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Here is a simple and inexpensive homemade gift to add to a birthday or Christmas card. These bookmarks are small, flat and lightweight, making them perfect for posting with cards. As our school year is almost finished we will be making them for our teacher appreciation gifts.
To make a Beaded Bookmark you will need an assortment of decorative beads, ribbon, needle nosed pliers and wire. The wire needs to be thin enough to fit through the holes but thick enough to hold it’s shape. I used 0.7mm (0.26″). The thin end of the bookmark is designed to slip inside the spine of the book. For this section I used small, tubular beads. If you cannot find tubular beads, try using small round beads. This will produce a slightly bulkier bookmark. Click here for full instructions (Pdf)
Or words to that effect...
More of my gift ideas:
Decorated Jar
Decorated Jar
Decorated Jar
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Paper plates are a staple in any craft kit. The plain cardboard generic brands work best as they are thin and have no plastic coating on them. Hopeless for putting food on but brilliant for drawing, gluing, cutting, stapling and painting. Decorating is purely optional. If you are making this for a boy and wish to ‘man it up’ a little, tie it around their waist for a bum bag. (US readers, I think you call them ‘Fanny Bags’, but we don’t here in Australia – I’ll spare you the explanation. Google it if you’re curious)
Paper Plate Handbags are easy to make, all you need is 2 plates, a stapler and some ribbon or string. Decorating is entirely up to you. The plates pictured below have a coat of acrylic applied first. For a quick and easy project, leave the plates plain then children can decorate the finished bags with stickers, markers, crayons etc.
Click here for full instructions (Simple Bag)
Click here for full instructions (Pdf)
*Much cheaper than the real thing, AND you can barely tell the difference! Although, like the genuine article, try not to get it wet….
More of my paper plate crafts:
Easter Suncatcher
Paper Plate Basket
3D Opera House
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Watermelon slices are easy to cut with cookie cutters. Even fruits such as rockmelon, honeydew or pineapple will work if your cutters are small enough. These are simple to make, but can look quite impressive arranged on a platter. To make:
1. Cut the green end from the strawberries so they sit flat.
2. Dip the other end into the chocolate (I have used White Chocolate Melts, but the colour is up to you)
3. Cut the watermelon slices with the star cutter.
4. Attach the star to the strawberry with a toothpick.
More of my edible crafts:
Flower Pot Cakes
Peacock Cake
Party Spoons
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I spend more time in $2/discount shops than I care to admit to. China may be belching out pollution at an astonishing rate, but by golly haven’t they given us a wonderful avalanche of cheap crap to rummage through? Some say these stores are (*gasp!*) full of junk. Not I, oh no, I’d much prefer wandering the aisles of ‘Dynamic Discounts’ than any Cartier or YSL. There’s a $2 dollar shop down the road from me, I’ve been there so many times the couple that own it treat me like their daughter.
This post is dedicated to all the things I’ve made from discount shop discoveries. Like the Sea Glass Lamp above. Technically the little lamp came from Ikea but it was very cheap so I think it counts. The glass stones were $2 a bag. It took 3 bags to cover the lamp. Below are some more of my crafts that began their life on the discount floor.
Paper Plate Baskets
Painted Foam Eggs
Play Kitchen
Wacky Wigs
Sequined Mirror
Mini Party Cups
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I found some rather uninspiring melamine bookshelves at Red Dot. (I think I keep that place in business!) The shelves may have been dreary but their low price was truly exhilarating. With the ‘help’ of my children, we transformed them from this:
To this:
To make the sink, I traced the outline of a plastic container onto the top of the shelf and cut it out with a jigsaw, then slipped the container into the space. The container had a lip to stop it from falling through.
To make the taps and faucet, I found some garden reticulation parts that vaguely resembled the bits I needed. I screwed the ‘taps’ in and attached the plastic white button thingos that conceal screws – not sure of the name, but I found them at the hardware.
The hotplates are simply 4 circles of black plastic with red craft foam circles in the centre. The knobs are milk bottle tops. Like the taps, I attached them with screws and stuck on white buttons to conceal the screw.
The doors are 3mm MDF. I chose this to keep the costs down, but if I had my time over I’d probably spend more to get the thicker board. The 3mm warped a little when we painted it. It was also difficult to attach the hinges to such a thin board. Rather than complicated latches, I used sticky-back velcro to keep the doors shut.
The 3 tier bookshelf became the fridge/freezer.
I found some carboard boxes that fit perfectly into the bottom shelves for storage. We painted the front of the box to match the doors.
I have 2 mini muffin trays. Goodness knows why. The chances of me baking even one mini muffin = zero. So I donated one to the play oven. I screwed 2 pieces of pine to the interior sides of the oven so the tray sits in the middle as a sliding shelf.
I made the kitchen to fit perfectly along one wall of our cubby house. The kids enjoy it immensly, hence it is already covered in sand, leaves and sticks – as it should be. It really wasn’t terribly difficult to make – and I’m certainly no woodworking expert. Altogether the whole kitchen cost me about $70 (including the shelves)
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