From the category archives:

Holiday Crafts

Making Stuff with Chocolate

March 28, 2010

Ooooh, what a fun time we had this weekend! Peggy of Chocolate Craft Studio opened her doors to a group of PDX crafty types, and we spent a blissful couple hours making stuff from chocolate.

Peggy offers an incredible array of chocolate shapes to play with – flat ones and dimensional ones, some decorated with shimmer, [...]

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Three Easter Baskets to Make

March 22, 2010
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ACK! Well, I had planned to have a nice, new Easter basket tutorial for you today, but then I lost a couple days to some mystery illness, and now I’m playing catch-up.

So instead, I’ll share tutorials for three Easter baskets I did last year…

This paper basket is based on the traditional woven paper heart. The [...]

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In which I craft with chocolate

February 14, 2010

Mom and I had a real treat today. We got to visit the new Chocolate Craft Studio in Portland and build some edible V-Day gift boxes. Isn’t Mom’s cute?

The studio is in this adorably-painted house. Peggy, the proprietress, has been a culinary artist for years, and has hit upon this extremely cool business idea.

At Christmas, [...]

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How to Make 3D Paper Hearts

February 10, 2010
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Ooh! I just noticed that this project I did for The Oregonian has just posted to their website.

Follow this link to the directions for making these dead-simple hanging paper hearts for V-Day. You can use up scraps of decorative paper, or pull pages from old magazines. (The Christmas issue of Martha Stewart Living served me [...]

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Online Magazine Review: Nonpareil

February 9, 2010

Here’s another fabulous indie publishing project! Nonpareil is a brand-new online magazine that offers a crafty take on weddings and celebrations. It’s a team effort by Kristen Magee and Maddy Hague.

First, I have to say that these women did an absolutely stunning job of art direction and design. The styling and photography are so beautiful [...]

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Video! How to Make a V-Day Gift Topper (using, I might add, plastic canvas!)

February 3, 2010
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How to Make a Valentine’s Day Gift Topper from Diane Gilleland on Vimeo.

I’ve been hemming and hawing over whether to post this or not. I’ve been hiking the video learning curve lately, and hope to produce a nice number of video how-to’s this year.

But, Man! Video is challenging! (Compelling, but challenging.)

So… I finally decided to [...]

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How to Make a Simple V-Day Sachet

January 26, 2010
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I should say: I’m not much for Valentine’s Day itself, but the crafts are always pretty. I was playing around with felt recently and came up with this simple, non-frilly sachet. Easy to whip up if you need little gifties.

You might have everything you need to make these in your stash: two 6″ squares of [...]

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Handmade Gifty Show & Tell

January 8, 2010

I’ve been meaning to show off some of the super-cool handmade goodies I scored over the Christmas season. Don’t you love this star, wound from magazine pages? What a cool variation on that magazine-page jewelry idea I did last year!

My grandmother sent the star from her recent trip to Provence, along with this fabric ornament. [...]

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Are you knotty or nice? (Sorry…)

December 19, 2009

This gem is from 1978 – which was during the Age of Macrame in crafting.

For a time, macrame was as big as scrapbooking is now. Remember in this podcast, when Mike Hartnett said that the Craft & Hobby Association show was mostly made up of macrame companies?

Interestingly, macrame hasn’t made much of a resurgence [...]

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Guess What! MORE Vintage Christmas Awesome!

December 18, 2009

Even more McCall’s! This one, from 1979. We’re getting closer to the 80’s all the time…

Be careful – don’t look directly into that wreath. It could hurt your eyes.

Look into this one instead!

I’ve always loved these yarn-painted ornaments. What a cool way to use up yarn scraps!

And this is freaking amazing! It’s a gnome [...]

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