Archive for Crafts

Sewing Project – Fabric Topper For Kitchen Towels

By admin · Comments (2)
Monday, June 13th, 2011

Sewing Project – How To Make An Easy Fabric Topper For Kitchen Towels
by Shelly Hill

If you are looking to make some fabric toppers for some of your kitchen hand towels, I think you will be pleased with this easy to make project. You can find inexpensive nice kitchen towels at your local dollar type of store.

Here is what you will need to make this project:

1 cotton kitchen hand towel
2 pieces of 6″ square cotton fabric
5″ square of cotton batting
large 1″ diameter button
8″ piece of cording or twine
Sewing Machine & Basic Sewing Supplies
Scissors

Place your two 6″ fabric squares right sides together with the 5″ piece of cotton batting sandwiched in between them. Using a 1/2″ seam allowance, sew around 3 1/2 of the sides. Turn the square right side out and hand sew the turning hole shut with a needle and thread. Set aside.

Find the center of your kitchen towel and mark the center with a straight pin. Using your sewing machine, run a gathering stitch down the center width of your towel. Pull the threads up so that your gathered towel will fit the width of your fabric square. Pin your fabric square onto the gathered edge (center edge) of your towel and pin into place. NOTE: Your square should be diagonal on the fabric and not placed up and down (diamond shape). Use your sewing machine and run a straight stitch down the center of your diagonal from corner to corner. Make sure you back stitch to ensure its attachment.

Finish your towel by hand sewing on a 1″ diameter button onto one corner of the fabric square and by sewing on hanging loop on the back corner.

Shelly Hill is a mother and grandmother living in Pennsylvania who enjoys quick and easy crafts. You can visit Shelly’s online craft site at http://passionateaboutcrafting.blogspot.com/ for free craft and sewing projects. You can find a photo of the completed project at http://passionateaboutcrafting.blogspot.com/2010/01/how-to-make-kitchen-towel-fabric-topper.html

Article Source: WAHM Articles

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Theme Ideas For Your Scrapbook

By Val · Comments (0)
Monday, August 9th, 2010

By: Anne Bell

Whether you’re new to scrapbooking or an old pro, coming up with ideas for a new album is not always easy. Here we’ll talk about different ideas and how organizing your photos will help determine the theme of your next scrapbook.

Here are some album ideas you can use; and looking these over may spark some other ideas of your own.

Travel Scrapbook: You can create an album from photos of you and your family while traveling. You may have enough photos from one specific trip to complete a small album, or you can combine several trips into one larger album. If you travel a lot, you might like to do an album called “On the Road in 2009″ for example.

School age children’s events: If you have kids in school, an album of their different activities is a good way to store and display those memories. You may want to have one album for each year with all your children, or you may want to have different albums for each child throughout the years.

Antique Album: An antique style album is great for old black and white photos you may have lying around in a box or the basement.

Seasonal album: Perhaps you have lots of pictures during the different seasons. You could create an album with all your fall pictures using earth tones and fall colors and themes.

Children’s artwork: Do you have tons of your child’s artwork plastered to your fridge or in a box somewhere? Get it out, sort it by year and create an album using the different pieces. You can use it for backgrounds, decorations or maybe even embellishments. Incorporate pictures of your child from a specific year with the artwork.

Now that your wheels are spinning with ideas for your next album, let’s talk about photo organization. Organizing your photos is a great way to get ideas for albums as well. As you sort through the boxes and packets of pictures you have, you’ll start to get ideas for an album.

There are, of course, many different ways you could organize your photos, so I’m just going to give you a few ideas to get you started.

Chronologically: If you have piles and piles of photos in boxes, or photos in old albums that aren’t acid and lignin free, take them out and start sorting them into stacks by the year. If your photos aren’t date stamped on the back or front, try to determine the year they were taken by the ages of the people in them, the style of clothing, the location or event where the photo was taken. You may find you have hundreds of photos for each year and will need to break it down further by season or event.

By event: As you’re sorting chronologically, you’ll probably come across photos from certain events that would make for a nice album or two such as: a trip, a wedding, birth of a new baby, a play or other theatrical event, a concert or a family outing.

Once you have your photos sorted and organized, store them in plastic baggies to keep the air out. This will help preserve them until you can get them into an acid and lignin free album. Be sure to mark each bag by year or event so when you go back to make the album you know which baggie to grab.

Are you ready to scrapbook yet? I am off to scrapbook my latest trip.

