Use these Birdhouse images in your paper crafting projects. Hand drawn in primitive style, you get them colored in grungy, vintage mutes or plain to color yourself. So out with the paints, copics and glitter pens!

Download Birdhouse Images 1

Craft Ideas for the Birdhouse Clipart

These would be good for scrapbook pages with home or family as a theme – using the ideas of nesting, building a home and relationships and coming home to roost.

Download Birdhouse Images 2

Birdhouse Card Toppers

Use the Birdhouse Clipart as card toppers… think:

• Housewarming
• Welcome to the Neighborhood
• Marriage
• A Reminder of Home

These images would be good for anything with a heritage, whimsy theme. Put them in your craft stash.

Happy Crafting!

Design by Mina Keenan

Handwritten notes and letters are precious things to keep. Someone took the time to put thoughts to pen to paper. Download this matching Airmail Panda stationery and send off to that special someone!

Download Panda Notepaper and Envelope

How to Make the Envelope

• Cut along all outer lines
• Fold across the envelope where indicated in the download: across the envelope and along the tab lines
• Secure the tabs to the inside of the envelope with glue or tape

Panda Stationery

Download Vintage Panda Notepaper and Envelope

Try this Panda Stationery in plain and vintage. Quick and easy! …and Airmail!

Happy Crafting!

Design by Mina Keenan

Make these easy Pop Up Valentine Cards for that special someone. Pop up cards are a heap of fun! Two folds, two main cuts… and there you go!

Craft Supplies:

• Card
• Scissors
• Glue
• Images

How to Make the Pop Up Valentine Cards

The download has some guidelines as shown above. Cut along the solid lines and fold along the dotted line. Cut out all the extra images.

• Fold your card in half
• Make two small cuts that cross the fold line

• Fold across from the top of one cut to the other

• Open card out

• Open the second fold to make a ‘step’

• Glue your cloud image to the side of the step

• Decorate the front of the card with the patterned paper and hearts
• Done!

Pop Up Valentine Card Downloads

Download Pop Up Valentine Card Red

Download Pop Up Valentine Card Yellow

Happy Crafting!

Design by Mina Keenan

Need a quick toy for a rainy day? Look no further. Grab those scissors and cardboard tubes and make your own wee army with these Small Paper Toy Soldiers.

Craft Supplies:

• cardboard tubes
• glue
• scissors
• glue or tape
• paper or card

Download Small Toy Soldiers – Blue

How to Make Small Paper Toy Soldiers

• Cut out the soldiers
• Position them around the tubes
• Secure with glue or tape
• Trim if necessary

Download Small Toy Soldiers – Green

Print out on card if you have no tubes.  A nice quick and easy project to keep the little ones amused for a time.

Happy Crafting!

Design by Mina Keenan

Here are some cute wee Doodle Frames for your projects. Just cut them out, fill them out and stick them down! You can use them as labels and journaling tags.

Download Blue Doodle Frames

There are six matching Doodle Frames, so they’ll suit a theme, either for a series of photos or thoughts.

Maybe you want lines to journal with? Here they are:

Download Blue Doodle Frames – Lined

Journal tags are a nice way to categorise and organize your thoughts or pictures. They break up a page in an interesting way and draw attention to themselves just by their visual nature.

Use journal tags for snippets of information – the main points of your topic. A lot of times they are the only thing that is needed to spark memories or feelings about things or events that maybe you didn’t want to expand on by writing lots about.

Just cut, write and glue!

Happy Crafting!

Design by Mina Keenan

Grab your scissors! – this is an easy one! Download and print these Kids’ Valentine Mini Cards for the children to hand out at school or preschool.

Perfect for teachers, coaches, family and friends.

Download Kids’ Valentine Mini Cards Patterned

Just print and cut. These were designed for children, but they would go well in scrapbooking pages, or to use as gift or journaling tags.

Download Kids’ Valentine Mini Cards Pastel

There is room to write who it is to, and who it is from on the back. Add the year and/or a message.

Download Kids’ Valentine Mini Cards Plain

A range of cards for variety, they are suitable for boys or girls. Have fun with these, and Happy Valentine’s Day!

Happy Crafting!

Design by Mina Keenan

Have the fairies been visiting your house lately?

If you’re expecting a visit from the wee winged creatures, you might want to stock up on some fairy supplies. After all, you wouldn’t want to make a fairy cry, would you?  

