One Little Word: A Project Update

Posted on September 1, 2014 by Juliet Tiu

This year I joined an online workshop, Ali Edwards’s One Little Word. I’ve wanted to try something like this for a long time, to be part of a creative community even if we’re all miles and miles away.

I haven’t updated on a regular basis at all (in January and April), but I’ve been working along with monthly prompts and reflections. My One Little Word is “dare”, as I explained in my January post. Below you’ll find a gallery of my journaling so far. Just click on the pictures to see them larger.

Earlier in the year I worked on intentions, taking a look at different facets of my life: spiritual, physical, emotional, creative, relationships. It took a while, but I also came up with a symbol for this year. The fleur-de-lis. I love this symbol for so many reasons: it reminds me of Montreal, (where my husband and I went on our honeymoon), New Orleans (vacation spot and amazing culture and food), and it reminds me of St. Joan of Arc (incidentally also the name of my elementary school). And if you don’t think she was daring, I don’t know who is.

I made actions cards that have goals and ideas for the year. Some have been successful, while others… not yet. I’ve reflected on letting go. One month, I put together pictures that connect with my word. It’s been so much fun making time to be creative and introspective.

The best part of all of this has been meeting a pen pal and connecting with the community in a private Facebook group. My pen pal was chosen randomly, but holy cow, it’s crazy eerie how we have a lot of similar craft tastes. She and I send happy packages of mail to each other (last picture in the gallery).

Most recently I created artist trading cards with the phrase “I am” on each of them. I’m looking forward to sharing how I put these cards together.

12 Earth Day projects to make

Posted on April 22, 2014 by Juliet Tiu

Since it’s Earth Day, I’m rounding up some past projects that highlight recycling or reusing. The projects range from very easy to more involved. I hope you try some out!

An Accordion Spine Journal with reused envelopes for pages

Tutorial: Accordion Spine Journal

Reusing a Gift Bag

Reusing a gift bag by embellishing over a logo

Recycled Cereal Box Notebooks

Recycled Cereal and Product Cardboard Boxes

Any cardboard box can become a fun notebook cover.

Newspaper Seedling Pots and a Cardboard Tray

recycled cardboard garden tray - handle placement

Make a tray to hold all your seedlings.

DIY Barrel Composter

Food grade plastic barrel becomes a composter.

Mini-Envelopes from magazines

Use pages from a favorite catalog to make mini envelopes

Upcycled Paper Bag envelopes

Make envelopes from a paper bag

Magnetic Pin Holder from a mint container

Mint tins can be handy containers

Bottle Cap Art

Bottle caps can be fun little frames

Upcycled Sweatshirt Throw Pillow

Upcycled Sweatshirt Pillow

Reusing Wine Bottles as water carafes

Reuse wine bottles as water carafes

and, I reused a grocery bag as gift wrap in this gift wrapping post.

A simple brown paper bag can be a nice gift wrap.

Enjoy your time creating and making!

Quick and Easy Easter Greeting Card in under 10 minutes

Posted on April 19, 2014 by Juliet Tiu

Okay, so it’s Easter tomorrow. If you celebrate Easter, I hope you’re all set with your baskets, food prep, and all things beautiful. Amazingly, I am not hosting this year. Still, I’ve been busy, you’ve been busy… I missed my Mugshot Monday this week. Boo.

Last Saturday, I had a chance to play around with washi tape and my pals at the Iannelli Studio. This is what we made, and now you can make it too. You can also see card in last week’s cookie recipe post.

Washi Tape makes greeting cards easy and fun

What you need:

Cardstock or pre-cut cards
Vellum or thin white paper (Vellum gives that see-through, stained-glass effect)
A variety of washi tape
X-Acto knife (or utility blade)

I just draw my eggs freehand. It’s totally cool with me to be all wonky and imperfect.

So, I learned this last weekend from my friend, Vicky, that by drawing inside, you don’t see the pencil lines on the front of the card. Again, if you don’t mind erasing lines, by all means draw on the front. And save your egg shape.

If you trace your shape on your paper, you’ll know exactly where your tape will need to go. Another “Vicky tip”.

Check this out… use the shapes on the washi tape and cut around them to get cool effects.

