Crafts Archives - Cluttered Genius

Bring That Pinterest Board to Life: 7 Craft Room Essentials

May 12, 2013 By Cluttered Genius Leave a Comment

Awesome guest post today about getting your craft room together so that you can bring all of your Pinterest board ideas to life! I know I need to follow a few of these suggestions myself!

Plenty of Light

Every craft room should have plenty of light to ensure that your work is easier and stress-free. Ideally, keep your craft supplies in a room with a large window or two and good natural light, which can boost your mood. If that’s not possible, make sure you have plenty of illumination via overhead lights, torch lamps and small work lamps. Use as many as you need to make sure that your eyes do not have to strain to see details as you design your latest quilt or scrapbook page.

Shelving

Good shelving is a must. You need a place to store and access all of your yarn, wrapping paper, ribbons, large tools, and so on. Shelving also helps you keep things organized by type if you are a multi-crafter!

Small-Item Storage

Small bins, mini-shelves, pegs, and poles can help you keep your supplies sorted and accessible when you need them. Make sure to label each storage space so that you can remember where to get what you need with a glance.

Comfortable Workspace

Make sure that your workspace is comfortable, whether you like to sit or stand. If you like to do both, use a table with a height that allows you to stand and work and then switch to a stool. According to DIYer Kevin Devoto, your table—or tables—should have plenty of open space so that you can spread out your projects and work without having to move a dozen things out of your way.

Accessibility

Keep the things that you use most often near the edges of your shelves or in the top of your storage containers. If you have to dig through a bin or five every time you want to work on your latest crocheted scarf, you may never finish it. Less used items can be hidden away behind cabinet doors or in a closet.

Good Seating

An adjustable seat can make craft time comfortable and fun. You can spin around to switch tables and also move the chair up and down if your kids are helping you with a project.

Idea Boards or Binders

Finally, keeping your inspirations and ideas on a cork board or in idea binders can make finding a new project easy and fun. When your ideas are right in front of you, you can add details as you think of them so that they are already well developed when you are ready to begin work.

Annette Hazard is a freelance writer that usually writes about the home and family. She is a mother of one and enjoys spending her free time exploring the outdoors with her family.

Filed Under: bloggers, Crafts Tagged With: craft, guest

Moments of Genius – Baby Headband with Felt Flower!

February 15, 2013 By Cluttered Genius 8 Comments

Welcome to another Friday Moments of Genius link up!

Today, I’m sharing a video I made to help with making a felt flower for a baby headband. I even modeled it for you!

Here’s the video for you!

Now, link up with me. Share something you’ve done that’s just brilliant. And be sure that you check out everyone else’s links!

Filed Under: Crafts Tagged With: crafts, moments of genius

Moments of Genius 4: An UNREAL Valentine’s

February 7, 2013 By Cluttered Genius 8 Comments

Welcome to another Moments of Genius. We’re on week 4, and this week, I’m sharing the genius of the old school Valentines that Miss Sassy Pants made for her classmates.

I’m trying to model clean and healthy eating (“trying” being the operative word), and we’re becoming addicted to UNREAL candy. If you haven’t heard of UNREAL, you’re missing out. UNREAL is a clean, all-natural candy with NO GMOs. As we began to think about what Miss Sassy Pants could take for her Valentines, I thought it would be fun to be a little more traditional and healthier at the same time.

So, we started with the doilies:

Then, she wanted to print out a message in color and paste on the back. She typed it on her computer, and I helped her format. She cut each one out and glued.

Next, she wrote her name in all rainbow colors. She said that would be cooler than just signing her name.

To tie in the UNREAL candy, she wrote, “You’re Unreal!” on each Valentine.

The next step was to attach a piece of candy for each student. We chose the individually wrapped chocolate caramel nougat bars (yum). UNREAL also has chocolate candies, chocolate covered peanuts, chocolate caramel peanut nougat, and chocolate peanut butter cups. (If you’re getting hungry, you can find UNREAL at Target, CVS, Walgreens, and Michael’s.)

