Easy Last Minute Candy Corn Halloween Bag

Hello everyone!

As Halloween is right around the corner,  I was looking for a cute yet practical trick or treat bag. In stores around here, you can consider yourself lucky though if you find any halloween bags at all, but those just seem way too small most of the time. So I decided to make one myself. Literally decided to do so two hours ago, and here it is, along with a little tutorial on how you can make one yourself!

You will need:

* Fleece fabric in white, orange and yellow

* a sewing machine

How it's done:

Cut one strip from each fabric. Make the strips twice as long as you want the bag to be wide and about a third of the height you want your bag to be. I eyeballed it out by folding the fabrics in half. My strips were about 1 meter by 20 cm (40 by 8 inches). 

Lay the yellow and the orange strip together good side to good side and sew along one of the long corners. Lay the white strip onto the orange one good side to good side and sew the long side of the white strip to the orange strip. 

Fold the long side of your now combined three strips in half good side to good side and sew the side closed from yellow to orange to white. Sew the bottom (white) closed.

Pinch the corner at the bottom of the bag so that the bottom seam meets the side seam and sew across so that you can cut off a little triangle (I've sewn about five cm (about two inches) into the bottom seam). Do the same on the other side (pretend there was a seam at the side). 

Turn your bag right side out and fold over about two cm of the yellow top edge to the inside. Sew it in place all around the top (it looks a lot neater than leaving the raw edge to show).

Cut two strips from each color to make the handles. My strips were about 60 by 3 cm (24 by 1.5 inches). 

Stack a yellow, white and orange strip and sew them together at the top with a few stitches so they won't unravel. Braid them. Once you're at the bottom of the strips, stack the ends and again sew them together so they won't unravel.

Repeat for the second handle.

Pin the handles in place where you want them to be and sew them on carefully (they're pretty bulky so go very slowly). I've placed the seam onto the seam that I made for the top edge.

Cut away the excess where the thin strips were sewn together so that it'll look a bit neater. 

And that's it! 

I hope you enjoyed my little tutorial and got inspired to make a cute and easy Halloween trick or treat bag (with lots of space for the treats..!). Have a nice day and happy Halloween!

Quick Crafts #4: Smart Mousepad

Working on a laptop can be a pain if you don't have a separate mouse to work with. But sometimes, you just won't have a table available to put your mouse on. Operating the mouse on your lap won't really work either, you might drop it or it just doesn't respond that well.
So what else can you do? Well, there usually is a bit of space on your laptop right beside the touchpad. You could use that space for your mouse if it's a small one. And as we all don't want to scratch our laptops, why don't you simply make a little mousepad to fit that space? So, here's my newest invention.

You will need:

* Fabric (preferably non-fraying, like fleece or craft foam)
* Hot glue
* Pressing iron
* Baking paper

How it's done:

Cut your fabric to size so it fits into that corner of your laptop. You can use an old mousepad as well or craft foam. If so, you won't have to make it non-slip as it already is. Round off the edges and shake it well so all the leftover fuzz will fall off (and not into your laptop).
To stop it from slipping, there are several methods to do this. You can either fuse your fabric to craft foam or an anti-slip mat and cut it to size, but this might add more height to your mousepad. I didn't want the pad to be thicker because I want to leave it on that edge when storing my laptop away.
The method I used isn't particularly safe for children, but it's quick, easy and most people probably have it handy like I did.
Grab your hot glue gun and make dots of glue on the bottom side of your mousepad. I made lots of little rows of dots all over the pad. Then, take your pressing iron, heat it up and spread baking paper over the glue dots. Press it until you can see the molten dots through the paper. Let everything cool down a bit and take the baking paper off. Let it cool a few more minutes and you're good to go.

Depending on the speed settings of your mouse, that very little space can be more than enough to get your cursor all the way from one side to the other and all across the screen. It's pretty much the best solution if you don't have a table. And that is one reason why laptops were invented, right?

