Juicy Little Gift Boxes

I confess. I couldn't leave well-enough alone. I just had to do it. I just HAD TO make full-size frozen concentrated juice container gift boxes. You see, I'd made these out of them. And the boy and I had made this. And Christmas is just around the corner. And I needed some little gift boxes. So that's what I did! And I know the whole juice-container thing is getting out of hand... Can you ever forgive a girl her repetitious-cum-obsessive behaviour? I certainly hope so. Besides, it was a very merry little time I had making these, and I am actually surprised with the results!

Have a look-see! I used pretty much the exact same method described here, and just added a few extra embellishments!

For example for this green gift box, I glued some ribbon on the bottom edge and then topped it off with a pretty circle from a National Geographic page (from a 1987 issue, when I was still a teenager... sigh) and one of my egg carton flowers. Those old National Geographics are a crafter's gold mine, a gold mine I tell you!

And as you can see, for this little yellow one I simply used a tiny bit of vintage lace to pretty-up the container and then covered the metal top with a hunk (a hunk? really?... hmm...) of white wrapping paper and then affixed one of my foam tray flowers on top. Yep.

And lastly but surely not leastly, the pink one was a repetition of the green one, what with the ribbon-thing on the sides and the National-Geo-slash-egg-carton-flower-thing on the top. (This egg carton flower is from a different post however. You can find it here.)

Now that is some kinda pink. Wow. Festive, ain't she?

And because I love me some photos, here are a ton more!!!

So simple to make, and perfect for those diminutive treasures you will no doubt be giving!

Well you know what to do now, don't you? Go have yourself a fabulous day, that's what!

Series 3 - SITUATION CHRISTMAS ORNAMENT-ATION #5

Mary asked Santa: "What's that in the sky?"

Santa replied: "It's rain, Dear."

What do elves learn at Elf school?

The Elfabet.

(A few funnies from The Boy's Advent Calendar)

Welcome to the 5th and FINAL installment of Series 3 - SITUATION CHRISTMAS ORNAMENT-ATION!!!

To see what kind of mischief I've been up to in past installments, scroll down to the bottom of my Series Page here!

In the meantime, if today's ornaments seem familiar it's because they are! Indeed they are the remnants of, and were 100% inspired by, our Advent Clock Calendar.

They are super-simple to make, and are highly handy as well. It's true. Not only are these little ornaments ornamental - that's why they call them that - but they also double as tiny gift boxes! I don't know about you, but I can think of a ton of gifts these little guys could potentially house. Let's see. We have big beautiful buttons. Many mints. Elegant earrings. A neat necklace. A wonderful watch. A merry missive. A radiant ring. Car keys. A mitt-full of mullah... I could go on but I think you get the picture. The girl can alliterate!

The tutorial is so simple, I didn't even bother taking pictures. No, I felt that would kinda be insulting to your superior brainy-ness. I did however do a short write-up for the newbie. You know who you are.

Here it is! Go nuts! (That's another thing you could put in there, by the way.)

Tutorial: Frozen Juice Container Gift Box Ornament (That's a mouthful, eh?)

You will need the following:

• Clean frozen concentrated fruit juice containers and their metal lids
• Small piece of cardboard slightly bigger than a juice lid
• White paper (I used some old white wrapping paper)
• Old magazine pages (I used some beautiful National Geographic pages from 1987)
• White ribbon and a large sewing needle
• Gesso
• Acrylic paint in your choice of colour (I used sage green and sage silver) and paintbrush
• White glue
• Hammer and 1 nail
• Exacto knife and scissors
• Pencil

1. Using this method to mark your juice container, cut off approximately 1 inch (2.5 cm) or less from the bottoms of your container with an Exacto knife.

2. Paint the stubby little juice container with a few coats of gesso allowing it to dry between coats. Avoid painting the metal bottom if possible. No need to paint the inside.

3. Paint the juice container with a few coats of your colour choice. Avoid painting the metal bottom if possible (again). No need to paint the inside (again). Allow drying time between coats.

4. Using a juice lid as a rough guide, create a circle template from a small piece of cardboard. The cardboard circle template should fit inside the top of the juice lid.

5. Now using the circle template, draw and cut out 2 circles per ornament from your beautiful magazine pages.

6. Repeat step 5 but with white paper. Make snowflakes with these white circles. Here is a snowflake tutorial link just in case.

7. Glue your snowflakes onto your magazine page circles.

8. Create a hanger for your ornament. Poke a needle hole in the side of your stubby juice container and then use the needle to pass the ribbon through the hole.

9. Using a hammer and nail, poke 2 holes along the edge of your metal juice lid on opposite sides of the lid.

10. Using a large needle, poke 2 holes on opposite sides of the painted juice container that match the holes in your lid.

11. Attach the lid to the juice container with a piece of ribbon. To do this, thread your ribbon onto a large needle and pull one end of the ribbon through both holes in the container, and out the other side. Remove the needle. Thread the other end of the ribbon onto the needle. Pull the ribbon through the top of the lid, and then through the bottom of the lid to the other side so that both ends of the ribbon come out from one side of the container. Tie a bow.

12. Finally, glue one magazine-snowflake-circle to the lid, and one to the bottom of your ornament.

And there you have it! A pretty recycled frozen juice container gift box ornament... Really though. I must find a new name for this one. Seriously. Any ideas?

Note: Here's my link to some more Juicy Little Gift Boxes you can make using exactly the same techniques!

Thanks for dropping by, and have yourself a lovely evening!

