Think Crafts Blog – Craft Ideas and Projects – CreateForLess

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

I love the look of mercury glass. It’s perfect in almost every style of decor or season. It can be simple, elegant, romantic or modern depending entirely on what you do with it. It has only one problem. It can be prohibitively expensive. But not anymore. Turn any old glass jar into dazzling faux mercury glass with two simple ingredients (hint, one of them is water!)

Here’s what you’ll need:

• Glass jars, vases or bowls
• Water
• Mirror spray paint

1. Lightly mist the inside of your glass. If you have a wide mouth jar or a bowl, you may want to tape off the outside.

2. Spray a thin coat of Mirror paint into the inside of the jar or bottle. Allow the paint to drip down and coat the inside, you want the coat to be uneven.

3. Allow the paint to dry and then repeat until you have the level of mirror finish that you desire (2-3 coats is usually sufficient).

You can also use this technique on the outside of a jar candle to create a Mercury Glass Candle.

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

My kids, particularly my youngest, love to paint with watercolors. While she’s happy to use traditional paints, what she really loves are those paint with water coloring pages, and with their lack of mess and take anywhere qualities, I love them too, especially now that we’re making them ourselves. Perfect for summer art on the go, these are simple, quick and super rewarding!

Here’s what you’ll need:

• Liquid watercolors
• Small watercolor paper book (spiral bound is best)

1. On the first page of your book, dab a small amount of each color on one side of the page, leaving about an inch between colors. You want a thin layer of paint that will dry well but give you plenty of color when you paint.

2. Prop this page about halfway up and add a similar row of paint to the next page.

3. Allow these two pages to dry and then continue with the next two pages.

4. When you are ready to paint, simply dip your brush in water and wet the color to activate the paint.

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

I wonder if everyone has a stash of frames for which they’ve never found the perfect picture. I sure do. And as if my own bunch weren’t enough, I recently took part in a re-gifting swap and got another! My swap partner sent me a frame she’d gotten as a wedding gift and just “could not make [her]self love.” Well, me neither!

But it was perfect for Halloween!

The frame started like this:

Then I took black and purple paints, which my able assistant was happy to apply:

As you can see, this is a kid-friendly craft. The next step, finding images online to go in the frame’s ovals, was also kid friendly. We found two we liked, printed them out, and inserted them, and then tied a big bow with wire-edged coordinating ribbon.

Last step was to hang our charming couple on the front door. I think they like the view!

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

Do you ever miss happy mail? You know, going to the mailbox and pulling out something other than a bill or piece of advertising? I sure do, and I know for certain I’m not the only one, with email so dominant, this year I decided my treats for Halloween were going to be something that would bring a smile at the mailbox. I’m sending postcards!

As I was cleaning up my craft table the other day, I noticed that some foam letters had arranged themselves in a group that looked very like the beginning of a skeleton. Ooh, I thought. Could you make an entire skeleton using them? The answer was YES, and in a few minutes I’d created a skeleton stamp.

If you’d like to make one, too, you’ll need:

Foam alphabet stickers, all caps, about 3/4″-1″ tall:

• 1 Q
• 2 E’s
• 2 P’s
• 4 L’s                      
• 2 I’s
• The centers from 2 O’s

A backing/support for your skeleton. I used the lid from a whipped topping container, which was translucent.

Arrange your letters something like this:

The original thought was to add a hat, but I decided to leave it off.

As you can see, only two of the letters need to be reversed–one E, and one P–to form the left sides of the ribcage and hip bones. Those two you will glue to your support piece, rather than using the sticker’s adhesive.

Cut tiny triangles from the O centers to create fingers.

You can play with the positioning of the arms, legs, and head, until you find a pose you like. Keep in mind that if you’re arranging the stickers with the adhesive side down, your stamp will be a mirror image of what you see. If you want to see it as it will stamp, turn the letters face down. Once you’ve created the pose you want, peel off the protective papers and stick the letters to the support/base, starting with the head, and working down. For the two letters that you’ll glue, make sure they’re exactly where you want them before you remove the papers; otherwise, they’ll stick to your fingers when you try to move them and not let go! (And yes, that IS the voice of experience, lol.) Once the glue on those two letters is dry, you can pat a little talcum powder on them, which will take away the stickiness.

