Crafty Recycling: Vitamin Container to Gift Box

I've been keeping some of these empty vitamin containers, knowing that I wanted to use them as little gift boxes, so I converted the first one as a gift box for a beaded bookmark I made:

This is how it started off, a plastic container with a snap-on lid - I just had to remove the sticker label:

I tore up white mulberry paper into small pieces and decoupaged them all around the container:

 

I painted the top white plastic at the top, just to give it that extra hand-made look (instead of having a piece of bare plastic):

To decorate the lid, I used a little decorative circle design plate with my Cuttlebug, cut it out with scalloped scissors and glued it on top of the lid:

Then I just tied a white ribbon around the top and added a beaded dangly to decorate the gift box - the beads that I used for this decorative dangly matches the beads that I used for the bookmark that I'm gifting inside (except for the angel goodie - I just added that for the Xmas touch.)  :)

LINKED UP to these linky parties:
C.R.A.F.T.                 Making the World Cuter
Vintage Wanna Bee    .

Xmas Tree Decorations

This year I decided, for fun, that I'd only decorate my tree with ornaments that I've made. :D  Ok, so it's not as sparkly as it always used to be, but at least I can look at it and say I made it all, which is much more fun, eh? :)

Here's my tree....somehow December sneaked up on me this year, so I haven't fnished making all the ornaments yet (I'm still busy making some), so I'll post my updated tree as soon as I've finished my other ornaments. :)

The big star hanging above the tree I got from Birgit's Daily Bytes, and it's so easy to make.  I had a hook in the ceiling so I just hung it up from there and placed the tree underneath, hehe.

I also suddenly realized that I didn't have a topper for my tree, and it looked quite odd without one, so I made a little angel to put on top.  Not my best work, but desperate times call for desperate measures:

I used a small styrofoam ball to make the head, and glued one different lengths of gold "string" to make the hair.  I folded a piece of ordinary white paper into a cone for the body / dress.  I stuck a toothpick in the head and inserted it into the top of the cone, then cellotaped and glued the toothpick to the inside of the cone to secure the lot.  I drew on some designs with a glue pen and sprinkled on gold glitter, then finally wrapped some gold ribbon around neck.  Well, it'll do for this Xmas. :)  This was far to finicky to make, so I won't be doing that again!

And then here are some of the ornaments I made last year and thought out this year:

My glittered wooden star ornaments.  I made them HERE.

I made these ornaments from old Xmas and b'day cards...I made them HERE.

These beaded loops with the bells I made HERE.

I collected a whole bagfull of pinecones at our family farm last year Oct.  I spray painted some of them gold last year for decorating the table for Xmas lunch, but this year I just placed them in the tree to add some more colour.

I made some beautiful snowflakes too, and you can find the link to the pattern in my post HERE.

I made some more beaded loops for the tree, but replaced the bells with angels this time.  I made the little angels as well by using little wings, a lovely filigree bead as the body and a cracked glass bead for the head.  Easy peasy. :)  I also used earring hoops this time instead of memory wire as with my other beaded loops above - I find using these earring hoops MUCH easier that the memory wire - it costs a bit more, but oh well, it's worth it. :)

And I made these recycled little prezzies for the tree HERE.

And finally I made these crystal danglies.  I haven't made a post about them previously.  I just used tigertail wire and threaded on a filigree bead and clear acrylic beads, and secured them with crimp beads.  I made a loop at the end of the danly with the tigertail and attached another dangly to the bottom - for the dangly I added 2 sizes of acrylic bicones onto a head pin.  Lastly I used some irridescent "string" to make a little bow with.

And that's my tree so far!  Now I have some more Xmas gifts to wrap and then I need to get on with the rest of my ornaments! :D

All these ornaments were made with my Totally Handmade Xmas Tree Decorations Pledge - if you wanna join in this year or next year, grab my badge here (just scroll to the bottom) and remember to let me know if you made any of your own Xmas tree decorations! :)

Linked up at these LINKY PARTIES:
Cup of Delight         Sew Stylish Boutique

Beaded Snowflakes for Xmas Tree

In the spirit of my Handmade Xmas Tree Decorations Pledge, I've made a set of beaded snowflakes to add some sparkle to the tree. :)

The pattern for this gorgeous little snowflake can be found on Sandra D. Halpenny's website.

