Day to Day

DIY: Matchbook album

Welcome to day the final day of our Hip Hip Hooray for winter series.   Goodness, this week has flown by - I really hope that you've enjoyed all of the projects.

I'm sharing a tutorial on how to create a matchbook album.  It's a paper based project with small manilla envelopes inside.  These can be used to hold receipts, notes, important messages or anything really.  This project literally took me 10 minutes to make and that was with taking photos along the way!

Materials required: Small manilla envelopes 8cm X 13.5cm (available at most newsagencies), a piece of cardstock, vintage book pages, small paper doily, scissors, stapler and some deco tape.

Let's get started!

Step 1: Trim the top flap off each envelope (I used 5 envelopes) and add a piece of deco tape over the existing adhesive.  Cut a strip of cardstock - mine measured 30.5cm (length) X 9.5cm (width) and position the envelope at the bottom of the strip - approximately 2cm up from the edge.  Fold the 2cm flap of cardstock over and up towards the envelope, as shown in the step photographs above.

Step 2: Fold the top flap of cardstock over and down, ensuring that it tucks under the bottom flap slightly - shown above in the step photograph.  Trim and adhere some vintage book pages onto the outside of the matchbook album (or patterned paper) and add a piece of paper doily to the side.

Step 3: Staple a title onto the front doily.  Adhere extra patterned paper/book pages onto the inside cover of the matchbook album.  Staple the envelopes into position.  Pop it into your bag for extra cuteness while you're out and about.  

I hope you have enjoyed our little winter series - back to normal blogging tomorrow:) Don't forget to head over to Tamar's blog to see what she has for you today.

Thanks for stopping by.

 

DIY: Cupcake making kit

Welcome to day four of our Hip Hip Hooray for winter series.  Today's project is a very simple one, but a super fun gift for a little person to receive - a cupcake kit, complete with Mummy & me cooking invitation and a super easy cupcake recipe. 

I bought a plain cardboard box from a $2 store and then popped in a few cute cooking items - sprinkles, pre made sugar flowers, cupcake wrappers, a cheap icing set, green sparkly icing in a tube and some cake pop sticks.  The cake pop sticks were just an extra for another baking day - but I decided to include them for fun.

Type up your cupcake date details on a tag (see above photo) and also pop a little envelope in the box with the recipe written inside it.  I know packet mixes are easy and fast (so you could include one if you wish) but seriously the recipe that I'm sharing below is VERY simple and equally as fast :)  Bella cooks this all the time and pretty much knows the ingredients off by heart.  It's a throw everything in together and just mix style recipe, which is perfect for little people.

Of course you can include anything you like in the cupcake making kit - for smaller children you could measure out the ingredients (ready to go) and pop them in some ziplock bags.  I think the sprinkles are a nice touch though, because all little people love sprinkles!

Cupcake recipe to include:

1/4 cup milk

3/4 cup caster sugar

125 gram butter (melted)

2 eggs

1 tablespoon plain flour

1 cup self raising flour

1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence

Pop the ingredients in a bowl and mix well for a couple of minutes.  Cook cupcakes in a moderate oven.

Don't forget to pop over to Tamar's blog HERE to see her fourth tutorial for our series and check back tomorrow for my final do-it-yourself project :)

P.S.  Don't forget that we have an awesome deal for advertising across two blogs and also in our popular teapot newsletter - go here for details.

DIY + Repurposing: Reading journal

Welcome to day three of our Hip Hip Hooray for winter series.  Today's post is all about repurposing, which is something I really enjoy doing.  To create my project, I've used an old children's story book that was falling apart and transformed it into a children's reading journal to record books that have been read during the year.

You can add as many lined pages as you wish inside the book.  I've mixed mine up with a few of the original story book pages (for fun!) and the beauty of the project is that once the journal is full, you can add more pages when needed:)

Supplies - x2 jump rings, an old vintage book (any size), lined paper, x3 pre-made tags (or make your own), ribbon, a small piece of cardstock (inside pocket), double sided tape, sticker re-inforcement rings (optional) and hand drill - how cute is mine below?! 

Let's get started!

Step 1: Remove the front and back covers from the vintage story book.  Cut the spine away from the main bulk of the story book pages - you can use the pages later to scatter throughout the journal or else save them for a different project.

Step 2: Select a piece of cardstock for the inside pocket and cut to size - you're aiming for the pocket to be approximately half the size of the front cover.  Using one of the inside book pages, cut another piece (the same size) for the pocket.

Step 3: Adhere the book page to the cardboard.

Step 4: Apply double sided tape around the outer edge (3 sides) of the pocket. Adhere the pocket to the inside front cover - as shown in the photograph below.

