This weekend. I decided to make a start on the next batch of birthday cards I'll be needing for relatives.
As always, I always get inspired by recycling some sort of waste and I maintain that you do not need to spend much money to make cards, you just need some creativity and vision. I might not be able to sell these but I hope they are pleasing enough for the recipient.
This first one is a cardboard postcard made from the mailing box that C's contact lenses came in. The lego blocks were the wrapping that a present I received came in. I cut out the lego pieces from it and spelt out Finlay's name. I did consider sticking each piece onto cardboard so the tiles were 3D but in the end, decided it was too fiddly and I wasn't totally certain that the entire name would fit on the length of cardboard I had. It only just did! I added the sparkly border as a last minute addition. Do you think it needs anything else? I've got till mid-July to adjust it
The inspiration for these next two was the punched flowers. C was recycling a whole load of exercise books from school and I noticed they had nice lavender and orangey covers. I carefully removed any identifying names from all the covers so they could go in the recycling (shredding the names) and saved the covers to punch a load of flowers with my craft punch. I also punched some from some sort of pink worksheets he has. I layered two on top of each other so they looked more 3d and then used my watercolour pencils to add some detail to all the flowers. With the cat card, I think I cut the cat from some sort of packaging a while back. I then added some dots and heart paw prints in the background. I used a Martha Stewart Corner punch on the white one as the card was much thinner so it would go through the corner.
Every so often, I see a new craft on Instagram or online and I know that it is the craft for me! Usually, it involves some recycling or reuse! If it's that, I am all over it!
For me, the craft I gave a go today was just that.
It involves a Tomato puree tube.
Take a completely used metal tomato puree tube and then cut off the ends - the top and the bottom and then carefully snip one side open and open it up so it is a rectangle. Be careful! It's metal- it can be sharp!
Then clean off any residue tomato.
You will have a wrinkly, golden rectangle.
Take a spoon and rub it in circles over the metal, right to the edges. You may have to go over parts. This will flatten the wrinkles generally.
You should be left with a slightly flatter rectangle.
Now you need to choose your design that you will draw backwards on the reverse using a biro pen that doesn't work anymore (or an embossing tool if you have one)
The designs I have seen now are usually stars with trails behind them. In fact, I went to a friend's house in December and saw one hanging up. I knew it was going to be a tomato puree tube. When I turned it over, I was right.
I decided to do something with a musical twist, naturally.
I decided to go for a tiny violin!
I grabbed my little violin keyring purchased from the Beethoven Birth house museum in Bonn to use as a model to draw around and to copy.
I turned the tube over and drew the design hard. It can be a bit tricky especially if there are still any ridges.
You then draw any detail on that you want to. The hardest part for me was the F holes. I decided to add some extra decorations- the purfling (that's the patterned edge on the outline of the violin shape) and also added some hearts on the tail piece below the bridge. The strings were a bit of a disaster! Should have used a ruler!
You then need to cut out your shape with scissors- bonus is that it sharpens your scissors!
The downside is, I accidentally cut off the pegs at the top of the violin on one side. I've never been skilled with scissors since I was very young! I was gutted!
Here is our Jellycat Christmas star modelling the finished violin. Look at the top, you'll notice the missing pegs!
At this point, you could then make a hole to hang it for a decoration for the Christmas tree etc. I haven't done that. You could attach your decoration to the front of a car for a detachable gift for someone. Beware of sharp edges. I'm not sure if you could perhaps sand the edges. I haven't tried it because it bends and I am clumsy!
I then tried to think what I should attempt next. I was going to attempt a flute but then decided to just draw a musical stave.
The question was, what musical quote to include?
Being incredibly geeky, I decided to start drawing a quote from my favourite symphony- the 1st symphony by German composer, Gustav Mahler. It's first played by the cellos but it picks up on the motif played for the first part of the symphony by the strings and woodwind bird calls. However, when I got to the end, the 2 crotchets and minim looked bare so I just decided to alter the quote into something else to make it look better. If I did this again, I would cut off the f for forte below the stave so it has a neater base. Considering I did this all freehand, backwards, I was quote pleased with it!
Listen from about 4:44 and then hear the glorious cellos come in soon after!
