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DIY Fall Wreath Ideas

by Kristen Leave a Comment

There’s nothing quite like a pretty wreath on a front door to welcome visitors and celebrate the season.  One of the reasons why I like wreaths so much is because they are great craft project for anyone to make.  It doesn’t matter how talented or experienced you are at doing crafts.  You can keep your wreath as simple as you’d like, or get carried away and adorn it with anything you can think of.  This makes it a fun project for kids too.

Another reason why I enjoy wreaths so much is because these decorations are ideal for any climate or location.  It doesn’t matter if you live in an apartment or house.  Everyone has a door, so a wreath always has a place to call home.  But let’s say that you don’t have the ideal door for hanging a wreath, you can also put these creations in a window, or hang it on the wall.

Here are a few of my favorite ideas for making your own holiday wreath.

Halloween Wreath

Image courtesy of Shards of Blue CC 2.0

This yarn wreath was created for Halloween, but the technique is one that you can use for any holiday.  All you have to do is choose yarn that goes with the holiday you’d like to celebrate and and then choose appliques and accessories that go with it.

How to Make a Yarn Wreath

  1. Start with a Styrofoam, foam, or wicker wreath.
  2. Wrap yarn around the wreath, taking your time to place the yarn close together with no holes showing.
  3. When the entire wreath is covered with yarn, cut the yarn and glue the end using a hot glue gun.
  4. Start adding accents, appliques and decorations to the wreath to create any style, or holiday theme that you’d like.

Another strategy with wreaths is to have a “base” wreath that you use for a couple of holidays and simply change out the accent pieces that go on top.  The Halloween wreath above is a good example of that.  You could create a yarn wreath in a fall colored yarn that will look good for months.  For Halloween you can add white yarn to create a cob-web look and then add Halloween appliques. Add a ghost, felt flowers, felt bat and you’ve made a spooktacular Halloween wreath.
Layered Felt Designs

Image courtesy of roland CC 2.0

When it’s time to switch to a Thanksgiving theme, simply remove the Halloween items and swap them out for some fall leaves, pilgrims or turkey. The felt designs above are the perfect color combination for a fall wreath.  Here’s how to make these easy accent pieces.

  1. Choose several different colors of felt.
  2. Cut out any shape you’d like.  Use the same shape for each color.  You can either make them all the same size, or make each layer slightly smaller than the one beneath it.
  3. Using a needle, thread yarn through the center of each piece of felt, layering one piece of felt on top of the other.  You can tie knots on the ends of the yarn to make it look like the center of a flower.  You can also leave the tail coming out the back side of the “flower” if you’d like to attach them to the wreath using the yarn.

Just remember that if you are going to swap out the appliques and details on top, you want to use velcro or something that allows you to change the accent pieces without ruining the wreath below.  You can always use glue if you want, you’ll just have to be careful removing the old accessories and the new ones will have to go in the same spot so that it covers up the old glue.  Or, wrap a few more strands of yarn around the wreath to cover up the old spots and blend with the existing wreath.

Here are some Thanksgiving accents and appliques ideas to add to your wreath.



Pattern for Fall Crochet AppliquesPattern for Fall Crochet Appliques

Pattern for Crochet Maple LeavesPattern for Crochet Maple Leaves

Pattern for Crochet Oak LeavesPattern for Crochet Oak Leaves

Free Pattern- Crochet Flower & LeavesFree- Crochet Flower-Leaves

From Halloween to Thanksgiving, fall wreaths are full of color and fun.  I hope you enjoy making a DIY Fall Wreath to brighten-up your home, or to make as a gift.

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Filed Under: Gift Ideas, Holiday Crafts Tagged With: fall crafts, halloween crafts, holiday crafts, Thanksgiving crafts, wreaths

Crafts to Make With Alcohol Ink

by Kristen Leave a Comment

Have you added alcohol inks to your craft drawer yet?  One day I saw a video showing a craft made with these liquid inks and I knew that I had to give them a try.  And of course I was instantly hooked.  I love the versatility of alcohol inks.  You can use them to create paintings, mosaics, jewelry and so much more.  Here is one of my favorite ways ways to use these inks.

Alcohol Ink Floating Background

With this technique, all you have to do is mix cold water with alcohol ink.  You can then dip any type of item into the water.  It’s great for making colorful gift tags, colored wooden pieces and beads for jewelry.

Here are a few examples of gift tags made with this technique.  When dry, the tags can be used for stamping and inking.

Cards made with alcohol ink

You can create any color combinations you want.  Have fun playing around with the amount of ink that you place in the water.  Decide what background color you’d like and then add a drop or two of a bold accent color.  It’s also fun to play around with the type of paper that you use.

