Little Lights

I don't take credit for the original idea, here.  I've seen several of these floating around pinterest.  But I'm throwing mine into the mix, too!  I love this simple idea because it can be used for so many things - decor, party decorations, party favors, a simple teacher or hostess gift, etc.

You have to admit, tea lights are a whole lot cuter when they're dressed up.  And this "project" is so easy, it's not even a project.

See?  Just stick, wrap, tear.  Voila.  And done in nice, bright Spring colors!  Because even though it's still snowing here, a girl can dream, right?

I used to be a Relief Society teacher for my ward - the women's Sunday School class for my church congregation.  I taught once a month and always tried to have a little something to give the ladies to remind them of the lesson throughout the week - sometimes just a paper handout, sometimes a magnet, most often chocolate (because that's the BEST kind of takeaway from class, right?)

While I was preparing a lesson a few months ago, this particular scripture from the Book of Mormon (another testament of Christ used as a companion to the Old and New Testaments) really stood out to me:

"...Hold up your light to the whole world.  Behold, I am the light which ye shall hold up." 

 - 3 Nephi, 18:24

It's a lot like this scripture found in Matthew.

And all at once I knew what I wanted to use for my handouts.

I made the tag in picmonkey and printed it on card stock.  

You can attach it any number of ways.  For example, if you are a procrastinator and doing this the night before and morning of your lesson, you can simply use double sided tape and stick that tea light right on the tag.
OR, if you have fewer people in your class or planned ahead (ha!) then you can slip them in a little clear favor bag, trim the top of the bag down, tie it shut with twine, punch a hole in the tag and tie it on.

Either way, really.

Whatever you use them for they are happy little lights, yes?  Oh, washi tape.  What would I do without you?

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More stuff with popsicle sticks.

Apparently there's some kind of popsicle stick obsession over here. What can I say?  Craft sticks and kids go together like peanut butter and jelly.  Don't believe me?  Behold:

For this episode of

we combine a number of our current obsessions, including bright colors, cute ribbon, craft sticks and - OF COURSE - washi tape.  Yea!
Want to make some with your kidlets?
They really are as easy as they look.

You'll need:

Let me take a moment to have a bit of an aside here.  I am not a spokesperson for crop-a-dile (or whoever makes them.  Is that a Stampin' Up thing?) nor do I sell them, own stock in them or receive anything at all for endorsing them.  BUT.  I just want to say, these things are really great.  Two different sized punches, a small and even smaller size, that punch through pretty much ANYTHING.  For that alone they rock, but they also do eyelets.  So yeah.

Anyway, that's why I like crop-a-diles.  They punch right through a wood craft stick.  RIGHT THROUGH.  And now, so this doesn't sound anymore like an infomercial than it already does, let's just move on, shall we?  Great.

So.  

1. You take a craft stick.  (or three)2. You decorate your stick with washi tape.  Any old way you want.
3. You use your crop-a-dile and
4. punch a hole in the top of the stick.

Then...
5. You cut some ribbon, twine, yarn, what have you.  
6. Fold it in half.
7. Stick the loopy middle part through the hole, 
8. put the two ends through the loopy part 
9. and pull tight.
10. VOILA!

My son was pretty overjoyed when I gave him free reign over my "fancy tape."  He loves this stuff as much as I do!  He made a bookmark for each of his aunts and uncles for Christmas, and Zoe made one for her oldest cousin.

The only part they needed help with was feeding the thicker ribbon through the little hole.

Because they're super easy - and fun - to make, you can whip up a bunch in no time for Valentine's Day for your classmates!  

If you want to hand yours out for Valentine's Day, here's a free printable!  (You can click on it down at the bottom of the post)

Just print out the printable on card stock, cut out the cards, cut a slit on the top and a slit on the bottom and slide your stick through.  There's a front and back to print out on the same card stock, so your kids can write names and sign the back.

(Also, I got the Valentine themed washi tape in the dollar section at Target.  Hello??  Love that spot.  Go get some, quick!  I should perhaps point out that bug insisted on "boy" bookmarks as well, since apparently boys like neither hearts nor pink.  Hence the mustaches on yellow.)

Ah, love...

*Be sure to check the right sidebar for all the fun parties I link to!

Making Spirits B"Write"!

Alright folks. This is my second to last super easy and inexpensive hostess gift idea.  I actually don't know if I'll get to my very last one, since it's getting ridiculously close to Christmas and I still have gifts to make as well as wrap and I'm pretty sure the rest of my days up until Christmas will be a wild, mad dash to finish.  The kind of wild mad dash that leaves your hair wondering when it last saw shampoo and causes you to be pulling off threads and paper scraps from strange places when you finally do go out in public.
Anyway, here's one more:

Today's gift can really only be considered semi-homemade, since most of the homemade aspect is all in presentation and putting it together.  BUT, that's what makes it so easy!

Aren't you LOVING Target's dollar section right now??  I swear I could totally buy out their entire line of notebooks/cards/pens/paper goods/ribbon/etc. at the moment.  And then keep it instead of giving it away because I love it all too much...
If you're right there with me, you will love these cute little stationary sets comprised almost entirely of things from the Target dollar section.

Let's put it all together!

