DIY cards

DIY Woodland Holiday Cards

18:07 Natalie Karine 0 Comments

Hi there! I've been working on my holiday cards whenever I have a spare minute! I love them! I found the Martha Stewart template while I was looking through pinterest. It's meant for a felting project, but i thought... HOLIDAY CARDS! as soon as i saw it. Wanna make your own?

Here's what you'll need
❅ coloured cardstock (green, brown, red)
❅ blank cards
❅ scissors
❅ glue
❅ woodland template

1- fold a card or choose your blank card. 2- Add some stripes! You can even print some text on one. 3- Make an easy stencil (I printed the template unto cardstock) and trace it onto coloured paper. Cut out a whole bunch! 4- Glue your little creatues on and add any finishing touches!

I found these beautiful blank cards shopping at Winners!

My signature stamp at the back!

I wrote a special message inside and stamped the date!

All so different and fun!!

Sewing

Personalized Giftset & Pouch

13:52 Natalie Karine 0 Comments

Hi there!I had a fun time sewing a little gift for my Friend yesterday! Ibought her a wonderfully smelling coconut giftset at the body shop, but wasn't crazy about the little pouch it came in, so I thought: why not make her one?! I remembered that she LOVED my kitty cat fabric last time we had craft day together, so i thought: purrrfect! (haha!) So here it is, how to personalize a giftset with some handmade goodness!

Check out the zippered pouch turorial HERE

before (plain)

after (amazing!)

birthday girl looking all happy opening gifts!

DIY crafts

Shining Star

17:52 Natalie Karine 0 Comments

Hi there! I love pre-holiday time for all the fun crafts I get to make. Tonight I hadefun making some paper crafts....beautiful shining stars for my little christmas tree. I made a big guy for the top and little ones too!

What you'll need:
✶ paint (acrylic or watercolor)
✶ glitter glue (or loose glitter)
✶ paintbrush
✶ thick paper
✶ scissors
✶ ruler
✶ pencil
✶ x-acto knife

① paint nice tones of purples and pinks. Let dry and paint the other side

② Add glitter all over

③ Draw a star. Start with a circle, then draw 4 lines accross, evenly spaced out. Then, separate each section in half. Draw the 8 points (see drawing below).

④ go over each line gently with a exacto knife, but make sure not to go all the way through! Don't put  too much pressure.

⑤ Fold every crease! Voilà! I even made little ones with the leftovers and hung them with thread.

Yours truly with my little tree!

School/kids crafts

Easy Paper Snowman

14:33 Natalie Karine 0 Comments

What a busy day! I've been pretty lucky as a supply teacer lately. I usually get booked in advance and teachers usually leave me activities and a plan of the day. However, life happens, and sometimes teachers call me last minute and don't have time to get anything ready. Today was one of those days, so I ended up improvising a lot and came up with this fun little craft for my kindergarten class. We even talked about shapes and sizes (small, medium, big). They practiced their cutting, pasting and drawing too! Woo hoo!

Materials:
construction paper, white paper (with circles), markers, glue, scissors

I drew three circles and photocopied some for every student.

Look a their fancy coats!

My oh my! The class was full of little artists!

DIY cards

Woof Cards

11:38 Natalie Karine 0 Comments

I wanted to share with you guys my latest fun DIY project... my "Woof Cards". Last summer, I went on a Value Village trip in North Bay with my cousin. There, I found an illustrated guide of all the different dog breeds, and thought CRAFT TIME! It's in black & white and has a nice retro/vintage feel to it, so I decided to use it to make fun cards. I picked up a fun pack of blank patterned cards with enveloppes and voilà! So simple!

Materials
 ❁ blank cards
 ❁ vintage B&W images
 ❁ patterned paper
 ❁ glue
 ❁ scissors

With a tiny fancy hat and hearts!

Pug, bulldog, terrier and rotweiller... ADORABLE!

DIY crafts

DIY Cake Topper

06:48 Natalie Karine 0 Comments

Hello there! Life is so busy right now! However, there's always time to make a friend a cake on their birthday. My friend Lindsay had one request: a white cake with sprinkles. So I thought great! simple and cute, but it's missing a little je ne sais quoi. So after a little pinterest research (it really NEVER fails) I had it! A sparkly cake topper! And since her card was a massive My Little Pony Card (hah!) I figured let's stay in this magical childhood girly theme and put a UNICORN on the cake! Yes!






Instructions
①  Find an image you like on the web. It has to be simple, so you can type "outline" or "coloring page" in goolge.  This is what I found for "unicorn coloring page":
② Print your image on the back of your sticker sheet of sparkly paper (on the non-sparkly-side).
③ Cut it out and peel the backing.
④ Place two shishkabob sticks on the sticky side and place another sheet of colorful paper as backing. The shishkabob stickes will be sandwiched between the stciker paper and the regular backing paper. Trim around edges.
⑤ Voilà! Bake a cake and now you're all set!