Alcohol Ink Fluid Designs
Alcohol Ink Fluid Designs
Alcohol Ink Fluid Designs

These beautiful designs show you the depth and variety you can achieve with alcohol ink.  By varying the colors and amount of ink added to the water, you can really play around with the designs that you can achieve with this method.

You aren’t limited to simply using paper and cardstock with this method.

Bisque Beads Made With Alcohol Ink

These beautiful ceramic beads were created with this technique.  The beads were varnished with Decoart Triple Thick Glaze to give them the protective, high-gloss finish.

I hope that you have fun making your own designs using this fluid background technique.  I can’t wait to make some new cards to use for the upcoming holiday season.

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Filed Under: Gift Ideas, Painting, Paper Crafts Tagged With: alcohol ink, gift ideas, painting, paper crafts

Free Halloween Crochet Patterns

by Kristen 2 Comments

The leaves on the trees are bursting with color and now is the perfect time to make some Halloween crafts for your home and family.  From round pumpkins to decorate your table, to adorable hats to keep the kids warm in the cooler weather, there are plenty of fun crochet projects to make with yarn that you already have on hand.

Here are some of my favorite crochet patterns for Halloween.  All of these are free patterns, so grab a copy and get hooking.  These all make great gifts too.

Crochet Pumpkin Beanbag Pattern

Pattern for Free Crochet Bean Bag Decoration

Halloween Crochet Appliques

Pattern for Free Crochet Appliques

Halloween Crochet Pumpkin Hat

Pattern for Halloween Crocheted Pumpkin Hat

Crochet Witch Pattern

Free Pattern for Crochet Witch

Crochet Spiderweb Pattern

Free pattern for Crocheted Half Spiderweb

I hope you enjoy crocheting these fun Halloween crafts to decorate your home and get in the holiday spirit.

Halloween Crochet Patterns

Here are a couple of crochet patterns that I couldn’t resist sharing.  I think that these are both so cute.  The patterns aren’t free, but for only a few dollars, I think that they are still a bargain.



Crochet Scarecrow Hat PatternCrochet Scarecrow Hat Pattern

Pumpkin Lantern PatternPumpkin Lantern Pattern

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Filed Under: Crochet, Gift Ideas Tagged With: crochet, crochet patterns, free crochet patterns, gift ideas, halloween, halloween crafts

Handmade Gift Wrapping

by Kristen Leave a Comment

One way to turn a ho-hum gift into something special is to make your own wrapping paper.  Taking the time to create your own wrapping paper shows the love and care you put into the gift.  Plus, making your own gift wrapping helps you try out new craft techniques, use up left-over supplies, or recycle stuff from around the house.

DIY Gift Wrapping Paper

Handmade Gift Wrapping
Image courtesy of erika g via Flickr CC 2.0

I love this gift wrapping.  You can create pretty flower and leaf motifs using a number of techniques.  Here are a few ideas for how to make your own gift wrapping.

  • Stencil designs onto paper.  You can even use brown paper bags from the grocery store for Eco-friendly gift wrap.
  • Decoupage pictures and words onto paper.  You can create some really fun and creative wrapping paper with decoupage.  Cut out some words or phrases from a newspaper or magazine to write what you want on the gift.
  • A fun craft idea for the kids is to make fruit and vegetable stamps.  You can use apples, potatoes, or whatever item you’d like to cut out a design.  Kids love using these homemade stamps to dip into paint and stamp away.
  • Cut out strips of paper and roll them up into tight circles.  This technique, called quilling, lets you create fun designs with paper.  Simply glue these paper curls onto large pieces of paper to create wrapping paper.

The beauty about making your own wrapping paper is that anything goes.  Any style, any supply and any technique works.  Just have fun with it and see where your imagination takes you.

Here are some inspiring gift wrapping ideas:

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Filed Under: Gift Ideas, Paper Crafts Tagged With: gift ideas, gift wrapping, paper crafts, wrapping paper

Easy Glue Gun Earrings

by Kristen Leave a Comment

One of the things that I love about arts and crafts is that there is no limit to the products that can be used to make beautiful crafts.  Some of the most beautiful things cost next to nothing and are super easy to make.  These glue gun earrings are the perfect example.

Glue Gun Earrings

Four Front Doors has a great tutorial for how to make these pretty earrings.  Can you believe that they are made by painting glue blobs?  Who would have thought that glue could be so beautiful.

On top of being easy to make, I also like this project because it doesn’t cost much to make these earrings.  A glue gun, paints, earring jump rings and E-6000 glue.  The only thing you may not have on hand is a non-stick silicone mat, but I think that you could probably use waxed paper just as easily.

I hope you have fun creating your own glue gun earrings.  Make a pair for yourself and as a gift for someone special.

Some of my favorite jewelry making books:

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Filed Under: Gift Ideas, Jewelry Tagged With: diy jewelry, jewelry

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