Crafting from your Stockpile: Yarn Wreaths with Panty Liner?! Flowers!

Ever since I experimented with using make-up from my stockpile to make cheap wall decor, I have been inspired to come up with other projects using items that I get cheap/free from couponing.

Today’s item that I decided to incorporate:  Always Panty Liners!  Here’s how:


I’ve been wanting to make my own yarn wreath for quite sometime now.  So I headed out and grabbed my supplies to make my masterpiece.  Here are the materials I used:

-Styrofoam circle

-Yarn – I chose a thicker one so it wouldn’t take as long (in theory) to wrap the wreath

-Ribbon

-Felt flower – yes I cheated and didn’t make this one.  I spent all my time making the panty liners flowers instead.

-Hot glue gun

-Panty liners – I prefer Always Panty Liners.  I’ll explain more why later, but one crucial reason is that I got a bunch of these for free using $0.50/1 Always Pantiliners 4/3/2011 P&G Insert (exp 4/30/2011).  This doubles at Wegmans, making them free!

yarn wreath
I started by wrapping the wreath with the yarn I chose.  I wrapped it twice – you can’t get it to line up perfectly the first time around, so you need a second wrapping to fill in the gaps.

yarn wreath with ribbon
yarn wreath with pink flower
I then added an embellishing ribbon to my yarn wreath – secured with hot glue  Same with the felt flower that I bought.

panty liner for yarn wreath
Now the fun part – making your own panty liner flowers!  I have to say that this is ridiculously easy!  The Always Panty Liners are perfect for this.  Here’s why:

-The entire back of it is sticky, which makes it easy later on the secure the “petals”.

-They are not scented – I think it would creep me out a little if I used scented liners.   :)

- The edge on the liner is thin and sticks out some – which helps it look more like a real petal.

-They have a very slight purple color to them, making it a pretty color of the flower.  (I tried coloring them with food coloring – didn’t turn out to well, so I kept them at the natural color.)

I started by removing the liner from the backing.  I started to roll it diagonally to make the center of the flower, and then cut that off.
panty liner petals

From then on, I only used the ends of the liners.  I cut the ends off, and then cut the ends in half to make the petals.  Use the sticky side and add them one at a time to the center that you just rolled.  Its so super easy, because the stickiness of the liners make perfect “petals!”
small flower
Here is one with the center and about 2 petals wrapped on it.
wrapping panty liner flower with floral tape

I used 4 panty liners to make this one, which is 16 “petals” cut from the liners.  You will end up with a short stem.  In my case, I just cut that off because I was gluing each on the wreath.  You could keep the stem, or lengthen it, depending on your project.  When you get the size/shape you want, I would recommend wrapping the panty liner flower with floral tape.  It secures the final petal that are put on, and makes it look somewhat more realistic.
panty liner flower


Note:  Be careful not to squeeze or put pressure on the top part of your flower. Since the petals are sticky, they will end up all sticking together, making your flower look like its wilting and dying instead.    :(
finished yarn wreath
I added 6 of these flowers to embellish my yarn wreath.  They look pretty good, don’t they? Now really – at first glance, would anyone guess that these were made out of panty liners????  Or even second or third glance…???

You could make these for other “special occasions” in a women’s life. How about making a bouquet of these and giving them to your pubescent daughter who celebrated her first monthly sign of womanhood?!  :)

A friend of mine said she wants a bouquet when she’s done with menopause – won’t need the liners any more after that!  Or how about making the flowers to celebrate a pregnancy?  Again – won’t need liners for 9 months.  :)

If you decided to go crazy and make lots and lots of these flowers, don’t forget to use a Coupon Clipping service to get a bunch of coupons like $0.50/1 Always Pantiliners 4/3/2011 P&G Insert (exp 4/30/2011).  I just started using Mommaof2Many – she lives in NY so I know she has the regional coupons in my area.  I got a bunch of these coupons from there – so now I can make A LOT of these flowers for free!

