Think Crafts Blog – Craft Ideas and Projects – CreateForLess

By Guest Bloggers Melissa + Kellie, from the blog Icing Designs.

We are quickly approaching the holidays! As we all know this month can be so overwhelming. It is almost a hassle to walk through the mall to buy all those gifts on your list. We have learned over the years that some of the best gifts are handmade and from your heart. I have been making homemade sweet trays for years to give to some of my favorite people on my list, including Kellie! I love finding a gorgeous platter and filling it with beautiful sweets and wrapping it up festively! I always include my chocolate covered marshmallow snowmen on the trays and they are always the first thing people comment on. They are so easy to make and are so cute! Today we are really excited to share them with you, along with the easy DIY instructions so that you can make them too! Even if you just make a few and wrap them up sweetly, they make a great little gift to give to someone you love!

These are so easy that even your kids can help! One of my twins, Maia helped me and she did such a great job…and had so much fun! Just use lollipop sticks and put three marshmallows on each stick.

After you are done setting them up you just dip them in white chocolate, shake off the excess and lay them to dry on a parchment lined cookie sheet. As they are drying, add an orange sprinkle for a carrot nose and sprinkle some edible glitter on them to give them some snowy sparkle!

After they are dry put some melted chocolate in a pipping bag and make little half moons for eyes. I like to take a tooth pick and drag some chocolate down to make eye lashes.

Then use some melted pink chocolate to create a ruffled scarf!

If you want to make a snow “man” You can cut a marshmallow in half and instead of letting the chocolate drip off, put it on the parchment paper and move it in a circular motion to create a hat brim.

You can use some melted chocolate to “glue” it on to the top of the snowman!

We hope you try these…your friends and family will love them!

By Kid’s Craft Contributor, Gillian from the blog Dried Figs and Wooden Spools.

There’s a sweet little bakery, just down the street from my building, that sells the most incredible sweets. It’s been around for ages and walking in is a little bit like stepping back into time, especially when they wrap up that box of almond horns you just bought with a couple of yards of red and white baker’s twine hanging from a big metal canister above the cash register. I’ll admit that I’m tempted on a daily basis both by the sweets and by the beautiful twine that I’ve been saving in little bundles in my craft cabinet. Why? Because baker’s twine is a crafter’s dream.

You may not even know it by that name. In your head it might just be that colorful string that’s cropping up everywhere. What once came in giant cones on the cheap is now available in a rainbow of colors on smaller spools. And the stuff is handy.

The most obvious use for Baker’s Twine is as an all purpose gift decoration. Wrap up a box, a bunch of flowers or tie a bow with it around a bottle of wine and you are good to go. But it’s uses extend far beyond that.

Scrapbooking

Garlands

Cardmaking

A little spiral art perhaps?

Even pompoms!

As the holidays approach, a few rolls of Baker’s Twine will come in handy over and over again. What would you use it for?

By Recycled Crafts Contributor, Anitra from the blog Coffee Pot People.

What’s not to love about scarves? They have the power to make me glad of chilly opportunities to wrap one around my neck! Here’s a project that yields a big, fluffy, dramatic scarf with a minimum of effort and materials. To make it you’ll need a few yards of bulky yarn, such as the chenille I used, and about ¼ yard of matching fleece.

Cut a strip of fleece 8″ wide across the width of your fabric, so that you have a piece 8″x50″ (or whatever the width of your yardage is). Cutting the short way, cut strips ½” x 8″. If your fabric was 50″ wide, you”ll end up with 100 little strips. Don’t obsess about the number or exact width, though. If you’re off a wee bit, it really won’t make a difference.

Take up your yarn and a crochet hook that’s big enough to give you a nice stitch tension (I used a Boye H, if I recall correctly), and begin a chain. Crochet one chain stitch, and then just lay one of the fleece strips across the yarn, next to the hook, and chain stitch right over the top of it, “capturing” the strip in the stitch.

*Chain one, and capture a strip in the next chain.* Repeat until your scarf is as long as you like, and finish off.

You now have something rather like a big boa, great fun to wear or give, and you’ve done it on the quick. Go forth, and collect your compliments and smiles!

By Guest Blogger Sam.

I love bunting! There seems to be a huge craze for it at the moment and it isn’t hard to see why. It is beyond cute and has so many applications. I have seen it used at children’s parties and fun days, bonfire parties and weddings to great effect. So, a little while ago I decided to take the plunge and have a go at making my own paper bunting. It was so simple to make and looked great.

If you are attempting to make your own bunting for the first time, I would definitely recommend that you try your hand at the paper sort first like I did. It will help to give you a better idea of flag sizes and the spacing between flags for when you come to make your first fabric bunting. There are so many pretty papers out there that the design opportunities are endless!

You can also look to see if you can find card and paper from around your home to use. How about creating a string of bunting from newspaper to celebrate a birth? You could use the newspaper from the day the baby was born and save the bunting as a special keepsake!

When you have had a go at paper bunting and you feel that your confident enough to have a go with fabric, don’t feel that you have to go out and buy a lot of expensive cloths and materials. Simply have a look around your home for things that you can recycle such as old clothes, tea towels or bed linen. You can cut triangular flags out of these things and save yourself some money. However if you do have some spare cash then there are lots of very pretty themed fabrics that you can buy online. Packs of fat quarters that are used for quilting would work really well for this.

Quick paper bunting tutorial

You will need:

• A pack of patterned papers (scrapbooking paper packs are great for this!)
• A length of ribbon
• Double Sided Sticky Tape
• A pencil
• A guillotine
• A ruler

1. Take a piece of your paper and place it so it is pattern side down. Place your ruler across the top edge and make at mark at the half way point.

