Christmas Cheer!

My newest holiday crafting project:  Homemade Christmas crackers!  These were made almost entirely of reused items from my home, making them inexpensive and good for the environment.

And they're really easy to make:

1. Cut a toilet paper tube in half.  (I had quite a collection of these already, as I was saving them for another project.  You can also cut down paper towel tubes.)

2. Wrap with festive tissue paper.  (Some I wrapped in a single layer, but others I doubled with matching tissue to add an extra decorative element.  Again, this was something we just had lying around the house.  We receive many gift bags, and save the tissue for future use.)

3. Secure the paper with some tape.

4.  Tie one end tightly with ribbon.

5.  Fill with goodies, and a little confetti for an added surprise!  (I mostly used candy, but any small items will work.  The poppers for my cousin also have a few crayons and Lip Smackers in each.  Next year I may put some dollar bills and hair ties.  Maybe even lottery tickets for the adults.)

6.  Tie the other end and curl the ribbon (not done here, yet).  You may also want to perforate the center with a needle along the seam created by cutting the toilet paper tube in half.  My sis and I tested a few, and without perforations they break at the ends rather than the middle.  We haven't tested a perforated version yet, but think it may help.

Please enjoy this post responsibly

I'm always on the lookout for recycling projects that also make fun, unique gifts. For her birthday, my sister received these bottle cap magnets that I absolutely love:




They're simple to make, and depending on how/where you acquire the bottle caps, fairly inexpensive as well. Of course, if your gift recipient is under 21, you might want to opt for soda bottle caps instead. I even did a bit of brainstorming, and thought it would be fun to make similar magnets from Scrabble tiles or large buttons (Again, for the non-alcoholics in your life).

A photo of the complete collection is below. I need to ask Sister's friend how long it took her to collect all of these!

Curiously Strong Design

Today I got a mini-education on "steampunk" thanks to the Stuff You Should Know podcast. While I don't think I'll be donning Victorian Era garb anytime soon, I did love these etched Altoid tins that were discussed by the SYSK guys:




Photos from isitcruchy's Flickr page. More Altoid tin etching and Steampunk fun at The Steampunk Workshop.

Pinhole photography sounds a little dirty, but I swear it's not.

The same class that produced those lovely Lomo photos from my previous post also introduced me to pinhole photography. Now, you can buy actual pinhole cameras, but our project was strictly DIY. My camera was made from a cereal box that was masterfully taped up with at least two rolls of black electrical tape. The cameras were loaded with a single sheet of photo paper, so there was a lot of walking back and forth between where we took our images and the photo lab. The limitations were a great way to get creative without the luxury of film and portability.

Here are a couple images I created:


Fountain/lake thing in a CSUF Art Department courtyard


Sculpture in the CSUF Art Department's admin building courtyard

For the life of me I cannot remember how we got the negative images. I'm sure it's a pretty simple process, but as it's been nearly five years since I took the class I've completely forgotten the steps.

Instructions on how to make your own pinhole camera, here.

Some cool pinhole images from other people, here and here.

Pillow Talk

My first real sewing project:


I actually made four of these using Hard Rock shirts I've collected over the years. The Vegas one looked the nicest.



The larger pillow was a Christmas gift from my sister. I made the smaller one using an old t-shirt and left over material.

More Recycled Crafts

Lately I've been looking for ways to reuse things that I would normally recycle or throw out. My recent paper bowl obsession has resulted in half-a-dozen recycled magazine receptacles sitting in my living room, so I've decided to take a bit of break from them and move on to some less time-consuming projects.


I found an old Thomas Brothers map book from 1996 that was pretty useless to my family as it's outdated and we all live in San Diego now. Since I love decorating with maps, I decided to update my book shelves with the book's pages. I started by ripping out the pages that I wanted to use, and laying them out in order.
Because of the way these books are printed, I did have to photocopy the backs of some pages to get a complete map. However, only a few photocopies were needed, and I used recycled paper for those.

Once I had completed a section of map, I trimmed off the white borders (they were recycled this time, but in the future I may save them to make some home-made paper).

Next I adhered my map pages to the original backing of my bookshelf using photo mount. Photo mount worked great for this project: it adheres paper cleanly and without moisture, and can be repositioned with little worry of ripping the paper.


Once all the maps were in place, I folded the excess around the back and glued it in place. Lastly, I nailed the backing onto the shelf, and ta-da!-- a "new" bookshelf.