If you tackle the project, and make some panty liner flowers and add them to your own yarn wreath, or for your own creative purposes, let me know!  I’d love to see and possibly post your project here!

Stay tuned for more Crafting From Your Stockpile ideas!

Here are some more that I have posted!

Crafting From Your Stockpile: Use Make-Up for Cheap Wall Decor!!!

What do you do with all that cheap/free make-up that you get at drug stores?  Here’s an idea – use it for cheap wall decor!

Now I’ll admit, that I don’t use most of the drug store make-up I get.  I actually give away the make-up or other toiletry products that I know I won’t use.  I have a friend with 3 daughters in college, and they are the ones who I primarliy give “goody bags” to because I know they need/want these items.

One thing I’ve always wanted to do though, is create some sort of art project that used just make-up as the medium.  I always thought that lipstick or nail polish would make great paint.  I always wanted to see a masterpiece sparkle a bit with eye shadow or blush.  So I finally decided to use some of the free/dirt cheap make-up that I’ve gotten from drug stores and created a piece of make-up art out of it!

I decided that an empty wall in our bedroom needed something fun to brighten up the wall. I thought it would be nice to have our initials framed (something similar to what was on our wedding cake), and I used make-up to decorate the letters. Here is how I did it:

make up art

I found a font I liked on Word, and printed out the letters to use as a template. (hint: print as a draft – it saves on ink!)

make up art
I traced the templates on black paper, cut them out, and used a blush brush to dab on some silver/gray eyeshadow. This gave some sparkly color to the letters.

make up art
I then used a bottle of blue nailpolish and kind of shook the bottle over the letters back and forth and let the nail polish create fun drips on the letters.

make up art
Here is the before wall of where I hung them – boring, I know!

make up art
I used a coupon for Michaels and found a frame sale – each of these frames were $5 each. I glued the letters onto some scrapbook paper and placed them in the frames.

make up art Now this wall isn’t so plain. Its now the first thing I see when I wake up, as our bed faces this wall.

Who else has creative projects that you’ve done using some of your make up stockpile if you have one? Any one else have make-up art that they want to share? If this post inspired you to tackle on your own project, or you’ve already done something similar to this, let me know and I can post it here for others to see!

See other DIY projects here!

Tip Junkie handmade projects

7 Days of Homemade Ornaments: Day 7 – The Family Heirloom Creation

Family Heirloom Christmas Ornament

This one is not meant to be copied, but instead to inspire you to create your own sentimental ornament from a family heirloom.

I remember looking through a catalog last year and saw a kitchen bowl made out of old tools welded together.  My husbands grandfather passed away a few years ago, and when he did, my husband inheritited many of his tools.  I showed the catalog picture my husband and asked if there was anything he could make similar to the bowl, out of the tools he inherited.

There were many ideas thrown around, along with complications since we didn’t have a welder.  When all was said and done, my husband created what is shown in the picture above.  He took one of his grandfathers name plates (of whom my husband was named after), and some of his wrenches,  to make this unique ornament that he gave to his mom last year for Christmas.  Now each Christmas, it serves to honor the memory of his grandfather as it is placed on the tree.  Hopefully it will be a creation that will be passed down to future generations as a special family heirloom.

Check out these posts of other Christmas Ornament Ideas that I shared this year:

Day 1:  Pipecleaner Icicle

Day 2:  Fill Empty Bulbs

Day 3:  Button Ball

Day 4:  Magazine Bead Garland

Day 5:  Fancy Pinecone

Day 6:  Poinsetta Collage

7 Days of Homemade Ornaments: Day 6 Poinsettia Collage

Poinsetta Collage Christmas Ornament

For this one, you will need to go here and print out an outline of a poinsettia.

Then try and find pictures of poinsettias in old magazines to cut out and fill in the flower with.  We couldnl’t find that many pictures of poinsettias, so we just found some read ones to fill it in with.

