DIY: Plantable Paper

Hill City Bride has a wonderful DIY that incorporates plantable paper and Valentine's Day tags / cards!  We love the eco-friendliness of this idea and also how adorable these little hearts are - so head on over to their blog for more!!

To make your paper, gather everything you will need: a blender, a packet of seeds, a heart-shaped cookie cutter, paper scraps and a mold. A mold is a piece of professional papermaking equipment: a screen is pulled very taught across a wooden frame. You can make your own with an old picture frame without the glass and some screen from the hardware store (you can find directions on the internet) or you can buy them through papermaking suppliers. A mold must have a very tight screen so that there are no sags where water might puddle and create uneven thickness in your handmade paper.

Begin by tearing your paper scraps into small pieces. Make sure to remove any staples, plastic windows from envelopes and any other non-paper materials. Soak them briefly in water to soften the paper so that your blender motor doesn’t have to work too hard. (Make sure to use a blender that is dedicated to papermaking. Because paper is made with chemicals, you will want to buy an inexpensive blender at a yard sale that will never be used for food preparation.) Toss the scraps into a blender with some water and pulverize. You can make a fine pulp or keep the paper in smaller chunks. Once you are happy with the consistency, add a handful of seeds to the blender, and give it a quick pulse to blend the seeds throughout.

Place your cookie cutter on top of the screen, and place in a sink. Slowly pour the pulp into the cookie cutter, using your finger to push the pulp into an even layer as the water drains into the sink. When most of the water has drained off, lift the cookie cutter, move to another part of the screen and repeat. When your screen is full, place the screen in a warm place or outside in the sun until dry. As the paper dries, the individual fibers will start to lock together and get stronger. To dry the paper more quickly and make a stronger paper, put another piece of screen on top of the heart and press the water out with a sponge. Once dry, lift the paper off the screen, punch a hole in it and thread a piece of string through the hole.

Remember to give your guests directions on how to plant their paper: place the paper into raked ground, cover with a quarter inch of soil then water and keep moist until germination, about 6 to 8 weeks. Take a look at the last photo to see seedlings popping out of some white plantable paper!

I love this idea, and the little seedlings bursting through with life convince me that this indeed is a darling little project. If you love the thought of doing something “green” for your wedding, but you do not want to tackle a project, be sure to visit Pulp Art and check out what have for your wedding day! They make place cards and rectangle hang tags in addition to the heart shaped ones featured today. Thank you again, Pulp Art, for inspiring us to make some plantable paper of our own!

DIY: Valentine's Containers

Are you having a Valentine's Day party or are you looking to give out some fun favors for a school / work / church event?  Skip to My Lou's blog has some wonderful DIY containers that are just adorable.  We walk by those paper book packs at Michael's all the time and wonder what we can do with that much holiday paper...now we know!!

I have been making them for years, but with all the new printed papers and embellishments it is a new quick an easy craft. I found everything I needed at Michael’s Arts & Crafts. Look for heavyweight paper or cardstock {loving this pad from Martha Stewart} for these containers, cute embellishments, adhesive tape runner and a Fiskars paper crimper.

 

These containers can be made any size.  I cut paper 4.25″ X 5.5″ (roughly cutting an 8 1/2 X 11 sheet of paper in half).

With a tape runner put two rows of tape on one edge. Glue stick or Double Sided tape can also be used. Be generous with the adhesive!

 

Put  the adhesive tape runner {my favorite} along the end and one side of the paper on the wrong side.

 

Roll paper into a tube, overlapping the edge about 1 inch.

 

Pinch the edge with the adhesive closed. Place the closed end in the paper crimper. Turn crimper about three to four times.

 

Fill container with goodies. Place adhesive on the inside edge  of the other end. Press end together in the opposite direction. Crimp close.

 

It works best if the seam is off center.

 

Attach embellishments to the containers.  These make a fun containers to hold yummy goodies for your special Valentine!

DIY: Valentine's Day Wrapping Paper

Thirty Handmade Days has a very fun paper design that they are sharing with the rest of us!  Head on over to their blog for some fancy pants paper!

At Christmas my genius friend Jaimee posted some beautiful wrapping paper.  I LOVED the idea and decided to make some for Valentine’s day.  I honestly ADORE the results and am working on more projects similar to this.