I still have a bit of the tube left so I may fashion some paisley hearts for either a wedding or a valentines card (although I have another idea for that this year as CBC has become rather fond of Tweedy and Fluff on Insta so I may draw/paint a design of them instead!
What do you think of this craft? I must confess that I am utterly enchanted by it! I can imagine making lots of darling little decorations out of the tubes. Just be careful of the sharp edges!
I mentioned to CBC that it would be nice to have a Valentines card this year (I ended up not getting one last year due to him skiing and then realised I should probably get on and make one.
I decided I would like to recycle one or two elements that I had saved for the card. I ended up making two.
This first one utilised a circle that held a Patisserie Valerie cake which CBC had brought home - it was virtually clean so I snaffled it away- it immediately said POCKET WATCH to me so I then cut some hearts out of the Patisserie Valerie box which I had also saved which has some heart-patterned gold card and serendipitously, held exactly 12 hearts around the edge. I then added some silver outline stickers for the numbers and then made hands out of a bit more of the packaging. In retrospect, I wish I had mounted the hearts on 3d sticky pads so they stood out a bit more.
Here you can see the heart patterning a bit better but not the numbers so well.
I then wrote the wording freehand and added some little hand-drawn hearts.
The second card made use of some patterned insides of envelopes I'd saved to make some more kitty cards as well as some spotty paper from an old card insert. I mounted them with their heads floating and hand wrote the greeting. I also used a corner cutter on both cards.
No TARDIS Tuesday today as I had a very busy weekend and forgot to sort anything.
It was my lovely niece's 15th birthday and we were due to meet her.
It was about 12pm and I hadn't made her a card but I had an idea based on one I saw on Instagram.
Here is the finished card:
I made two little kitty templates from cardboard and then I gathered some used envelopes from the recycling bin. I used it to quickly cut out the kitty shapes. I ended up needing one more pattern and I saw the front of CBC's Amnesty International Magazine which had a blue floral pattern.
I laid the kitties in three rows and then went to look for my gluestick which was almost completely empty and falling out the tube so I used it sparingly, sticking them down with only their ends attached and their heads loose. This ended up working well as they look more 3D with their heads loose.
At that point, we had to leave for K's birthday but I hadn't finished the card so I had to draw on the kitty faces and whiskers plus the Happy Birthday greeting as we drove! It looks a bit wiggly but I am really pleased with it!
We travelled to Southend to a Cat Cafe called Kittea Cakes Cat Cafe.
They serve fairly simple food and drinks - sandwiches, toasties, jacket potatoes and various drinks.
When we arrived, one of those hairless cats, called Noodles, had jumped up onto a recently vacated table and started drinking someone's left over milkshake.
There were lots of hidey places and peaceful zones where the cats could escape to. If the cats are asleep, you need to leave them alone and not pick them up but you can stroke them and they can come and sit on your lap. The staff gave some treats for us to give to the cats (I didn't take any).
Everyone else stroked some cats. I stroked one but didn't really go up to many cats.
Pumpkin got super comfy and really relaxed after a while. K and CBC and everyone else looked on enviously as I kitty purred away and slept!
Sadly, it was all to soon time to go.
We headed back to my sister's house for cakes and pressies. K was very pleased with my pressies.
I had had a concert at Chelmsford Cathedral the day before (SIX HOURS OF WAITING BETWEEN MY REHEARSAL ENDING AND MY MOMENT IN THE CONCERT!!!!) and as soon as I got out of the rehearsal, I headed to the shopping centre in Chelmsford and managed to get 2 beauty products she wanted for cheaper by picking up a Superdrug beauty card. Then, to my delight, the Nike Pro leggings she wanted, were £10 of in JD sports that day so I got those. I also bought her a Super dry starry top from the charity shop and a couple of other bits.
I then headed to Oxfam books where the music section had had some amazing donations- I got some great choral music and some piano duet books for CBC for Christmas plus 2 great children's books.
I then headed to Hotel Chocolat where I ordered a Dark mint hot chocolate with chocolate whipped cream. As I used my own cup, they gave me a £1 discount. It was delicious!
