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Creating Beautiful & Fun Crafts Takes Time, Talent, Tools & Opportunities For Exploration. Hopefully Craft Tips Will Enhance All Of These Areas For You.
Craft Gift Baskets
CRAFT GIFT BASKETS:
Does a friend express a desire to learn a craft that you are skilled at doing? Create a Craft Gift Basket for a birthday or other special occasion. Add basic supplies to learn the craft, instructions and enough material to finish a beginners project. Put in a craft magazine or book featuring your craft skill, add a packet of special tea or coffee, and even add a one-of-a-kind tea and saucer and a box of chocolates for the inevitable moments of stress when learning something new would be good, of course. A gift certificate or catalog that sells the craft supplies for the project is a nice touch, too. Copy a calendar page to tuck in among her treasures, so that the two of you can plan your special time to give the lesson/s. You'll not only make your friend happy but you will have someone new to share your craft pleasures with in the future.For far-away friends, you can add a video of how to complete the project, some detailed instructions or send a tiny basket with a gift certificate for a craft store that is local to her to spend on a craft that she is already proficient at. She might still like the other goodies too.
P.S. Keep in mind where your friend would be doing her crafting (on break at work, in the doctors' waiting room, while traveling in a motor home, or by a sick friends bed. Make sure the craft that you give her is one that she can easily take to her own special "crafting places." CRAFTS TO GO:
Buy or sew your own cloth totes, choose crafts that are portable such as tatting, knitting, crochet, embroidery, cro-tatting (take a peak at Annies Attic to see this newest craft!) etc. that you like to do. Fill one or more totes with everything you need to work on a single project including scissors, needles, ruler, instructions and hang it next to your coat in the closet. The next time you leave the house you can take your project with you and increase your crafting hours. I made 20 tatted snowflakes while waiting in the car, the doctors' office, etc. and happily spent time that otherwise would have been much less enjoyable plus the bonus of homemade and economical gifts for giving away or decorating my house.
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CREATIVE FORETHOUGHT
BUSY BOXES FOR KIDS:
Decorate a shoe box or one similar in size. Fill it with some special amusements that your kids or grandkids can only play with when you are busy crafting. Ideas to fill your childs' box might include: children's video, plastic canvas, yarn and large plastic needle so they can craft too (suitable for older children), a small candy treat, gel pens and colored paper, coloring book, sticker book, crayons, stencils, play dough, story book for reading age children, a computer game, puzzle. Let them know that this special box is only for when you are busy with your crafts. My children loved their busy boxes so much that they begged me to craft something so that they could play with their crafty fun box.DOCUMENT YOUR SUCCESSES:
All crafters have new craft ideas flowing through their heads, and sometimes we get so involved in the process of creating that we don't take time to write down what we are doing and how. So the project is finished and looks great but we don't remember some of the steps,or the order that they were executed so we waste alot of time trying to regroup and remember (hopefully to write it down the second time). So remember to take notes (in your Creative Craft Journal and take pictures at each stage. I suggested this to my husband when he was tearing our car engine apart. His video of the process saved him hours of trying to remember just how he got "that thing" out of there, and it works just as well for me. MARK IT ON THE CALENDAR:
No time for crafts? Wish you could steal some on a regular basis? Simply schedule it, like you would any other important event in your life. Hire a babysitter or trade babysitting with another crafting soul. Sometimes when I am trying to figure out a craft project (the pattern, bookwork, instructions, or brainstorm for something I want to make, I go to the library. No one disturbs me. One winter,I took an hour twice a week ~ the time when my granddaughter was enjoying the librarys' Little Tot reading hour. She could see me, but she stayed with the group and I had some fun creating something new.
WORKING WITH WAX: Got wax on your clothes while working with candles or other wax projects? You can get it out with an iron and paper towel. Put clothing on ironing board, put paper towel over waxed area, iron paper towel and it will absorb the wax and leave the clothes wax-free.
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