Article Source: http://www.wahm-articles.com

To add color and fun to your pages, use scrapbooking embellishments.

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Easy Photo Editing Tips

By Val · Comments (0)
Friday, June 25th, 2010

When it comes to editing images, it’s not as difficult as it sounds. Most digital cameras now come with some sort of basic software which can easily help you to make corrections and minor edits. Even the most basic digital camera software will guide you in a step-by-step fashion. The editing process usually consists of cropping, color adjustments, and corrections such as red-eye removal.

A good rule of thumb is to make a backup copy of your pictures before you start making changes. This provides you with another option, just in case you decide you aren’t happy with the changes you’ve made. When at all possible, these copies are best kept on a secondary hard drive, preferably on an external backup disk. Once you have completed all of your editing, be sure to backup all your images again in case something happens to your main hard drive.

You might want to consider having a Universal Card Reader to transfer your images over to your computer, making the process faster, and easier. This prevents you from having to install additional software and drivers for your camera. If you do choose to plug the camera in your computer, it’s important to transfer all images beforehand, never working on or editing the images directly from the camera.

Cropping consists of cutting the edges that you don’t want to keep as part of the image for printing. Always leave space around your main subject, since the shape of your image may not match a standard printing shape (as in a 4×6 sized printed picture), depending on your printing. When cropping your image it can take on a whole different perspective, depending on the area that you select.

To adjust your colors, you should always aim for a natural look. Adding too much brightness, contrast, or color saturation can make your image look strange. This is especially true when printing. What you see on your screen might not look the same when printed. The great thing about digital photography is that with proper software, you can learn how to adjust the image in many ways, sometimes finding details that you wouldn’t have seen otherwise.

Certain available software programs, like Adobe Photoshop Elements allow you play with your image, adding effects to give your image different looks. Think about how your image would look in the style of old newspaper or old photographs. It’s even possible to create your own postcards, birthday cards, calendars, etc.

Most graphic/photo editing software now come with a red-eye correction feature which can be fully automated, or at the very least, requires you to pinpoint the eyes and let you fine tune the correction.

You do have to consider however that some common mistakes can’t be remedied with software. These would be lack of proper lighting, which results in artifacts (grainy texture in the dark areas), the focus being off or the subject being photographed moving quickly and causing blurriness.

As you become more familiar with both your camera and the software that you use for editing, you can find a whole different approach to your image taking. You may find yourself wanting to experiment more with what you can do with many types of images.

_________________________________

Image: Michelle Meiklejohn / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Must Have Home Sewing Box Essentials

By Val · Comments (0)
Monday, April 19th, 2010

by Shelly Hill

As a work at home mother and grandmother, I often don’t have a lot of time to mend clothing when the need arises here in our home. When I did find the time, I often didn’t have the supplies on hand that I needed so I would end up delaying the mending of the clothing item(s) that needed to be repaired.

To solve this problem, I sat down one Saturday afternoon and went through my sewing box. I then made a list of everything that I felt I needed to have on hand to handle all of those mending emergencies. On Sunday, I headed out to our local fabric store and picked up everything on my list. Once I got back home, I sorted through everything and organized it.

The very first thing you need is a good sewing box that has organizational features. The one that I own is heavy duty plastic and inside is four lift-out trays. These trays all have removable dividers so I can customize them to suit my own needs.

Here is a list of the basic sewing items you will need to complete your sewing box.

1. Sewing Thread (Basic Colors) – white, black, brown, red, green, yellow, orange, tan
2. Needles – various lengths and tips
3. Straight Pins – one box of pins (I prefer rust-proof pins)
4. Measuring Tape
5. Scissors – I recommend a high quality pair of fabric scissors
6. Buttons – You will want to stay stocked with various colors and sizes of buttons
7. Safety Pins – I recommend various sizes in both silver tone and gold tone metals
8. Seam Ripper – Every good sewing box needs a great seam ripper tool.
9. Needle Threader – Even if you have great eye sight, a needle threader can save you precious time when you are in a hurry.
10. Iron-on Patches – I keep white, black, denim, navy, tan and brown iron-on patches in my sewing box at all times.
11. Fabric Glue – If you are in a hurry and need a quick fix, you can hem a pair of pants or fix a seam with a few dabs of fabric glue.
12. Thimble – Protect your fingertips and invest in a good thimble.

Now, if you are a seamstress, you should also keep on hand various colored zippers, zipper pulls, elastic (various widths and lengths), buckles, etc.