If you want to join my handmade decorations pledge, grab my badge here (scroll to the bottom)!  And leave a comment here if you have a handmade tree decoration you'd like to share, I'd love to see it. :)

LINKY PARTIES linked to:

Craft Envy                              .




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Ribbon & Bead Necklace

Here is a necklace that I made that was originally inspired by the sweet & crafty Khadija from Creative Mind's cute spring-inspired necklace - I loved her use of ribbon in the necklace and I couldn't wait to try my own version, so here it is!

I used Khadija's "pattern" for the most part, just with my own little tweaks here and there.  As for the rest, I used beads and a pendant that I had in my beading supply.  Fortunately I had those red round beads that matched the ribbon exactly. :)

Meet my little hippo model:

 

As cute as she is, I probably really need to get myself one of those necklace display "doll" neckline thingies, huh?

LINKY PARTIES linked to:

Sugar Bee Crafts            Vintage Wanna Bee
Today's Creative Blog 
I'm Topsy Turvy             Rook No. 17
The Blackberry Vine      The Shabby Chic Cottage
Somewhat Simple          Tales from Bloggeritaville
It's Sew Stinkin' Cute     Beyond the Picket Fence
Mel Dreams Often        Crystal's Craft Spot
Purple Froggie Clay Stuff

Beaded Ankle Bracelet & Sweet Potato Muffins

While we were at the sea just over a week ago, I took with some beading supplies to keep me busy, so after finishing the table cloth weights, I made an ankle bracelet, because the only other one I have has blue beads on it and it doesn't always match my outfits, so I made one with silver & clear beads - much more versatile! :)

Simple enough.  I just used the same 3 beads through out, thought out a sequence for attaching the dangles and that was that.

 

Easy peasy.  When I'm bored again or find myself with nothing to do on a long road trip or something, I'll be making more of these in different colours. :)

And then I wanna share a sweet potato muffin recipe that I found on Mom's Crazy Cooking.  They're so easy to make and I just happened to have a bag of sweet potatoes hanging around, so I tried 'em and they're good!

You can find the recipe at Mom's Crazy Cooking - her recipe calls for pumpkin spice but I didn't have any so I used ordinary baking mixed spice and it worked perfectly.  I made half with chocolate chips and half without, but they're both equally good.  It only makes 12 medium muffins though, so I may have to double this recipe when I make it again. :)

LINKY PARTIES linked to:

Crystal's Craft Spot      Truly Lovely
I Heart Nap Time         Under the Table & Dreaming

Table Cloth Weights (& Cous Cous Salad)

Remember to enter my GIVEAWAY before 3 May! :)

I'm back! :D  What.....? You never even noticed I was away?? Hehe...  Well, on Monday afternoon we decided to go to the sea the next day until Friday.  So we drove 6 hours to spend about 2 1/2 days at the sea - but it was so nice to be at the sea again! :D  My dad booked himself in a hotel there (when we were still in school, we used to go there EVERY year around the Easter holidays, it's my favourite hotel at the sea!) - anyway, he went alone this time, so we decided to surpise him with a visit - nobody told him we were coming so he got a good surprise.  Anyway, we got back last night.  It's weird thinking that just yesterday morning I was looking at the sea from my bedroom and listening to the waves, and now we're back here again...*sigh*.  But I'm happy to see my kitty again, hehe! :)

Of course I had to take some crafting stuff with to keep myself busy, so I took with some beading supplies and finally made some table cloth weights that I've been wanting to do for a long time!  Here they are - I made a set of 8 of them:

My little creation at the sea, hehe:

This was the view from our hotel room - I love this place because it's RIGHT on the beach, just the way I like it!

This was the morning that we left - you can (just barely) see my husband & dad being the only ones swimming, hehe.  The current was really strong that day, so nobody was allowed deeper into the sea.