I added three tags to the pocket, to make it a little bit more interesting and whimsical.  These were pre bought (from Typo) but you could easily make your own or use plain shipping tags, which are available at most newsagencies.  Add a typewritten (or stamped/printed) message on each tag - read and dream, stories are magical and read every day.  Pop a piece of ribbon on the top of each tag and place them in the front pocket.

Cut a series of pages for the inside of the journal using lined paper.

Step 5: Once all of the inside pages have been cut to size, add in a few of the original story book pages here and there, to make the journal more interesting.

Step 6: Shuffle all of the pages together and pop the front and back cover into place.  Use a bulldog clip to hold everything together.  Mark and drill 2 holes through everything and slide the jump rings through the drilled holes.  Add a title (journaling on a strip of paper) as shown in the first few photos :)

I used a few sticker re-inforcement rings on a few of the paper pages inside, just to help prevent them from tearing.

I'll be back tomorrow with my fourth project for the series.

Don't forget to pop over to Tamar's blog HERE to see her second tutorial for our series and check back tomorrow for my third do-it-yourself project :)

DIY: Photo notebook

Welcome to day two of our Hip Hip Hooray for winter series.  Today I have a quick and easy little project - a personalised notebook.  The notebook has been created with two photographs I took at home - one with an image on a fabric background (front) and the other is just a plain photo of the fabric background (back).  

These make great projects for birthday party gifts or that 'just because' present.  I've gone with the toy theme, but they could easily be adapted to other objects - sweets or a cupcake, a remote control or tools (for Dad), iPhone (techno friend) or some small sewing supplies for a crafty friend. Anything really!

Supplies - Glue stick (or adhesive), stapler, cardstock (for backing photographs), photos (x2 for each notebook), corner rounder (or use scissors) and lined paper.

Step 1:  Place a piece of fabric or patterned paper onto your work surface.  Pop the item for photographing onto the bottom right hand corner of the fabric and take a photo.  Also take a second photo (for each notebook) of just the fabric/patterned paper.

Step 2:  Use a corner rounder to round the outer corners of the photos, just on one side.

Step 3:  Cut two pieces of cardstock down to the size of the photographs.  Round the corners on the cardstock to match the photographs.

Step 4:  Adhere the cardstock onto each photograph.  This will make a nice sturdy cover for the notebook.

Step 5:  Using a lined paper pad and the size of the photograph as a guide, cut a series of pages to go inside the notebook.  I cut 20 sheets for mine - but you can do more or less.

Step 6:  Pop the notebook together, pages in the middle and staple.

All ready to use for note taking, story writing and important messages:

Don't forget to pop over to Tamar's blog HERE to see her second tutorial for our series and check back tomorrow for my third do-it-yourself project :)

DIY - snowman cards

 

Welcome to day one of our Hip Hip Hooray for winter series!  This week I have lots of crafty tutorials to share (so does Tamar) and I thought I'd kick off with a snowman card project.  You can whip these up in an hour or so and they're nice to have on hand for winter birthdays or alter the text to create fun 'just because' or 'thank you' cards.

Let's get started! 

Supplies - Blank cards, a small paper doily (available at supermarkets/department stores), felt scraps, embroidery thread, needle, scissors, craft glue, cardstock scraps (for card title), black pen and some stamps or rubons/stickers to create the card title.  

Step 1: Gather your supplies.

Step 2: Cut a small paper doily into quarters.

Step 3: Adhere a quarter of the doily into the lower right hand corner of the blank card front.

Step 4: Stamp (or use stickers/rubons) the card greetings onto a cardstock scrap.  I've used a manilla tag to stamp my words onto.

 

 Step 5: Cut the stamped greetings up into small word strips.

Step 6: Adhere a greeting onto the top left hand corner of the card front.

Step 7: Cut out two circles from felt for the stomach and head - the large one is about the size of a 20 cent piece.  Embroider 3 little criss crosses onto the stomach and two eyes + mouth onto the head.  Using a scrap of different coloured felt, fashion a small hat for the snowman.

Step 8: Adhere (craft glue) the stomach onto the paper doily.  Draw in some arms with a black pen.  Adhere the head and hat to complete your snowman.

Ta-da! You have yourself a little snowman card - or a few of them, if you've been productive.

Don't forget to pop over to Tamar's blog HERE to see her first tutorial for our series and check back tomorrow for my second do-it-yourself project :)

Hip Hip Hooray for Winter - tomorrow!

 Just one more sleep until Hip Hip Hooray for Winter starts :)

Our posts will go up at  7.00pm each night starting tomorrow :) So excited to be bringing you this series - we have some really fun winter crafts and some totally delicious winter cooking happening too.

See you tomorrow at this time :)