2. Line up your ruler from the left bottom corner to the pencil mark you made across the top of the paper and draw a line. You should now have a diagonal line across your paper. Do the same from the right bottom corner and you will end up with a nice triangle shape.

3. Use a guillotine to cut along the diagonal lines that you drew so that you end up with a perfect triangular flag shape. Repeat this on 5 or 6 different pieces of your paper.

4. Next place your flag with the pattern facing up and stick a length of double sided tape across the top of it. Stick your ribbon on to the double sided tape, starting with the first flag approximately 4 inches into the ribbon. Do this for each of your flags and space them a couple of centre meters apart. Make sure that you leave about another 4 inches at the end of the ribbon.

5. Tie a loop at each end of your ribbon to hang it with and voila!

Sam has been a dedicated crafter since her early teens. She loves all types of arts and crafts but especially those relating to textiles and the home. She enjoys writing about homemade textiles such as cushions, aprons and tea towels and sharing her knowledge in tutorials.

By Sewing Contributor Jessica, from the blog Life Sew Good. 

It’s time to start warming up those extremities.  I made these warmers for my daughter, but you can use the same steps to make them adult sized. This retro cold-weather accessory is a hot trend this fall. Accessorize with these cute warmers!

You Need:

• A pair of long socks
• Thread
• ¼” or ½” elastic
• Embellishment (if desired)

Take your long socks and cut the feet off the socks.

Turn sock inside-out. Fold unfinished ends ½”, then another 1″. Sew a ¼” seam around, leaving about 1″ opening to insert elastic.

Measure the circumference of the top of the sock, and cut a piece of elastic that measures the same. Insert the elastic through the opening using a safety pin to help thread it through the enclosure. Sew the elastic ends together. Sew the opening closed.

Embellish, if desired. I made bows and tacked them on in three places.

By Cardmaking & Scrapbook Layout Contributor, Peg from the blog Peg’s Crafting Corner.

Many years ago, I had rescued a poor little purple mum from the store. It hadn’t been water and was already half dead, but I purchased it on clearance for $2 and brought it home anyways and planted it. I babied that plant and watched it grow to be a beautiful mum bush every fall. When we moved I wished I would have been able to bring it with me, but we moved in the middle of winter in a blizzard so there was no way of finding that mum in the snow. The first fall we lived in our new house we planted more mums, but they quickly died where we had them planted. In the fall of last year, my family planted more in a different area and this year I am again enjoying some beautiful bushes. This time, I decided to document those gorgeous flowers in this layout.

I added the accordion fold flower to it because it reminded me of the same shape of the mums and helps draw your attention to the layout. They are really easy and fun to make, too.

Supplies Used:

• K&Co 12 x 12 Fall & Halloween Paper Pad
• Score Board
• Paper Trimmer
• i-rock Tool
• Adhesive Rhinestones
• 1″ Circle Punch
• Favorite glue and adhesive

First cut 2 strips of 1 ½” wide by 12″ long strip. Score both of them in ½” increments. Fold them accordion (also known as peaks and valley) style. Glue the ends together so they overlap and the peaks and valleys when folded together match up.

Punch 2 circles and put glue on one of them to adhere the flower on. Start by grabbing the top edges and folding them in and down to the center as shown in the picture.

Once they are folded downward and the flower has been formed, place something on the center to help hold it down until the glue dries.

When it is dried place glue on the second circle and glue it to the center of the flower. You can now decorate it with anything you’d like. Here I used the Imaginisce i-rock Tool and adhesive rhinestones. Adhere to your layout using your favorite adhesive. I, also added some of the adhesive rhinestones around the corners of the pictures to add a little sparkle to those.

Do you have a favorite flower or bush in your yard? Is it something that is tied to a special memory for you such as it being planted on the day your child was born or given to you by a dear friend? Why not document it, too? Those are all a part of the special memories that you have had and should be shared with future generations. Who knows maybe that bush that they just planted is a piece of the one you owned and they will know through your scrapbook pages what it meant to you.

By Recycled Crafts Contributor, Anitra from the blog Coffee Pot People.

I love all the embellishments for clothing, bags, and other items being made from zippers these days, don’t you? Exposed zippers are a hot trend right now and this look is very easy to get. This is a simple flower pin to make, using just three things, plus a needle & thread:

• A brass zipper about 21 inches long; metal is best (I cut mine from a jacket I no longer wear) OR ZipR Trim
• A pin back or small circle of non-fraying material
• A “silk” leaf
• Needle & thread

Begin by separating the zipper into its two halves—simply unzip all the way, if it’s one that comes completely apart, or cut the stopper off at the bottom and then unzip it. Remove the zip-up thingy, which you won’t need. If you want, you can cut off the long straight piece at the bottom. If you leave it on, use that end to begin your flower.

Before you start working with the zipper, take your silk leaf, stripped off any supporting plastic veins, and stitch it to the pin back’s pierced disk or circle of fabric. You just need to do a couple of stitches in the center, as the stitching to attach the flower will add more stitches to it, too.

My flower has five petals, and I found that about 3″ of the zipper was needed for each one, so I put a dot every three inches, and then just “stacked” the dots. Begin like this:

Then just continue looping. It’s very like making a bow for a package:

Every so often, stitch down through the stack and pin disk to fasten the petals in place. That way they won’t get away from you.

When you have about 6″ of zipper left, start rolling the center of your flower, beginning at the free end of the zipper.

As you roll, take stitches to keep everything in place. When the zipper’s completely rolled up down to the petals, stitch it to the center of the flower, going through the pin disk or fabric circle as you work. Fasten off the thread and cut, and attach the pin’s back piece to the pierced front part. If you’ve used a fabric circle, you can sew a safety pin on the back now; make sure the pin is off-center, near the top edge of the circle, so that the pin doesn’t droop forward.

You’re done! What will you wear your pin on?