Baby Shower Crafting

 

 

Events, such as baby showers, offer such great opportunities for decor. But, depending on your budget you might not be able to achieve the look you want. 

My best friend had her baby, as you may have seen in previous posts, and she wanted to bring a jungle theme in to match her little man’s room. We made most of the decor ourselves and I have to say I think it turned out pretty darn good. From my experience in the wedding industry, and my attempts at doing the decor for this shower, here are some tips.

1) Use decor that covers a large amount of space for as little dough. Balloons, streamers and tissue paper pompoms are a good place to start. We used tons and tons of balloons in green and blue.

2) Include everyone in your theme! Use your invitation and tell key people who you think will help. That way if anyone is bring treats they can try to fit within the theme. We made a jungle cupcake tree with large cardboard leaves on the bottom. I used green icing on my mini red velvet cupcakes with animal crackers! Our friend also brought cupcakes with the same theme with all kinds of decorations.

3) Think of what you will need, and apply the theme. We decorated a binder for a guest book and used little trunks from the dollar store for cards.

4) Use all of your creativity! We made a big three panel sign with paints and decals to really bring the theme home.

 

Mini Crafting

I always enjoy looking for a new type of craft or creation to work on in the future. The best way to be inspired for making something is looking at examples and other cool things people are making.

Well, let me tell you I’ve found my new obsession: miniatures.

I recently went to a friend’s house and she had four separate miniature buildings in her basement. Each one had a different theme or purpose and each one was jam packed with mini.. everything! Each drawer had mini clothes, tools, magazines and much more. I was so inspired and I really can’t stop thinking about it.

So, I went on the Google machine and found the most amazing examples of what is possible to create for a miniature world. And there are so many options of where to take your creative concepts, from historical to the modern.

This is what I hope will be my next big creative project for winter 2013/2014. I cannot wait to make mini food and mini décor. (Also could be a really interesting gift if you can recreate someone’s favourite space).

Here are a few examples of how amazing the creativity and amazing talent that goes into current miniature projects.

 

Creative VIII

This week’s craft is something pretty neat you can create over a period of time for some home decor with special meaning.

I’m the type of person who will always pick something up that looks interesting, even if there’s really no purpose for it. And if you do the same you might have a collection of stones and shells from beach trips, pretty feathers or even pointless beads and cute buttons from shirts you can’t bear to throw out. Well, I’m telling there is a purpose for it!

Find an old wooden bowl, or cool container you found at a garage sale. (Maybe even a teapot if it tickles your fancy.) Now strategically place the special items you have. Start with the larger pieces and let the smaller ones fill up the gaps. Keys, dried flowers, candles (which you should not light) can all find a place. Too keep it from looking messy or crowded, put it on a shelf or table all by itself.

Now you don’t have to throw out all of those old handmade friendship bracelets, stones and trinkets.  Show ’em off and let them become a piece of art.

Here is an example of what I created with my dad over the span of ten years. It started as a wooden candle holder that began to house all the little things picked up from walks and little gifts. My dad gave it to me and I continue to add to it. There is pieces of coral, a birthday candle beads from portugal, shells, stones and pinecones. (sorry for the poor quality iPhone pic haha)

Creative Christmas

I’m a absolute Christmas freak, and I love choosing gifts.

This year, however, Christmas gift giving was so hard because I barely have a pot to piss in, never mind spending the hundreds I usually end up spending on gifts. So I went the home-made route this year. I wasn’t spending a lot of dough (that I didn’t have) but I was spending a lot of time! So here are some Christmas gift ideas to do on the cheap, that are very thoughtful.

I got some brown paper bags for the dollar store, decorated them instead of doing a card. Inside I put a few dozen cookies and a homemade calendar I made in school. Overall it costed me about $30 ($20 to print the calendars and $10 for supplies) to make about 6 gift bags aside from the larger gifts I bought earlier. This allowed me to get everyone in my family something.

