Candy Jars

I am in love with this craft! Ever since I saw them here, I have wanted to make them. My sister is a candy fiend, so I thought this would make a good Christmas present for her.

I looked everywhere for a cheaper set of candle sticks but finally broke down and bought the ones at Wal-Mart.
The only color they came in was black. While I love that color and use it a lot in decorating, since the present was for my sister, I decided to paint them white. That way she could use them in any room in her house (i.e. in the bathroom, filled with cotton balls, etc).

First, my dad helped me to spray paint them. We used a primer to cover as much of the black as we could. Of course, it has rained for days here, so we had to go to the lake and paint them inside the house (which is in the process of being built so if we got paint on the plywood floors, it wouldn't matter). After giving it about 4-5 coats (with wait time for drying in between) of primer, we spray painted them white. We also gave them 4-5 coats then decided to let them dry overnight to make sure they were covered thoroughly.

Hollow book

I haven't posted in a while but I have still been creating. I am trying to give something I make with every gift I give this Christmas season. Well, as many gifts as I can.
In keeping with this theme and since I am giving gift cards to my cousins, I decided to make the gift card holders instead of just giving them in an envelope.
As a kid, I ALWAYS wanted a hollow book...you know, those books that sit on the shelf but when you open them, there was space inside to hide things?
Well, I decided to make one of my cousins a hollow book. My inspiration came from here.

Of course, I forgot to take pictures of the process and the finished product before I wrapped it, but I may just have to unwrap it (very carefully) so I can show it off before taking it tonight to give it away. :)

FYI: if I ever do this again, which I most prob will since it was so much fun, I will make the margin bigger. 0.5 inches was difficult to work with, especially as I got further into the book.

The Sixth

This project was inspired, of course, my Pinterest. Here is the original post.

And here is how I did it.

Using a shadow box and 12x12 paper that I cut down, I created a Christmas decoration that I love! First I took apart the shadow box and looked at it. I have never used one before so I wanted to make sure I knew how to put everything back in when I was finished. I then used a paper cutter to cut everything down to size.

Next, I used my circut machine to cut out the letters Merry Christmas. I was very excited when I realized one of my fonts had this already programed so that is connected together. (My next purchase will be the cd that allows you to string any words together-it is $50 so I am waiting for it to go on sale.)

The original post talked about putting the words on the inside of the frame, which I thought was a great idea. So, I put tape on all the letters (this was the hardest part, since I knew that if any of the tape pieces were hanging off the letters, they would show since I was taping to glass). The picture below with my finger was taken to show you the tape pieces. They are from a scrap-booking pack and come in a long strip. You can either leave them together (like if you are gluing a picture down or you can take them apart-they are less than 1 cm wide). So, I taped all my letters then realized that I was taping on the wrong side (the back side) if I wanted to put it on the inside of the frame. So there went that idea. It still worked anyway and since I don't have children (unruly dogs don't count), I think I'll be okay.

Next I took out all the ornaments and placed them in the shadow box. When I first looked at the project and decided to try it, I didn't realize that she used bells in her picture-hence the "Jingle All the Way". Opps. I bought red balls to go into it. Oh well. I still love how it turned out. The pack I bought was from Target and had three different types of balls in it-shiny, dull and glittery. I hate weird textures, so I didn't touch the glittery ones (they are in the picture below still in the pack). I only used the shiny and dull ones-I put about 20 in the frame. I thought it would be neat to have different sizes, but then realized the bigger ones wouldn't fit when I put the back on the shadow box. You can see the size difference below. I took them back to Target. I also cut off all the strings that you use to hang the ornaments.

Finally, I put it all together, put the backing on the frame and voila! I had a great Christmas decoration. I did have to take the back off several times to get the balls to sit right. They don't move around once I have the back on, so some were hanging above the pile. But once I got the all together and put the back back on, it turned out great.

This project turned out to be one of my favorites that I have done. I have already bought more supplies to try it again. I love this one!

The Fifth

When I first saw this posted on Pinterest, I loved it and knew I wanted to try it. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the original post (the link on Pinterest took me to a blog but I couldn't find where they had posted the frames). Luckily, this was a fairly easy project.

Here is what I did.

I bought three 5x7 frames. I couldn't find paper that was that size, so I got the 12x12 paper. The hardest part of this entire project was cutting the paper to size. The 12x12 paper doesn't fit in the paper cutter well.

After cutting all the paper down to size and getting them in the frame, I had to decide which frames were going to be up and down and which frame was going to be in the middle, going sideways.
I then use my circut machine to cut "Ho" in several different fonts. The circut machine has been one of my favorite purchases I have ever made. I bought it this summer when it was on sale for the 4th of July and have never regretted it!

I took the paper back out of the frame, positioned the "Ho"s in the right place and glued them down using scrapbooking tape.

Seriously, this was the easiest project. I do like how it turned out but I think I like the one that inspired the project better. I'll keep working on it to get it right. I think the "ho" in the frame with the stripped paper needs to be bigger to try to fill out the frame more. I think I'll try it and see what it looks like. Of course, I'll post pics!

