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Category: DIY
Last weekend was quite unusual, as for my standards. Instead of using the two days at home for productive work, I ended up baking a delicious loaf of banana bread, went to an amazing event (more about that on a different occasion) and dragged a box of my rarely used art supplies out of the storage. A quick look inside and I knew what I wanted to play with. Watercolours! That’s how these three bookmarks were born.
After a few food-related posts, I think it’s time for some more papercrafts. And no quilling this time! Today, I’m coming with a super simple craft idea – paper roses. They only use supplies I’m sure you have at home, take close to no time and require no skills. Sounds great, doesn’t it? 🙂 You can make them in any size or colour, with or without stems! Big roses will look nice in a vase, while smaller ones can be used for handmade cards and such. We love such versatility in crafts, don’t we?
The 21st of January, in Poland, is when we celebrate Grandmother’s Day. And who, if not grandparents, can really appreciate handmade gifts? After all, to them we’ll always remain their beloved little grandchildren, no matter the age.
Naturally, I made a card for my Grandmother. A card in quilling technique (oh what a surprise, right? 😉 ). I’ve recently written the first part of my quilling guide, covering all of the available tools – if you’d like to get into this type of papercrafts, you can check it out here! Part two of the guide, covering basic shapes and techniques is in the works.
You may have noticed that I usually praise Aliexpress in my arts and crafts posts. Craft supplies are generally only of interest of a narrow group of people, so with low demand – and rather limited supply too – come high prices in local craft stores. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against supporting local businesses and there are items I buy from them. But when I see the exact same tool that I had bought on Aliexpress in a local store, for 5 times the price, I feel no guilt or shame for buying the thing directly from China.
Buying cheap craft tools and supplies also allows you to play around and experiment with various mediums and techniques, and once you get hooked on something, you know what’s worth spending money on and you can buy higher quality – and more expensive – tools, knowing that you’ll actually use and appreciate them.
Here’s a list of my favourite random creative tools and supplies that I bought on Aliexpress!
Continue reading “My Favourite Aliexpress Arts and Crafts Purchases”
Winter over here has settled for good, which means my lips get dry not matter how much chapstick I use. That’s the time when lip scrubs come in handy. However, instead of buying them, I prefer to make them myself. It’s super easy, cheap and customizable. And you can make sure they’re made out of natural ingredients! If you’ve never tried it – time to give it a go!
I’ve already posted about my creations in quilling technique – the art of creating designs out of swirled paper strips – quite a few times. It’s generally my go-to type of papercrafts and I use it for all different purposes: from cards, through gift tags to jewellery and 3D mini paper items. So I thought I’d post an extensive guide to my favourite papercraft, covering all of the tools and their uses, basic shapes and techniques. Part one – about the tools – is here!
If you like to both read and craft, this project should be up your street. I’m bringing you the idea for simple (though cute) DIY bookmarks. The whole project can be done in about 15 minutes! It’s also a great one to do with children, as it doesn’t require great manual skills. And it may encourage the little ones to both craft and read! You’ll need one of those floral hole cutters for this project, they can be found in craft stores or online and usually cost peanuts. They’re great to have overall, super useful in papercrafts!
Mandalas. Detailed, abstract drawings which have gained a lot of popularity in recent years. If you spend a significant amount of time online, chances are you’ve seen these designs. Today, I’d like to show you how to create them – on paper and digitally, on your PC. But before we get to that, let’s have a quick look at their origin. These widely used in contemporary art patterns were actually a thing thousands of years ago!
I have to admit, this discovery was a side effect of a failed experiment. A rather happy failure after all, though, as I’m absolutely delighted with this! Here, I will show you, step-by-step, how to make chocolate dust in any colour. It’s a perfect sprinkle for cakes and cookies – it looks amazing and tastes even better (chocolate!).
Continue reading “How to Make Coloured Chocolate Dust – Homemade Chocolate Sprinkles”
Christmas season, for me, is filled with baking and decorating cookies. And I’m sure I’m not the only one! Through the years, I’ve experimented with so many different piping tools… From regular plastic sandwich bags, through plastic store-bought piping cones with and without nozzles, fabric cones, even special icing pens. And always, always, something was wrong. Having to clean a multiple-use bag was a nightmare when I only had one and wanted to do various icing types and colours in one afternoon. Nozzles were too small or too big. Plastic bags would break open and I’d be left with a sugar-coated catastrophe…
And then one day, I came across this simple method for making your own piping cones out of baking/parchment paper. And dear God, what a life changing discovery that was. I did all of my Christmas cookie decor with these cones with zero accidental splash out disasters. I always had as many fresh cones at hand as I wanted to. And those dozens of cones cost me a grand total of… £1, perhaps? I don’t think I’m ever going to return to other methods, not when it comes to simple cookie decor with royal icing or chocolate at least.
Alphe's Corner 