Angel Magnet

I made this angel in a similar way that I did the little pin in the previous post. One difference is I used 2 circles of cloth, instead of one, the same size, about 3 1/2 inches.
I folded them both in half, but on one of them I brought both of the top ends together and pointed them down, like a shawl would fold over your arms. I used a wooden button for the head, a little curl of craft hair, tiny wooden heart for decoration, one popsicle stick cut in half for the legs, a bit of paint or magic markers, tiny beads for the top of her head, a flat button, a little larger than the head, glued to the back of her head to look like a halo, then a magnet glued to the back of the button.

Front view - photos ©2008jpCraftyThisandThat

Back View -Showing how the legs are cut and placed. You can glue them between the layers of cloth or on the back as you see these.

another one-you can see the way the cloth is folded in this one.

Country Angel Pin

I call these country angels. They are quick and easy to make.

It only takes a 3 1/2 inch circle of cotton cloth, strands of cotton yarn, a short piece of ribbon, wire for the halo, a pin for the back and a good glue such as E-6000.

First I formed my wire into a small circle about an inch in diameter. I folded the 3 1/2 inch circle of cloth in half to form the wings. I then added a little dot of glue in the middle of the half circle to hold the 2 sides together. For the head and body, I cut as many strands of cotton yarn that is needed to make it look nice. It really depends on what thickess of yarn I am using and how full I want it to look. I cut about 18 strands to about 6 inches long for this one. After they were cut and gathered together nicely so the ends are about even, I carefully thread one end of the strands of yarn through a wire circle, and fold the yarn over the part of the wire where the wire is fastened together, checking to make sure it is folded in the middle and both ends of the yarn are brought together so that all the ends are about the same length. If some are a little off, they can be trimmed or left as they are. Next, I carefully tied the ribbon around the neck to form the head and body. The body was glued to the cloth circle that was folded in half and a pin glued to the back. Let the glue dry thoroughly.
Easy!
Pin Front photos ©2008jpCraftyThisandThat


Pin Back


This photo shows the pin size. Each square on the green mat is a 1 inch square so the pin is about 3 1/2 inches wide x about 3 inches high.

Pac-Man Cookies!

These are the cutest sugar cookies!
I ran across the Snack or Die website while stumbling through the internet this morning and these cookies absolutely caught my eye. These would be so nice to make for the gamers in your family or for any pacman fan.
Jocelyn Anderson also has other gaming cookies there including the cheddar Pac-Man crackers.
With her permission, I'm posting this picture and a link to the website. I know you will want to go visit her and see these and her other yummy looking snacks!

Click here Snack or Die photo©Jocelyn Anderson

More Altered Tobacco Tins

I think this is an easy and quick way to turn an ordinary tin into something pretty instead of it ending up in the garbage and then in landfields.

The first tobacco tin that I altered and, and also the original tin before I altered it be seen on a previous post at the following link.
http://craftythisandthat.blogspot.com/search/label/Altered%20Tobacco%20Tin
The directions are also on that page.







I lined the inside bottom and lid with stick on black felt



This is a view of the inside lid - a close up of the felt lining .

Post It Note Holders

This is another of the little purse post it note holders I made. I'm also showing the template that I designed for it. If you would like to use the template for your personal use, feel free to save a copy to your computer.
The closure uses a stick on velcro spot. This is very simple and easy to make.
graphics Tina Wenke©pcCrafter







To save the template as a full size printable, click on the template, then right click on the full size and save to your computer.

Candy Corn Pins and Magnets

My favorite season of the year is Spring. All living plants take on a new life and the outdoors seems so fresh. The fall season is my second favorite season. The colors are so beautiful and it will be here soon.

Fall makes me want candy corn and I love candy corn. Of course, I'm leading up to these little pins and magnets I made that resemble candy corn.