Last part, stick the taped-up paper onto your card!

For more quick Easter crafts, check out articles at GeekMom.com! You can see how I dress up some plastic eggs with a permanent marker and rub-on letters.

Decorate plastic Easter eggs featured on GeekMom.com

Monogrammed plastic Easter eggs

Enjoy your Easter, friends!

One Way to Recycle Glass Jars into a Fun Party Favor

Posted on February 28, 2014 by Juliet Tiu

So I’ve established that I’m sort of a hoarder, and my poor husband was so nice turning the other cheek when he saw I had a crazy amount of glass jars stashed away… in the basement, under the stairs. I explained to him that I had every intention to use up the glass jars – well, I thought I had a craft for them. I just hadn’t gotten around to it. I’ve seen a lot of recycled glass jar projects around Pinterest, some of them leading to non-English tutorials, but pretty easy to figure out.

Friends, grab your glue gun (Note: Super Glue did not work well), miscellaneous plastic animals from the party store (or your kid’s collection from the dentist’s treasure box), and clean, empty glass jars. Get a can of spray paint. I have metallic silver, so that’s what I used.

Wash the lids well. After your lids are clean, you can swipe them with some rubbing alcohol on a cotton ball to make sure they’re really clean. Using your glue gun, adhere your little critters of choice to the lids. They should all be secure after a minute. If you’re a good crafter, you’ll wipe away the hot glue “strings” before painting, I didn’t bother since it didn’t look too bad.

Now for spray paint… Make sure you have good ventilation and a spray box (optional). If you can head outside and spray them, kudos to you. It’s freezing here, so I ended up spraying them in my (heated) garage. I gave the lids and animals three coats, 15-20 minutes in between. And, I still have a little touch-up to do.

You could wash all the glass jars while you’re waiting for the lids to dry. I took the labels off the same way I take off wine bottle or beer labels. And if the label adhesive doesn’t come off easily, grab some Goo Gone (Just follow manufacturer’s directions on the bottle.).

I let them dry overnight, and now my daughter will fill them up candy for her buddies.

I’d love to know if you end up making this project!

Click for more party ideas!

Chinese New Year: Crafting mini {Red} envelopes with free printable

Posted on January 30, 2014 by Juliet Tiu

Crafting envelopes from old magazines and calendars

My obsession with making envelopes from old magazine and calendar pages

I’ve always had a love affair with paper, especially making envelopes from old magazine and calendar pages… even wallpaper scraps. And, I actually use them to mail letters! In college, I would take junk mail envelopes, open them up and use them for templates. Every envelope was different; I didn’t care if the picture was tilted, or if there was text. The envelopes were that much cooler.

Recycling / upcycling my Crate and Barrel and Anthropolgie catalogs into mini-envelopes

Since it’s Chinese New Year’s Eve, I pulled out red envelopes for the kids. I was inspired to make a few mini envelopes… from some favorite catalog mailers. (Crate&Barrel and Anthropologie, I love your layouts.)

Here, I’ve carefully opened up my red envelope to figure out the shape and to make a template on a blank piece of paper.

I also put together a Mini / Red Envelope template that can be downloaded here. Just print on cardstock, cut, and follow directions.

Sometimes you get cute envelopes from unexpected pages. It’s all template positioning – trial and error.

Before I cut out my envelope shapes, I used a silver marker to go around my template. It made a nice edge on the finished envelope. I also tried a colored permanent marker.

Like I said, I thought I would make a few envelopes, but I got carried away. (Yes, a die-cut machine would probably be more efficient but where’s the fun in that?) Guess I better figure out who to send these to.

Finished size is approximately 4 inches x 2-3/4 inches.

I wonder what else I could cut up to make envelopes? *grin*

12 Days of Gift Wrapping: Cupcake liners and doilies

Posted on December 20, 2013 by Juliet Tiu

Something useful for those mismatched cupcake liners and extra doilies you might have hanging around in your kitchen drawers. Just wrap your gift with plain, solid paper (I used brown craft paper), wrap some ribbon, layer a doily and cupcake liner, then secure with coordinating bakers twine.

This is super cute used with brown paper bags, too.

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