The Fifth

This is what I am trying to do right now.

This is the blog that the pin sends me to but I can't find where the directions or at least a better picture is, so I'm going off of this one. I'll let y'all know how it turns out!

The Fourth

Here is the fourth craft project I sound on Pinterest that I wanted to create and did. My inspiration is from here.
This is a clear, plastic Christmas ornament (I used plastic b/c I know how I like to drop things) with my sister's wedding invitation curled inside.

Here is how I did it.
Using a paper cutter, I cut the invitation into strips. I used the paper cutter since I can't cut a straight line to save my life. But you could use scissors if you are better at it than me. I tried to get as close to the same size on each one, but I don't measure things, so they aren't exact. I am glad I had a few copies of her invitation since it took me a couple of tries to get it right.

After cutting all the strips, I put them into the ball. I tried to space them out, but kept thinking that it just didn't look right. I tried a few times but it just wasn't working, so since it was late, I decided to try again the next day and went to bed.

The next day, I got the idea to look back at the original post. Opps, I had forgotten to curl the strips. So I cut up another invitation, playing close attention to make sure I got the names rights and that I was able to see all the lines. Then I took a pen and wrapped the paper around it. Since the invitation is on thicker paper, it stayed curled after I took it off the pen.


After taking all the other pieces out of the ball, I put the curled pieces in. I tried to move the important ones around so that you could see them (like names, the date, and the location) but it is hard to move them around without moving them ALL around. I also was able to get extras of the names since I had a stock pile of the invitations left.

All in all, I think it turned out BEAUTIFUL! I added the ribbon to the top in order to be able to hang it on the tree. The ribbon was the same as what my sister used on the original invitations, so it worked out nice. I tried to put in the velum that she used into the ball as well but it just wouldn't curl.

What do you think? What else could you do using paper and an empty Christmas ball ornament?

The Third

Here is the inspiration for my third project that I took from Pinterest.

When I found this project, I thought it was awesome but seeing as how I am single, I didn't have anyone I could make it for.

A few weeks ago, I went to visit my cousin and her family in Greer. This is her three children's first year in public school and since I am a public school teacher, I love hearing how they are doing. Chloe, her youngest, is in 2nd grade and just learning to read well. She has finally learned to love reading and is doing a great job. I wanted to get/make her something to show her how proud I was of her and this project popped in my head. I wouldn't do "52 reasons I love you" but I could do something about reading. And so, my third project began. "52 Reasons Reading is Cool."

First, I tried to use the templates found here to create the printouts. I knew I needed a specific size and so I thought that would be the easiest way. Turns out, I don't have the correct software to edit the template, so I decided to go to the next step and worry about that part later.

Using Google, I looked up quotes about reading, reasons reading is good/cool and verses in the bible that I could use. I then made a list in Microsoft Word to make sure I had 52. I liked the idea of getting different fonts for each reason so I found a free font site (found here) and downloaded the ones I like. I used some of the default fonts that come with Word and combined them with the ones I downloaded until I had a good variety.

I then had to go back to my problem with the template. After trying several free editors online, I abandoned the template altogether and just use a chart in word. I made a 9 by 9 chart in Word and copied one of the reasons into the first box. I then printed it, cut it out and fit it on my card from the deck. It was too big, so I adjusted the margins of the table and tried again. Perfect! I copied and pasted all my reasons onto the chart and printed.

Now, to get the cards ready. I wanted the holes to be even and as centered as I could on each card, so I took one of the instruction cards, folded it in 1/2. I used the fold in the middle to fold it into thirds. I then made my hole template with the other instruction card.
You can see from the picture that I got the holes too close to the edge the first time so I had to punch it again. Next step, I took a binder clip and clipped the cards to the template so I could punch them. I found that I could punch two to three cards at a time. If you have a fancy hole puncher, you may be able to do more at one time. I did end up using two binder clips on the stack so that I could be sure they were really lined up. After punching holes in about 5 cards, I got the hang of it and it went pretty fast. Finally all the cards were done and ready to have the reasons glued on them. I used a paper cutter to make uniform cuts on all my boxes. Course, this is me and it wouldn't be my project if stuff wasn't a little "off" so I had plenty of different sizes.
I then took the papers that I had cut and glued each one to a different playing card.

Now to the cover. Using scrapbook paper that I already had, I covered one of the jokers and put it at the back of the deck as the back cover. Using the other joker, I cut out letters from the scrapbook paper and put "Fifty-two reasons reading is cool" on the front.

After looking at the finished project, I decided that it needed a better cover. I still wanted the card with the words on it in the pack but wanted a better cover to match the back. So I cut out more scrapbook paper and decorated a joker from another deck. Here is my front cover:

And here are pictures of the four card "types" (front cover, title page, reason and back cover) and the final product.


This was a fun project. I really enjoyed making it and have already found two more reasons to give this as a gift. I am already working on the next card book. Post more on those later!