I headed to Banana Tree for dinner where I was joined by 2 violinists, one of whom is on the committee of my main orchestra. It was really nice to get to know her a bit better. She is also a charity shop lover and we had gone to Oxfam together. We had a fun dinner and then headed to the cathedral.
It was a beautiful concert but I got home very, very late, considering I was only playing for a short part of the concert with my first note around 9.15pm. I had about 800 bars rest.
Our Friday night was also busy as we went to see a wonderful vocal quintet called Apollo Five in Southend Plaza centre! Sunday night was also busy as we went to see a classical guitarist at the Oslo in Hackney Central called Rosie Bennett.
Last year and the year before, I shared a few Christmas crafts I enjoyed doing which involved reuse of some sort of materials. I am quite fussy at what I am going to attempt and I've seen numerous 'star' tutorials on Instagram that look too fussy or confusing or I think wastes a lot of paper/card.
Today, I saw a great video/tutorial on making stars out of magazine pages and thought that it looked really easy to follow and not too complicated.
I had a little magazine come through from Bam clothing (I bought my sister an item of clothing from them for Christmas last year and the year before and they keep sending me magazines- I had unsubscribed from them via email but they are still sending me magazines- annoyingly). It was made out of matt paper in neutral shades so I thought would be a good resource to use. The magazine pages are A5 sized.
I made the first star as the video and was super pleased how easy it was to make. I had the strips left over from the first stage of folding the paper diagonally to make the initial square and I decided to do the same procedure to make some smaller stars. In fact, I ended up making three smaller stars out of the left over paper and I was left with barely any paper at all- just a tiny strip of each piece.
And here they are.
They look nice from either the front or the back....
Back view...
Front view....
I thought I'd share this early in case anyone is thinking of doing crafts with either kids or teens or indeed, like me, you fancy doing some recycled crafts.
I mentioned the Book corner I have been helping with at school.
This weekend, I made some model fishes for the window.
Using some scrap packing- a plastic milk bottle and a nobbly cheese packet, I cut a flat rectangle from each. Using some Sharpie pens (I had a skinny black pen and a green and blue thick pen), I drew some fish and coloured them in. I cut them out with scissors and made a hole with my eyelet setter and threaded through silver thread.
I liked the idea of using the milk bottles and plastic packaging for the fish because it would give the effect of stained glass with the light shining through. It would make them more durable also.
We stuck them to the window with sellotape. The teacher is going to ask the children to create more to cover the top window.
Want to see where they are going?
Here's the book case and corner from the top. It's a very small classroom so space is at a premium!
You can see the cuddly lobster and the sign on the window (fish are top right)
You can see the cuddly sea creatures and all my shells sitting on top.
I recommend using milk bottles to create window ornaments!
It's been a while since I either made any cards or posted any pictures of those I have made.
Since next weekend I will be seeing my sister and Dad for their birthdays, I realised I hadn't actually made them cards! I thought I had but I hadn't!
Often, I don't have an idea in mind for a card until I look at some item of material in my crafting supply. I had recently bought a new flower crafting punch for £4 in the charity shop. It was a triple punch so it had 3 different flower shapes which it cut which you can either use separately or together. CBC had ripped open a magenta envelope very messily so I decided to salvage as much of it as I could so I punched as many flower as I could out of it and put the remainder in the recycling.
As I went into the dining room, I saw the little pot of pink flowers and decided to use those.
In addition, I also spied a roll of floral washi-tape in a pencil case. I grabbed a frame card from my card stash.
I used washi-tape to cover the frame- happily, it had pink flowers on it.
Next, I grabbed a set of pink flowers and a tool which looks like a thick-nibbed ballpoint pen. When you rub it in circles all over the flower, on top of a piece of funky foam, the flower starts to curl at the edges and look 3D. I did that with all the layers of the flower and proceeded to do that with all the pink flowers I had.
I then laid them out inside the frame. Would you believe I had punched the EXACT amount needed to fill the space! I glued the flowers on top of each other using prittstick and then added a little centre using my silver Sharpie pen and glued them down.
I'm rather pleased with it and hope she likes it!
Next, I decided to do the same technique on some orange flowers I'd punched out of the concert tickets which I had snaffled from the recycle bin at CBC's work. Using the frame taken out from the previous card, I placed the flowers on top of it and decided to add green stems using a fine liner pen. I layered this on top of a gingham card I've had in my stash forever! I have sent this card to an Insta pal who loves florals but has been suffering with her mental health recently. I really hope she likes it!
