Sleigh Shaped Box- Recycled Craft

Sleigh Shaped Box

Sleigh Shaped Box

Shaped Boxes are fascinating ! In this project I recycled a cardboard box to make a sleigh shaped  gift box.I cut the cardboard box free hand using a Xacto knife and lined it with locally available glitter paper.

Sleigh Shaped Box 

I used a sleigh image [from Navneet publishers paper models]and decorated the sleigh with small plastic flowers,red pearl string and Christmas bell ornaments.

Sledge Shaped Box

I twisted together a silver and red chenille stem to make a collar for Rudolf the reindeer [from Navneet publishers again].I looped a red pearl garland on the antlers and gave him a red rhinestone nose!We also used a silver  chenille stem[pipe cleaner]  to attach the reindeer to the sleigh box 

Sledge Shaped Box

We added tiny gift boxes filled with sweets and small trinkets in the sleigh box.

Sledge Shaped Box

Here is our Sleigh shaped box which can be gifted to someone special or just adorn your house!

Sleigh Shaped Box

This post is late for a Christmas project but I just got back to blog land from a short holiday and didn't want to leave it till next Christmas!

Easy Paper Decorations Instructions

Paper decorations

Paper decorations 

Paper decorations are so easily available in shops nowadays that you can just go out and buy some in a jiffy-- but its so much more fun and rewarding to make them at home! These DIY Paper decorations will be unique and easy on the pocket [Ha Ha but not necessarily economic!].Sharing some simple homemade Paper decorations.

Paper decoration

This Paper decoration is a simple idea and I even debated whether to share it ! The only uniqueness about it is the recycled bit !If you are a  hoarder like me and cant bring yourself to throwaways those broken bits of jewelry here is a way to show them off as your Party Decoration!
How to make Easy Paper Party Decorations

Paper decoration

Materials required to make your  Paper  Party decoration 

1.Paper- I used some gorgeous shiny paper I had been hoarding for some time! You can use thin or thick paper.

2.String or ribbon- I used transparent twine

3.Embellishments- Broken jewelry or whatever you fancy!

Cut your paper into shapes such as circles or ovals or bell shapes- I used 5-6 circles for each Paper ornament.

Paper Ornament

Fold each circle into half. If you are using thick paper score really well.Start building by sticking folded circles together to make your paper ornament.

Paper Ornament tutorial

If you are using thick paper like I did and dont have a lot of patience to hold the paper pieces together till they stick you can use binder clips like I did here-- "Impatience is the mother of intelligence"!!

Paper decoration tutorial

You can thread your broken jewelry bits on a thread or twine and sandwich it between the final layers of your paper ornament .

Paper decoration

I used broken earring parts and  broken necklace bits for my paper decorations.

Paper decoration instructions

To make it look like a Christmas tree bauble I rolled a strip of glittery paper into a cylinder and stuck it on top of the paper ornament.

Paper ornament

Here is the handmade Paper Ornament on our Christmas tree.The Paper is a holographic paper and shines and shimmers so beautifully!Do tell me how you like this simple recycling idea.

Here are some more Christmas tree Ornament ideas:

Shell Craft Angels

Shell Craft bird

Spoon craft tutorial

Bangle Butterflies tutorial

Here is the link to  an easy but spectacular Paper Flower Star Decoration tutorial

Bottle Cap Crafts - Snowman Couple

Bottle Cap Snowman Craft

Snowman Couple

Bottle caps are fun objects for kids to play with. Sharing a fun bottle cap craft idea.

These large bottle caps are from medication bottles- I am sure we have all had some at home at some point of time and thrown them away! Well next time do recycle the plastic and make them into something fun!

Bottle cap crafts

My daughter designed this snowman couple!My 5 year old is a perfectionist and "suggestions" from her mom aren't always accepted! She took ages to get the perfect design on her bottle cap snowman couple!

Bottle Cap Snowman

Here are our snowman couple on our Christmas tree- my little one wanted them to be together[Very romantic!!].Here are our bottle cap snowman couple all dressed up to go on a romantic date!