Then I got some green paper and drew and outline of the flower and used that as a background.

Add some string to it, and hang it on the tree!

Check out my other ornament idea posts:

Day 1:  Pipecleaner Icicles

Day 2:  Fill Empty Bulbs

Day 3:  Button Ball

Day 4:  Magazine Bead Garland

Day 5:  Fancy Pinecone

7 Days of Homemade Christmas Ornaments: Day 5 Fancy Pinecone

Pinecone Christmas Ornament

If you have any evergreen trees in your yard, or have access to pinecones, then check out this simple way to pretty them up and add them to your tree.

Materials you will need for the Fancy Pinecone:

-pinecones

-spray paint

-thread

-beads

-bow, flower, tinsel (or something like as a topper on the pinecone)

For this one, you start out by spray painting your pine cone.  I sprayed mine gold.  I actually found a can of gold spray paint in the clearance isle at Michaels for just $.49!

I then strung up some red, green and gold beads and tied that to the end of the cone.

I topped it off with a little bit of gold tinsel from some garland that I had, along with a little bit of holly.  Add some more thread to the top to hang it from the tree and you are done!

I mentioned on Day 1 that I have had a tradition each year of making these ornaments with some friends of mine that I used to work with.  We would hand out these ornaments and claim that “Science Santa” stopped by our classrooms to spread some Christmas joy.

One year though, our ornaments were pathetic.  That year I was in my first trimester of pregnancy and was tired all the time.  My other 2 friends also were in busy seasons of their lives, and none of us were highly motivated to be orgainzed and come up with a plan for the ornaments.  So we decided just to bring some crafting supplies and just see what we come up with.  Well all of the ornaments were very lame, so we just gave up.  I knew things got out of hand when this was all that was created that night:

Needless to say, “Science Santa” left cookies that year and not ornaments!  :)

Here are my other ornament ideas in case you have missed one:

Day 1:  Pipecleaner Icicle

Day 2:  Fill Empty Bulbs

Day 3:  Button Ball

Day 4:  Magazine Bead Garland

Day 6:  Poinsettia Collage

7 Days of Homemade Christmas Ornaments – Day 4 Magazine Bead Garland

Today’s idea isn’t an ornament per se, but still a Christmas Tree decoration none the less.

Matierials you need to make Magazine Bead Garland:

-old magazines cut into triangles

-toothpicks

-glue Stick

-Mod Podge

-string

First you find some colors/designs in an old magazine that you’d like to make a bead out of. Cut it out in the shape of a triangle


I found a bunch of red, green, and white pages in some magazines and cut them out.

Put some glue on one side of the triangle, and wrapped that around a toothpick until its rolled up into a bead. You can then paint on some mod podge, which is a type of glue that dries transparent and will make your beads more durable and will ensure they don’t unravel.

When the mod podge dries, slide them off of the toothpicks, and stirng up all of your beads.

Add it to your tree as a simple strand of garland!

Magazine Bead Christmas Garland
I put mine on a mini artificial tree that we have in our family room. Because its a small tree, I didn’t need 100′s of beads. If you want to make this for a larger tree, you’ll have to obviously make more beads.

These beads can be used for other jewelry projects and not just for Christmas!

Check out my other ornament ideas here:
Day 1: Pipecleaner Icicles
Day 2: Filling Empty Bulbs
Day 3: Button Ball

Day 5:  Fancy Pinecone

Day 6:  Poinsettia Collage

7 Days of Easy Homemade Christmas Ornaments – Day 3 Button Ball

Button Ornament

Ready for Day 3 of an easy ornament idea?  All you need for this one is:

-a styrofoam ball

-hot glue gun

-buttons

-a bow

-spray paint (optional)

-string to hang your ornament

My friend has a very “special” room in which she collects and stores odd trinkity type objects that are quite unique.  In that room, she has quite the stash of old buttons.  So we picked out a bunch of gold ones, hot glued them to the styrofaom ball, and added a bow on.  The final product?  A simple and pretty ornament that recycled  items like old buttons.  You might want to spray paint the styrofoam ball first to match the color of your buttons, unless you like the color of they styrofoam ball and you don’t mind that showing through.