I made one traditional subway art type of wrapping paper.  And then I had a little fun with another sheet.  I made paper that had lyrics from what Josh and I call “Date Me” songs.  These are songs that we hear and immediately think of each other and when we were dating (14 yrs ago!).  Most of the time it’s when I’m listening to 90′s on 9.  ;) Try really hard not to laugh at the lyrics because most of them are not mushy!

DIY: Miniature Lantern Ornaments

The Crafty Crow's blog has a ton of great ornament DIYs - especially ones that are kid friendly to make for the holidays!  You will definitely want to start saving those left over toilet paper rolls so that you can craft these up!

These little lanterns are about 2" tall and are made 
from a toilet paper tube. You can make two lanterns from
each tube. They are adorable individually and hung as
a group for a garland. You can also forgo the hanger
and pop one over a light on your tree to
see it really glow!*

Supplies:
toilet paper tube
pencil
scissors
acrylic paint
paint brush
glue
wire for hanging (optional)

Directions:


#1 cut the tp tube open vertically

#2 cut the tube in half horizontally

#3 cut 2" off so you are left with... #4

#5 paint the inside yellow if you want the lantern
to look like it's glowing from the inside and use
the color of your choice for the outside; let dry

#6 fold in half horizontally, then make small,
evenly spaced cuts beginning on the fold to
¼" from the open edge

#7 glue the lantern closed; squash down a
bit to shape

For the handle I used #20 floral wire, shaped the
rounded part around the barrel of a marker, then flipped
up each end to hook through the slots of the lantern.

*Use caution, tree lights can get very hot!

DIY: Reusable Felt Christmas Gift Bags!

Blueberry Junkie has a great idea for keeping down the amount of wrapping paper thrown away this holiday season.  We love that these bags are so cute and completely reusable!  It's like putting a gift inside of a gift.  Check out their blog for more DIY.

It’s that gift giving time of year again, which means a lot of wrapping. Last year, tired of all the waste in packaging during the Holidays, I decided to stop using wrapping paper, boxes, and other materials that get discarded. Instead, I decided to sew several simple felt bags to present my gifts in. Yes, this requires some work, but these gift bags are extremely easy and quick to make, you will have several in no time. The best part, once you make them, you can keep reusing them year after year.  They make a great environmentally friendly alternative to paper wrapping.

Felt is a great material to work with, as it doesn’t fray, therefore, it requires minimal sewing. This tutorial is for a bag that measures 8.5 x 11in (you can use a regular printer paper as a template) but you can make it as bit or as small as you need to.

Materials and Tools

- red felt 2 (8×11.5 in), scrap of off white felt and pink felt
- embroidery floss in black and pink
- embroidery thread
- scissors, pins, ruler, chalk pencil
- sewing machine
- ribbon

Gather all your supplies and materials. The sewing machine is optional, as you can easily do this entire project by hand. I like to use it to save time.

How-To

1. measure carefully and cut two pieces measuring 8.5 x 11in out of the red felt. If you want to skip the measuring, just grab a sheet of paper (printer paper will do the trick), pin it onto the red felt and cut around it.  Put the red felt aside for now.
2. Take your cookie cutter shape (I chose a star for this project) and trace it onto the off-white felt.  Cut it.
3. Pin the star felt shape into place on the lower part one of your 8.5 x 11 piece of red felt. I chose to use my sewing machine to stitch on the star, but this can easily be done by hand using a running stitch.
4. Once the star has been stitched on, it is time to add some details. With embroidery thread and an embroidery needle I added eyes and a mouth.
5. Cut 2 small circles out of pink felt and using a running stitch them, secure them onto the star.  Almost done.
6. Take your 2 pieces of red felt, align them carefully and pin the edges. Using your sewing machine (you can also do this by hand), stitch around the sides and the bottom edges. Leave the bottom edge open.  Voila! your reusable felt gift back is ready.

All that is left to do now is insert your present, add a pretty ribbon to close the bag and you are done.  Customization options are only limited by your imagination. Instead of a star, try monogramming it with the recipient’s initial.  You can also make bags in other colors to match you Christmas color scheme.

DIY: Colorful Lunch Bag Cutouts

We are taking a brief hiatus from ornament DIYs today to show you a great project from Studio DIY's blog!  Be sure to check them out.  These lunch bags would be great for a pick me up during a long school day!