Linking our snowman couple to blogger pal Kalindi's Blogversary challenge on the theme Unconditional Love [dont know if snowman romance qualifies!!]
Edited: This snowman couple was voted first in the Unconditional Love Challenge and  my little one won a big prize!!!
Here are links to more snowman crafts

• Thermocol Snowman
• Pop up Snowman card -DIY honeycomb snowman
• Snowman pop up card

Side Step Card Christmas

Side Step Card-Christmas Scene 

Side Step Card

Side step cards are ideal to create a scenic card. I wanted to make a quick Christmas card for my daughter's friend and so used stickers and lots of glitter to glamorize an otherwise simple card.
Well rather than glamorizing it with glitter I think I made a bit of a mess![Well my daughter forgave me!--as she is only 5years!!]
Really admire my blogger pals who can really jazz up a card with glitter.[If you want to see how glitter should really be used check out my blogger friend Tejals blog-- she is the Queen of Glitter!!]
I used locally available glitter paper to make the Paper folding Christmas tree.

Paperfolding Christmas tree

The tiny golden balls on the Christmas tree are "bindhis" [Indian women adorn their foreheads with these!]. The violet "Pie lane"flowers are a gift from blogger pal Snehal . I love making these Paper folded Christmas trees and even my 5 year old had a go at making them!

Here is the link to the Paper folding Christmas tree tutorial.

Here are links to some varieties of Side step cards

Side step Card with Pop up card Tutorial

Side step Card with Interactive Slider Tutorial

Wishing all my blogger pals a Merry Christmas.

Homemade Santa Toy and Santa Box Instructions

Santa Box Toy

Homemade Santa Box Toy

This Santa Box Toy is a homemade invention ! Its a wobbly rolly-polly  box cum toy as there is a ball under the conical Santa which holds sweets or little trinkets and since the base is a ball give Santa a shove and he wobbles away to glory!
Our Santa toy is super easy to make and would make a fun gift for children [and maybe an adult-my mother who has very elegant tastes surprisingly found this cute!][
Things you need to make the Santa Toy cum Box

• Ball or Plastic Hollow Ball Container [ I used a gems ball]-You can use an unopened one or Use an empty one and add some sweets inside to give weight.
• Card stock
• Embellishments- whatever you fancy.We used cotton,glitter,rhinestones , googly eyes and a white pom pom.

Make Santa's Body:Cut a semicircle from red card stock and staple it in a cone shape. Our Santa is big fatty according to my daughter-- you can make yours thinner and more shapely perhaps!
Make Santa's belt:Stick a strip of brown or black card stock across the middle for his belt. We added yellow moonstone paper for a golden buckle.
Make Santa's face:Cut Santa's face from pink paper and draw his face or use googly eyes like we did. My daughter chose a red nose like Rudolf the reindeer for our Santa Box Toy!

Homemade Santa Box Toy

We glued on cotton for the beard and hair . And added a white pompom at the top of the cone for Santa's hat.
The shiny white flowers are from a local fancy store...actually meant to used on cloth-- but end up on my cards and paper projects as I dont stitch much!
Your Santa is ready.
You can use Santa as such for kiddies to play or make a more fun toy by sticking a ball under him.
Apply white glue to your ball and stick it under the Santa.

Homemade Santa Box Toy

You can fill your ball container with sweets or small toys as a gift.The photo shows how the ball is fitted below the homemade Santa toy.

Homemade Santa Box Toy

Your Santa toy will roll and wobble around!
Santa Box
We also stuck Santa on a more conventional square shaped box-- this time my daughter wanted a "thinner Santa".
I made a 6x6 inch box and decorated it with locally bought flowers [We have no shortage of these inexpensive flowers in our Indian shops and they are not meant for papercrafting but for use on dresses--I guess there may be an awful number of seamstresses in every nook and corner of "fashionable" India!].The tiny green leaves are drawn using glitter glue.

Homemade Santa Box Toy

This Santa has a Pink nose-- do little girls get enough of pink?!!The rather unusual looking beard is from an unusual material- it is a raveled pajama trouser thread ![Ha Ha I save the most crazy stuff!].His rather crooked looking mouth is courtesy my unsteady hand with glitter glue!

Homemade Santa Box Toy

You can also thread through your Santa and use him as a Christmas tree ornament!
This is a fun an easy craft to do with kids-- if you are working with young ones like my five year old pre-cut the pieces ,give them whatever embellishments you can spare and let their imaginations flow!

If you are on Pinterest you can "Pin" this tutorial by clicking this button : Pin It

Do tell me how you liked our simple Santa  Box  Toy .

Quilled and Punchcraft DIY Photoframe

Homemade photo frame

Sharing a homemade photo frame made from recycled cardboard. In keeping with the season I decorated the photoframe in the typical Christmas colors of red and green with a background of white.

