Playing cards box - Fathers day

17 June 2009

The most expensive item for this craft was the MDF blank box. Other items that were used are fun foam, glue, black paint, rhinestones and soft wire for embellishments, rulers, pencils and scissors. Some ladies painted the insides of the boxes and lids, others just painted the edges of the lids and the top edges of the boxes. The sides of the boxes and the lids were covered with fun foam and then embellished.

Tunisian Crochet - scarf

3 June 2009

There are a number of websites with detailed instructions and tutorials on how to do Tunisian crochet (Afghan stitch). I bought 8mm dowel sticks which my husband cut into three equal lengths and shaped one end of each to resemble a crochet needle. He even made a crochet needle from a 19 mm dowel. That is the very cheap (and as efficient) option. You could also just buy the needle, but I needed 40 and have a limited budget.

Fridge Magnets

20 May 2009

I used magnetic strips cut into 1cm squares, glass nuggets, clear silicone and small pictures cut from a brochure and children's stickers. Stick the pictures to the magnetic squares and then silicone on top of the picture. Apply enough pressure to the glass nuggets until all the air bubbles are removed and the picture is clearly visible. Leave for a few hours until completely dry.

Lariat necklace

6 May 2009

Lariat necklaces are traditionally very long and unattached at their ends so that you can tie and knot them in different ways to suit your style. We used 1m of bead "rope/string" and pre-packed unpolished glass beads. Wax or super glue can be applied to the ends of the rope to keep it from fraying and harden the ends to make it easier to string the beads. Groupings of beads are strung and kept in place by double knots. The spaces between the groupings are about 4 to 5 cm. The amount of beads in every grouping are not always even, but I tried to keep the lenght of the various groupings even.

Bead Bookmark

28 January 2009

A great beading project for beginners and experienced beaders alike and an inexpensive, but great gift. You only need a small amount of beads, some charms or decorative items for the ends, tiger tail, small piece of ribbon and basic beading tools.

Christmas tree decoration

12 November 2008

Beautiful and fun! We used small rubber balls for the core, lots of office pins, sequence, beads and stars, hearts or snowflakes to put right under the heads of the pins. We found it was easier to cover the surface of the ball by glueing sequence to it rather than placing the sequence at the end of each beaded pin. This also helped with the spacing of the decorated pins. A small piece of double folded ribbon is secured to the ball with sequence and a pin.

Calendar in CD Case
15 October 2008

Something for the scrapbook fans and for those who have not yet ventured into the world of scrapbooking but would like to start. This is a great project to get your feet wet. Twelve small items to decorate and a nice gift for gran. Let your kids draw/decorate their birthday month's page and stick a photo of hubby and you on your anniversary month. Go wild with Valentine's month or a Christmas theme for December. I used a punch to decorate the top edge of every page. Before buying a CD case, make sure that it can fold open and back more than 270 degrees in order for it to stand and display your work of art.