How to make a Bedside Caddy

Getting organised is an ongoing task in many people's lives. Some might have less trouble with it than others, but in the end we all need some place to put everything back to in order to keep a room, appartment or house tidy. 
This being said, just putting everything onto a table or night stand probably isn't a good approach to tidying up. It'll just look very crowded and not exactly pleasant. And that's where this tutorial kicks in. 
Just imagine creating a spot for all that clutter on (and maybe even around) your night stand. One that will not take up any precious floor space and comes in extremely handy if you have to reach something directly from your bed. 
This by the way also makes a great gift for people of any age and it's actually a pretty fast and easy to make - you won't even need a measuring tool!

So here's how it's done:

1. Gather everything you want to store inside your caddy and lay it out on your bed. Make two or three rows if you have items of varying sizes. Put the small items into the first row, bigger ones into the middle and the biggest in the back. 

2. Organize the items in an order that is useful. Bring the items you'll need during sleep somewhere near the head end of the bed, those you probably won't need closer to the foot end. 
3. Group your small items, you don't want to sew a pocket exclusively for your ear buds, so you could group them with your glasses or charger. 

Step 1-5

4. Put bigger items behind the smaller items in a way that you always have one or more pockets of the front items aligning with the middle pockets. This makes sewing a lot easier. Take a look at the picture to see what I mean, one pocket is always a group of items without any space between.
5. Space your items out. You can use the whole length (or width) or your bed if necessary, so don't be afraid of using more space than necessary. 

6. Now choose your fabric. Stiff cotton fabrics work great for this project while stretchy fabrics might be a little more tricky to sew. I chose to use some fabric from old tablecloths which I don't really like. This project can be an extreme fabric waster depending on how many things you want to store, so I would recommend using inexpensive fabric. The back piece of fabric will have to hold the whole caddy in place by shoving the excess under the mattress, so the length has to be as long as possible and at least twice the height of your caddy (or once if you don't want a huge pocket in the back) plus a few inches to tuck it under the mattress.
7. Cut your fabric to the width of your caddy (which is a bit more than the width of the items spread out, just imagine you would put another pocket on either side, leave enough space at the edges). 
8. If necessary, hem the top edge of your fabric. As I used old tablecloths, the edges were already neat. 

Step 6-10

9. Lay your front fabric on top of the middle fabric and mark the pockets for the small items. If you don't know how wide your pocket needs to be, take the item you want to put inside, push down the right edge of the pocket, slide the item inside and push down the other corner. Mark about an inch wider than the second corner so that you can slide your items inside more easily. Mark the seams that will only be needed for the front row differently than the ones that will go through two layers. I used an air erasable pen to mark my edges, but pins will also do.
10. Decide on the height of your front and middle pockets. I eyeballed it out and added about three inches because the pockets won't lay flat when they are filled. One inch more would have been sufficient though, but I didn't want to risk that my items might not fit in. Cut the fabric to size.

11. Sew the bottom edge of your front and middle pockets together with both good sides facing up, so you basically sew a good side to a wrong side. Sew it just the way it's pictured in the image for step 6-10. If you only have two layers of pockets, skip this step and the next and go straight to step 13.
12. Sew a straight line from the bottom edge to the mark of each pocket that only exists in the front and doesn't form a pocket in the middle row. In my case, this was for example between the key on the bottom left and the hand lotion.

Step 13

13. Decide on a height for the last row of pockets and sew the bottom of your two existing rows onto the third piece of fabric right side to right side, upside down, as far away from the top as you want the height of the last row to be. If you have enough fabric, I'd recommend making at least one large pocket in the back, you never know what items you'll find that don't have a space of their own yet. 

