Home-made Christmas cards

This year I decided to make my own Christmas cards to send to my grandparents.

I didn't want to make them at the last minute so I started planning it already in the beginning of December.

So here is what I had to do:

1. Buy a printer (and realize there are hundreds of different ones so spend 10 days deciding which one do I want - this one for 134€)

2. Put up a Christmas tree and decorate it (buy the tree for 30€ and a lot of beautiful ornaments that are cheap individually but together cost over 100€...) 

3. Think of a strange idea of how to add pictures of ourselves to the tree

4. Take the actual photos in 30 minutes and then spend 3 days editing it all together in Photoshop

5. Buy some fancy silver paper for  0.2 €/piece

6. Realize Christmas is over and I still didn't make the cards in time

7. Make the New Year's cards and envelopes (after wasting a lot of paper and ink because I am stupid and printed everything backwards)

So yeah... I think I'll just buy the cards from the store next year.

Crocheted tin cans and a pretty stuff-holder-thingy

My mother recently discovered Pinterest and after hours of looking at beautiful interiors (mostly from this user: http://www.pinterest.com/enchantingrose7/) we got so inspired we couldn't sit still and wanted to make something beautiful ourselves...

There were many crocheted things so I decided I needed to quickly crochet something and remembered my large collection of tin cans (which waited for a "brilliant" idea like that). Since I wanted to quickly see results it had to be a thick yarn (didn't have one, cut thin strips of old bed sheets instead) and a large crochet hook. Now this was still a pretty good idea, until I went to look for the crochet hook...

As you can see there is a slight problem - one of the hooks is massive and the other one tiny and I needed something right in between... So instead of making something quickly I ended up working on my crochet cans for hours... 

I tried one with each hook, they didn't turn out very pretty but at least they don't have that sharp edge inside so now I can use them without cutting my hands :) Maybe one day I will even buy a normal sized crochet hook and make some good looking cans too.

And here's my mother's "Pinterest-inspired-pretty-stuff-holder-thingy" which she made by sewing together pieces of a shirt with a beautiful pattern (bought from a thrift store for 3 euros) and some laces (also cut out of shirts and skirts)

It does look beautiful and is practical with lots of little pockets :) 

Miniature ornaments

Since I didn't have any ornaments that would be small and light enough to decorate my miniature Christmas tree I decided to try and make some myself.

Here I'll teach you how you can make some too.

So first thought you will have when thinking about Christmas ornaments is ball ornaments. Since you don't have any balloons at home and are too lazy to go and buy them, you find the next best thing - cut a finger off a glove, blow a little air in it and (since you also don't have any rubber bands) tie a knot.

Now that you have a weird little inflated finger ball you put paper glue (and as a bonus your fingers also end up covered in glue) on some yarn or thread you have and spin it around the kind-of-a-ball.

Being that you don't have time to just wait around (actually you do, you're just impatient) for the glue to dry, you use a blowdryer to help you.

The last thing to do is to pop the glove-ball and to carefully separate it from your almost (because apparently you are even too impatient to wait for it to dry with a blowdryer) dried yarn.

Ta-daa! Here's your tiny ball ornament! (oh yeah and you also should make some kind of a handle)

And now when you start making another ball ornament you discover that it's really difficult o tie a knot on the glove-finger and after many attempts and cut off fingers you decide to try and make some flat ornaments instead.

After thinking hard about it you realize you should take styrofoam and poke some pins in it so you can trace different figures. But of course as it turns out you don't have any styrofoam so you just get some cardboard instead. Also you find out that pins are too thin for cardboard and you replace them with toothpicks.

Before you start you remember how sticky your fingers were from putting the glue on the yarn so you try a clever trick you learned - put the yarn through the bottom of your glue bottle before you use it.

And only then you remember that cardboard is also paper so you should probably put something underneath your ornaments (luckily you find some tape after 15 minutes of going through all the drawers in your house).

Aaand you're done! (well after you have removed the toothpicks and the ornaments have dried and you have made some kind of handles for them)

Good job! They almost look good!

Thread christmas tree

So a couple days ago I stumbled upon this picture with the caption "easy DIY Chistmas tree"

I didn't save the picture but it definitely got stuck in my brain and so yesterday I decided I have to do this easy craft.
Since the title said it was easy, I didn't even bother searching for further instructions and just started making it.

What I had:
● urge to make an easy Christmas decoration
● silver thread (which is probably the same age as me - we've always had it in our home but it's so thin and fragile we haven't really been able to use it)
● a magazine which I made into a cone (and even covered in oil! I thought I was really clever to do that so the glue wouldn't stick thread to magazine)

IT TOOK ME 4!! hours to make this "super easy to make" tree! And it was NOT super easy!! Not even just easy! It was awful!!

First of all, the thread slipped multiple times causing all the thread to tangle and me having to start again. 

Next problem - okay, the cone is covered in thread. What now? How do I cover it with glue? No idea! So I just put tiny glue drops everywhere.

Then I tried to remove the paper cone.

Well... This was just awful. The oil didn't help at all and removing the cone turned out to be extremely stressful - I think only this step took me about an hour!! And when I finally managed to detach the cone, I was left with a soft thread-tree which had to be held gently like a baby. I tried adding some more glue, but it was really difficult since it was practically falling apart. 

So I put it on a bottle, diluted glue with a bit of water and sprayed to cover it all

And after many times of gluing and drying it was finally ready!

So, what I learned... 

● do not believe it when the Internet tells you it's "super easy" (they probably didn't even try making it themselves!!!)

● do some research and find the original tutorial

● read it and find out that you were supposed to make a hole in the glue bottle and put the thread through so all the thread would be covered in glue

● also read that you were supposed to cover the cone in food wrap

Paper snowflakes with glitter

I really like to eat and I will find any excuse to do that. So since winter is coming and we like to decorate our home a little, we decided to make paper snowflakes out of chocolate wrapper (because its more firm than regular paper but mainly because then I can eat a lot of chocolate).

What I had:
● chocolate wrapper
● mother who knows how to make snowflakes out of paper because I have no idea
● glitter and glue
● great mood from eating as much chocolate as I could and consequently a lot of patience

What we made:
● mother made these                cut them like this
        
● unfolded it and voila, a beautiful snowflake!

● then I covered them (and my hands and eyes and hair and the whole house) in glitter... 

Unfortunately I have not yet found a way to cover the glitter so it wouldn't fall off them.. But whatever, maybe I WANTED the whole house to sparkle!