Think Crafts Blog – Craft Ideas and Projects – CreateForLess

Back in 1992, I was a single mom making my living as a graphic designer, working out of the back of a printer’s warehouse. Mild-mannered brochure designer by day, right?…but upon getting home to my garage and my Secret Stash of ribbon, punches and cardstock I …I succumbed to Invitations Frenzy. Waking myself up in the middle of the night asking myself, what’s a Baronial? Sneaking fonts on diskette home from work in my purse…lurking around Hallmark stores buying cards just so I could scan them, violating as many as twenty copyrights a day…

In 1994 my doctor told me I had early-stage Glitter Lung and urged me to quit. Instead, I started a company called Artiface, cutting back on the brochures in favor of weddings and bar mitzvahs, meeting with clients in the conference room of my new husband’s Extreme Sports ad agency. My brides and bar mitzvah moms had to navigate a thicket of BMX bicycles, skateboards and Fender Strats to get to me, but they kept coming.

“Get a room”, my husband finally told me, so I did, a little studio in a Wedding Design Center. By now it’s grown into a 1400-square-foot showroom and workshop and some truly impressive gear that you have an excuse to buy when you … Okay, I became a dealer. Not only do I now get to papercraft for a living, but I employ a couple of likewise obsessed women and pay them to do it, too.

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You can see some of my original designs at Artiface.

By Kid’s Crafts Contributor Stephanie, from the Blog Geek with Glasses.

With school right around the corner, school supplies are on sale everywhere and what better way to get ready for Back To School than a pretty pencil craft. Spruce up those pencil cases this year with a recycled milk jug pinwheel.

Craft Supplies:

• Empty and Clean Milk Jug
• New Wooden Pencil
• Push Pin/Thumb Tack
• Hot Glue
• Scissors

Decorations:

Glitter
Permanent Markers

Start by cutting off the back panel of the milk jug.  Then draw a square, see picture. You’ll want to cut on the dotted line, but not the whole way into the center. The dots in the corners are to be folded into the center and the thumb tack pushed through.  

I placed a dot of hot glue to glue the pinwheel together. Once the tack has been inserted, push it into the top of the pencil, just below the metal of the eraser.  We decorated ours after it was assembled because my daughter wanted to see how it would fold up before she colored it. But it may be decorated before it is assembled.

We used a milk jug instead of paper because she wants these for her outside fairy garden as well as pencil case. So, incase these are left outside in the rain they will last and not get ruined like paper would. Plus if the wind catches them the will also hold up well.

Enjoy the last days of summer and those summer breezes.