Once you sit down and go through your sewing supplies and organize them, you will find that you will tackle those home mending projects more quickly. Keeping a well stocked sewing box saves time and energy and your family will thank you for keeping their favorite clothing hanging in their closets instead of on your mending pile.

Shelly Hill is a mother and grandmother living in Central Pennsylvania who enjoys cooking, crafting and sewing. You can visit Shelly online at http://passionateaboutcrafting.blogspot.com for free craft and sewing project ideas or her recipe and cooking site at http://wahmshelly.blogspot.com for free recipes and cooking tips.

Article Source: http://www.wahm-articles.com

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3 Easy Easter Egg Crafts

By Val · Comments (0)
Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010

Having little ones in the house, the excitement is building for the Easter bunny. If you have older kids, having them color Easter eggs with food coloring, or dye kits might be the way to go. But when they’re too young to handle dipping hard-boiled eggs, give them a paper egg to decorate. Try one of these easy Easter crafts.

Coffee Filter Easter Eggs

What You’ll Need:
Cone-shaped Paper Coffee Filters
Food Coloring
Eye Droppers and Straws

Cut out egg shapes from coffee filters (Cone shaped filters will give you 2 good sized eggs). Mix water and food coloring in a baby food jar, or small bowl. Do this for each color you have. Let the children use eyedroppers or straws to drip colors on the filter shape. The colors will run together and make beautiful eggs.

A variation of this is to speckle the eggs by having your child blow through the straw after it’s been dipped in the colored water. This method could be a little messier, so you’ll want to make sure you’ve laid newspaper or paper towels down first.

Cotton Ball Easter Eggs

What You’ll Need:
8.5 x 11 in. white construction paper
Pastel colored cotton balls
Child safe scissors
Stick glue

Fold the construction paper in half length wise. Cut out a half oval shape along the non-folded edge, making sure that one end is cut a little flat (pointed/oval at the top, flat/rounded on the bottom). You can draw it out with a pencil first to help with the cutting. Open your paper and it should look like an egg (this is similar to cutting out a valentine heart).

To decorate: Spread a thin layer of glue on sections of the egg and apply various colored cotton balls, continue until the entire egg is covered. Try putting the colored cotton balls on in some type of pattern.
Let dry and hang on wall or refrigerator for all to see!

Easter Egg Collage

What You’ll Need:
8.5×11 in. white, or pastel construction paper
crayons, markers, water colors
glitter and more

Give each child a large egg shape cut from construction paper. Have the children decorate with anything (glitter, sequins, scrap fabric, foil, buttons, crayons, markers).

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5 Computer Tricks for Scrapbooking

By Val · Comments (0)
Friday, March 5th, 2010

The origins of scrapbooking are, of course, as a paper craft, and in some ways are a loop of going from the paper books with photo-corners, to photo albums and sleeves in pages, to its current form – preserving our pictures and memories through time. Now, in this age of digital photography, one may be hard-pressed to find a 35mm camera user. Instead of pictures being stored in envelopes, or drawers waiting to be organized, and put in an album, they are stuck on memory cards, or hard drives waiting to be printed, and put in an album. So, why not take advantage of all that can be done with a computer when it comes to scrapbooking? Here are some ideas…

  1. Take advantage of all of the fonts within word processing programs, as well as any photo editing, or scrapbooking software. Use them for journaling, or enlarge letters for page titles. Paper scrapbookers can them print and cut them out, while digital scrapbookers can place them within their layouts there on the computer.

  2. Use photo editing software to fix or enhance photos, switch them to black and white, add special effects or captioning (with the above tip) to put more of a personal touch right into the pictures.

  3. Resize, and crop pictures on the computer before printing them out. Pictures can be arranged on a blank page, grouped, or collaged and then printed out as one image to be cropped into a paper scrapbook page layout.

  4. Clipart is everywhere! Printable digital elements can be used to embellish paper scrapbook layouts. Even printed digital layouts can be embellished with separately printed clipart to add dimension and depth to scrapbook pages.

  5. Digital layouts can be found online. Once downloaded, digital photos can be placed in the layout. Create a CD to keep a digital album, or print out the layout at home, or through a printing service. Design a pre-made layout to print out, and adhere developed, or printed photos for placement into a scrapbook album.

Digital photography is here to stay, and technology is making it easier everyday to store, organize and preserve our pictures, and our memories. Whether with a specific computer scrapbooking software package, or individual clipart elements, using a computer to assist in scrapbooking can add a unique personal touch to page layouts without taking away from the traditional paper craft artistry of scrapbook albums.