The Boy's Advent Clock Calendar

If you remember yesterday's post, you'll know that the boy (who's 6 years old) and I were busy busy working on our little Advent Calendar. This is our very first handmade Advent Calendar! I know, crazy. Before this year, we've always bought them, tisk tisk. It was never on my radar before... But with the "advent" of the blog (chortle), I've been inspired by so many amazing crafters and their amazing Advent concoctions! So I thought I'd get the boy involved and create one of our very own design and making.

I sketched 3 different possibilities and passed them by the boy. He, being president of Everything, chose the final design: the Advent Clock Calendar. Here you see it partially made, most of the components ready for assembly.

It is made out of a large cardboard box, frozen concentrated juice containers and their metal lids, some ribbon, a piece of newsprint, a few bits of used giftwrap, some regular white paper, paint and Mod Podge.

The boy is a snowflake expert (he was making snowflakes back in the womb) so he helped with the lid embellishment including the cutting of circles of paper and of all those little snowflakes that you see on the tops of the juice lids. He also penned all the numbers which I then cut out. I'm darn fond of The Boy Font, and use it whenever possible. It's got character, ya know?

We got Lo involved by forcing him to poke holes in things and by sending him out to get the goodies for the little snowflake cups.

Today I put it all together and spent some time gathering Christmas jokes to add to every cup. The boy loves a good joke. Whenever he tells a joke, he always asks: "Do you get it?" and proceeds to explain the ins and outs of the joke, and exactly why you should be laughing.

After school, he excitedly threw off his coat, hat and boots, like a flash raced to the Calendar, and swiftly found the goodies and the joke that were waiting for him. Then he begged me to let him do tomorrow's today to which I said: "No way, José!"

Pretty sure he likes his Advent Calendar! Yay!

Now you go have yourself a lovely evening!

My Tiny Brain Wave #2 - Mark a Cylinder Quick!

Welcome to My Tiny Brain Wave #2!

If you recall, this is a feature wherein, every now

and again, intermittently and periodically, but most probably rarely, I will be posting ideas that I've come up with that are NOT A CRAFT (gasp and double gasp) but rather a genius idea that might help with crafting in some way. Right.

Today I will show you the jig I made for quickly marking cutting lines on a ton of cylinders. It's super-simple and a huge time-saver.

What motivated this Tiny Brain Wave?

The boy and I are working on our Advent Calendar! (We're not quite done yet, yikes. That's okay, remain calm, we have until tomorrow. No problemo.) And the calendar, like most crafty things around here, is made of recyclables. In this case, concentrated fruit juice containers.

BUT, the design in my head requires that we cut up the juice containers into shallow little bowls that will eventually hold the goodies.

This is where the Tiny Brain Wave comes in.

I didn't want to have to mark out every cylinder. Multiple times. With a ruler. At several points. Around each cylinder. Joining the marks. To create the cutting lines. What a hassle that would have been. Ugh.

So double-quick, I created a jig to do the marking and measuring for me. Joy!

Requirements for the jig:

1. Small container a bit wider than the cylinders (juice containers) you are marking
2. Exacto knife
3. Sticky tape
4. Pencil

Decide how tall you want your cuts to be on your cylinders (or juice containers) and mark the outside of your jig container at that height. My "mark" is the center of my little circle

Note: Be aware that the inside bottom surface of the jig container will be higher than the outside bottom surface. Keep that in mind when you are measuring for height.

With your Exacto knife, cut a little 'X' at your mark.

Push the tip of your pencil through the 'X'.

Put a piece of tape on the eraser-end of the pencil, adhering the pencil to the work surface and preventing it from moving around.

Your jig is DONE! This is what it looks like on the inside of the jig. Yes, a pencil point sticking out. Or in, as the case may be.

Now place your cylinder/juice container inside the jig and gently TURN IT against the pencil point until it is marked all the way around.

Do the same for all your cylinders/juice containers)...

They will look like this. Now cut off these bottom bowls with your Exacto knife. And, with the jig, mark the remaining parts of the cylinders again. And again. And again...

Until you get a ton of little cylinders!

So that's it. This jig was really helpful to me so I thought I'd share it. Maybe you'll need it someday, you never know, and here it will be waiting!

Now you go have yourself a fine day!

Tutorial: Falloween Garland

The question, "Does this craft really NEED a gigantic, long-winded, wordy tutorial?" crossed my mind many times as I was making my Falloween craft. Only the most gifted, talented, and crafty types frequent this cyber place, am I right? Right. Okay... But just in case one little novice crafter has slipped through the cracks, I have provided the following wordless tutorial for his/her benefit. All you other seasoned professionals just skip to the good part - the end - where you will find an array of photos of the finished product. I'll meet you down there.

Note:

To the little-novice-crafter-who-has-slipped-through-the-cracks:

Welcome! This wordless tutorial is JUST for you. Please note that I used both frozen concentrated fruit juice containers and toilet paper rolls to make the garland. Both are treated in the same way, except that the fruit juice containers are painted orange on the outside and yellow on the inside, and the toilet paper rolls are painted black on the outside and left as-is on the inside. If for some reason, I have failed in my mission to make a transparent, accessible and easy-to-understand tutorial, please do not hesitate to "let me have it" in the comments. I apologize in advance if this is the case and promise to apologize again afterwards. It would be un-Canadian of me to do otherwise. I am sorry.

Wordless Tutorial: Falloween (Fall/Halloween) Garland

Have a wonderful day!

P.S. I will be linking here!