Craft Archives

Here you will find craft tutorials, records of my creative projects and ideas to inspire.

Oct 17, 2012

Our First Jack o’Lantern

Believe it or not, in my 30 years on this planet, I have never EVER carved a pumpkin. This was a massive shock to my father, who is as big a Halloween nut as anyone I’ve ever met. As a kid, my mom wasn’t much into the holiday, and I don’t think she was ever keen to spend cold hard cash on something like a gourd that would just be left to rot on the front porch.

And, of course, in the UK, where I lived for nearly all of my adult life, Halloween is not celebrated like it is in the US. It is basically just an excuse for pubs to have costume parties and for girls to dress as scantily as they can manage without getting arrested for indecent exposure.

So I was beyond thrilled when my dad had a lovely large pumpkin ready and waiting for us when we got here. And yesterday afternoon, I got the chance to carve it all by myself!! (Mostly…)

Pumpkin

On a bed of newspapers, sat on a table in the backyard, I gazed into the orange orb and tried to decide what kind of face would be best to carve. Thanks to Pinterest and other social networking sites, I have been spoiled by amazingly complicated carvings which made me want to shoot for the moon! I envisioned everything from intricate monster faces to a whole cityscape set into the side of my pumpkin. I thought about covering the whole thing in a spidery web or recreating a fabulously famous artwork to win kudos from the pumpkin carving community. ..

But in the end, I knew my limitations and went with a very simple and classic Jack o’Lantern face. Dad suggested I use a marker to draw it on there first and then carve it out. So that’s what I did.

I first cut off the top of the pumpkin and removed all the innards.

Remove Top

In the cold autumn air, those insides were COLD. My hands felt nearly frozen by the time I’d spent 20 minutes digging around and pulling out seeds and stringy bits. When I realised that these were a fire hazard once dry, I got a little paranoid and started using my nails to really go for it. In the end, though, my dad brought me a handy scraper tool to be able to get as much out as possible and create a solid flat base for the candle at the bottom.

Unfortunately I have no photos of the carving process, as it was at this point that my dad took my phone away to keep it clean, and Mark, Dex and my mom got bored and went off for a walk down by the river, leaving me with no real documentation of my accomplishment.

Of course, this means there is also no proof that my dad, after watching me carve out two eyes, a nose, and half a mouth found my lack of skill astoundingly frustrating and took the knife from my hands to finish the job himself.

Ah well. He did make it look rather a lot easier than I did!

In the end, we were left with a solidly Jack o’Lantern-looking pumpkin.

Carved Pumpkin

It wasn’t quite the masterpiece I’d hoped for, but then again it WAS my first try. And there is still plenty of time before Halloween to have another go.

After we’d gone out for the evening to see my brother and his family, we returned home to find my dad had set the pumpkin out on the front porch for us. I excitedly grabbed Dexter and took him to see it up close. I don’t think he knew QUITE what to make of it, but I think he was only MILDLY afraid of it!

Dex and Jack

Mom and Dex with Jack

All in all, it was a great sense of accomplishment, and the start of a brand new family tradition, I think! Can’t wait to try it again with a little more time and patience and maybe a how-to guide by my side!

Jackolantern

Filed Under: HerCrafty, HerFamily · Tagged: autumn, carving, family fun, halloween, holiday, jackolantern, pumpkin, pumpkin carving

Aug 22, 2012

Craft Tutorial – Homemade Menu Bulletin Board

By Katie Vyktoriah · Leave a Comment

I’m sure that I’ve mentioned before that I have a slight obsession with Pinterest (who doesn’t, eh?!). And lately, a lot of my pins have had a common theme – budgeting, planning and home economics.

I’ve become slightly fanatical about trying to make our money stretch further and to make quality meals for pennies. As you know by now, I LOVE to cook, and I post recipes constantly. But creating gourmet meals from scratch can become expensive, and my aim is to SAVE THOSE DOLLAH DOLLAH BILLS!

With that in mind, I decided to start a menu board. Something that I (and everyone else!) could use to see at a glance what food was on offer this week. It means I can make sure to go through all the meals in my freezer and get them eaten in the order that makes the most sense.

I found LOADS of “pinspiration” on the boards, but not wanting to go out and spend extra cash on supplies, I decided to use what I had around the house to create a menu board.

So basically, here’s my tutorial on how to go about creating a menu board.

Materials needed:

1 large bulletin board (mine is 36 x 24 inches)
2 sheets of 12×12 scrapbook paper
craft paint (your choice of color)
mod podge or glue
7 pieces of card stock or gift tags
sticker letters
push pins
small bulldog clips

What To Do:

First, take the bulletin board and give the surface a coat of paint in your choice of color. I chose a plain white because I my board hangs in a common area and I didn’t want anything TOO outlandish.

