Flavored Toothpicks Tutorial

Crafts, crafts everywhere and not a girl to craft for. Beautifully handmade things are sadly unappreciated by boys, but here's a craft I found that even my husband drools over. Homemade

flavored toothpicks are yummy and easy to make.

You need:

A small jar

A flavor oil (bought in the candy making section of craft stores or baking section of health food stores. Rootbeer was my favorite, but I'd love to find some bacon flavor oil for a real man-treat)

Box of toothpicks

Directions:

Pour a small amount of your chosen flavor oil into the bottom of your jar. I poured til I had about an 1/8th inch layer

Stand your toothpicks up in the jar. If you’re making a very small batch of toothpicks, you’ll want to use a small jar like a spice jar so that none of your toothpicks are laying flat in the jar.

Cover and let toothpicks soak. The amount of time you leave them depends on your preference of strength. I left them overnight.

Bake at 200f for 5-10 min spread out on an aluminum sheet

Repeat for as many flavors as your heart desires

DIY Woven Embroidery Thread and Chain Bracelet

 

I was so excited about this bracelet I saw on pinterest. The tutorial from Honestly...WTF is very easy to follow and turns out amazing results. Note for next time- Find a better starting bracelet. The starting bracelet in the tutorial is chunky and beautiful on it's own. You will not be able to find a good starting bracelet at the craft store. This is one pin I'll be trying again soon.

Honestly... WTF

DIY Scrapbook Paper Origami Box

 

Unlike my previous origami gift box, this tutorial from Activity Village only uses 2 pieces of paper. I made many of these last Christmas to hold small handmade gifts. I loved using different scrapbook paper from the same paper pack. This way the box and lid coordinated without being too matchy matchy. In general I much prefer handmade bows (like these here) to curling ribbon, but honestly it doesn't feel like Christmas til I've curled some ribbon.

 

Origami Book Page Gift Box

 

8 pieces of paper... 10 minutes of folding... 2 paper cuts... then.... JOY!

I followed this wonderful tutorial from Creature Comforts

 

DIY Birds Nest Necklace

 

Thank you Pinterest! I have a serious bipolar relationship with this crafty website. I love the inspiration and tutorials I find on Pinterest, but I have to wonder... how much more crafting could I get done with the hours I spend wandering from board to board. Today is a Pro-Pinterest day. Without such a time-sucking brilliant site, I would never have stumbled upon this necklace tutorial.

 

 

Bracelet made from leftover leather cord that I used for the necklace. It's just 2 pieces of cord twisted together. So simple. Such wonderful raw edges.

Boys I-Spy Quilt

Christmas present for my nephew. I used the same cheater binding that I did on my hand quilted baby quilt. In an attempt to make the quilt a little modern, I only used I-spy quilt patches on every other patch. My most time-consuming craft to date, but pretty self-explanatory.

 

Back view of the quilt. To monogram the quilt I cut out letters with my cricut on paper (I have yet to master cutting fabric with the cricut) traced the paper letters on the flannel, cut out the flannel letters, sewed with a zigzag stitch.  

Hand Quilted Baby Quilt

A friend is having a baby in a couple of weeks, so it's time to get crafting. Since this is baby #2 and the family already has most of everything they need, I wanted to create something more treasure-able
than strictly useful.

Everything prior to quilting my quilt, was done with the sewing machine. I would love to craft an entire quilt by hand... someday... in the far off future when I no longer need to eat, sleep, clean, or raise a child. I sit at my computer desk in awe of such beautiful things, but I have been blessed with a sewing machine. Thank you God for my sewing machine :)

1. I used this method from Smile and Wave to piece the quilt top together
2. I used safety pins to baste the quilt. That is, to hold my quilt top, batting layer, and quilt bottom in place.
3. Let the quilting begin! After seeing this on Pinterest I knew I had to try the adorably sweet look of hand quilting. The sign of a good quilter would be even, perfect looking stitches, but the thing I love most about hand-quilting is the imperfections. I followed my stitch-in-the-ditch lines, then went on diagonals across the quilt.
4. I used this method from Prudent Baby for binding.

 

When all was said and done, I slung the quilt over a chair to use as a backdrop for 6 month old baby pictures:

 

DIY nursing cover

"Don't make something unless it is both made necessary and useful;

but if it is both necessary and useful,

don't hesitate to make it beautiful." -- Shaker dictum

I don't know about you, but I adore handmade baby shower gifts. The things I cherished the most from my own baby shower were all handmade. They are the things that I love to use because they are beautiful, useful, and made with love. It was with that appreciation for the things made for me, that I made this nursing cover for a friends baby shower.

 

I followed this tutorial from Prudent Baby. I am head-over-boots about the boning which makes it easy to see baby while you're nursing. Believe you me, nursing with a cover is no picnic. Baby is squirming like crazy, trying to find the nipple, trying to pull off the cover, getting blasted in the face because your milk just let down. I don't have an extra hand to hold the cover in the right place to insure visibility without flashing the room. I currently have 2 covers. One with the life-saving boning... one without. I bet you can guess which one actually gets use.

 

The one change that I made to this nursing cover is that I lined it with flannel. Soft, but not as heavy as fleece or terry cloth. Something to give the cover a little more weight, and an absorbent opportunity to clean up milk spray.

DIY Monogrammed Baby Spoons

I've been away from the computer for far too long, so now it's time to post some of the projects I've been working on. I fell in love with these baby spoons on pinterest, and had to try it out for myself. The spoons were found at Babies"r"us... don't pay full price for them, every couple of months all of their food serving stuff is BOGO 1/2 off. I bought a set of metal stamps from Hobby Lobby (don't forget your 40% off coupon). Since I'm new to metal stamping, and didn't know how much I'd like it, I didn't invest in a block to stamp on or a special hammer. I simply went to town sitting on my garage floor with the hammer I had.
The stainless steal is pretty hard to get an impression. Sterling silver would be a much easier option for stamping, but I don't think I'll ever have some silver I'm willing to pound on. If I held the spoon down on a towel, it didn't bounce around between hits. This way I could hit the spoon multiple times to get a good impression. As you can see from the pics, multiple hits meant less-than-perfect letters. After stamping, I went over my letters with a sharpie for more contrast, then scrubbed the extra sharpie off with a sponge. Pretty simple. A lot of fun.