Step 14

14. Flip the first two rows up again and sew the lines that go through both layers onto the third layer. 

After step 14

15. Fold all the rows down so that the pockets are on the inside and sew along the two side edges. Turn it right side out and hem the side edges of the back piece if necessary. If your caddy isn't as wide as mine is, you might decide to be done now with one large pocket in the back. For mine, I needed to divide the back pocket at least once near the middle because the huge back pocket would have dropped all the way to the floor and I wouldn't be able to grab my items easily that way. To do this, choose a long seam that goes through the front and middle pocket layer and sew along this line through the back layer as well, making the new seam all the way to the upper corner of the back pocket as well.
16. Cut all the thread ends. At this point, I eyeballed how much excess fabric I want to be tucked under the mattress. I wanted it to "cover" about half of my mattress's width because I'd be filling lots of heavy objects inside (like my laptop and my 3DS consoles). That is about 20 inches (50 cm). If your caddy won't hold too many heavy objects you can shorten this part of course. I'd say that the excess should be about as long as your caddy's height. I made sure that my backing fabric would be more than sufficiently long before I started. As I'm a bit lazy, I didn't hem the raw edge at the very top after cutting the excess at the top of the caddy because that edge will never be seen anyway since it's hidden under the mattress (for a gift, I would hem that edge though).
17. Speaking about it, now is the perfect time to install your caddy. If your mattress is heavy, get someone to help you hold it up while you spread the excess of the caddy under the mattress. Lighter mattresses can often be flipped up against the wall so you could do this on your own. Lay your mattress down again, making sure your caddy doesn't slip too much while doing so. And that's it. Now you can put your pillow and blanket back onto the bed and fill your caddy.

My finished caddy

Quick Crafts #3: Lazy Susan

Do you ever have trouble reaching certain spices or dips on the table? Or grabbing the scissors at the far end of your desk? Good news for you: here comes the lazy Susan and you might already have everything at home to make it! 

All you need are two wooden plates with a ridge along the edge and a few marbles. Lay your first plate down with the ridge facing up, place some marbles on the ridge and sandwich them with the second plate with the ridge facing down. And that's it. 

Now you can put a few dips or art supplies on top and rotate the top plate to reach your desired item. Simple, eh?

Quick Crafts #2: Kneadable Soap

Hello everyone!

Today I have another quick craft for you that you can make from materials you probably already have at home. This time, we'll be making soap that you can knead to add a bit of fun to washing your hands (or those of the kids). These can be a fun gift for friends and family as well and they are fairly easy to make!

You will need:

One part shower gel

Two parts starch

Cookie cutters

Optional: glitter, food coloring, a jar with a lid

How it's done:

Put some shower gel into a bowl and add starch. Knead the mixture and add starch or shower gel to get a consistency that is neither sticky (too much shower gel - add starch!) nor crumbly (too much starch). This part is actually harder than it sounds; try pressing the crumbs together to see if they are sticking to each other before adding more shower gel. And yes, as this is starch, it will be a bit messy.
Now, you can add glitter or food coloring as you like, but be aware that some food colors might stain your hands when using the soap. I'd recommend leaving the soap plain and maybe using shower gel in bright colors if you want colorful soap. My pink soap is made from pink shower gel and I didn't want to add any color since I like the pastel colors, they remind me of marshmallows. 

Now, spread some starch on your working surface and roll out the mix as you would with cookie dough (if you're only using up some leftover shower gel like I did, it's easier to press it flat with your palm). I used a piece of baking paper to cover my surface because this stuff does stick quite a bit. You can cut squares out of it or use cookie cutters or a dull knife to make nice shapes. I tried to make two little marshmallow shapes out of two pink and two white strips, sticking them together with a few drops of water. The dough does crack though, but maybe it's just because my mixture contained just a bit too much starch and I had run out of shower gel.
If you want to give them as presents, let your shapes dry over night and put them into an airtight container such as a glass jar afterwards so they won't dry out and become crumbly. You can tie a ribbon around the jar and maybe add a little tag saying that these are kneadable soap bars. If you want to use them yourself and don't really care about the shapes sticking together in your container, you can put them away right after making them. They only stick to surfaces if they were pressed onto them, but you can also put a little but of starch or flour on top and bottom of each soap cookie if you want to make sure they don't stick to each other.
Be aware that the shapes will probably disappear after washing your hands with this soap a few times, because no one can resist this somewhat fluffy kneadable structure of these little soap pieces. It's just too tempting!

Quick Crafts #1: Stickers

In this new series, I want to show you quick crafts with items almost everyone already has at home. This first one is really fun and versatile, so be sure to check it out!

