Paper Roll Snowflakes

Paper Roll Snowflakes By S. Washington

I think we are all aware of the toilet paper hoarding that went on early in the pandemic. Well, as we enter a third wave of COVID-19 cases spiking and more stay-at-home orders being issues around the country it’s fair to assume more hoarding will go on. And if you have tons of paper towels and toilet paper why not use the rolls to make some pretty wintertime decoration. You can use these for a Christmas tree or just as seasonal decor. You can also make these as fancy or casual as you like. There are lots of designs online so you don’t have to do the exact one that I made, be creative, and have fun.

Step One: Gather Materials

For this craft, you have lots of options. I’m using paper towel rolls but you can also use toilet paper rolls you will just need more of them. I made the star you’ll see at the end from just one roll, but the amount of rolls will depend on your design. To create your design you can use craft glue, a glue stick, staples, or a glue gun. Just use whatever works for you. I used a glue stick. You’ll also need scissors and a ruler. You’ll also need paint, glitter, and anything else you want to use to decorate your snowflakes.

Step 2: Measure your roll(s) & cut

Make marks every half-inch along the roll then cut on the marks. You can eyeball it if you feel confident or if the pieces being different sizes doesn’t bother you.

Step Three: Decide on your design

It’s always a good idea to plan out how you want your snowflake or other design to look before you start glueing.

Step Four: Glue, Paint, and Decorate

Since I used a glue stick I used paper clips to hold the pieces in place while the glue dried. This only took maybe a minute or two. This step will not be necessary with the hot glue; it’ll hold after a few seconds. If you’re using craft glue you will probably need to wait longer than with the glue stick. You could also use staples if you don’t mind seeing them on your snowflake. Using staples will eliminate the wait time and the need for hot glue which can be messy.

Once all the pieces are glued in place you can then paint it. You can use acrylic paint or spray paint for fuller coverage. I liked the look of a light brushing of white paint, it gave it a weathered look. I use some scrap paper to protect my surface from excess paint. Then you can brush on craft glue or use a spray adhesive to stick on some glitter. You could also use strips of glitter scrapbook paper instead of these paper rolls and just make the same shapes. 

Step Five: Hang up your decorations

Congrats, you have turned some trash into holiday/winter decor treasure! I used some floral wire to attach mine to this small tree but you could use ribbon and hang them in windows or from the ceiling; you can display them any way that makes you happy. These snowflakes are a nice alternative to cutting out paper snowflakes and if you use metallic paint they can look very high-end. Enjoy creating your winter wonderland.

Advent Calendar

It’s officially December so folks can pull out their advent calendars to start counting down the days!  

Advent calendars have gained mainstream popularity, but the chocolate ones are my favorite of course, second to the beauty advent calendars!

(See: https://www.oprahmag.com/beauty/skin-makeup/g23880518/beauty-advent-calendars/)  

Here is a simple paper advent calendar made with scraps found in my “Christmas décor box”.  There are a lot of other uses for all the extra cardboard from packages I’ve received year round, so consider this mantra for other fun cardboard projects:  reduce, reuse, recycle!  

Products Used:

Scrapbook paper 12”x12” sheet in festive print

Smaller scrapbook paper 6”x6” in festive print

Cardboard (used the top flap of a box)

Scrap of fabric

Christmas tree ornament hooks

Twisty ties 

Tinsel décor

Sharpie

Wrap the cardboard with the scrapbook paper.  

This gives you practice for the presents you’ll be wrapping this holiday season!  

Using scissors, cut the ornament hooks in half to get you to the 24^th.  

I didn’t know the advent calendars are to take you through the 24^th, not the 25^th, (oops!) so make a note of that as you do your advent calendar. 

Write out, in nice handwriting, numbers which will then be taped to the cardboard.  Again, please note that the traditional advent calendar goes to the 24th. 

 

Make a small wreath that will fit over the numbers you’ve made to frame it in a nice outlay circling each date as the month goes on.  The twisty ties coupled with the tinsel helped to keep the circle intact and the festive fabric was added later for a more festive look.  