Fair warning – bulletin boards are QUITE porous, and the paint will soak right into it. You might have to give it two or even three coats to ensure coverage.

Once the paint has dried, and you’re happy with it, use the mod podge or glue to stick the two sheets of scrapbook paper to one side of the board. I used polkadot paper, so I had to make sure to overlap them a little bit so that it looked seamless.

Once the glue or mod podge is dry, take the card stock or gift tags and glue them down. These are where you’ll write the days of the week. You can do them one on top of the other or stagger them left and right. Whatever you fancy! I took some old K & Co card labels and used them. They were already quite decorative, so I didn’t really have to do anything to make them pretty. You can decorate yours any way you fancy.

Use your sticker letters (or failing that, just take a marker!) and write the days of the week on each of the cards. You can draw pictures or add embellishments. I had some cute flower die cuts with little jewels on them, so I added one to each day.

Then, place a push pin next to each day of the week and hang a bulldog clip on it. These will hold your recipe cards on them so you can see what’s for dinner each night!

For the rest of the board, you can decorate with stickers or embellishments. I added a cute little shopping list to my board so that if Mark or I run out of anything, we can just check it off the list and know to get it next time we go to the store.

SIMPLES!

As you can see, I now have a clever little board which is still fully functional as a notice board (I’ve got tons of stuff pinned to it!) but which allows everyone to keep track of the food for the week.

I hope this can help you be inspired to create something similar. Do let me know how it turns out if you try it!

And feel free to follow me on Pinterest!

Filed Under: HerCrafty · Tagged: bulletin board, craft, die cut, glue, menu, mod podge, paint, recipes, stickers

Apr 20, 2012

Craft Tutorial – Easy Homemade iPad Case

By Katie Vyktoriah · 10 Comments

If you keep up with me on Twitter, you may have seen that last week, I won my very own iPad 3 from the lovely people at Create. And while I was really thankful for such an amazing prize, my girlfriendly duties kicked in, and I ~~grudgingly~~ happily handed it over to Mark as a token of my love. But that left the iPad 1 we have all for me! And now I can play Draw Something on a bigger screen, which makes me very very happy.

But given the fragile nature of these sorts of gadgets and my well-known clumsiness when it comes to Apple products, I decided that I should probably buy a case of some sort so that I didn’t scratch, shatter or crack the thing. But when trolling the internet, I couldn’t see anything I really really liked. So I figured I’d go ahead and MAKE one instead!

I looked through a few different tutorials on Pinterest, but in the end, I kind of used a mishmash of techniques to create my own take. I even took photos along the way so that if it worked, I could show the madness to my method.

And it turns out – I am something of a creative genius, because my new case is both stylish AND practical. Plus, it could double as a really fab clutch!

Want to see the finished product and see how I did it? Here we go!

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Blog, HerCrafty · Tagged: imagination, photo posts, technology, tutorial

Mar 10, 2012

Craft Tutorial – Birds Nest Necklace

By Katie Vyktoriah · 10 Comments

With Mother’s Day coming up here in the UK, I’ve been busy preparing. That is preparing to be disappointed. Last year I had no presents, no breakfast in bed, no acknowledgement whatsoever. And as it was my first ever Mother’s Day, you can imagine how upsetting it was.

Still, I believe my man has learned his lesson, and he assures me that this year will be different…

So while I can only assume that MY gift is sorted, I started thinking about what OTHER mothers out there may like. A while back, I saw someone selling gorgeous Bird’s Nest Necklaces (like these ones here and here). And while they are absolutely beautiful, the price tag isn’t. So I decided to try my hand and do it myself.

And the result? So easy, a child could do it! Which makes it PERFECT as a Mother’s Day craft!

So here is how you can do your very own necklace.

First, get some wire. You can buy it from the craft store or even a hardware store. I got a spindle for £1.99, and there were all different colours.

Next, grab some beads. Again, any craft store and lots of other places have beads. Different shapes, sizes, colours are all great. I actually have loads of beads in my craft drawers, so I just grabbed a few from there.

For the necklace, you can either buy a ready-to-wear chain (or steal one from another of your necklaces), or you can buy some chains, jump rings and clasps. I opted for ready-to-wear, and it cost me only £2 for each 18inch chain. If kids are doing this, you might consider letting them use string instead. Up to you.

And then, we start. Simply take the beads and string them onto end of the wire. A good idea is to put the same number of beads as number of children the mother in question may have. Or, if it’s for a pregnant lady, perhaps one large bead to symbolise the baby.

To keep from having pointy wire poking your chest, make sure you tuck the end into one of the beads.

And then? Wrap the wire around and around and around the beads to create your nest.

I’d advise every so often to loop around the wires so you can keep them together.

Once your nest looks the way you like, either add a jump ring or create a loop from the wire at the top, where you want your chain to attach. Then take the end of the wire and weave it into the nest, making sure to hide it well.

The result?