When I wasn’t looking, Miss Sassy Pants decided to have craft time, and she personalized each of the Valentine’s she made. We had some unused gift bags from a birthday party years ago, so she wrote each of her friends’ names on the bag and placed their Valentine inside.

I thought this was a pretty awesome project, and she’s so proud of her work! I feel like a Genius just because I let it go. I helped her, but it’s HER thing, and she’s very proud of what she’s done.

What do you have to share this week? Link-up below (and then, be friendly and visit your fellow Geniuses!).

Filed Under: Crafts Tagged With: craft, moments of genius, Valentine's

Personalized Letter for Baby – DIY!

January 17, 2013 By Cluttered Genius 14 Comments

I really like babies. I do. I love making stuff for them, too. When my BFF, Heather, had her son, I jumped at the chance to make him some blocks with his name on them. You can read about how I did that here: Easy but Adorable Baby Shower Gift.

Then, my friend (and former student-teacher) had a baby followed by one of my loves from that 502 class I told you about. Then, my friend, Katie, had her sweet little girl. So, it was baby crazy in my craft area (which is really just the dining room table, but I like to pretend it’s an actual place), and I loved it.

For the three who had babies so close together, I decided to make them a personalized letter.

I knew that Matthew had his room decorated in monkeys, Brooklynn’s mama was all about girly stuff, and Macie’s mama already had two boys and was excited about bringing some extra estrogen in the house.

Let me show you how I made them, and then I’ll show you what each looked like in the end.

First, I outlined the letter that I was going to cover on the BACK of a piece of scrapbooking paper. I also did the letter backwards on purpose. This way, it all matched up in the end. Make sure to keep your pencil as close to the edge of the letter as possible. TIP: I used scissors when I cut it out. It was tedious, but the straight-edge razor I was using hated me.
I painted the edges of the letter. For Brooklynn’s, I used white to contrast the paper I’d chosen. For Macie’s, I used pink. I left Matthew’s alone because I thought it looked really cute with the natural wood color.
When I made sure that the letter edges on the paper matched up to the letter edges on the wooden letter, I used Modpodge to glue it down.
Then, I painted the small letters for their names. I chose colors that contrasted against the paper.
I glued down each letter.
For each of the babies, I chose a wooden figure: Brooklynn, a butterfly; Macie, a flower; Matthew, a monkey.
Once everything was on, I Modpodged over the paper and letters to get the same sheen all the way across.

Here’s Matthew’s:

Here’s Macie’s:

Here’s Brooklynn’s:

Easy! Will you be making one of these for a special someone?

Filed Under: Crafts Tagged With: crafts, diy baby letter

DIY Decorative Ornament

December 6, 2012 By Cluttered Genius Leave a Comment

The holidays get me in a crafty mood, and I was doing the typical Pinterest crawl. I came across an idea to make a large ornament that would hang in the house or on the front door, and I decided: Hey, I can do that myself!

Then, I thought it would be nice to share with my readers. Here’s how I did it.

I got a large wooden circle from the craft store. I chose black as my base color and painted it.
Then, I painted a large stripe across the middle. This will be where I’ll paint our name. I did struggle with this portion a bit because I was doing it completely free-hand. I think it turned out great.
I painted circles all over in the color I chose. I like black with purple as you can see.
Then, I decorated each of the circles. I could have done stripes or something similar, but I just improvised:
I painted our name across that white stripe. Again, this is completely free-handed, and yes, I had to go back with some white paint. But, I like the way it looks both rough and stylized.
Aaron took it outside and painted some Clear Coat on it for me (not recommended for gals who are pregnant or “contemplating” pregnancy.
Once that dried, he drilled a small hole in the top.
In the meantime, I made a bow using the ribbon I had chosen. I really like silver.
Then, I used the wire from the ribbon and attached it to the large ornament. I used some of the wire to make a hanger for the nail, too.
And here it is on our front door!