Make your advent calendar as festive and decorative as you’d like.  I used a bow from gift wrapping along with a scrapbook paper piece to frame a top border.  Tape the numbers in a straight line being mindful of spaces between the squares and to how many rows you will need for the size of your board.

Stick the ornament hooks just above the numbers and place the wreath for December 1^st (or whenever you are finished

     Happy Holidays!

Wood Journal-Making

Wood Journal

 

 

I saw some really great book binding DIY crafts so I wanted to try it!  You can consider expanding this to a kid-friendly activity by making the pages have coloring pages or fun games that are available as printables on many websites.  Additionally, you can consider leveling this up a notch for adults with mandala coloring pages, motivational quote pages, or even calendar printables.

 

Products Used:

Button

Needle & Thread

Sticker cut-outs

Ruler

16 pages of printer paper

Something to poke a small hole (Cricut tool)

Wood felt 12”x12” square

Not pictured:  Rubber band, scissors, pen

 

 

First, fold the wood felt so there’s a little lip for the book cover and cut in half.  This will give you two journal covers to make instead of one.  For this project I only worked on the first one and the approximate time it took was about an hour and a half. 

 

 

After you have the two journal covers, we’ll begin working on the inserts.  First, fold the paper longways and then measure how big you want to pages to be and make two marks with the pen on where your binding holes will be. 

 

Then, use the single folded page as an example.  I started with 4 pages at a time to fold and cut, which cut (J) the time in half, but doesn’t give you a super straight line so I would recommend bringing it down to 3 pages at a time to fold and cut accordingly.

 

Then, line up where you anticipate will be your middle inserts and then make a mark with the pen on the inside of the fold on the wood felt.

 

 You will now be able to make your four binding marks on the inside top and bottom. 

 

 

 

Use a tool to poke the holes in the felt.  I used a Cricut tool which allowed for a small hole, this will be very important for you to consider.  If you have a sewing machine, the size of the needle on the machine will be ideal.

 

Then, you’ll want to push the needle and thread through the cut holes and secure them very tightly using a knot-tie.   

If you have been able to keep your pages tight and straight lines, this is how the book binding will look like:

Secure the button using the same needle and thread, and then match up where you will have to poke a hole where the rubber band will go through.  Make sure you

make a knot on the inside of the cover as well as the front to give it a nice look.

Add any embellishments, such as stickers to friends or printables for the kids or other ideas.

 

And presto, here is the final product!!! 

 

 

 

 

Autumn Leaves Candle Holders

I want to start by saying I’m not a fan of crafts that waste food. I get irate, especially when I see crafts that involve wasting rice, like using rice in stress balls. In the past, rice was used to pay taxes, so to waste it is literally like wasting money and not to mention all the starving people in the world including here in the USA. That being said, I do use flour in this craft which is wasting food since you can use flour to make bread and other baked goods. But, here’s the thing, when the Covid-19 restrictions were in full swing a lot of things were out of stock in the grocery stores and online including flour. 

I usually use unbleached all-purpose flour for my baking, and my favorite brand is King Arthur Flour (not sponsored, fyi) it is a wonderfully soft and silky and beautiful flour that makes extraordinary food when you bake with it. And, it was impossible to find for weeks, so I ended up with my least favorite flour as my only option, that being bleached all-purpose flour. I hate this type of flour but it was all I could find. It’s hard to explain how bad it is, the texture, it’s clumpy and dry and the way it bakes; everything about it is awful (just my opinion). The process of making it is awful as well, you strip away everything good about the flour then bleach it to make it white then “enrich” it by adding vitamins back into it. And just the idea that flour needs to be “bleached” is offensive to me.  But I ended up with tons of it leftover when my good flour came back into stock so rather than waste the bleached flour I used it to make ornaments for Easter and I thought it would be fun to make more ornaments and candle holders with a Fall/Autumn theme.