Check out my other easy homemade Christmas Ornament ideas for:

Day 1:  Pipecleaner Icicle

Day 2:  Filling Empty Bulbs

Day 4:  Magazine Bead Garland

Day 5:  Fancy Pinecone

Day 6:  Poinsettia Collage

7 Days of Easy Homemade Christmas Ornaments – Day 2 Fill Empty Bulbs

Today’s ornament is even easier than yesterday’s!
Head to your local craft store and grab some clear, plastic, empty bulbs. I grabbed a bunch last week while I was at Michaels. There were on sale for $.50 each!

Then go home and find some cool things to fill them with! The possibilities with these are endless.

I had a roll of this stuff in my craft bin. I’m not even sure what it is. But my friend came up with the genius idea to unravel the gold and purple threads and put that into the empty bulb.

I think it turned out great!

If you have extra buttons laying around and you aren’t sure what to do with them, then use them for an ornament like this!

If you have other ideas for empty bulbs, send them my way and I’ll add your ideas to this post!!

Other Ornament Ideas:

Day 1 – Pipecleaner Icicle

Day 3 – Button Ball

Day 4:  Magazine Bead Garland

Day 5:  Fancy Pinecone

Day 6:  Poinsettia Collage

7 Days of Easy Homemade Christmas Ornaments – Day 1 Pipecleaner Icicle

December is finally here!  I’m going to celebrate with 7 Days of Easy Homemade Christmas Ornaments!  I’ve been on somewhat of a crafting spurt as of late.  I recently learned how to knit, I’m still experimenting with natural dyes with wool, and I’ve made a bunch of easy Christmas ornaments that I’m going to share how to make.

Making Christmas ornaments is not new for me.  Every year I get together with a couple of friends who also enjoy amateur crafting.  It started as us making gifts for our co-workers in the science department at the school I worked at. We’d leave them and say they were from “Science Santa.”
That tradition has kind of passed on (especially since I no longer work there) but we still get together for some crafting time and I wanted to share with you some of our ideas.  I have 7 ornament ideas and I’ll post 1 a day for the next week.  Hopefully these will inspire you and your friends/family to craft together and make some memories that will appear year after year on your tree.

Day 1: Pipecleaner Icicle

I actually got this idea from a 2009 issue of All You. This magazine is not just great for coupons!

Materials you need:

-2 pipcleaners – I bought some fancy gold glittery ones :)

-one clear acrylic gem (that has a bead hole in it) that you an get at craft stores. I actually used these in my wedding centerpieces, so I had a lot of these on hand.

Here’s how to make it:

-String one pipcleaner through the gem twist it end to end.

-Make a spiral out of the other pipeclearner. I wrapped mine around a glue stick to make the spiral.

-Then twist the two together and add a string and you are done! Easy and pretty!

pipecleaner icecicle

Other Ornament Ideas:
Day 2 – Fill Empty Bulbs
Day 3 – Button Ball

Day 4:  Magazine Bead Garland

Day 5:  Fancy Pinecone

Day 6:  Poinsettia Collage

New $1/2 Hershey’s Kisses Coupon + Easy Recipe!

There is a new coupon for $1/2 Hershey’s Kisses.

Here’s a fun recipe to use these with:

Lay out mini pretzels on a baking tray.  Put a Kiss on top of each pretzel.  Bake at 250 degrees for 3-4 minutes, just until the chocolate gets soft.  When they come out of the oven, put one M&M on the soft chocolate and press down.  I found a picture of them over here. I usually make these around the holiday season.  Super easy and very yummy!

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