Here are some yummy cupcakes I made to go a long with my magical cake! Look at the little flags made with washi tape and leftover sparkly sticker paper!

School/kids crafts

Itsy Bitsy Spider

17:08 Natalie Karine 0 Comments

Hi there! I got to work in a junior kindergarten for the past two weeks and we did some pretty cute Fall and Halloween crafts! Here is our fun spider craft!

Simply trace & cute a large circle and glue 8 little strips of paper for legs...or 9 or 15! Hah!) don't forget a smile!

DIY crafts

Spooky wreath

14:19 Natalie Karine 0 Comments

Hi there! One of my favourite holidays is fast approaching and to celebrate, I decided to make a spooktacular wreath! Woohoo! Complete with tiny bats and lovely felt flowers! I hope it makes my neighbours smile!

Materials 
  ★ grapevine wreath
  ★ felt
  ★ thread & needle
  ★ buttons
  ★ string
  ★ colored paper
  ★ hot glue gun

Felt flowers! Tutorial here

Getting my craft on!

Voilà!

DIY cards

Cutest Business Cards

08:47 Natalie Karine 0 Comments

Hi there! I've been so busy lately! Learning to drive, changing jobs and trying to enjoy some summer. One if the things I've had to do -in now a substitute teacher- is meet other teacher and network. Not the easiest thing in the world but a lot easier with adorable business cards. My friend introduced me to MOO.com, a company based in East Providence, Rhode Island, and I fell in love with their mini-cards. Half the size and half the price!. Their cards are such high quality (and not expensive!) that I get compliments every time I hand one out! I've even added a little sticker with my picture on it so teachers remember me! Haha!

I resisted adding my picture to my card, but other teachers love it. They get so many cards that they don't often remember who's who. Then they see me around the school and can put a name to my lovely face! :)

My pack of 100 mini-cards ($19.99!) come in this lovely little white box!

If you want to try them for yourself use this promo code!  I promise you wont be disappointed!

DIY cards

Handmade congrats cards!

21:50 Natalie Karine 0 Comments

Look at this cute Bride and Groom! They would look adorable on that tandem bicycle!

BABY,

Bird mobile

20:41 Natalie Karine 0 Comments

Hi there! I hope you're having a nice summer! I've been pretty busy with work and big life changes and now things seem to be settling down. I haven't been doing too many crafts lately but This will change in August! I have some fun projects lined up...Hooray!

I wanted to share this adorable Bird Mobile I made for my friend Jess, who is expecting a little girl VERY soon. Remember all those Homemade baby-shower gifts? Well here's another one to add to that set! It matches!





You'll need
  ❀ 1m of fabric (I used various little scraps)
  ❀ 1 spool thread
  ❀ stuffing
  ❀ small beads (eyes)
  ❀ 6" metal ring
  ❀ 3 m of ribbon to cover ring
  ❀ fishing line
  ❀ large button
  ❀ tacky glue

Directions
BIRDS: Cut your fabric using the pattern under here. I made 7 birds (2 perched on the ring and 5 hanging), but you can make as many as you like! Start by sewing a bead on each body (in the middle of the head) for each bird (2/bird). Sew the birds by lining up the belly with the lines on the body, right sides together. You can also add a little ribbon on the top of the bird to loop the fishing line later on. Leave a little opening so that you can turn them right side out and stuff them. Sew shut. Sew the wings (right sides together and flip, then sew shut) and either glue or sew onto each side of the bird.

MOBILE: cover the metal ring by wrapping it in ribbon. Glue in place. Tie 4 x16" pieces of fishing line to the ring and gather by weaving it through a large button and tie a knot. Glue or sew two birds onto the ring. Attach the 5 other birds using fishing line once again and tying them at different heights. Voila!

The Happy mommy unwrapping her mobile!

School/kids crafts

DIY Salty Oceans!

16:21 Natalie Karine 0 Comments

Summer...How I love you! To celebrate summer and the beach we made an awesome craft during our last week of school... My last craft ever at my  Montessori Preschool *sniff* (I'm now a supply teacher for a school board). So here it is: a Salty Ocean Scene, complete with sharks, starfish, whales and fishies! It even doubled as a science experiment: we played with salt!

The Science: "Lightly sprinkle salt on the picture while it is still wet. Watch the texture increase as the salt absorbs the water around it but leaves the pigment behind.The chemical reaction leaves light spots where the salt grains landed."

Start by making a beautiful watercolor backgrounds....

Then ciut out some fun ocean creatures (you can make stencils for the hard ones like sharks and whales!)

Ta-dam! Look at these guys!