Instagram (@onuwriter06), then you know that I’ve got a thing for Chalkboard prints. It’s a recent thing that has come on quite strong, too. And once you’ve fallen head-over-heels for a typographic print, there’s only one thing to do… try to recreate it yourself.

I started off by trying to free-hand my own versions of ones I’ve found online (mostly on Esty), carefully studying how the letters are created, connected and filled out. Here’s one example from my “sketchbook:”

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The next step was to decide on the phrase I wanted to write (so hard! there are sooooo many great Christmas song lyrics), and sketch it out. This way I could decide which words I wanted to emphasize, which would be serif or sans serif, etc. I also had to decide on a color. I didn’t want to do a black background because I wanted the colors to feel a bit more Christmasy. I chose Americana Hauser Light Green Acrylic paint (purchased at Michael’s, and also used on my clay lollipop ornaments. Such versatile paint…). I think the canvas size is 14″x18″, if you’re wondering.

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I prepped the canvas by painting the whole thing with the green paint. I only did one coat, and didn’t worry about making it too perfect or uniform. So some parts are darker/have more coverage than others. One of my friends described it as “rustic.”

Then I used a pencil to lightly sketch out the words “Christmases” and “White” to get the placement where I wanted them. And then it sat on my kitchen table (i.e. crafting space) for a few days while I got up the courage to put paint to paper, err, canvas.

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Here’s an action shot. Lucky for me, Tom was hovering with my iPhone camera on.

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And here’s the finished product:

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Snitch-eriffic

Looking for a cool ornament DIY? Why not a Golden Snitch!? I made this guy last year, following this tutorial via Tiny Apartment Crafts.

IMG_2105

All-in-all, it was pretty simple, though shaping the wings was a little challenging (maybe I bought the wrong wire?). I also purchased a set of small gold ornaments from Target that came in all different patterns, so I skipped the painting step.

If you make one, send me a pic so I can see how it turned out!

Weekend Recap

Our weekend can be boiled down to the following: shopping, partying, crafting, eating, drinking and glitterizing. So clearly, it was a pretty good one all around.

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The inspiration for these ornaments comes from the lovely and talented Ez of Creature Comforts. I followed her tutorial here to make these clay lollipop ornaments. I started them last Sunday, and finally finished them on Saturday. The clay-rolling and shape-cutting took longer than I expected. And then, since I like to make projects for myself, I decided to paint them in a whole rainbow of rich jewely-tone colors. And then, I decided that the glitter swirlies would look even better if I did them in a monochromatic scheme to match the paint color. Oh, Emily, when are you going to learn to Keep. Things. Simple? Oh what’s that? Never? Oh, okay. Cool.

In short, if I had it to do all over again, I’d do it exactly the same way. I love the tone-on-tone glitter and paint results.

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Shifting gears from edible-looking to actually edible, I swung by a local farmer’s market to see my friend’s first public debut of her delicious cupcakes! If you’re anywhere in the Cincinnati, Ohio area, and in need of something delicious, decadent, and spiked with alcohol, do yourself a favor and order some Twisted Sugar cupcakes! I brought home a Gingerbread (pictured) and a Raspberry Bellini cupcake. Yum!

Did you make anything edible-looking or actually edible this weekend?