 

 

 

Anything edible is always a safe bet. I made an assortment of shortbread and chocolate chip and gave a few dozen with each gift. I used a cookie press to get the tree shape, and to speed up the process.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From thin pieces of cardboard you can cut out Christmas shapes. Trace various size circles to make ornaments and snowmen. Then paint away. I used a darker shade of each colour to add depth and shape. Make sure the brush is almost dry before dabbing on the shading. Then I created a kitschy border with a black sharpie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is an example of a snowman bag, before it’s all glued down and decorated. You can find cute embellishments at the dollar store, as you can see on the hat. I also decorated the trees with little gold stars.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a different option for wrapping. You can find little cardboard or wooden boxes at the dollar store or craft store. I made a large snowman face for my grandma to put her tea lights in with lots of embellishments. Every year she puts her tea lights for Christmas in an old kleenex box hidden in her table, now she has something pretty to put them in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s a pic of the card I made my mom that hid a Starbucks gift card in the back (her obsession). And yes, drank is spelled purposefully for my mom’s sense of humour.

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see, you can really create something more thoughtful and unique than something you picked out at the store (and less expensive).

Creatory VII

My best friend in the whole wide world is due in less than a month! So, she is the perfect ripeness for a pregnant painted belly. We had about 101 ideas, but since it was game day she wanted a tribute to her mans team: the colts. We did a full on photoshoot (which I’m still editing) but here is a quick look at what we did. Make sure you’re using non toxic paints if you want to try out this project!!! Hopefully we will have time to do another one before the baby comes! I’d like to do a pretty gardeny theme 🙂

National Pain Awareness Week

My IPP (Independent Professional Project) is a documentary about a chronic pain condition called RSD/CRPS. My dad has had it since 2004, and although you may have never head of it, it’s estimated that 1.5 to 6 million people have it world wide.

It’s a neurological pain condition that occurs when pain resides in the nerves long after an injury should have healed. Doctors are baffled by it, and there is no cure or accurate way to test it. But that doesn’t mean that these patients are in extreme pain. An estimated 50% of cases go undiagnosed, and patients are improperly treated everyday. It had taken my dad 22 doctors to be diagnosed.

A doctor gets 9 hours of pain management education and a vet will get 17 hours. So, technically your dog would get better pain management than you would.

A good way to put this condition into perspective is the McGill Pain Index. It’s difficult to rate pain because it’s so subjective, but science has tried to rate certain conditions, injuries and surgeries out of a score of 50. Non-terminal cancer was given a 28, while RSD/CRPS was given a 42, right above the amputation of a finger.

So, for National Pain Awareness Week, I wrote a story for the school paper, went on the school’s radio station’s morning show (to be posted), and held a popcorn for pain sale in the Atrium. I wanted to make some money for my project, but more importantly I wanted to spread education through my posters and fact sheets. I had regular, caramel, sweet & salty and chocolate popcorn, all donated by M&M Convenience.

Here are some of the photos of my posters and my little sale.

And a big thanks to my sister for helping me get the popcorn ready, and Charmaine Jennings for helping me set-up and keeping me company.

 

Creatory VI

Here is a home-made halloween costume for my pregnant friend. It was inexpensive and really fun to make.

Creatory V

For an advanced desktop publishing class, we were instructed to create an identity package. I decided to do one for my mom, who is a level three Reiki master.

Reiki is a massage therapy where there is no physical contact, but rather energy transfer through your chakras. Chakras are your energy channels and each one has a purpose, and Reiki is mean to balance these channels and balance your life. It’s something that my mom has done to surgeons before they perform surgery.

I decided to do this for my mom because I thought Reiki would be a fun theme to design around, and so she can have some tools to work with to make some extra money on the side. It’s also fun to create something for someone else, and more so when they give you free reign and they appreciate it. Originally, I used all the colours of the chakras on the shape of the body, but for the purposes of the assignment I only used black and a nice deep purple.

Creatory IV

Painting is my favourite creative outlet, and I also love making gifts. So painting for crafts is a fun, and simple way to paint. It’s a different approach because you can take things to different levels of texture, shape and medium. It’s three-dimensional and you end up with a gift that’s inexpensive and really personal. So, with creating a cute Halloween craft I will show my tips for CRAFT PAINTING.

Now you have a Halloween treat box. You can use these tips for any craft and make the best gifts.

obsessed

Kind of obsessed with this song/video. I love the lyrics, and the voices of Sheryl Crow and Stevie Nicks makes me melt. I’ve recently discovered an old ’90’s Sheryl Crow CD and when I like a CD or a track I KILL IT and play it on repeat. This song gives me shivers, hope it does the same for you.

Are you strong enough?