Punchcraft Flowers

The large rose was made from a 5 petal punch using this tutorial.Punchcraft Flower Tutorial

Punchcraft Flowers

The smaller roses are also punchcraft flowers made using a 6 petal flower punch.
Tip- to add additional dimension I angled the flowers and leaves while sticking them to the corrugated card base.You can use normal white glue but it takes ages to dry and using a glue gun here makes it easy and fast.

Punchcraft Flowers

I quilled various kinds of leaves for my punchcraft roses.The quilling in this project is entirely hand looped!Somehow I seem to enjoy hand looping rather than using quilling tools!

Quilled Leaves

Photoframes such as these are easy to make ,make lovely gifts and are ideal to recycle those cardboard pieces we all have at home.Here is the link to how to make this easy DIY photoframe : Homemade Photoframe Instructions

Christmas Gifts Pop Up Card Instructions

Christmas Pop up Card

This is a Christmas Pop up card is a Z fold card with Christmas presents as the pop up element.As part of my Guest DT project for For Fun challenges theme "Christmas Sparkle" I made this traditional glittery Christmas Pop Up Card .

Christmas Pop Up card

I cut out the Santa by hand and Paper pieced him [He was part of last year's unfinished Christmas projects!!]Added glitter and thermocol balls for the nose and cap.The green flowers [from Pie Lane] are a gift from blogger pal Snehal.

Santa Claus Pop Up Card

My Z fold card looked somewhat empty on the inside[ I always feel that!] so I added pop up Christmas presents to the pop up card.

Gift Box Pop Up card Tutorial

I had fun with thermocol balls.Here I used glitter glue and a red thermocol ball to beautify the Gift box puffy sticker.

Gift Box Pop Up Card

I incorporated a bit of nature into this pop up card.These gorgeous red berries are called "manjadi kuru" in my language-- they fall to the ground from trees and my daughter loves to collect them.These seeds are in fact even edible!I hand-cut the holly leaves and added green glitter.The Candy Cane is a sticker bought locally.

Nature Crafts Card

I made a glittery butterfly mini card .This hand cut butterfly was traced around my daughter's pencil sharpener[ you can find craft inspiration anywhere!]

Butterfly Card

How to make a Gift Box Pop up card

The Gift box is an easy pop up card mechanism which you can use as a birthday card ,Christmas card etc.You can change the boxes into cakes,flower pots -- lots of ideas!

You need 3-4 strips of thin card of decreasing lengths.

My card strips  are 1.5 inch wide and lengths are  3,3.5 and 4 inches.

Gift Box Pop Up card Tutorial

Score each card strip 0.5 inches from either end and in the middle. Mountain fold at each score line.

Apply glue to the tabs at the end of the longest card strip[ the 0.5 inch segments]

Fold up the tabbed ends behind the card strip .

Place the folded card strip flat and stick to your card base aligning the center folds of both your card base and card strip.Fold and open to see your positioning is spot on.

Christmas Pop Up card Instructions

Stick the next smaller strip within the first card strip in the same fashion.[You can stick it above also- I liked sticking it within the longer strip.]

Tips :Dont apply too much glue and once you have confirmed your positioning is correct and your Pop up mechanism works give enough time for the glue to stick.

Gift Box Pop Up Card

I love making fun cheerful pop up cards maybe because my biggest critic and admirer is my 5 year old daughter and most of the cards we make are for her friends or teachers!

Here are links to 30 Card Making Tutorials

Glass Painting Peacock

Glass Painting Peacock 

This glass painting has a special place in my heart and in our house .Years back, as a newly married couple we lived in a rented house with a huge showcase in the front room.We couldn't afford to spend on "home decor" and I embarked on the very economic craft of glass painting to spruce up my house!

Glass Painting Peacock Design

The peacocks were inspired by a glass painting on the net-- I cant seem to find the creator to credit them.

Glass Painting Peacock Pattern

The glass painting flowers are quite bright and colorful....perhaps reflecting my state of mind at the time[Ha  Ha]

Glass Painting Peacock 

Black glass out-liner is freely available but for this glass painting I used different colored out-liners such as green,gold and silver.

Glass Painting Peacock Design

Here is the closeup of the glass painted peacocks.

Glass Painting Peacock 

Glass painting is a very economic and fairly "quick result" hobby. For anyone who has not tried it I urge you to try as its so soothing on the soul! And yeah you can make pretty sober paintings too unlike my "all the colors I have" type of glass painting!