In all seriousness, if you’re going to host a birthday party and you have a fairy fanatic in the house, chances are that the idea of a fairy party will emerge at some point. Be prepared for the fairy invasion, and get your loot bags organized!

Here are a few very simple ideas to place in your fairies’ bags. 

Fairy Jewels

Crystals are magical to children. Go to a rock store and collect a number of different-colored crystals, especially those in pink, white and blue. Fool’s gold is also wonderful to sneak into a fairy package. Also, place a geode in each child’s container, along with instructions about how to smash it to reveal the lovely crystals hiding inside.

A Woven Fairy Crown   

Collect pieces of old or discount ribbon or long strips of colorful fabric. All of the pieces should be smooth, and definitely not itchy! Get three pieces of fabric, and tie a knot at the top. Braid a simple braid, then tie a knot at the end, leaving some fabric beyond the knot. Use that fabric to tie the crown on your fairy’s head! Make this into a party craft by adding flowers, glitter, and fancy rhinestones to the woven crowns.

A Fanciful Fairy Shoe Kit

All fairies need fancy, magical shoes! We had great fun this past summer creating glitter shoes. Ours are red, and my daughter and I look like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz when we put them on.

Get a big package of glitter and divide it into smaller bags. Give each child a paintbrush and a small white glue. Give the children the following instructions:

Take one pair of old shoes that don’t look very good any more. Clean them and let them dry. Now, cover the shoe with a layer of glue diluted with a little bit of water. Shake the glitter over top of the glue, and let it dry. Then add another coat of diluted glue to seal the glitter. You’ve made fairy shoes!

A Fairy Garden

I’ve already described how to create a fairy garden of your own. It’s even easier to make a garden in a bag to give to another person. For my daughter’s last birthday party, we had a forest and garden theme, and each little gardener got a miniature garden kit to take home and build for the fairies.

What will you need for your garden in a bag?

A bag or a box to keep supplies in

A tiny pot or a teacup to contain the plants and the soil

A smaller Ziploc bag of potting soil

Rocks and shells for fairy ponds and paths

One or two small plants, if desired

Doll house decorations like miniature tea cups and bells, if desired

Zip all of these items up in a bag, and give the children the instructions in the fairy garden blog. 

Have you hosted a fairy party? 

Save time and money and make these Easel cards this Valentine’s Day.

Easel cards are a little different from the norm and are really easy to make. Use this project as inspiration for our own creations. There are enough images for three layouts, plus an extra page of images so you can mix and match them to fashion your own cards.

Craft Supplies

• Valentine Card Download
• Card
• Paper
• Scissors
• Polystyrene food tray
• Glue

Download Easel Valentine Card Template and Card Images

How to Make the Easel Card

• Print out the download and cut out the pieces.
• Use the template as a guide to cut card for the base.
• Fold along the lines as shown on the template.
• Fold so the card looks like this:

• Decorate the front of the card.

A portion of the inside is decorated, and a ‘stopper’ put in to hold the front (easel part) of the card in position so it will stand. A ‘stopper’ is anything that will give dimension, like a piece of cardboard, a button or a bead.

Download Easel Valentine Card Template and Card Layouts 2 and 3

Card Crafting Techniques

Add dimension to your cards to make your cards pop. Do this by raising images off the card surface – use cardboard, polystyrene food tray (more info on polystyrene food trays) or foam dots.

Download Easel Valentine Card Template and Card Images

Gluing small images can be fiddly. I dabbed the back of the images with glue, put a piece of polystyrene into the glue, with tweezers, turned the polystyrene piece over (so the glue side is now facing up) and then placed the image into position.

When your card is finished, you might need to bend the empty section near the bottom fold as indicated in the photo so the card will ‘stand’ properly.

I was able to make at least five cards from the images in these downloads.
So have fun with these! Happy Valentine’s Day and Happy Crafting!

Design by Mina Keenan

Fairies, fairies: everywhere you look, you see fairy wings and fairy crowns and books and more books about the wee creatures. Children are fascinated with the idea of fairyland. If you’re looking for the perfect birthday gift for a special child who’s entranced by the fairy realm, why not make them their very own miniature living fairyland in a pot? Building a fairy garden is a simple, inexpensive way to create a magical gift.