For more helpful scrapbooking tips and tricks, check out…
Visit the Scrap Fact Guide sales page
Read my review of this book!

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5 Holiday Crafts for Kids

By Val · Comments (0)
Friday, November 27th, 2009

fiveforfridayThe kids will soon be home again for winter break, and it won’t take long until their “bored already”. The weather can be cold, wet and nasty. What do you do? Plan now to keep them busy making something with their hands, instead of you tearing your hair out. Here are some fun ideas that kids will love.

1. Holiday cards are always a great craft. Provide the kids supplies like construction paper, card stock, scissors, glue, glitter (the bottles of glitter/glue in one package are a very nice low-mess way to dress up a project), pencils, crayons or markers and old Christmas cards. Let the kids use their creative energy to make wonderful handmade cards that can be shared with family and friends. By cutting pictures out of old cards, even the younger children can make something really nice (and recycle at the same time).

2. Snow globes are a favorite. If you want to make your own, gather glass or clear plastic containers, like baby food jars or mustard or mayonnaise jars. Wash and dry them completely. Gather small plastic Christmas or winter decorations. Try to find some that float. Winter themed stickers or small foam cutouts are also nice. Decorate the outside of the jar with stickers or glue a few of the foam pieces on it. Attach a couple of the floating pieces (things like snowflakes or stars work well) to string and glue a figure to the inside with the string underneath the figure to anchor it (which will become the base). Fill the jar with water and some glitter. Carefully glue the lid in place using waterproof glue and let dry. Once dry, shake it, set it lid down and watch the glitter swirl around.

3. Candy crafts can be fun, as well as a tasty gift. A train can be a quick craft that can be used as a decoration or gift. Use a roll of hard candy (like Lifesavers) for the main part of the train. Use individually wrapped round candy, like peppermints for the wheels. For the front, glue a square candy, such as a caramel or a Starburst with a Hershey kiss on top. If you add a string, they can be used as a tree decoration. Experiment with other kinds of candy to create other things, like robots, animals or even angels.

4. Garland trees can be a great project for the kids, especially if there is limited room for a Christmas tree. Take a large piece of green poster board and cut a circle, with a slit out to make a cone. Tape it with clear packing tape. Take an artificial pine garland and wrap it around the cone, completely covering it to create a small tree. Fasten the ends in place so it doesn’t unwrap. The tree can be decorated with lightweight paper ornaments that the children can also make.

5. A cozy fireplace can warm up any room but not everyone has one. Let the kids make one. Find a large cardboard box and cut an opening in the one side for the fireplace. Using sponges, paint bricks on the box, leaving space in between to be the mortar. Paint the inside black if you want. Paint flames on the inside back section of the box. Use paper towel rolls to stack up in the fireplace as logs. Decorate the top to look like a mantel.

Get creative and think up your own Holiday crafts as well. Children will love the fun involved in creating these crafts and so will you. You can even give the crafts as a gift which will warm even the scroogiest of hearts.

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5 Thanksgiving Craft Ideas

By Val · Comments (0)
Friday, November 20th, 2009

fiveforfridayAre you looking for some fun ways to keep your kids busy during the Thanksgiving holiday? Here are some fun Thanksgiving craft ideas for kids:

Turkey wreath – Buy a straw wreath and various Thanksgiving decorations, let your kids glue on the decorations to make a holiday wreath to hang on your front door.

Turkey cups – With the Thanksgiving family dinner coming soon, you’ll probably have a house full of kids, buy small kid-sized plastic cups and craft markers. Give each kid a cup and let them write their name on it and decorate it.

Turkey placemats – Give your kids colored construction paper and let them make turkeys. After they are finished, mount each turkey on a separate sheet of construction paper, then laminate it. Now they have their own special turkey placemat.

Pinecone Turkey – Gather pinecones, then cut out colorful turkey feathers from colored construction paper. Use red felt to cut out the turkey’s comb. Glue your Thanksgiving turkey together, inserting the feathers in between the pine comb leaves.

Thanksgiving flower pots – Buy the smallest red clay pots you can find at your local gardening store (these are super cheap), a bag of potting soil, and packages of various flowers, vegetables, or herb seeds. Let your kids write the name of the seed on the outside of the pot with a magic marker. Next, have them pour potting soil in each pot and plant the seeds. When the seeds begin sprouting in a few weeks, let your kids take their Thanksgiving pots to the local nursing home and give them away as Thanksgiving gifts to the patients.

