DIY Scotch® Tape Gift Boxes and tags

You might remember back at the start of the year I took part in a fun campaign for the new Scotch® Expressions Tapes.  I shared ideas for a fun washi tape craft party, a washi tape dollhouse and these crafty posts as well…

* Washi Tape Kids Art and Crafts

* Washi Tape Back to School ideas

* Decorative tape ideas in the Classroom

 Well I am taking part part in another campaign for Scotch® as they have a new promotion and competition happening, as well as lots of gorgeous new tapes. If you take a look on my instagram page you can see photo's of the new tapes at my local Warehouse Stationery. I took my daughters with me and they were going crazy for all the new tapes, especially the neon ones and the rainbow ones :)

I was asked to write a tutorial under the theme Gift Boxes/Bags/Gift cards so immediately what popped into my mind was how to make these gift boxes. I was taught how to make these by a teacher at the school I used to teach at (thanks Roger!) and I made them with my classes every year at Christmas time- they are super easy to make and you can have so much fun decorating them. 

You can make these gift boxes any size you want. For this tutorial I used 2 pieces of card sized A4 each. As long as your two pieces of card are the same size (one for the base and one for the lid) you can do whatever size you want. I recommend using 160 GSM card stock for these boxes.

DIY Washi Tape Gift Boxes (and matching gift tags)

You will need

2 x A4 pieces of card

Long ruler ie: longer than a normal 30cm one

Pencil

Stapler

Rolls of Scotch® washi tape

1. Take one of your pieces of card. This can be the base of the box. Draw two lines from corner to corner as in pic above ( this is to find the middle of your piece of card)

2. Fold each side of your piece of card into the middle (where the two lines meet). 

3. I have drawn lines to show where you will cut to make the tabs- where each vertical fold meets the horizontal fold on the side of the card.

4. Cut these lines to make the tabs

5. Starting on one end of your piece of card, bring the two smaller tabs on each side of the middle tab together into the middle to make the side of the box. Bring the larger tab up and fold the top of it it over the smaller tabs.

6. Staple to keep the tabs together. Repeat on the other side of the box

Repeat steps 1 - 6 on the other piece of card to make the lid. (The lid will fit snugly on the base as they are the same size, you'll just need to squeeze the base a bit to get it to fit inside the lid.)

Now have fun decorating your base and lid with the new Scotch® washi tapes!  Wrap the tapes around the box, make stripes with different tapes, cut out triangles with the tape and make a pattern, there are endless possibilities!

I made these smaller boxes to show some different ideas for decorating with the tapes.

And to make these cute gift tags, I used some gift tags I bought recently from Tea Pea. I just wrapped two lines of washi tape around the bottom of the tag and cut an inverted triangle into the tag. I'm loving the colour mint at the moment so was very happy to get this new mint washi tape from Scotch to use for the tutorial :)

So have a go at making and decorating your own gift boxes (it would be a fun thing to do with your kids at Christmas time) and check out the Scotch® Facebook app via www.3mcreative.co.nz. Just by voting for a favourite crafty project you will be in to win a fujifilm instax mini 8 camera or a Scotch Expressions tape pack!

And if you upload your own creation (there are some great tutorials on the Facebook app, you could have a go at my gift boxes, or get more inspiration from my 'I love washi tape' pinterest page) you will be in to win a $200 Prezzy Gift Card - there's one to win every week of the campaign!

Megan 

PS: check out my Facebook page this week as I will be giving three packs of tapes away as well thanks to Scotch®

my creative space: a handy noticeboard tutorial

I've been wanting to make Amelie a noticeboard for her room for ages but I just couldn't find the right fabric to go with her blue walls..until I came across this lovely fabric called Cotton Bird Trail from Kate Fitzpatrick.  I wanted to make a noticeboard that also held all her bits and pieces that end up all over the house so I came up with the idea of adding a plastic pocket to the bottom of the noticeboard for all her hair clips, bobbles, headbands etc.   (I should add that they are still all over the house but at least they have a home now at the end of the day!) It actually didn't take much time at all- maybe an hour at the most so I thought I'd share it with you.

You'll need

* a piece of pinex cut to the size you want - I got it from ITM building supplies

* a piece of fabric big enough to cover the noticeboard

* a gun stapler

* some clear plastic (I get mine from Payless Plastics- you buy it off the roll- about $5 for half a metre)

* some bias binding

1. To work out how much fabric to cut, measure the width and length of your piece of pinex, then add about 5-10 cm to those measurements (depending on how thick your piece of pinex is- you want to cover the pinex including the sides with lots of room on the back to staple the fabric down easily) and cut out your fabric to those measurements.