To make these, I used the hard plastic place mats for the backing and three colors of felt, orange, yellow, and white. The felt with the sticky back can also be used or use a sticky glue like E-6000 for the regular felt and also for sticking on the pin or magnet to the back and for the eyes and nose.

You will need a small tac type pin or a small magnet to glue to the back of the plastic place mat backing. I used googly eyes and a small bead for the nose.

Instead of glueing my 3 pieces of felt directly to the place mat backing, I sewed my pieces to a solid white felt backing. I used pins to hold the pieces to the felt backing while sewing the face design on. I trimmed the edges, then glued the completed face to the place mat back.

It would be easier to use the sticky back felt and stick the 3 pieces directly to the plastic back. Then use a black fine line felt marker and draw the face. It depends on which way you want to make it. Sometimes easiest is the best.

My pins and magnets are about 2 inches high x 1 and 1/2 inch wide.
I found a similar idea for the faces that were hand drawn on foam. I put my own ideas to it and this is what I came up with.







If you would like to use the patten below, right click on it and save a copy to your computer.

Primitive and Americana Crafts

Do you like whimsical type crafts, as I do? I've found a website loaded with free patterns! I've added it to my list of websites I like to visit and I will be going back to explore it further. This website is loaded with patterns and instructions for making these cute, cute crafts. If you do woodworking, tole painting or stitchery, then you will want to check these out. It makes me wish I could do the woodworking and painting. I can only do the stitchery. I think some of these patterns for woodworking could be adapted to paper crafting for those of us that are not so handy, dandy with a saw and paint.

If you will click on the little snow people you will be directed to the website, freecraftz.com, and you will also find directions to make this cute little couple.

Slide Out Pencil Box

Schools in most areas will be starting soon. It seems like they just got out for summer break. The stores already have school supplies and WalMart has this cute slide out pencil box for about 50 cents. I bought some of these boxes a couple of years ago when they had their after school sale and I only paid 10 cents each for them. You can use these to store a lot of little gadgets and craft items plus they make good little gift holders for small items such as candies and toys, etc.

This is one way I altered some of the boxes to give them a prettier look.
I designed a cover. Added graphics, printed it, cut it out, and covered the box...wa-la, a pretty box! You could also add pretty button, beads, ribbons or whatever you like to alter the look.

They come in assortment of different colors. I just bought another one in red and thought that would be good for something for Christmas. In the meantime, I have photos of the ones I did a couple of years ago.

I'm offering my template to you free for your personal use and I hope you find it useful. Have fun making some pretty boxes!

The template is a transparent PNG. Directions are included.
You can download it here from my 4 shared account.

*note - I just realized that the newer box I bought has a shorter closure on it, thus the snap is in a different position. This is the only difference so I have re-uploaded the 4 shared files and included a template for both boxes. The snap position is the only difference, and I apologize if this has inconvenienced anyone who previously downloaded.

Click on photo to enlarge it.

graphics from pcCrafter.

Little Bit

Little Bit is the name of my little pet parakeet. I won't go into the story of how I came about to have Little Bit or how she was named but I snapped this photo of her one day when she flew away from me and landed on this wall display with the little not so real birdie in the nest. It is just another of my crafty creations I put together years ago and I'm still hanging onto it....or should I say, Little Bit is hanging onto it?

photo©JP2008

Christmas In July

Make a Christmas gift bag from a plain brown bag. You can decorate the bag anyway you want. Glue on, paint on, or tie on what ever you have on hand to give your bag a Christmas look. This is a quick and easy idea to use if you need to give a gift and don't have wrapping paper or purchased gift bags on hand.
Don't stop at Christmas gifts, you can also use this idea for other gift occasions.
You can buy a package of fifty of these little brown bags in the supermarket food wrap section for less than two dollars or at one of the Dollar Stores for one dollar. You can also re-use some of those little white "pharmacy" bags. Recycling paper is always good. Regardless of the occasion, you can make a bag for that little gift. Bear graphics are from pcCrafters
©JP2008