When I was a kid, I loved stickers, but I never seemed to be able to actually use them because I didn't want to waste them. I think this mostly had to do with stickers being "rare" - I couldn't just make them, they had to be bought and they were quite expensive. So what would you say if I told you you can actually make them on your own? 

You will need:

* Clear tape

* Water

* An image

How it's done:

Stick your clear tape over the image you want to turn into a sticker. This can be from old magazines, advertisements, something you printed out (with ink) or even a picture drawn with colored pencils (felt tips won't work and pencil smears a bit; if in doubt test it out!). The magazines may also have glossy paper, it'll work just fine. If you need more width, you can stick a second piece of tape beside the first one, but make sure they overlap at the edge. 

Rub the tape on firmly, you want all of the image to be transferred. 

Now cut the image out in the shape you want your sticker to be and put it into water (I used a plastic cup, but if nothing's available you can also put it in the sink) for at least one minute. I'd suggest longer soaking times for glossy paper.

After soaking, take the pieces out and rub the paper off the back completely. It might stay at some edges, if so hold it under running water and continue rubbing until no paper is left. Shake off the water and hold the stickers for a while to dry before sticking them wherever you want them to be. Mine stick nicely on paper and glass. 

Now, what could you do with those? You could stick them onto paper of course (preferably white or at least light, there's no white color on the stickers), but what else? You can mark jars and plastic containers with them, for example print out words like "Sugar" and "Flour" in a nice font and stick these onto the containers they belong to. You can also put pictures or names onto glasses for a party so they won't be mixed up. The possibilities are endless!

Tips and Tricks:

You can store the stickers more easily if you haven't soaked them already. If you have, you can stick them to thick plastic from packaging, stickers are fairly easy to remove from plastic without damaging them. 

Some kinds of tape tend to turn yellow after a certain period of time; you can avoid this by using self adhesive clear book covering instead of normal tape. It's also possible to do this with a complete sheet of images you want to turn into stickers if you stick it on very carefully.

I hope you have fun trying this out! 

Dec 24th: Snowflakes for Christmas!

While some of you might actually find snow outside during the holidays, most probably won't. For those of you who aren't as lucky, I've got you covered. Today, we'll be making snowflakes! The snowflakes I mean aren't that cold though and won't turn back to liquid water when touched. But they'll melt in your mouth.
By now, you might have guessed what snowflakes are. For those of you who don't know, the snowflakes I'm talking about are a sort of cookies that are traditionally made for Christmas.
During Christmas time, a lot of cookies were and are being baked. That's why there are many recipes like the one for snowflakes that don't contain any eggs. So don't worry if you've run out of eggs lately!

You will need:

250g butter
100g powdered sugar
2 tsp. vanillin sugar
a pinch of salt
100g flour
250g starch
An electric whisk
A bowl with a lid..with a hole in the middle :D

How it's done:

Whisk butter, sugars and salt in the bowl with the lid until foamy (Note: the butter should be soft, so take it out of the fridge about an hour before starting; do not pop it into the microwave, this will ruin the consistency; it's completely normal if it simply looks like weird crumbs that will never ever combine after the first five minutes, it'll be alright).
In a separate bowl, mix flour and starch and gradually add it to the butter mixture while whisking. It's right when the mixture looks like small crumbles. Kneed the crumbles together (they'll stick to each other).
Take small pieces (about hazelnut-sized) of the dough and roll them in your palms. Place them on a baking tray covered with baking paper (leave enough space between the dots, they will expand). Take a fork to press them down a little and give them some texture. If you happen to have a cookie stamp with a snowflake design, even better! If you think the dough is too sticky to get your fork or stamp out again, press the fork/stamp into flour first.
While handling the dough, don't get it too warm, it'll get stickier the longer you touch it.
Preheat the oven to 160°C (320 Fahrenheit) and bake 10-15 minutes. The cookies should stay light, so don't let them get brown. (Tip: the cookies will start looking wet when they're in the oven; take them out when they're matte on top)
Out of the oven, the cookies are terribly fragile and soft, but don't worry, they'll be more firm once they've cooled down.
When they're done, you can leave them as they are or sprinkle them with a touch of sugar.
Enjoy!

