All you need is an orange (or grapefruit or lemon), a knife, and any type of oil like vegetable or olive oil.

Orange Candle.

I’ll be visiting family in week and I’m sure that will help, but I just saw a post for pipe cleaner candy canes and was reminded again that I haven’t done any christmas crafts or decorations- boo! Oh well, lots of years ahead to do that!

Anyway, here’s a cute craft!
http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Pipe-Cleaner-Candy-Canes

Here’s a craft from Martha Stewart to make a pie slice box out of paper using the scoring board that I have.

Read Random Thoughts of a SUPERMOM to see how to do it.  You might want to use glassine (paper) if you can find, as it more air and water resistant.

The heart is super cute! You could make other shapes too! Maybe a star, Christmas tree, eggs for Easter!

Any type of bag- shopping bag, plastic bag, paper bag, cloth bag. I love them!

The Hello Kitty Nerd bag is something that I’ve had my eye on, but it’s a little pricey and I really don’t NEED it. But it is cute!

I learned to sew a few years ago and one of the easiest and most rewarding things to make is a tote bag. I saw this post on Skip to My Lou with links to lots of tutorials on making reusable grocery bags. I am always looking for new patterns.

I’m not sure where I saw these first, but I was at Archivers a few weeks ago, with one of their coupons, trying to figure out what to get. I saw the Martha Stewart Scoring Board and a stack of paper rosettes by it- and I thought- “Wow, this is what I should get!” I also got some card stock to go with it.

I got home and opened it, and then didn’t find any instructions on how to make the rosettes, so after some searching online, I found some websites:

craftsunleashed.com
EK Success

I struggled a little bit, but the next day, I figured it out. I’ve done about a dozen or two, so I thought I would be ready to show how I do it.

So I start with strips of paper, this was maybe 2 inches wide and a 12 inch and 6 inch section. I used the scoring tool and scored every half inch. The wider the strips, the wider between the scores, I have found. I just have to play around with it.

After scoring both strips, then accordion fold them:

I bought some tape, I think it was called “mounting tape”. It’s just really narrow double sided tape. It’s flat, not raised like I would think “mounting tape” would be, but now that I think about it, maybe it’s not called that. Then you tape the sections together, just overlapping 1 piece.

The double sided tape is awesome for this. I was using glue and it took forever to dry and came out the sides a little. Then tape the ends together to form a circle:

The next part is the trickiest, this is where the rosette forms. I just grabbed the circle, made it smaller and smaller, and press down:

And then, press down more:

Until it collapses:

I usually just hold it for a little while, then let it go. Then, I will make a few more before gluing them. Before gluing, I make the center covers. I used a big punch. I think it’s a 1 1/2 inch circle. I kind of wish I had a few more sizes, but it works good. Punch 2 circles for each rosette.

I then heat up the hot glue gun and use that, although you could use other adhesives. I usually glue the front on first, and then the back.


I just hold it down for a little while before moving to the next.

And other trick is holding it down in place while you load glue onto the circle, I use the punch or scissors:

Here’s what I made tonight:

You can even stack them on top of each other, although I would probably use different colors to make it stand out more.

Thanks to Money Saving Mom, who posted a link to this tutorial from Ruffles and Stuff.

It’s just 3 pieces of fabric layered on top of each other- each layer a little narrower than the last. You use a piece of elastic thread- which I have NEVER done- so it’s a little scary!

I dropped off my things this morning.

Here is my Christmas Apron

The Christmas table runner and gathered pillow:

Baby Blanket that I made yesterday:

Patterned on one side and solid on the other:

Baby bib:

Diaper Bag:

Half Apron:

Full apron:

As a student with IU, we get some good software. It’s almost worth it just to take a class to get all the perks- such as software and training. I am also taking an online  tutorial class through Lynda.com given by Chris Orwig. Here are some below and afters of the making of a birthday card on Sunday.

B:

A:

B: A:

I made one last year with the help of Soni, so I thought I could do another one by myself.

Not too bad, although I little boring.