Supply List:

Brown Paper Lunch Bags
Letter or Shape Templates (Print out large letters from your computer, or free hand it!)
Pencil
Scissors (x-acto knife helps too!)
Colored Card stock
Tape and/or Glue

To Make:

Trace your shape onto your lunch bag. Make sure to leave enough room at the top so you can fold the bag over (I’d do mine even lower next time).

Cut out your shape, I did this with an x-acto and put a small cutting board inside the bag to prevent cutting through both sides. You could easily do this with scissors too. Then cut a rectangle of colored paper, just big enough to cover your entire cut out.

Tape and/or glue your paper inside the bag behind your cut out. I taped mine first, then added glue (you can do this with a tooth pick or small glue stick) to seal down the loose edges.

DIY: Chrysanthemum Paper Flowers

Cherished Bliss' blog tutorial on chrysanthemum paper flowers that we plan to try the minute we get home.  We love paper flowers in every variety.  Just think - you can make them whatever color / pattern you want, you can change them anytime, and they never die!  We love making them out of recycled paper as well!

Don’t you just love these colors? This is pretty easy to make. Your kids might even love to make this with you, it’s pretty easy!

{What you need}

- 2 pieces of scrapbook paper
- scissors
- glue
- paper circle cut out

{Steps}

one. cut out a bunch of strips I started with the bottom yellow layer of strips at 3 1/2” x 1/2” but this depends on the size of the flower you want. Then fold it in half and glue the ends together. The first layer of pink strips are 3” long and the inner pink strips are 2 1/2” long.

two. Start gluing your paper strips around your paper circle cut out. Mine was approx. 1 1/2” in diameter.

three. Keep going around with your different layers by filling the next layer in the spaces of the previous layer. I did two layers of the yellow, two layers of the pink, and then I filled in a few gaps with the pink in a 3rd layer of the pink (but this is only necessary if you fill you have a few gaps).

four. Add your center. For my center I took another 1 1/2” circle and cut it into a spiral then wrapped it around tight and glued it down in the center. You could also add buttons, rhinestone, or whatever suits your project

There you have it. A beautiful paper flower for embellishing all kind of projects!

DIY: FallBook Page Paper Wreath

Design, Dining + Diapers blog has a step-by-step tutorial on how to make these wonderfully gorgeous book page paper fans and put them together into a wreath.  You probably have most of these supplies already in your house! 

I started out by cutting a circle out of an old box we had laying around and then covered it with book pages to create the base for the wreath.

Then, I made these accordion style flowers out of book pages (each flower has 3 small accordion pieces) and layered the flowers until they covered the entire wreath. I love how layering the flowers gave it some depth.

After the wreath was complete I accessorized it with some old buttons that my grandma recently gave me.

After trying out the wreath in several rooms in the house, I finally found it a home on a shelf in our family room! I’ve been all about big pops of bold color lately so I added some ribbon to top it off. The colors might not be for everyone but it works in this space.

DIY: Pinhole Cards

The Proper Pinwheel has a great idea for homemade cards.  If you love to add your own personal touch to the cards you give people, this idea is just perfect for you!  You could even jazz up a store card with this method!  

Check out their blog for more paper crafting diy!

When I think back, most of my favorite crafts were learned in grade school. Using crayons over watercolor, making art from paper towels, and nap time. Those are some of my fave elementary memories. One of the best skills I learned (and I still use it to this day!), is pricking paper with a pin and creating stationery. So fun. And so easy!

Pinhole stationary has to be one of the best ways to dress up some regular old paper. The font choices are endless, and you can make it as big or as small as you want! Read below for the refresher!

To make your own you’ll need:

1. cardstock in assorted colors
2. scissors
3. tape
4. safety pin
5. mirrored image or text

To mirror your text, copy from Word and paste into Paint. Right-click ”Image” and select “Rotate or Flip” and flip yo’ message horizontally. Easy as pie, I tell you. Tape the words to the inside of your card and start pricking with a pin. Outline the text with the pin. Don’t poke holes all over the place. It’s not as pretty looking. Trust me.

Watch some TV while you poke all of the little holes. I did this while watching The Graduate. I don’t know why I thought I would like that movie. I clearly didn’t remember how strange it was. Finish pricking/poking, remove the tape and paper, and…

Bada-bing.

Play around with a few fonts and see what you like! They look pretty cool when held up to the light.