Making flower from strips of paper

This was gifted to my daughter's teacher.

The flowers were gifted to my Son's teachers.

While I was volunteering in class, one of my work was to trim the artwork done by kids (from my Son's class) and stick them onto another cardstock. So instead of throwing all the trimmed strips of paper  I decided to make something out of them. These were watercolor painting and were of different  colors. So all I could think of is making flowers out of them.  Turned out very beautiful and I gifted them to the teachers during Teachers appreciation week.


The strips I had were of different colors and different size in length and width. All I did was for one flower you need 4 strips (which will give you 8 petals) which I made sure they are the same size in length and width so that the flower petals will be uniform. Then you take one strip keep the white side facing you and then fold from both ends towards the center. Then take the next strip and continue to fold the same way. Then place this folded strip in the plus way and staple it. Then take the next 2 strips fold them the same way and staple it in the x direction. Then place the x folded flower on top of the plus folded flower to get the result. I made the kids also do some flowers. I had ready made paper flowers which I bought from Micheal's, taped it to flower in the center to hide all the staples. The kids chose those flowers and stuck them with glue.

Once you are done with all the flowers, I stuck each flower to a stick (with a tape) so that the teachers can use the flowers in future. Then arranged as shown in pictures and gifted to them.

the pot painting and other things you see were done by my kids and you can refer to the blog "Teacher appreciation Week - 2013".

Gift Card Holder - My own creation.

My own creation of a unique gift card holder which holds about 10 to 14 gift cards.

We all carry lot of gift cards and our purses bulge up and become heavy. If we leave it at home then we forget to take it to the stores at the right time. So I decided to create/ design this one for myself which has been very useful and you can keep it in the car and take the gift card before entering the store. I have also gifted to teachers, sister and now in the process of making for my friends. Now your purse is lighter and also I don't forget to take any gift cards as its available in my car. Just need to remember to take the right car :-)

This is very simple to make. I had bought an accordion album which I never used , so I decided to use it for this project. I glued one side so its like a 4 pages book (excluding the front cover and back cover).  Covered the album (which was plain with a design paper). As you see the left photo shows (the first 2 pages which hold 4 gift card holders where you can put one gift card per holder a total of 4 gift cards). The right photo (shows the next 2 pages where the left side has 2 gift card holders which stores one gift card per holder and the right page has 2 gift card holders which can hold up to 4 gift cards each a total of 10 gift cards).

The gift card holders are made out of vellum paper which is easy for you to see the gift cards so you don't have to search for the gift card. I designed this template keeping in mind that all the major gift cards from every store I had fits into the individual gift card holder. Also the multi gift card holder holds up to 4 gift cards.

This was a fun new craft project to try out. Please leave your comments and help me improve if need to. Other photos included for you to view in detail.

 Back cover

Front cover

 This gift card holder was done in 2012 May.

Teacher Appreciation Week 2013 by Kids.

Gifts made by my Son .

Gifts made by my daughter

 This is this time of the year I make my kids do little things for their teachers to mark our appreciation for all the hard work they put in.
We used materials which I had at home.



TerraCotta Pot :-

My kids are now grown up and are all ready to do a painting of the pot all by themselves. My Son painted the pots dark blue and yellow on the rim. My Daughter painted bright pink and purple on the rim. Always have used acrylic paints for such projects. Then I used something called bead paint (which can be used on fabric) , had it with me, and made them do dots  (written Thank you on top). They had to put dots on the written word. Then on the pot base where its blue and pink, I had bought this bead stickers from Micheal's craft store. One side of the pot they stuck a apple sticker, the other side they chose a flower sticker. This was a ready made sticker which I bought. So all they had to do was to peel it from the paper and stick on the pot.  This was easy for my 6 year old to do.

Badge design:- 
I bought this badge (3 of them as a pack) from the craft store. They designed it for their teachers. My son had 2 teachers and my daughter had 1. Instead of just drawing on paper, they can wear it as a badge and this was also easy for them to do. They cut out a round white paper and drew and colored it. Then they needed help in putting the white paper inside the badges.

Embroidery book mark :-
This was a tough and new project to try out by kids. It was not for my daughter but she still decided to give it a try. My Boy was curious about punching holes on the design. It was very simple flower design , and each petal is just a heart. So he had to punch holes on all heart (using the template I had) and then using embroidery thread I taught him one petal how to go about doing the design and he completed the rest.  He got the pattern immediately. I had to help out my 6 year old, with this more as she is still small for such crafts.
I had this snowflakes which they glued on the pot and on the book mark.

These were all done by the kids. There is one thing which I contributed, "Paper flowers using strips of paper" which you can view for detailed instructions on that project.