2. Measure a piece of clear plastic the width of the piece of fabric and however much high you want it to be (mine was about 18 cm which includes some of the plastic going around the bottom of the noticeboard and stapled on the back- my pocket is about 15cm high finished)

3. Cut out your plastic and cut a piece of bias binding the width of the plastic

4. Sew the binding to the top of the plastic

 

5. Staple gun your fabric onto the piece of pinex

6. Place your plastic pocket on top of the fabric, fold it around the sides of the noticeboard and staple gun it to the back, sides and bottom of the noticeboard. 

A tip- when you staple the plastic let it have a bit of give instead of stapling it really tightly and flat to the noticeboard otherwise little fingers will find it tricky to get things out of the pocket! When I made mine I actually sewed three pockets into the plastic but I wouldn't do that again as it is quite tricky to get the things out of the pockets- it would be a lot easier if it was just one big pocket like in the tutorial.

7. I just stapled gunned a piece of string to the back to hang it but it isn't working very well so I'm going to get some little screws or something to attach the string to so the staples don't keep popping out when Amelie pulls on the noticeboard!

 

So there you have it- any questions just let me know! For more creative spaces head over to Kootoyoo.

Megan 

PS: Have you entered my facebook giveaway yet?

PPS: head on over to Sew Funky's blog to sign up for the kiwi christmas ornament swap!

a reversible shoulder bag

My sister Amy put in a request for a shoulder bag for her honeymoon so I found this great tutorial at the fab blog verypurpleperson.com. It has really clear instructions with photo's and the pattern too.
I ordered some lovely Echino fabric from stitchbird.co.nz for Amy's bag and used some fabric I already had (also from Stitchbird) for my one as I decided that I really needed another bag too (*insert snort from husband here*).

I just used some white cotton duck for the lining for Amy's bag so it's not really reversible (unless she wants a white bag some days!) but the duck was good for making the bag nice and strong.

One thing I found when I made up Amy's bag was that the strap ended up too short so I had to unpick and add a 10cm approx panel to the strap.

So I added a 5 cm approx panel to the pattern when I made up my bag.

It's a great size for a shoulder bag, not too big but big enough for all my day to day stuff. 

I also like the look of this tutorial from Tinyhappy for a shoulder bag with just one strap that you wear across your body which I find great when I'm out and about with the kids.

...And on a completely different tangent, have you seen these in the supermarket? 

I went in there the other day as you do to get just one thing and ended up buying all three of these as well...naughty end of the aisle promotions!!  I have a friend that used to have a bit of an addiction to Squiggle Tops...maybe these will find their way to her mail box soon..

Megan x

rainy day kids ideas

I've just started back teaching one day a week and one of the classes I'm teaching is 5 year olds. Their teacher wants me to do lots of 'language experience' activities where we do an activity or listen to a book and then write and draw about it. So I dragged all my old resources out and made a list of ideas and practiced a few on my 3 year old.   I thought I'd share them with you if you're wanting some things to do this rainy weekend! (Both activities use things you've probably got around the house)
Magic Milk
This activity is a great little science one and also good for learning about colours/colour mixing.
You will need

• full fat milk (full fat seems to work better than trim, also warmer milk seems to work better than milk straight out of the fridge)
• food colouring- red, blue, yellow and green
• eye droppers
• dishwashing liquid (I use Palmolive, a teacher said she used the cheap pink stuff and it didn't work that well)
• saucer

1. Pour milk into saucer
2. Put a drop of each food colouring into the saucer (top, bottom, left and right like this)

(I used way too much food colouring here, two or three drops is enough!)

3. Squirt a bit of dishwashing liquid into the middle of the saucer

4. Watch what happens (it's pretty cool!)

Magic pictures
The teacher in the 5 year old class I'm in had just done this with the class so it was a good memory jogger for me as I used to like doing this activity with my own classes -it's neat as an intro to print making but is also just a good art activity that can take a little while to do which is always good!!
You'll need

• A4 paper 
• chalk (any colour)
• crayons 
• sharp pencil

1. Fold the piece of paper in half width ways and cover the inside right side with chalk quite thickly

2. Now cover the chalk with crayon; again the thicker the better (no gaps ). You can just cover the chalk in one colour, do stripes like mine horizontally or vertically, thick zig zag lines, anything really as long as the crayon completely covers the chalk.

3. Fold the piece of paper back over like a card, draw on the front of the 'card' with the sharp pencil. Colour in some of the pictures with the pencil to see what happens when you open the card (like my heart and the birds wing)

You could get them to write their name too- kids love seeing their name backwards!
4. Open up the card and see how the picture has lifted from the right side and made a print onto the left side!

Have fun!

Megan

More christmas embroidery

Thank you for your lovely comments about my embroidered napkins- I finished the rest of them in the weekend so here they are...

I have uploaded the individual photo's to my flickr page so you can see what stitches I used. 

