Paper Crafts

Upcycled Greeting Cards

Book Page Prints into Greeting Cards from Spooky and Bright

How to make your own greeting cards that aren’t super cutesy and twee?

Include something vintage!

I made these DIY greeting cards not with rubber stamps of teddy bears or foam stickers of ducks in bonnets, but with vintage book pages. Pages trimmed from a ratty, torn copy of The Turn of the Screw and an old dictionary, embellished with paint, compose the front images of a set of all-purpose blank cards, suitable for either the kids or the adults in the family to use.

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How-to: DIY Embellished Business Cards–with a Treat!

Sometimes, if you’re an artist or a crafter, you have the chance to give out business cards that have a lot more flair. Business cards that you give out at a conference or networking event, with a purchase at a craft fair, or in a package that you’re shipping with an order from your etsy shop can afford to be a little fancier, and include a little bonus gift to make you memorable.

These DIY business cards may not fit in a potential customer’s wallet, but they’ll still stand out. Whether it’s a string of hand-painted beads, a small charm, or another trinket, these items may be just more of your unneeded stash, but to others they’re gifts, a little added value that costs you nothing but a few extra seconds of time, but positively impacts how your business card is received.

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How-to: Upcycled Paper Swatch Cards

Do you have art or craft supplies that you collect? If you’re out shopping the sales, however, it can be hard to remember if you have that exact color of something already, or if you should snap it up while it’s cheap. Especially for things like markers, paint, and fabrics, which come in more colors than it’s possible to own, these little swatch cards, made from upcycled paper, come in really handy.

The swatch cards are small enough to put in your pocket if you know you’re on your way to the art supplies store, handy to reference when you’re there, and quick to duplicate when you’re back home with your new supplies. Here’s how to make them

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Holiday Crafts

Yes, I DID Wrap All of My Christmas Presents in Newspaper and Brown Paper Bags

Store-bought wrapping paper offends me for a lot of reasons–the wasted money, the wasted resources, the energy misspent on buying ephemeral window dressing instead of focusing on family time.

And yet brown paper bags and sheets of newspaper, the go-to gift wrap for the thrifty and eco-minded, aren’t so much…well…cute.

To solve the cuteness dilemma, I spent a lot of effort decorating my first several packages with various upcycled materials and stash components. And then…

…I did something different.

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30 DIY Halloween Party Ideas

Project Show and Tell: A DIY Child’s Witch Hat Made from Recycled Newspaper and Cardboard

See how proud that kiddo looks? She and I made that witch’s hat, the exactly perfect Halloween costume accessory, out of recycled newspaper and cardboard (and a lot of tape!). Considering that everything except for the tape and paint came from our recycling bin, and that this is EXACTLY the tall, polka-dotted hat that she had wanted, I’m declaring it a Halloween win.

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