I’ve put together a collection of 9 other Thanksgiving Craft Ideas – it’s available HERE for download (Right click your mouse and Save to your computer). All of the ideas above, plus the crafts in our collection will keep those little fingers busy from now until Thanksgiving.

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Scrapbooking Storage

By Val · Comments (0)
Wednesday, April 1st, 2009

Since scrapbooking requires a lot of materials, a scrapper needs a place and space where he or she can stock up and store the materials needed while doing the craft. Today, more and more people from the scrapbooking industry come up with various products that can help scrapbookers organize their stuff and store their scrapbook and their scrapbook supplies. Several items include bags or scrapbooking totes where you can put all of your precious scrapbooking materials.

These totes can help you keep your photos, tools, stickers, markers, and other supplies from other people’s reach. Buy using this scrapbooking storage, you can store away your scrapbooking stuff in just one place to keep them handy and organized.

Aside from bags and scrapbooking totes, another useful means of scrapbooking storage is the scrapbook cases, which usually come in handy and removable snap cases. Here, you can store your scrapbooking supplies and keep them from being lost or damaged. Usually, scrapbook cases are space savers and can perfectly fit into chest-style storage units with a divided top.

You can use this scrapbook case for holding scrapbook pages, photos, stickers, and other scrap-booking tools. When buying a scrapbook case, make sure that you buy an item which enables you to see the contents inside easy so you can easily identify photos and other materials you wish to use. Since you will be putting photos inside the scrapbook case, make sure that it is acid and PVC free. In the market, there are various scrapbook cases available which enable you to transport, organize, and protect your 12×12 pages or photos.

The scrapbook organizer, on the other hand, is a very practical and sensible scrapbook storage solution. Usually comes in different cases, you can neatly organize your scrapbook papers, stamps, stickers, markers, and other supplies in its handy and easy-to-remove snap cases.

Scrapbook organizers are a must for a scrapbooker who is always on the go because it can help you keep all of your supplies in one place. Scrapbook organizers can be folded into half for easy transport with wide shoulder strap or carrying handle for easy use.

In looking for a scrapbook case or scrapbook organizer, make sure that you look for those that can fit neatly into a chest-style storage unit and those that occupy minimal space in your closet or craft room. Also, look for scrapbooking organizers that are great for storing art projects, office supplies, and other accessories you are using. It is best if you look for those scrapbook organizers that offer top features such as divided areas that are also perfect for drawing utensils such as paintbrushes and many more.

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Find Scrapbooking Help Online

By Val · Comments (0)
Friday, February 6th, 2009

When you get started in scrapbooking, it can start to seem very big. There are so many options to choose from for every decision involved in making a scrapbook. There are thousands of products, philosophies, and opinions. While all these options are what make your scrapbook so special and unique, they can also make getting started a daunting task. If you want to sort through all the mess and find your voice, you can find help from millions of people online who are just like you and who have been where you are right now.

Whether it’s scrapbooking or any other sort of art, looking at the work of professionals can get me very down. Sure, you can find inspiration, but you can also find a lot of frustration because you’re just not good enough to repeat their results. Online, you can see the layouts of thousands of scrapbookers from professionals and people who just started. This way you can get inspiration and support without feeling down about your own work.

In addition to seeing others’ designs, you can also share your own with the world. Showing scrapbooks to your friends is great, but if they don’t scrapbook themselves, they may not be able to give you helpful insights and opinions on your designs. Plus, you only have so many friends to help you out. If you find the right website, you can find thousands of people to give you honest and helpful opinions to get you on your way to successful scrapbooking.

Online, there’s a good change you can find someone who’s used a specific product and can give you an honest opinion. This is great for knowing which products to buy and saves you money by knowing what to avoid. I will also help protect your memories from faulty products that could destroy it years down the road.

Be careful about who you’re getting your product information from. If you talk to someone regularly and they’ve voiced opinions on all kinds of products, you can likely trust what you say. The problem is that many product reviews are written by the manufacturers to boost sales, not by the consumers. Once you’re comfortable with the internet, you should learn to spot these phonies pretty easily. Remember that if a product seems to good to be true, try your best to find a second opinion.

Probably the best part about meeting other scrapbookers online is that you can make friends with people who share the same interests as you. And once you get to talking, you’ll probably find they share other interests as well. Whether they’re from your neighborhood or across the globe, they can still become trusted lifelong friends.

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