So, this is the last post for this year's Advent Calendar. I hope you've appreciated spending some time on crafting and baking with me!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Dec 23rd: Elf Door

Hi everyone!
Christmas is right around the corner! Yay!
Today, we'll make an elf door to let Santa's little helpers in. If you have small children around, you could use it to cover an electrical outlet near the floor.

Without further ado, let's start right away!

You will need:

Air drying clay (papier-mâché or salt dough should do) or polymer clay

Paint (I used acrylic paint)

Sculpting tools (if you use salt dough you can work with kitchen ware as well since it's not toxic)
A poster glue strip (removable without damaging the wall)

How it's done:

If you want to make the door cover an outlet, you will need to use clay that doesn't shrink while drying, so I would recommend using polymer clay here.

Take a piece of your clay and roll it to a strip of about 0.5 -1 cm thickness and a length that will easily fit around the outlet from one side of the floor around the outlet to the other side twice. This strip will be the doorframe. "Fold" it in half and twist it around itself like a vine. Lay your vine to a rounded shape to look like an arch.
Cover the inside of your doorframe with clay as the door itself and smooth it out. If you want to make it super fancy, you can make a separate door and doorframe and attach them to one another with a small hinge so that the door can open.
After making the door flat inside the frame, take a tool to make indents to immitate seperate planks. Add the texture of wood by making lines along each of the planks. They shouldn't be too even and you could add a few branch-holes as well.
Now it's time for decorating your door. You could cut a little heart or star into the door to act as a window. Or you can make a donut shape as a wreath like I did.
Add a little ball of clay for the handle. If you want to, add a hole for the key.
If you want to cover an outlet, add some clay to the back of the frame (and the frame only! No clay to the back of the door) after the front has hardened and blend it in with the frame.
Let everything harden completely and paint it in the colors you like!
To attach the elf door to the wall, use a poster glue strip.

 

I hope you liked this tutorial! Have a great day!

Dec 22nd: Snow Globe Christmas Card

Last minute Christmas card! Easy to make and looks pretty cool. Let's not waste any time and get straight into it!

You will need:

2 sheets of colorful paper (different colors)
A clear plastic bag
Punch holes (any color you like; I chose white)
Optional: Glittery stuff (I took golden stars)
Glue
Scissors
A pair of dividers or a round object
A picture of your choice

How it's done:

Fold both sheets of colorful paper in half to be the basic card. Cut out a circle from the front of your outer paper. The hole will be your snow globe. Make sure your hole is smaller than the width and height of your plastic bag.
Take your plastic bag and fill some punch holes and glittery stuff in there. Try not to put in too much because it'll cover your picture.
Once your satisfied with the amount of "snow" in your snow globe bag, cut your plastic bag to size if necessary and glue the open side(s) shut with some clear tape all along the side.
Grab your picture and glue it onto the inner paper where the hole of the outer paper is. Glue the plastic bag in front of it, making sure that no edges are visible through the hole in the outer paper.
Cut a rounded rectangle from any other üiece of paper and glue it onto the outer paper as the base of the snow globe. Spread glue all over the inside of the outer paper and stick it to the outside of the inner paper.
Now your card is done. You can write your message to the inside and a "Merry Christmas" somewhere onto the front page.




Have a nice day!


 

Dec 21st: Reindeer Ornaments

Do you like reindeers? I sure do. And do you know what I like too? Walnuts ^^ That's how I came up with this project.
So I'm one of those people who can't simply smash a walnut. When I open them, I do that really carefully so that the nutshell basically stays intact (or at least doesn't break into more than four pieces). When I was a kid, I used to glue them back together with a piece of thread in between and painted them golden or silver. I guess that's why I still don't like breaking nutshells :D
Well, anyway, I found another use for those nutshells I keep in my drawer: reindeer ornaments. They are really so simple to make and it's really fun when doing this in company.
So without further ado, let's get going!

