Making holding with core tissue

Paper recycling

Laced Trinket Trays

We made the laced trinket trays below using card and paper sent to us by the excellent Ideas in Paper ; if you want top quality paper and card for your craft projects, that's the place to get it! And if you mention Things to Make and Do when you order, you'll get a 10% discount!

These are really stylish trays and can have many uses, from holding bits and bobs, ribbons, hair bobbles, string, paperclips and elastic bands to adding a strip of card as a handle and filling with some crumpled up tissue paper and some chocolate eggs and you have an Easter basket. You can keep them yourself or give them as a present, once you’ve made one you’ll be hooked and want to make more. The template provided below makes a tray 6cm across the base, and about 7cm high.

Summer Kid Crafts: Grow a Head

Here's a summer craft I saw best explained in pictures. I saw a local toy store selling them in kits (and on Amazon as well) but it's so much cheaper to make one on your own.


First you take an old nylon and cut it off at the ankle. Sprinkle some grass seed in the toe and spoon in some dirt from the garden.

Another Pencil Holder

I love looking in catalogs to get ideas for decorating or crafting. I love the Pottery Barn catalog, and in the newest one we received had this cool pencil holder in it.

Beautiful Paper Snowflake

How To Make The Most Beautiful Paper Snowflake Ever! a spectacular - origami like - snowflake deco

Pom pom maker

This is a tutorial for making pom-poms using your
fingers. This one is a small, two-finger pom-pom
(about 1" in diameter) but you can make bigger ones
by using more fingers. As far as yarn choice, thinner
and softer yarn will make a more pleasing pom-pom.

Make a gift bow from a magazine page

In gift wrap emergencies when you've got the present but need some wrapping, here's an idea for turning a magazine page into a bow. There may be better ways to stick this thing together, but I used what I had on hand: staples and adhesive glue dots. Double stick tape should work, too.

Envelope Origami

I'm not sure if "envelope origami" really exists but for my amusement lets pretend it does.

Envelope origami - to create a likeness of an object using geometric folds and crease patterns preferably without gluing or cutting the paper, and using only one envelope.

Girls Spring Mini Tote - tutorial

As a kid, one of my favorite things about going to church on Easter Sunday was carrying a special little purse. Mine was round, white wicker with a hinged lid. I wore white gloves with itty-bitty flowers on them just to have something to put in the purse when I got to church. I was always such a tomboy, I can hardly believe it was me. I guess everyone likes to dress up and be girlie once in a while.