Refer to my other projects of terracotta painting or embroidery on Paper for detailed descriptions.
1. First terracotta pot painting.
2. Embroidery book mark
3. A bookmark- paper embroidery and Quilling.
4. Terracotta candle holder.

Christmas Tree from Paper Back made from scholastic book order pages.

I was volunteering in my Son's class, and one of the work was to assign all the scholastic book order pages for each kid. The were many pages left  in the book after assigning the orders for the class, instead of recycling those pages/books , decided to do this tree and gave it to my Son's teacher to keep it in class.

Its very simple, I have done this project before for my home and you can visit  this site for detailed instructions "A Christmas Tree from paper back" . This project turned out to be even better than my previous ones as there were many pages to the book. The more the no of pages, the better the tree comes out.

After this tree was done, I just hot glued some maple tree in green and golden which I had bought from the craft store just to give it shine. Then with a toothpick I glued the maple tree in golden and green on the top of the tree. I also glued white/silver ribbon around the tree. But other suggestions would be is to spray paint the tree silver and then accessorize with little ornaments. I have a problem with those paints, decided to do without the paint.

The teachers loved this tree and I heard that the other teachers visiting my Son's class also loved this tree.

Navarathri Festival 2012 - Sanfrancisco Bridge

Our Navarathri Festival which is celebrated for 9 days where we arrange Indian dolls and this festival is mainly to worship the 3 Goddesses (Durga, Lakshmi , Saraswathi). To go along with the Indian dolls, we had a tradition in my family  (when I was growing up) to build something and keep it for those 9 days. My whole Family used to participate in creating or building some theme and be excited with this event. My kids are equally excited as me to build something innovative, so its really fun to do with them.

This year kids helped me build this San Francisco Bridge project, mainly my Son's idea and and little participation from my daughter and me. I helped him build the San Francisco (a depict of Golden gate bridge) , along with his contribution was the football field and base ball field. My daughter helped us paint the buildings (buttermilk cartons to depict) and the trees and arrange the people and beans which you see. Detail explanation of this project is given below.

I have explained the whole things as 3 projects, the center (Navarathri dolls), the Rangoli (left hand side ) and San francisco bridge (right hand side)

Navarathri Festival - Rangoli (on left), Main dolls (on center), Bridge project (on the right).

1. Navarathri Dolls :- As you see in the center of the photo, is a stand. We have placed all the Indian Dolls used for this tradition. There are some important dolls which are a must, some are Indian Gods and some are Indian Dolls representing a story behind them. They are all arranged to fit in that shelf. Each year we buy one new doll to add to the shelf.

Rangoli and dolls

2. Rangoli :-
In India we draw designs (Rangoli) on the floor. This time I decided to try out this ready made Rangoli designs made with colorful stones. Each piece is individual, I made this pattern of a big flower on this white card stock.
 The dolls you see was made with paper, christmas  ribbons, wooden head. My sister sent me the wooden round head (which she got from a kit), and I used paper for the body, pipe strings for the hand, and Christmas ribbons for the dress. The body is done with paper, you make a cone and fix the wooden head, Then take the pipe string and tie it around the neck and cone and bring it out as the hand. Then using the Christmas Ribbon make the dress for the doll as shown.


3. San Francisco Building project :-

San Francisco Golden Gate bridge project.

This was My Son's idea to build the Golden Gate Bridge, and we started with that, but made it big project by adding the football field and base ball field, and connecting all the roads , with parking lots, few tall buildings.


The Bridge is done with popsicle sticks,  colored the bride red, added thin sticks to get the height and used a twine string to give the effect. Used black paper for the road and coming down and connecting them to the other road which you see around just to see they are all connected. The water is blue glitter cardstock, The plastic piece from the cookies we cut out the section where the cookies are placed and used them for boat. My son drew people sitting on the boat and a lego man as you can see. Around the water we used wooden blocks to block the water. You can see between the roads and the water  we used white kidney beans (lentil) to depict rocks or stones.

 In the Front, he built a base ball field by putting grass and fence. Then he drew picture of field on paper, drew pictures of the players, and we used tooth pick to make them stand on a clay to give the 3d affect. Similarly on the back left side is the football field he printed out the field on the computer and he drew players and made them stand. The people watching the football game was done as last years project and we are used them this year too. He just drew people and we made them sit with tape.

Side view of the project.

The trees were drawn by my daughter and we used tape to stick it to the wall. The buildings you see on the right are buttermilk cartons, she painted them purple, yellow and blue, I helped her cut the windows and we placed them there. She arranged all the beans as stones, she drew all the white lines on the roads and parking lot.  The buildings on the canvas on the extreme right was done by my Son few years ago and had buildings and road and we used it this time also.

Then both of them arranged all the cars we had on the roads and on the bridge. Turned out to be a big project than planned but everybody who were invited loved this project.