Step 1: Gather Ingredients and Materials and Making the Dough

For this craft I used Salt Dough. There are lots of recipes for it online. It's two parts flour, one part salt, about one part water, and a little oil to bring it together. Some recipes don’t use oil but I think a tablespoon or two helps make the dough easy to shape. I like thinking of this recipe in “parts” rather than cups because you can adjust it if you want to make a lot or a little. But if you need help then you can do it this way: 2 cups flour, 1 cup salt, 1-ish cups water, one or two tablespoons of vegetable oil.

The reason why the oil and water are not exact is because it will depend on the type of flour you use, so start with one tablespoon of oil and maybe ¾ cup of water and see if your dough is coming together, and if it’s not smooth at more water and oil until it looks a little like clay or playdough. (I want to credit Sherri Osborne for the recipe I used)

Step 2: Rolling and Cutting Shapes

If you have Fall/Autumn themed cookie cutters then the next part is easy, just roll out the dough to about ¾ of an inch and cut it out. I don’t have those kinds of cookie cutters so I made a template with some cardboard and used that to cut it out with a butter knife. 

Then you can add whatever lines or details you want on your shapes. I did some veins on these leaves with the back of a butter knife. You could also use real leaves to make an indent on the dough.

For the candle holders I tried a few different styles. One I put into a ramekin to create a cradled shape, one I took small dough leaves and folded them over a ramekin to create a cup shape, one I put over a ball of foil to make an indent for the candle. For the one I did with the foil, you should make sure the bottom is flat by putting another ramekin on top or something flat and oven safe because I did not do that and my candle holder didn’t have a flat surface on the bottom when I flipped it over. I also made a few pumpkins and other leaves just for fun.

Step 3: Bake the dough

The next step once you have all your shapes is to bake them. You can also let them air dry but it will take several days if not weeks and I find that baking them makes them a bit more sturdy than air drying. I baked mine at 250F for an hour and then removed the one in the ramekin so it could bake fully. It took another hour for them to be a bit more dried out and then I lowered the temperature to 200 degrees and baked a while longer and left them in the oven with it off overnight. The baking time will depend on how thick your decorations are so you just have to keep checking. They should not ever brown like a baked good, if they start to brown your oven is too high and you should reduce the temperature. When they no longer look “raw” then let them cool. They should be hard and not pliable or soft to the touch.

Step 4: Decorating

Once they dry and are totally cool you can paint them. But you want to sand down any rough edges first. You can use sandpaper or a nail file.

Even though the flour is bleached if you want a white ornament I suggest painting it white, you can see below the difference in color when you paint it verus the color of the baked dough. I know for Farmhouse style white is really popular; that’s why I did a few white, but I need some color, I can’t do all white.

I use acrylic paint and sealed it with Mod Podge for shine and to protect the color. I suggest letting the paint dry for several hours to overnight before adding more coats. These salt dough ornaments can resist painting and if you try to paint more than one coat before it’s totally dry your second coat can make the first coat peel and the same is true with Mod Podge. Make sure your paint is totally dry before you put the Mod Podge coat on. You could probably also use a spray sealer but I haven’t tried that.

Once the Mod Podge is set you can display your decor. I recommend only using electric candles! I used a real one here just for demo, if I were going to use this for decorating I would get a large electric candle but I only have the tea light size which is too small for the holders. Also, I wouldn’t put anything too heavy in them because they are study but not unbreakable. You can use the smaller decorations as refrigerator magnets by adding a strong magnet to the back or you can add them to a Fall/Autumn wreath. 

I know this seems like a kids craft and it can be, but I think adults can enjoy it also. I really enjoyed painting the leaves and pumpkins. I think these would make nice gifts for someone or you could make several of the same style like the white ones I made and use them as a centerpiece for your table. Once they’re painted and sealed they look a lot like some of the clay items you might see at a store but at a fraction of the cost. You could easily get everything you need for this for under $5. And if you wanted to you could use gold or metallic paint to give it a high end look.