You will need:
Walnuts
Thread or thin ribbon (I used those that you cut off the inside of new clothes)
Thick colored paper
Glue
Scissors
Markers and/or paint
Optional: a third hand

How it's done:
Crack the walnut carefully, eat the nut and keep the shell. Do that as often as you want *nom*
Once you've eaten all your walnuts ('^^), gather your crafting supplies and sketch out a nice design for the antlers of your reindeers. I made mine a bit chubby and they kinda look like oak leaves (which I like because it looks pretty natural).
Use your pattern to make two antlers from thick colored paper. Place them between the two sides of your nutshell and shove them around until you're happy with the placement. Put a drop of glue to the bottom of your antlers and glue them to one half of the shell where you want them to be. If you have a sort of glue that doesn't really stay until dry, get someone to hold the antlers in place while you spread glue around the edge of your nutshell and put the thread in. Glue the second half to the first one.
Then, paint on two black circles for the eyes and either a black or red nose. When the paint is dry, you can add little dots of white for light reflexes.
And that's it!

I hope you have a great day ^^

Dec 20th: LED Candle Snowman

So easy to make, yet it looks so nice and cheers anyone up.

You will need:

An LED candle
Markers
Optional: two little pompoms, a pipe cleaner and glue

How it's done:

Draw the face of the snowman onto the candle, using the "flame" as the nose. You could already be done now. If you want to, you can glue a mini pompom to each end of a piece of pipe cleaner (about a third of the circumference of the candle) and glue that on as ear muffs.

Enjoy your little snowmen!

Dec 19th: Snow Globe

Hi!
Snow globes are fascinating, aren't they? And they can be easy to make, too! Here's how I made mine.

You will need:

A clean and empty glass container with a screw on lid
Water
A bit of dish washing soap or glycerin
Glitter, tiny rhinestones, etc. for the snow
Plastic or polymer clay figures (air dry clay obviously would dissolve)
Hot glue

How it's done:

Arrange your figures on the inside of the lid, making sure the container can still be screwed on. When you're happy with the layout, glue the figures on with hot glue. I made a little white tree from pipe cleaners.
Next, fill the container with water and screw the lid on to displace all the excess water. Screw the lid off again and add a little bit of dish washing soap to the water so that it will stay clear. Put the glitter in, let it sink and screw the lid on again. And that's it.


I hope you liked the tutorial!

Dec 18th: Felt Phone Sleeve

Hey you!
Constantly carrying your phone or tablet around in a crowded bag without any extra protection might result in a scratched display. That's why phone sleeves come in handy. Conveniently, I'll be showing you how to make one from felt today.

You will need:

Felt (the thicker the better)
Applications
Needle and thread

How it's done:

Lay your phone or tablet onto your felt and trace around it, leaving a bit of space around the edges for seam allowance and the thickness of the phone/tablet.
Cut this shape twice. Lay them on top of each other and start sewing around the edge, leaving the top open. You can use any stitch really, even just wrapping the thread around the edge every time will do and probably look nice. Just make sure to secure the ends by making knots.
When the basic pouch is done, you can apply any application you like to it. I used a sew that came with the owl parts already precut and matching cutouts of fusing sheets to iron the owl in place. You can use badges, embroider something on or even leave it plain if you like.

I hope you had a nice start to your week!

Dec 17th: Whiteboard Planner

If you are like me, you cherish pretty much anything that helps you organise your every day life. And this is why I really appreciate this planner. It might also make a nice gift for a family member. This whiteboard is super simple to make and can be adjusted to individual needs.
So here is how to make it!

You will need:

A picture frame
Scrapbook paper
A whiteboard marker
Optional: two magnets, hot glue

How it's done:

Take the piece of paper that usually is inside new picture frames out and trace it onto your scrapbook paper (you could also just print out a nice pattern you like, just make sure that what is written with your whiteboard marker can be read easily). Cut it out and place it inside your picture frame.
Optional: Take a magnet and glue it to one side of the picture frame. Take your second magnet and glue it to your whiteboard marker.

