Set of felt and cotton letters, $35 from Morgan Melim.
Ruffled Sweatshirt Dress, $198 from Emily Ryan.
Vintage Chinese Checkers, $11.95 from Hope & Joy Home.
Textured Skirt, $105 from One Robin Road.
Valentine Letterpress Card, $4 from Dutch Door Press.
Teeny Hearties Wall Wear, $40 from nea jewelry & wall wear.
Matryoshka Hair Clip, $3.50 from Neskat.
Small Bunny Vase, $48 from pretty random objects.
Apple Tree Buttons, set of 5 for $5.30 from Hectanooga.
The Chinese New Year celebration begins on January 26, so here are some crafts to make with the kiddos.
Lion Puppet and other crafts from Activity Village.
Paper ox from Brenda Ponnay for Alpha Mom.
Paper Dragon from Martha Stewart.
Plum Tree and other crafts from Kaboose.
Red Packet Paper Lantern from Kids Craft Weekly.
Paper Dragon from Hewlett Packard.
Plus lots of links and activities at Squidoo.
I don’t know about you, but when it’s cold out I like to stay inside and eat cookies. I made these chocolate chip cookies after my friend Laura sent me the link to the recipe — The New York Times cookies. I used regular flour, regular chocolate chips plus some white chocolate chunks and an ice cream scoop to get them the right size.
These would be great for Valentine’s Day and I think a single cookie would make a nice little gift for a teacher or co-worker. I’ve always loved this Martha Stewart CD sleeve idea, but you could just wrap them with parchment paper and twine as I did here.
Here’s a project from your grammar school days. This Valentine’s Day, there’s no need to buy candy in plastic containers with wasteful packaging or flowers in another unwanted vase. Use a soup can. Fill it with candy and nuts, pencils, a handmade toy, flowers, a plant (poke holes in the bottom of the can or use rocks for drainage), money, a gift card or whatever else your sweetie might like. I’ve made it easy for you by providing these templates for 15 ounce cans. Be sure to thoroughly wash the can, remove the label and make sure there are no sharp pieces on the rim.
If you sew, you can quickly make a fabric sleeve for your soup can. I’ve included instructions here (soup-can-fabric-sleeve) for a sleeve with an appliqué heart. I also made one without the heart from this great Cicada Studio linen blend fabric. Now for me, using small pieces of fabric from my stash is recycling, but you could also use some old clothing or vintage fabric.
If you don’t sew, here’s a quick template (soup-can-paper-template) using card stock, a craft knife, and some glue. I really like the look of the steel ridges in the can, so this one exposes them. Would be even better if you used some paper from the recycling bin. If you are one of those people like me who is constantly de-cluttering, you won’t feel bad about tossing these cans after Valentine’s Day because they can go right back into the recycling bin.
My kids also decorated some cans with stamps and paint. The possibilities are endless.
See these related tutorials:
Beaded cans from Susan Beal for CraftStylish.
Fabric vase covers from How about orange.
Can covers from Elsie Marley with great embroidery designs.
Silly as it is, I have started a Facebook group for The Long Thread. Not sure yet what I’ll do with it, but I’d love to have some more members. Not that 19 isn’t enough — those are 19 quality people there, but you know.