You now have a skeleton stamp to play with!

To make a postcard using my new stamp, I took some cardstock I thought had that “Halloween feeling”, and cut it to postcard size. (USPS allows a maximum size of 6″ X 4.25″, and a minimum size of 5″ X 3.5″, or 15.2cm X 10.8cm and 12.7cm X 8.9cm)

Then I stamped the skeleton on it, using three of my new word stamps to say “Happy Boo Day”. The first time, I used black ink for everything, but then decided I’d like the skeleton better white, after all. I took a stiff bristle brush and painted on white craft paint, and over-stamped the original skeleton. (You have to love a stamp base you can see through!)

Of course, after that, I had to see what it would look like if I just used the white, without the black underneath:

Personally, I like it better with the black under it, as the skeleton seems to show up better.

Last step: Turn your new postcard over and divide it in half so you have one side for the address, and the other for a brief message. You can simply draw a vertical line, or use another stamp:

For another easy card, cut a postcard-size piece of cardstock that pumpkins would look good against. I chose one that looked kind of “vine-y”. Now cut three or four circles of pumpkin-Design paper or cardstock. Arrange them on the card in a pleasing arrangement. Placing the larger disks near the bottom of the card, with the smaller ones nearer the top will give a sense of distance, as your mind interprets “smaller” as farther away, and “higher” as being the far horizon.

Once you’ve decided on your placement, you can pencil in jack o’ lantern faces on each of them, and then black in the features. Glue them in place on the card and write or stamp, “Oooooooooooh” in a curvy line across the card. Last step is to turn the card over and divide it in half as you did the other one.

By Scrapbook & Paper Crafts Contributor Kim, from the Blog “Paper Hugs”.

I am a sucker for sparkly things, so you can imagine how much I LOVE glitter?  I think it adds such a pretty touch to everything.  Stamps are great as is…but adding some glitter makes them amazing to look at!  Of course it’s best when seen in person, so that might be an incentive to send off those glittered cards to loved ones.  Who can’t use a little sparkle in their day?

I chose a simple butterfly image to make a statement on my card.  Glitter was all that needed to make the image POP!

Gather some supplies and add glitter to those stamped images.  

Color a stamped image with a glue pen as if you were coloring the image with any pen.  The glue will be light blue to start but it will become clear when it’s dry.  Just sprinkle glitter over the image, tap off excess and you will reveal a gorgeous look!

Use multiple colors for added interest.  Just keep the layers separate so that the glitter doesn’t bleed into the others.  Make sure to allow the glitter to dry before mailing.

When designing my card, I chose to add some extra texture by tearing the bottom of my paper and adding a chunky bow.  In this case, less is definitly more.

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

Collage, in both “hard copy” and digital forms is very popular right now, and I’m a fan of both. It’s relaxing, almost zen-like to sit with my materials, arranging, re-arranging, and layering them. Digitally, I love the fact that you can create what are basically transparent layers, which is mostly not an option with “real” images and materials.

Except that it is, at least with printed items. You can make decals, and it’s really quite easy to do it. I’m familiar with two products you can use, Liquitex Gloss Medium, and Omni-Gel. The process is the same with both products.

You’ll need:

Omni-Gel OR Liquitex Gloss Medium
Soft paint brush
Printed images—almost any will work, except for inkjet or photographs
A dish that is larger than your print(s)
Water

So first decide what images you want to use. Cut them out, leaving a generous edge around any that you want to completely cover the collage surface. Protect your work surface with plastic wrap, which will let you peel the finished decals/transfers off when they’ve dried, and lay the images print side up on it. Paint each image with a coat of the medium, allowing the medium to extend beyond the paper just a bit, and let dry. I usually just squeeze a drop or two of medium on the image and spread it around.

