A huge donation of crafty stuff set me up for months of playtime so I decided to use some of the flowers in a decor wreath
I cut a disc of cardboard from the recycling bin and wrapped it with wool before hot gluing flowers around. To keep balance I visualised the wreath as a clock face positioning flowers roughly at the hours but clustering them in odd numbers.
I kept going until the wreath felt full then gifted it to the lady who gave me the wool stash in the first place. Happy 90th!
Use what you have for quick make bags…
I have a roll of book covering plastic doing nothing in my stash, so cut rectangles from it and headed to the sewing machine
I folded copy paper (yes I also have a lot of coloured copy paper to use up) over the short ends and stitched it in place with a long zig zag.
The covered ends were folded together and the open sides zig zagged together to make a bag. I even boxed the bottom of the bigger one shown but am not sure it was worth the effort.
Two tips: use an old blunt needle as the plastic will ruin a new needle and long stitch lengths will minimise problems with the plastic slipping.
A low newel post is a peril for taller visitors to our home so I tend to dangle seasonal ‘creations from it to avoid bumps. This month’s version uses one of my less used die sets.
The pirate ship die alone is 4 inches square (about 10.5 cm) so works well as part of a dangler.
Each element from the set was cut from card two or three times and stuck together to give it some stability and to sandwich in the thread hanger. I tried to use most of this fun Docrafts die set but couldn’t quite work the palm tree, desert island or octopus into this version. Next time maybe.
Mini Daim bars simply wrapped in black card with bat wings from my scan n cut and googly eyes glued on.
Thanks to ‘Mixed Up Craft’ for the inspiration. Beyond her idea, I only created bat ‘ears’ by scoring a pillow box flap at the head end.
Copied from a much loved and used gift. This is simply three heart shaped pockets nested and finished with a tail which serves as a holder. No sizes, create your own.
With all these wonderful papercraft tools it can be easy to overlook the basic pillow box for those little (in size, not necessarily value) gifts.
Rescue a humble empty loo roll or paper towel tube from recycling, flatten it lightly and cover it with your choice of lightweight paper- wet glue is fine if it doesn’t soak your chosen paper. (Some people sterilise their tubes in the microwave before crafting with them)
Take a round object, such as the tape roll shown here. Lay it so you can score an arc from side to side of the tube on each ‘side’ of the flattened tube and at each end, four scores in all.
Gently push each scored arc towards the middle to create the pillow effect.
Decorate and maybe add a tag to finish.
This is a simple cross stitch based embroidery that lifts gingham scraps quickly into lavender bags and more …
I love a trip to IKEA when there is time to browse. This time I found the Loppstarr pen set which helped boost the set of lavender bags I am making.
The tips are designed for colouring rather than outlining but for simple sketches work fine.
Flavoured salts lift simple recipes, they avoid waste by preserving herbs and fruit, they look great and are easy to make. Why not? Here are two ‘no weigh, use what you have’ versions.
For the rosemary and orange version the rosemary leaves were stripped from 5 long stalks ( I am keeping the stalks as kebab sticks). I peeled an ancient mandarin/satsuma that was lurking in the bottom of the fruit bowl, squeezed the juice over the rosemary, scraped the pith from the peel then chopped the peel into slices. The rosemary and orange peel was blitzed with about three tablespoons of coarse salt using the chopping attachment on my stick blender (I usually use it for making breadcrumbs).
Just a few seconds of blitzing produced a kaleidoscope of coloured salt. The mix was spread on a silicone baking sheet and dried in a low oven for about 30 minutes before storing in recycled herb jars.
The basil version was even easier. Once the basil leaves were blitzed into 3 tablespoons of salt I spread the lovely green mix on a silicone sheet and dried it in a low temp oven for about 30 minutes. I sprinkled dried chili flakes in before storing in glass jars. So pretty.
Try rubbing into chicken before you roast it, over boiled new potatoes or other plain veg, over sliced tomatoes …
Update to an frame with new ‘dotty’ hessian. This is a craft that is practical, cost effective and displays my earrings (some of them) so I can appreciate them out of the jewellery box.
Simple to do; just dismantle a cheap photo frame, remove the ‘glass’ and glue hessian around the card backer before reassembling the frame.
janecrafts 