Materials Required to Build a Fairy Garden

To create your fairy garden, you’ll need some simple supplies. These are available at most craft and garden supply stores. The following supplies are essential for your fairy garden creating extravaganza:

• A planter of some sort. I’ve made fairy gardens in everything from repurposed teacups to the traditional garden planter. Have your child paint a picture on the outside if the garden is a gift, or use pot markers. These are markers with paint in them.
• Pea gravel for the bottom of the pot, to increase drainage.
• Potting soil.
• Two or three plants. I like to choose plants that have fairyland types of names, like elfin thyme. You can also choose plants with bell-shaped flowers that look like plants fairies could hide in. I also like to have plants that look like small coniferous trees or plants that look like fairy staircases. Make sure that you choose plants that are not poisonous, since children will be playing in this garden.
• A groundcover plant. Thyme works well for this purpose.
• Accessories. This is where you can get creative. Pieces of wood, bark, shells, and rocks make excellent fairy furniture and ponds.I’ve also added clear marbles, because they look like a fairy’s crystal ball. I also add small dollhouse cooking supplies, such as doll teapots and cups, so that the fairies can have a tea party. You can also buy fairy furniture on Etsy if you so desire.
• A fairy ornament, if you wish.

Indoor or Outdoor Fairy Garden

Fairy gardens can be part of indoor or outdoor decor. If they’re outdoors, place the plants in a large planter. Choose plants that are winter-hardy and perennial, so that the child will not be disappointed in the spring. Indoor fairy gardens can be very small, like the garden in a teacup. Incorporate ferns and other hardy indoor plants.

Put Together Your Fairy Garden

To put together your fairy garden, place a small layer of pea gravel over no more than a third of the container. Fill the rest of the container with potting soil. Place the plants in the soil, taking care to cover the roots. Dress up the garden with accessories, or place these in a small bag or purse so that the recipient can accessorize the garden.

Other Fairy Party Ideas

Looking for other ideas for a fairy-themed birthday party or a birthday or Christmas gift for a fairy connoisseur? Try out the following ideas, and your fairy-lover will be tickled!

• A patchwork fairy hat
• A hand-dyed play silk fairy cape
• Fairy bling, otherwise known as rocks, crystals, and geodes
• A simple, no sew purse to hold the fairy bling
• A pair of homemade fairy sparkle slippers
• Magic fairy bubbles

Image Credits: [Biewoef] [nkzs]

Pinterest-Inspired Crafting: A Calm Jar

I have found a new site to suck up all my productivity and glaze over my eyes with daydreams of crafts, kitchen remodels, and new wardrobes… I am referring to Pinterest, of course. After a few months of pinning crafts to my boards, my best friend and I decided to test some out. AND we took pictures.

You will need:

• Mason Jar or baby food jar – cleaned out naturally
• *We used 32 oz. mason jars, so adjust accordingly for amounts
• Craft glitter – 3 pouches (roughly 1/2 tbsp each)
• Glitter Glue – 1.8 fl oz. (we used a full bottle for each mason jar)
• Hot Water

 To Make a Calm Jar:

• Lay all of your supplies out – I realize that may seem silly in a simple project like this but trust me – nothing sucks the fun out of a craft project faster than realizing you forgot a needed item.

•  If you are making more than one Calm Jar, then separate out the colored glue and glitters you want to use in each jar.

•  Boil water, microwave water – in our case we used the “hot water” function on my coffee maker – you just need hot water to break down the glitter glue. Add the water to the mason jar.

• Add desired amount and color of glitter to the mason jar.

•  Add a small jar of glitter glue to the mason jar.

•  Stir vigorously. *Now, I think this step is important – once the jar is completed you will use it by shaking it like a snow globe (not a polaroid picture), but while in the creation stage still I recommend using something to stir and break up the glitter glue completely. We used a long metal BBQ skewer, but if you don’t have those (why not?!) I think a fork would work fine.

•  Seal tightly. *This is another important step. As my best friend said, “it’s *glitter* we need that jar sealed like a submarine.” Valid point. We didn’t take the extra measure of pressure-sealing it – just make sure the lid is screwed on really, really tightly.

•  Shake and Enjoy! The time it takes the glitter to swirl and settle back at the bottom of the jar is supposed to be enough time to calm a toddler’s outburst or calm an adult’s fried nerves (whether or not the two are directly related).

 

 

 

 

Our first Pinterest-Inspired craft was a success. Stay-tuned for more!