When the medium is dry, spread on another layer. If you’ve painted with up-and-down strokes on the first layer, make the second layer’s strokes go side-to-side. Let that layer dry, and paint on a third layer, again with brush strokes that go in a different direction than the layer before.

Three layers of medium is generally enough; I sometimes do four, but it probably isn’t necessary.  You’ll now have what looks and feels like a picture coated with a plastic sheet.

When the last layer is thoroughly dry, peel your images off the plastic and soak them in the dish of water. (If an image resists being peeled off, you can cut right at the edge of the paper, and slip your finger between the picture and the plastic.) Don’t worry if the transfer medium turns a little milky while soaking.

Soak the pictures until the paper is good and wet, but not more than twenty minutes, then take each one out of the water and lay it face-down on a clean, smooth surface—a plate works well.

Rub the paper with your fingers, and it will roll up and come away from the transfer.

Rub until ALL the paper is gone. You’ll know you’re finished when you don’t feel any fuzziness at all, and the transfer is completely transparent.

You now have a decal!

To use it, just paint the back with more of the transfer medium, and apply it wherever you like on your project. Make sure your fingers are absolutely clean—any little bit of anything will imbed itself and show later!

One of the things I love about the finished decal is that it’s stretchy. You can cover uneven surfaces, or pull the image around the edges of a plaque, and smooth it out completely, as you can see from the little project below:

To make it, I used three images I’d turned into decals—the background trees (scrapbooking paper), the blue bird (cut from a magazine), and the bit of music (from an old music book). As you can see, the plaque I used had a crenellated edge, and a raised circle about 1/2″. The transfer stretched over every irregularity and clung there. On the back, I just squished the gathered edge down and used a bit more medium to glue them in place.

You can also use the transfer medium to create pendants. The first image in this post doesn’t give you scale, but each piece is a half-globe in shape, with a transfer stretched over it. The half-globes were molded in measuring spoons—1/4 teaspoon, 1/2 teaspoon, and 1 teaspoon—so they’re quite a nice size to glue on a bail and put on a necklace or bracelet.

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

Scrapbooking, collage, decoupage, and paper crafts of all kinds are driving a lot of art these days, and I love it. There’s so much creativity and variety, I’m sometimes just awestruck by the wonderful things people are doing.

I got to thinking about it the other day, and it brought to mind a craft my mom, my aunties, and I had played around with years ago. It started with making our own decoupage plaques, so I will, too.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• An assortment of plastic lids
• Plaster of Paris
• Paper clips (optional)
• Mixing cups and spoons

If you’re like me, you have a drawer in the kitchen where you stash plastic containers and lids. This is where you start. Look through them and pick out the ones that seem interesting. Most lids are basically just a disk with a rim; if you use them as your molds you’ll end up with a simple disk. Some, however, have recessed areas, or bass relief designs. Those are the ones you want.

Protect your work surface, and mix enough Plaster of Paris and water to fill the lids you’ve selected. If you’re doing several, use cool water, as warm water makes the plaster set up faster, as does vigorous mixing.

Fill your lids, starting with the largest, and working your way down to the smallest.  You can even use spoons and have bases for jewelry:

If you want, when the plaster begins to set up you can bend a paper clip open and press it into the plaster for a hanger. We did that with some; with others we glued our finished pieces to lengths of ribbon or wooden plaques.

Set your molds on a level surface and let them dry thoroughly. I’d give them a day, just to be sure. When they’re dry, carefully flex the plastic lids and pop the plaques out. With the spoons, tapping them gently on a hard surface will do the trick.

If you’ve over-filled a lid, the outer rim might be a bit ragged. No worries—plaster of Paris carveable, so just take a knife and scrape the edge smooth.

Here are some of the plaques I made, ready to become the bases for art:

And here’s the piece my six-year-old granddaughter did the next day, using transfer medium:

Do I hear a question? What’s transfer medium? For now, I’ll just say it’s really cool stuff, and in a blog post coming soon I’ll show you the why’s and how’s of it!