And if you are wanting my (very basic) pdf of the designs here's the link again

Megan ♡

my creative space: christmas embroidery

I know it's only August and you really don't want to see Christmas things already but this little project is such a nice one to do on a winters evening that I thought I'd share it now. I thought it was going to be a project that would take me quite a while but I actually did these six napkins in one evening as they really are quite quick to stitch.  I saw the idea to embroider christmas napkins on one of my favourite programmes last year, 'Kirstie's Homemade Christmas', on the Living Channel.  I love the idea of getting out the christmas napkins every year as a little tradition and my girls hopefully treasuring them one day as a sort of family heirloom.

I found the napkins in Briscoes on special for $2 each which was great- they are really good quality too. Or you could make your own or hunt for a set at an op-shop even.  I drew the designs myself after looking through my christmas crafty file, christmas craft books and looking at clipart to get ideas.
So if you would like to make your own christmas napkins here's what you need..

• white cloth napkins
• an embroidery hoop- I used a 15 cm one
• an air vanishing pen
• embroidery thread in chosen colours- I used the same 5 colours (red, pink, green, light green, yellow and  beige) for all the designs which gives a nice look of unity to the napkins.
• embroidery needle
• scissors
• christmas designs ( if you want to use mine I've made a pdf of them for you- they are pretty basic as I just drew them on paper and scanned them in as I can't draw on the computer!) 

I chose to stitch my designs in the centre top of each napkin so when they're folded the design will be at the top but you could put the design wherever you want.

Either draw the designs straight onto the napkin or trace them by putting sticking the designs on a window and tracing the design onto the napkin.

Stitch over the top of the design with your chosen threads. I used back stitch, chain stitch, satin stitch, running stitch and split stitch for my designs. There are instructions for these stitches here. The individual photo's of each design are on my flickr page. 

One issue I have is the slight mess at the back of my work so I'm going to iron a bit of interfacing over it to sort of hide it!! If you are a much neater embroiderer than me you probably won't have to though!

Some other ideas....
* these designs would be great for embroidering christmas stockings or decorations or any other christmassy things
* you could even embroider the name of each member of your family on a napkin and every year they have their own napkin- this would also make a great gift for your mother/mother in law if your whole family is going to their house for christmas!
*you could also make these for a house warming, engagement or wedding present embroidered with things like a heart, the couple's initials, a little house picture, a key,  engagement/wedding date,  a plant or flower, a cat or dog if they have pets or any other meaningful pictures for the couple.
* Other christmas motif ideas... Father Christmas, a christmas pudding, a reindeer,  a gingerbread house or gingerbread man...

This one's my favourite :)

Happy stitching!

Check out more creative spaces at Kirsty's here

Megan ♡

Four ways with a crochet flower and a tutorial

I love the last page in "Your Home and Garden' (NZ) magazine each month -"Four Ways With...' - lots of creative crafty ideas and little projects.

So after emailing this lovely crafter my crochet flower pattern she gave me the idea of writing my own 

'Four ways with ...a crochet flower'.

1. Decorate a woolly hat  (I bought the hat for $1 from the Bethlehem Market -bargain!)

2. Make a little brooch ( I found these brooch backers at a bead shop in Tauranga)

3. Embellish a granny square

4. Make a crochet flower hair-clip

A few people have asked where I found the pattern for my crochet flower...my crochet class teacher showed us how to make them in our first class so here are the instructions for any beginner crochet crafters like me!

How to crochet a small daisy flower

1. Chain 4

2. Do a slip stitch to make the chain into a ring (put your hook through the first chain stitch you did and hook the wool through that stitch and the stich on your hook) 

3. Wiggle your little finger through the ring you have made to make the hole a bit bigger and easier to see

4. Do a treble stitch into the hole (UK/AUS treble)

5. Do 2 more treble stitches into the hole (each set of 3 trebles makes a petal)

6. Now slip stitch by putting your hook through the hole, hooking the wool and pulling it through the hole and under stitch on your hook

7. Do 3 trebles into the hole again then another slip stich

8. Do 3 trebles and another slip stitch

9. Do 3 trebles then another slip stitch

10. Do 3 trebles- you should have 5 'petals' now 

11. Slip stitch into centre and fasten off/

I've made a pdf of the tutorial with step by step photo's that you can download or print here.

And for more crochet inspiration here are some clever people to visit...

http://crochethealingandraymond.wordpress.com (she has a lovely giveaway at the mo)
http://attic24.typepad.com/
http://greedyforcolour.blogspot.com/
http://auntymum.blogspot.com
www.kootoyoo.com

Megan x
PS: I'd love to hear of any more flower ideas and does anyone have a link to a pattern to make a bigger flower?
PPS: Go the All Whites!!