If you want it to be more personal, you could use a child's drawing as the background. Or you could draw or paint something yourself like I did. If you want to make a weekly plan for dinner, you could add the week days on your background so that they won't be erased when wiping last week's meals off.

That's it for today. I hope you enjoy trying this simple idea and maybe it'll help some of you get more organised. Have a nice time!

Dec 16th: Cozy Lantern

Do you love candles like I do? I really like the way candles can instantly make any room feel comfortable. Today, we're going to make a quick lantern to embrace a tea light

You will need:

Paper

A stapler
Scissors (or one of those cutting machines that make clean straight edges)
A needle or pin
A pencil

How it's done:

Cut your paper to your desired size. I made three smallish lanterns from one DIN A4 sized paper. You could make two larger ones by cutting the straight down the middle lengthwise as well, it depends on you.
Using a pencil, draw a design you like onto the paper. I chose to make music notes. Using your needle, poke a few holes as guidelines through the lines drawn and erase the lines.
Now here's the fun part: poke tons of holes along the guidelines.
When you're happy with your design, bend the paper to a circular shape and secure it using two staples (one at the top and one at the bottom of the overlapping edge).
For my lantern, I decided to repurpose old sheet music. Can you guess what song it is? ^^

I hope you guys enjoyed this tutorial. Have a great day!

Dec 15th: Cupcake Baubles

Christmas tree decorations! I love ornaments...!
In this post, I will show you how to make simple cupcake baubles that look pretty cool no matter how much you mess up *yay*

You will need:

Cheap baubles in a color you like
Cupcake papers
Glue
Glitter or acrylic paint

How it's done:

Take your bauble, put a dot of glue directly at the bottom of it and press the cupcake paper onto the bauble. Mix some glue with lots of glitter and spread it on top of the bauble to make it look like icing is dripping down. If you aren't the kind who likes discovering bits of glitter all over their body and house for the next two months, you can simply use acrylic paint for the frosting. After really messing around with my glitter, spilling it everywhere, I'd probably recommend using acrylic paint '^^
Anyway, let the frosting dry. If you want to, you can paint that silver top part of the bauble red to look like a cherry, but I decided to leave mine plain as I thought it might look weird with the red wrapper.

And that's it. Easy, right? Now go and make like twenty of those to have the most cupcake-y Christmas tree ever.
Another idea would be to skip the cupcake wrapper part and simply make a bauble with color dripping down. I think you could use nail polish to create this effect too, so if you happen to have a nail polish color that seriously doesn't suit your appearance at all, feel free to spill it over a bauble.

I hope you have a really nice day ^^

Dec 14th: Mickey Mouse Tree Topper

Today we'll Disney-fy Christmas just a little bit more..! If you don't have a traditional tree-topper yet, why not consider adopting this one as your new tradition? It's super simple to make and, let's be honest, it's so cool! What could be better than topping your Christmas tree with a hat that has Mickey ears?
So let's get straight into it!

You will need:

Santa hat (those cheap felt ones are fine)
Foam rubber or sturdy felt (preferably black)
Hot glue

How it's done:

Put the hat onto a piece of paper and sketch out two circle parts for Mickey's ears. I made mine rather big and placed them near the white edge.
Once you're happy with the size and shape, cut one of the pieces out and trace it onto your craft foam twice (if your foam has two different sides, mirror the second piece). Cut the foam pieces out, place them on the side seams of the hat where you want them to sit and glue them on using hot glue.
And you're done!

I hope you have a nice and relaxed day!

Dec 13th: Felt Key Chains

Today's craft is fairly easy to make and won't take too much time. We'll be making little key chains from felt. You can probably already guess that I'm really into Winnie the Pooh, right? '^^
Anyway, let the crafting begin!

You will need:

Felt
Ribbon
Key rings
Scissors
Marker
Hot glue
(Note: I'm using hot glue here despite some pieces being really tiny since any other glue didn't work for me. Most liquid glue will be visible through the felt (cf. poor Pooh). You can of course sew these, too.)

