Materials: 

Altoids Smalls boxes Beaded chain Pieces of fabric Metal Scrapbook Letters Gems Strong Glue (We used Crafter’s Pick: The Ultimate)

Directions:

Start with an empty Altoids Smalls tin Cut out a small lid-sized rectangle of fabric Coat top of box with glue Apply fabric Run beaded chain around box and secure with glue Add letters and gems as desired Done in a jiffy! Now it’s ready for trinkets, pills, paperclips, or pins.

Give Your Pencil a Pedicure!

1OCT

Make a realistic looking suitcase for your doll.

This craft is a little more difficult, but we loved the result!

Materials:

Altoids tin
Sheet of blank paper
Masking tape
Brown shoe polish
coated wire
long bead or several small beads
Small picture-hanging nail
Hammer

Directions:

Fold sheet of paper until it is slightly smaller than top of Altoids tin. This will cover the embossed letters, if present. It will also provide dimension.
Center the folded sheet on top of Altoids tin and secure with masking tape.
Continue to place pieces of masking tape on box until the entire surface is covered.
Using a soft rag apply brown shoe polish to the masking tape. Wipe off excess with clean rag. Repeat process for darker color.
Have an adult puncture two holes in side of Altoids tins that is opposite from the hinge. Use picture hanging nail and hammer for this. (Each of our holes was approximately two centimeters from the edge.)
Thread one end of coated wire through hole.
Add bead or beads.
Bring Wire through other hole and twist to secure.
Decorate your suitcase with small stickers, postage stamps, or home made stickers (directions below.)

To Make Travel Stickers:

Materials:

Tiny printouts of travel pictures (we used Microsoft Word clip art)
Transparent tape
Markers
Scissors
Directions:

Print out small travel pictures. Pictures should be narrow enough to be covered by a single piece of transparent tape.
Color pictures with markers.
Cut out pictures.
Place sticky side of tape over colored side of pictures, leaving edges of the tape exposed.
Carefully cut around pictures leaving a small area of sticky side of tape around the edges.
Apply these picture-stickers to surface of suitcase.

This may be the most affordable Christmas Dress your 18” Doll has ever worn!

Supplies:

1. Two Santa Hats.  (This dress was made with a felt hat that had fur trim.)

2. Fabric Glue

3. Ribbon

4. Small Piece of Velcro

 Directions

1. Lay one hat on flat surface and cut off top of hat.

2. Cut armholes.

3. Glue Ribbon at top of armholes with fabric glue.

4. Put fabric glue around any rough edges to avoid fraying.

5. While glue is drying, cut white fur trim off of second hat.

6. Cut trim the right length to drape over shoulders of doll like a shawl.

7. Glue dime-sized piece of Velcro to ends of shawl. (One on the fur side, and the other on the opposite under-side.)

Now your doll is ready to party!

We made these with our cousins. Everyone draws their own face and puts a fingerprint for Santa’s head. They make nice keepsake ornaments because each face is as individual as a thumbprint! 

Supplies:

1. Glass Shapes. We ordered ours here. They are very inexpensive, but you do have to clean the glass when it comes in!  http://tinyurl.com/7rgyn6w

2. Ornament Hooks

3. Black Sharpie

4. Acrylic Paint

5. Bead

Directions:

1. Draw eyes, nose and mouth in the center of the glass with Sharpie.

2. Paint on beard and white part of hat.  Allow to dry.

3. Add red part of hat and red shirt. Allow to dry.

4. Put a dab of flesh colored paint in a paper plate.

5. Put thumb in paint, making sure it is covered.

6. Press thumb over face.

7. Attach hook. Thread on bead.

Tip: This ornament shows through the back of the glass. It is important that you do these steps in the right order, or it won’t look right. Face first, then white paint, then red paint, drying in between! Thumbprint goes on very last!

You can’t get much more glamorous than a shimmering trail of gold following your pencil as it moves across the page!  This craft is super easy, and fun to play with (and write with) afterward.

Supplies

1. Tinsel (get the kind where the strands are attached across the top.

2. Pencil

3. Painters Tape

Directions

1. Cut a few inches of tinsel and lay on a flat surface.

2. Place pencil on tinsel and secure with small piece of tape.

3. Roll tinsel around pencil.  

  4. Put a small piece of tape over the edge of the tinsel, securing it to the pencil.

Now go write something amazing! 

*Tip: AFTER tinsel is on the pencil, you can cut it to different lengths for different effects.

We’re still trying to find uses for all of the fun fur we bought and didn’t make into scarves.  Making these trees with it was easy and a lot of fun!

Supplies:

1. Cones.  We recycled these old cardboard bobbin cones, but you can use Styrofoam cones too.

2. Hot glue

3. Fun fur or other fun yarn

4. Marti Gras beads, beaded garland, or other strings of beads

5. Tree toppers. We used stars from a battery operated string of lights that no longer works. But you can use small ornaments, ornament stars, or even small Christmas balls.

Directions:

1 Add a small vertical  line (about an inch) of hot glue to the cone.

2. Wrap yarn around cone, crossing over glue until it is covered. Repeat these steps until tree is covered with yarn.

3. Fit star into hole in cone OR decide what other item you will use for your tree topper and glue it on top.

4. Starting at the top, wind beads around tree, using a few dots of glue to keep in place.

That’s it!  You can add buttons, sequins, or other things to your tree too, but we decided to stick mostly with beads!

Ribbon can be used instead of beads for decoration.

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Create a tiny flower arrangement to decorate a dollhouse or to brighten someone’s day!

Materials:

1. assorted sequins

2. large bead

3. covered wire

4. scissors

5. seed beads

Bags of assorted sequins can be found at Walmart and craft supply stores.

Directions

1. Decide how far you want “stems” to stick out of vase and cut wire.

2. Cut one piece of wire twice as long as the others.

3. Double long piece of wire and insert into bead so that the bent end sticks out of bottom of bead.  Twist to form loop in wire.

4. Cut another piece of wire for vase base. Run it through the looped end.

5. Twist this wire around bead to create base.

6. Add sequin flowers, bending the wire behind the back of each sequin so it won’t slip.

7. Add a small seed bead to wire and bend wire around it to secure.

8. Insert other “stems” and repeat steps for adding sequin flowers!

Tip: If using a large bead with a flat end, you could omit steps 4 and 5 and add a dot of glue in bead when you have finished arranging to keep flowers in place.

Our family had a great time last Thanksgiving with this dress a turkey contest started by our cousin Alice C. Alice baked enough turkey shaped cookies (20+) for everyone in the family to have one. The rules: Decorate your cookie any way you want. The decorations do not need to be edible. Alice supplied the cookies and the icing. We had to bring our other decorations to the party. When we were finished dressing our turkeys and giving them titles, the girls next door came over and judged. The winner was Mr. Fancy Pants, pictured above in the top hat. We wish we had room here to show you all of the creative turkeys!  But here are a few of our favorites:

The Real Thing

Bone Appetit

Cooked

Nerdy Turkey

Materials:

1. Felt. (We used felt placemats that we found at Dollar General for $1.00 because it was heavy and stiff enough for bracelets.)

2. Embroidery Floss. (A great source of this is yard sales! You can pick it up for almost nothing because a lot of people start projects they never finish!)

3. Needle

4. Scissors

5. Beads, Sequins, Buttons, felt cut outs

6. Fabric Glue

7. Velcro

Directions

1. Cut a strip of felt the right length to go around your wrist.

2. Add felt shapes with glue, or use embroidery floss to stitch on beads, sequins, or a pattern.

3. Add velcro using fabric glue.

Ta-da!