Anyway, we can't wait to go there again! :)

Well, for lunch today I made our favourite cous cous salad.  I got this idea from my sister, so I can't take any credit for inventing this meal.  But it's simple, here's what I use and I think it's enough for 2 people:

1 cup dried cous cous (then cook according to package instructions, with salt to taste)
2 tomatoes, chopped into smallish cubes
1 avocodo, chopped into smallish cubes

Once the cous cous is cooked, just add the tomatoes & avo and mix.  We love it. :)

LINKY PARTIES linked to:

Simple Home Life                     I Heart Nap Time
Under the Table & Dreaming     The Tattered Tag
Truly Lovely                             Be Different..Act Normal
A Vision to Remember             Craft Envy
Passionately Artistic                  C.R.A.F.T. 
Making the World Cuter          Sumo's Sweet Stuff 
It's a Blog Party                      Craft-O-Maniac
Mom's Crazy Cooking            The Girl Creative

My goodies were featured at Passionately Artistic! :D

And featured at It's a Blog Party! :D

Mini Gift Bag

I love cute and interesting gift wrapping/boxing ideas.  So I made a cute mini gift bag out of scrapbook paper - it's perfect for gifting small jewelleries (my beaded bracelets fit in there perfectly with space to spare). :D

It's teeny tiny...so cute! :D

I used tiger tail beading wire to make the handles.  I just added some beads...but it was SO finnicky to work with!  Mostly only where I had to fix the wire through the holes that I punched in the bag (using one of my husband's tools from his tool box, 'cause I don't have a teeny tiny punch) - I'd like to find an easier way of attaching the handles though - I looped the wire through the hole that I punched, brought the wire back up and then fastened it with a crimp bead.  To try and cover up the crimp bead, I threaded on this gold flower bead:

It didn't cover this one so well because the bead couldn't fit over the crimp bead...but anyway.  If anyone has a neat and simple idea for how to attach a beaded handle like this, please gimme gimme gimme! :)

To finish it off I added a wooden fower bead:

Then, after placing your gift inside, cut a small piece of tissue (tissue works better than tissue paper because it's so small) and cover the gift with it.

There's not much one can gift in such a tiny bag (maybe a chocolate truffle), but it's still cute.  And I love cute stuff. :D 

If you want this gift box template, just ask me for my gift box template no. 1. It's a template that I got from the net and it's by Donovan, but I didn't save the link to where I found it...

LINKY PARTIES linked to:

Simple Home Life                                   Making the World Cuter
Craft-O-Maniac                                     Keeping it Simple
The Blackberry Vine                              Free Pretty Things For You
Someday Crafts                                     Under the Table & Dreaming
Scrappy Gifts                                         .

My little gift bag was featured at The Blackberry Vine!  :D

Beaded Xmas Tree Loops

These little decorations were inspired by the ones I saw on Spoilt Rotten Beads.
I've made these Xmas tree ornaments for My Totally Handmade Christmas Tree Decorations Pledge! :D

Grab my badge in the right side bar & display it on your blog if you wanna join my pledge! :)

These were quite simple and quick to make (it was only the part with the crimp beads that were quite fiddly to do, so be patient there, hehe).  So I've made a tutorial on how to make these ornaments, in case you wanted to make 'em for your pledge as well. ;)

First, this is what you'll need:

an assortment of coloured 6mm bicone facet beads

clear 4mm bicone facet beads

silver-lined size 11 seed beads

crimp beads

loop rings

bells (or your dangly of choice)

memory wire (I used the size that was a few millimeters over 4cm across)

silver string

tools: scissors, pliers & memory wire cutters

First, cut a loop so that it overlaps a little, like this:

Then string on your beads however you like.  I chose this sequence and just repeated it on either side until the ring was full:

String on until the loop is almost full - you'll stop where the loop overlaps:

Now you'll probably have to cut the overlapping wire, just a tad, otherwise it's too long, like in my photo above.  Cut it so that the wire ends no longer want to overlap the beading:

The only way I could think of to secure the wire was to add crimp beads.  So add 2 crimp beads to one side of the wire:

Now slide the other end of the wire into the crimp beads as well:

This is the fiddly part because the beads slide around very easily and could fall off.  But just space the crimp beads on either side of the overlapping wires, so that there's a space between them where you're gonna add your dangly.  Then squish the crimp beads with your pliers so that they secure the wires:

Take a loop ring and add your dangly on it, then close the ring over the centre of the overlapping memory wires:

Finally, take a piece of silver string (I used about 20cm of string) and tie it around the loop ring so that you can hang it on your tree.

And there's your tree ornament! :D

I made some in different colours:

I really enjoyed making these, because they're so simple and relatively quick too. :)

Remember to send me a link of your ornaments if you decided to try 'em out too!

LINKY PARTIES linked to:

The Little Birdie Blog                               Sugar Bee Crafts
Vintage Wanna Bee                                  This & That
Today's Creative Blog                              I'm Topsy Turvy
Rook No. 17                                           Somewhat Simple