Pattern

How it's done:

Cut out the pieces of felt according to the pattern. For the penguin (the five pieces on the bottom right), the black part can be substituted by any color you want, like light blue or something like that.
Once you have all the pieces, cut a piece of ribbon (mine are about 10 cm) fold it in half and glue the ends together.
Now you arrange the pieces as shown in the pictures, placing the ends of the ribbon between the front and back piece. Place the feet and ears of Pooh and Piglet between the front and back too. The rest of the pieces go onto the front or back of the character.
Carefully take the front (with the face on it) from the back and put hot glue around the edges (just leave the ribbon, legs and ears resting on the back piece and pretend they aren't there). Quickly press the front onto the back piece before the glue hardens.
Then, glue on the face pieces and any other details. Be really careful not to burn yourself. You might want to use tweezers to put small pieces like the eyes onto drops of hot glue on the front. Don't try to put the glue onto small pieces, they'll either stick to your tweezers or you'll burn your fingers!
You can decide to leave the key chains as they are (and use them as Christmas tree ornaments) or you can shove the ribbon onto a key ring like I did.

Layout

Happy crafting!

Dec 12th: Cable Organizers

Hello all together!
Two words: tangled cables. Did I scare you? Well then, this simple project is for you. These cable organizers/wrappers are so useful. It literally took five minutes to make them and they make a real difference in the mess of cables on a desk or inside drawers or even pockets.

So here we go!

You will need: 

Fabric

Velcro fastening or snaps

Needle and thread

Optional: Sewing machine

How it's done:

Cut two rectangles of the same size from your fabric (you could use two matching fabrics or the same one here). Round off the edges if you want to (Note: for the one in the picture I had rectangles of about 10 by 5 cm).

On one short side of each rectangle, attach one side of the velcro or snaps to the good side. (I took self adhesive velcro dots. No sewing needed!)

Lay your rectangles good side to good side so that on the left there is one side of the fastening and on the right the matching other piece (both facing inside). Sew the rectangles together leaving a gap to turn it right side out.

After turning it right side out, close the gap. You an decide to be done now or to make some top stitching around the edge.
Tip for lazy people like me: skip closing the gap and instead shove the raw edges inside and do some topstitching right over it. It's like closing the gap, except that there's no need to thread another needle. This tip only applies for machine sewing since it would take much more time by hand than simply closing the gap.

So that's it for today. If I couldn't convince you of the convenience of this project, simply try it yourself. As I said, it only takes a few minutes if you have a sewing machine on hand.

Have a great day!

Dec 11th: Pompom Ornaments

Pompoms are super simple to make and they make great (and fluffy) decorations. So why not make ornaments for your Christmas tree from pompoms? If that sounds interesting to you, here are a few ideas for you to consider!

You will need:

Yarn
Pompom makers (or simply use your fingers)
Scissors
Craft knife (for cutting the yarn apart around pompom makers)
Felt for details
Glue

How it's done:

1. Following the instructions that come with pompom makers, make a pompom and leave tails for hanging them onto the tree. If you don't have one, wrap the yarn around four fingers (for a smaller pompom you could use three or two fingers and for tiny ones a fork should do) until it's really bulky on your hand. Cut off the end and thread a piece of yarn (about 15-20 cm) through the hole between two of your fingers and the yarn-bulk. Make a double knot on the other side of the yarn, as if you were trying to make a bow. Tighten the knot really well! Knot the two ends as well. Now take your yarn bow off your fingers (or fork) and cut through the loops on both sides.
2. Trim your pompom to make it look more round.
3. Make details from felt. To cut eyes, you can use a hole punch. I like to use a hole punch for noses too and trim off a bit to make it look oval or rather triangular. Glue the pieces on using all purpose glue. Do not use hot glue, you will burn your fingers!
Now you can hang your pompom onto your Christmas tree.
Another idea apart from making Disney Charakters as I did would be to immitate real baubles. To do that, take a bottle cap, paint it silver, make a hole in the middle and thread the ends you hang the pompom onto the tree with through the hole in the cap before making a knot. Or how about making emojis from yellow yarn and felt faces?

I hope you'll come back to my blog again tomorrow and enjoy your day!