As with my sister's card, I had no preconceived ideas about what I was going to do for Dad's card but my eye fell on this piece of gold and green patterned packaging I'd saved from a toiletry gift pack from Christmas and cut a panel from it.
I simply then used my alphabet mini craft-punches to spell out the letters plus a few stars using some blue metallic card. I used the corner-rounder punch to round the edges.
It was really fun to make some cards again and I hope to make some more soon!
I've really enjoyed doing some crafts on my weekends over the past couple of weeks.
After I made my paper snowflakes, I decided to try and make some envelope Christmas trees.
Using the pre-used envelopes, I cut rectangles of different sizes and folded them in half. I then cut them diagonally so I was left with a Isosceles triangle. I then decided to cut simple triangles, half-heart shapes, semicircles from the fold side and the diagonal edges.
With some of them, I used deckle-edge scissors or used star or snowflake punches.
To display them, I used a octagonal plastic base from a chocolate box on our window sill.
I sent some photos to one of our Year 5 teachers who decided she needed to make them with their class.
I'm really pleased with it and slowly enjoying the decorations I am putting up in my house!
Greetings from sad and lonely Kezzie whose husband did not tell her he was going to the Staff Christmas party until late! I totally would have made social plans if I had known!
Anyway, I am going to do some marking but I thought I'd post before that.
Thank you for all the love on my recycled cardboard Advent calendar!
Today, I thought I'd share some other crafts that I tried the same weekend as my calendar.
I saw this idea on the web (not sure of the original source but I saw it on Pinterest in Google.
A concertina paper tree on a skewer seemed a cool idea to try.
I picked up a junk mail envelope from the table and decided to use it to experiment with rather than waste a piece of fresh paper.
https://www.pinterest.pt/susanafrgomes/christmas/
I liked the way it looked, rather than just a white tree so I rescued a few more envelopes from the recycling and tried making a few more. CBC had bought a pack of skewers for a Duke of Edinburgh expedition so I grabbed some to put them on. They slipped off a bit so I guess you'd have to glue them.
There were a few pieces left over so I decided to try making paper snowflake cut outs in the remains.
I wondered if using variations on patterns would look more interesting than white.
They're easy to make.
I'm sure you know how to make paper snowflakes but just in case, here's what I did.
1. Cut out a square of paper. Any size will do but make sure the sides are equal.
2. Fold it in half, from one diagonal to another so you end up with a triangle. You shouldn't fold so you end with a rectangle.
3. Fold in half again and half again. You should end up with a triangle each time.
3. Hold the middle point (where all the folds are) in your hand and cut a curve from one point to another.
4. Cut little triangles or curves from each edge but don't let any of the cut outs join with other ones or they will just make one big cut out.
5. Use a hole punch to make holes further into the shape.
6. Unfold and you will have a lovely snowflake!
I've sat here making a few more and I think I might try to decorate our upstairs windows!
Have you ever made paper snowflakes? Why not try reusing old paper to make them?
I thought it was time to share the next batch of cards I made during the Easter holiday.
I was sent a present with a really cute label on it featuring metallic brogue shoes! I decided to reuse it in a totally recycled/reused card. The base card which is in complimentary gold and blue was actually a Patisserie Valerie Cake box which CBC saved for me "Because I thought it would be good for cards!". I added some stars which were made from some other reused packaging including that School prospectus again! I think this is my favourite one! I used a corner punch to make the edges more attractive!
The next card was also made using some reused materials. A plant catalogue had some really lovely foliage pages in good quality paper so I punched some scallop squares and then mounted some flowers punched from an old red envelope. I layered 2 flowers atop each other to make it more daisy-like. For the centres and the orange decorations around each square, I used a sunburst paper punch again using some old coloured envelopes for the materials.
For my 40th, I was bought some tulips and a chocolate bar by my Year 2 colleagues. The chocolate bar came in a pretty box so I cut the front of it and mounted it onto Dahlia paperas the colours seemed complimentary. Finally, I mounted this onto a white base card and used a corner punch for the final touch.