1.  First, washi tape everything you can washi tape.  I put different designs on the plain envelopes to spruce them up.  I also covered the clothespin.
2.  Gather all your ingredients.
3.  Find some twine or ribbon.
4.  Put the cards/matching envelopes together, stack the plain envelopes on top of the notebook.  Tie them together with ribbon.
5.  Put the bigger items (paper and envelopes) in the big zipper pocket.  
6.  Put the pen, stickers, washi tape, and stamps in the little zipper pocket.
7.  Use the clothespins to attach the tag to the front of the bag.
8.  Done!

Target has such cute cards and notebooks right now!  You could make a turquoise and green set!

Or a super mod metallics and off white set!  (PS, those zipper bags were only $1 for both!)

A simple, cute "thank you for hostessing" gesture!

Here's the deets on the "ingredients":

Those envelopes are just your average small white envelope.  ("but they don't look like your average envelope..." yes.  More on that later.)  I have those on-hand, and you might too, but you can get them pretty much anyway.  I get mine at Walmart usually.

The fun graphic notebook, the "Hello" cards, the brown envelopes, the pen and the zipper bag are all from the Target dollar section.  Holla!

The clothespin is your average wood clothespin.  I had them on-hand.  But you can get them at the dollar store.

The stickers are plain gold star stickers that I cut off the pack of red/green/blue/silver/gold sheets of star stickers.  I only wanted the gold ones so they matched.  I had these on-hand too, but you can buy them almost anywhere.  Walmart.

The washi tape was a two-pack I found at Target in the craft section. 

So, the real breakdown here goes like this.

Deets:

Cost -

Envelopes; Walmart, about $3 for 100 (I included 8)

Notebook; Target, $1

Clothespin; Dollar Store, $1 for 50 (I included 1)

Washi tape; Target, $2 and some change for 2 (I included 1)

Pen; Target,  $1 for 2 (I included 1)

Star stickers; Walmart, $2.67 for 686 (I used one strip of stars)

Greeting cards and matching envelopes; Target, $1

Zipper Bag; Target, $3

Total for 1 Stationary Set: $6.60 

Woo hoo!  Under $10!  I had the clothespins, envelopes and star stickers on hand, so I spent about $6.00.  

Time - 

About 8 minutes for everything, including printing the printable and putting it all together.

I call that awesome.

If you're looking for something even less intensive (not sure how you can get less intensive than 6 bucks and 8 minutes... but here you go.)  You can simply print out the tag and stick it under the pen on a notebook.  That's about $2 and 2 minutes, so I guess you really can't beat that.

 Colorful, cute, and super functional.  

Want to make your own?  Here are some tags to save you some time!

Because I'm washi obsessed.

I've got a super easy idea for you this time around... and it (once again) involves candles... They're just so easy to make festive.

Today's candle gift idea:

You'll need:

SMALL baby food jars
Washi tape
Tea lights.  Either the real kind, or the flameless battery operated kind.
Spray paint.  Not pictured.  Whoops.

I feel kind of stupid spelling this out for you... the pictures are pretty self-explanatory.  But as I don't want to put myself out of a job:

1. Wash the baby food jars really well and remove the labels.  I recommend good gone.  Great for label removal.

2. For the real tea lights, you'll decorate the jar itself.  Wrap washi tape around the jar.

3. DONE!

4. For the fake tea lights, wrap the washi tape around the actual candle.  Place it in the jar.

5. Spray paint the baby food jar lids.  Add glitter if you want.

VOILA!

 Now, you just slip them in a clear plastic favor bag, fold the top over a few times, staple or tape it shut and add the label, which you just fold over the top of the bag, sandwiching it before securing.

The Deets:

Cost:
Baby Food Jars - on hand, or on someone else's hand.  You can buy them.  But you should really check around first.  FREE
Fake tea lights - dollar store; $1 for two pack
real tea lights - dollar store; $1 for 6 pack
washi tape - walmart, joanne's; anywhere from .99 - $2.49 ish

Time:
Uh, like negligible.  Maybe 5 minutes?  Something like that.

I had the jars and the tape.  Wait.  I had the tea lights too.  A FREE GIFT!

And, in case you need a little printable tag action for your very own tea light holders:

One thing I like a lot about this gift is that it's so simple kids can do it by themselves.  Not that they'll be giving out a lot of hostess gifts, but maybe for their teachers?  Cute!

*Be sure to check the right sidebar for all the fun parties I link to!

and more washi tape...

Because, quite frankly, I have an illness.  Washiitis.  And I also make a lot of garlands.

This project was also from last year, so please excuse the less than stellar photos.  This is a really straight forward (read: EASY) craft to do.

First, I laid washi tape down on some card stock in candy corn order, overlapping the pieces of tape a bit.  Then I cut out some rounded triangles.  I used my crop-a-dile to punch little holes - two in the orange layer, right across from each other.  I threaded the triangles onto twine, going through the back to the front, and knotted the twine behind each hole so the candy corn wouldn't slide around.  And that was it.  Done!

Perhaps worth mentioning as well - I didn't have yellow striped baker's twine, so I made my own by wrapping plain twine around a cutting board I use for crafts and drawing lines with a yellow sharpie.

Then I had to find all kinds of places to hang it, since I made a ton.

You can find the tutorial for that super easy $5 framed "chalkboard" here.  

And of course, there's another sneak peek...

*Be sure to check the right sidebar for all the fun parties I link to!