The last card was my Dad's birthday card. I used the box from a pack of Seasalt socks I bought for CBC and cut all the writing from it. I mounted it onto 3d pads. To create a little beach effect at the bottom, I ripped some pieces of brown envelope and old school exercise book to create dunes and waves. I used some coloured blue pencils to add some extra colour.
It's been a while since I shared photos of cards I have made.
In the Easter holidays, as part of my big tidying up activities, I FINALLY put away all the craft stuff I had got out over a year ago for mine and CBC's Valentines craft day in lockdown that had, ahem, been cluttering up the dining room table along with a myriad school articles.
But before I did it, I had a mammoth card-making session or two. I believe I ended up making around 22 all in all which was good for replenishing my stock of homemade cards for occasions.
Here's 4 that I made.
What all of these have in common is that they all use the blue card that came from the school prospectuses I fished out of the recycling and used for my Christmas cards. All of them use some sort of recycled elements in addition to the blue base-card.
1. (Top left) just uses gold stars. These came from some packaging or other. It might be a bit simple but sometimes you just want a simple card that says "Well done" or something of that ilk. That's the aim of this one.
2. (Top right) This one is possibly aimed at my nephew-in-law. I had some cute bubble stickers with sports on and I used them on some reused corrugated cardboard with some Easter egg box stars.
3. (Bottom left)- This made use of some Taiwanese Pineapple cake box packaging. It was a lovely box. The cakes, not so much. The flowers were all made out of shades of orange and yellow from egg boxes and other such packaging.
4. (Bottom right). More of the pineapple box with an old school book cover! My craft-punches get most used out of all my stash!
I made a pledge to myself that if I came across something that I could make sure ends up in recycling, that I would try to ensure it reaches a place where it could be recycled. At school,I was using the Office scanner and I noticed a large pile of ex-school Induction pack covers ripped and put into the recycling.
Using this card and the tools below, I made 23 cards (the majority of these envelopeless postcards to add to the eco-dimension). The ones I sent in the post all reused old envelopes with decorative rectangles of blue envelope inards to cover up the previous usage.
At school this Christmas, we had a Door decorating competition. Each class had to create decorations for their doors for Christmas. As I don't have a class of my own, I felt a little left out and wanted to join in but hadn't thought how.
I was walking along the walkway between the main building and the building where my music room is with a class, when I noticed some giant bubble wrap, I'd noticed crammed into a bin, flying across the playground. Knowing this wouldn't end well, I grabbed the large piece and carried it along with me, intending to take it home to put in the plastic bag recycling at the supermarket.
Later, I looked at it and suddenly wondered if I could make use of it for my door decorations as it resembled ice. And there my idea began. I would create my door decorations as a model exercise in how you can use rubbish to great effect if you look at it in a different way. I didn't have the time to do it with a class but I could show each class what I'd done when they came to my room. I have two doors so I had to decorate both. I didn't really have any ideas except that I would try and use everything recycled.
I started with that air-filled packaging and crafted myself a set of triangular icicles to attach to both doors. That was easy enough- a bit of sellotape had to do to secure it which isn't the best in terms of being eco-friendly but with certain pieces, I didn't think bluetack would hold it in place as both doors have open doors to the elements near by and thinks tend to blow off.
Next, I brought in my snowflake punch from home and with some offcuts from someone's guilliotined work in the recycling bin, I punched a line of snowflakes intending to stick a strip of snowflake negatives and the cut outs below the icicles. As I did this, I suddenly had the idea that I could create some very pretty paperchains by using strips of snowflake-punched shapes to join together. As you can see above, it worked quite well. I attached both chains to each door with a little sellotape.
I went home and looked at what I had and realised I could make garlands of silver milkbottle tops as I'd been saving all the bottle tops at home to scrunch into one big ball in the recycling so I had enough for two garlands. I used a safety pin to make holes in the top and posted a bit of wool through to make a loop and then I tied these to a long piece of wool.
Since I had the wool out, I thought I could make some pompoms using my pompom maker over the ends of the wool and white wool I had to make a garland. Ok, so they are not recycled but I did need to use up that wool. To supplement the garlands, I found a couple of broken hairbands I'd been saving with furry white balls and I snipped those and tied those onto the pom pom garland as well as a couple of of cracker decorations I'd ended up with last year.
Next, I went to the big bag of chiffon scarves I have in the music room to use for music and movement with the younger children and selected all the blue and white ones- I then tied them onto a piece of string and attached onto the door handle and then to the other side of the door. Again, not recycling, but I am reusing something old which will then go back to its regular use when I return to school in January. Multipurpose!
I went to go and eat my lunch last Friday and I'd picked up some out of date noodles from the Thai restaurant in town which was made of shiny silver wrapping on the inside. It didn't smell of noodles so I suddenly thought to carefully open the packet and make a long strip. I carefully fringed it and then did the same with another packet I had, decanting the unused noodles into an old Twiglets tin to save for Monday's lunch. For the other door, I discovered a Cadbury's Freddo frog multipack wrapper in the staff room and did the same with that.
The final touches were to go and look in the scraps and ends shelf in the resources room to see if there were any offcuts. I found some trimmed bits of gold paper so I used my star punch to punch lines of stars and attached both the negatives and the cut outs to the door.
A few cut out snowflakes sprinkled around, some more of the inflated plastic packaging from the bin down the bottom in strips and a pompom attached to a white scarf bow attached to the door handle and I was set to go.
The kids have really enjoyed looking at my door and really liked the ideas such as cutting the noodle wrappers- I hope it gives them some inspiration to look at rubbish differently. After all, they might end up doing something brilliant with waste in the future!
Do you remember my DIY Easter floral wreath back in April? Well, at the time, I made some cards using some of the coloured envelopes I had lying around but I didn't realise I hadn't shared them.
Well, here they are. Each one uses reused/recycled elements.
The first one used a Taiwanese Pineapple cake box.
The middle one uses a cream envelope, a Teabag box and a Feminine care product box from years ago.
The third one also uses envelopes and a cracker innard.
All of them utilised by leaf and flower punches.
The tea-bag box is used again for the left card.
A brown envelope was used for the right yard as well as some more envelope for both.
The left card uses more of the Taiwanese pineapple box and the flowers are some I made a few years ago.
The second one uses various envelopes and this one is my favourite!
As you saw from last week, I've been trying to reuse some of the cardboard boxes I bought home from school to recycle (but never actually got around to) after making my Phoenix wings.
On Friday, I decided I would like to make an Easter wreath. Not eggs, not bunnies, not lambs but flowers.
I didn't really have any plan of what to do. I went to the garage to the craft shelves and searched for all the flower punches, also grabbing a butterfly punch too.
I knew I had some paints somewhere and found a small bottle of green-pearlescent acrylic paint and a paint brush. Also, I found my stash of coloured envelopes which I always keep from cards I've been given and a paper pad.
The first job was to make the wreath base. I drew around a dinner plate and then placed some smaller circular object in the centre and cut them out.
Next, I painted the wreath green with the Acrylic paint.
Next, I punched 2 large daisy shapes out of all the different colours of envelopes until I had 10 different colours.
To give them a 3D feel, what you need to do is get an old biro that doesn't work and a piece of craft foam. Then, to make the petals curl, you just need to make circular movements with the biro on the petals (or straight lines) and then go around the centre and the petals lift.
I laid them in a pattern.
Next, I used a small circle punch to cut one circle from all the colours and moved them 2 places backwards rather like musical chairs and stuck them into the centre.
After that, I stuck down the flowers. I misjudged the spacing so ended up with a half-space so I punched a lilac butterfly from my wedding punch (made turquoise confetti for the tables and ones to go on the table names from old music)
Next, I added some white gel dots to the edge of the flower centre.
At this point, I punched holes in the top and added string.
To fill in the gaps, I used 2 sizes of tiny flower punches and experimented with making paper Stitchwort, Celandines and Forget me nots, adding details in gel-pens. There was something missing so I used a dark green envelope and a mini leaf punch to cut some leaves and arranged everything.
And voila, here is my wreath!
Got to admit, am very pleased with it!
Pretty much all recycled material apart from the mustard-coloured card and the pink, which were offcuts from previous projects. I honestly think that my flower punches are my favourite craft tools!
