Handmade cards and other crafts, templates & tips

Tuesday is Play Rangers day and Alex loves it. We all meet up at the football field and for 2 whole hours after school the children play, craft and have lots of fun. Now that the days are shorter and colder we also have a fire to roast marshmallows, make popcorn or to have hot drinks which are served in plastic cups.

To avoid the children getting hurt (the cups get very hot) I made these cozies using leftover yarn.

They are very easy and quick to make as you can see from the photos below (by the way, these cozies were made for plastic cups from IKEA).

18 rows of 9 treble crochet.

Fold in half to join both ends.

Slip stitch to the end of the row and weave in the ends.

You should now have a ring like the one above.

Crochet a simple edging in a different colour both at the top and at the bottom.

Your cozy is ready to be used and it only took a few minutes to make.

Here are all 20 of them

 

With Christmas fast approaching I dug out the Christmas cards we received last year and have been using them to make some cute gift tags as you can see below (to see a larger picture please click on the image).

There are lots of things you can make with old Christmas cards, if you'd like to recycle yours have a look at these great ideas.

Creative uses for Christmas cards

How to make a holiday star from old cards

Greeting card box

Make a Christmas basket out of old Christmas cards

Make tree ornaments out of Christmas cards

Even more ways to recycle your Christmas cards

Christmas ornaments

Recycled wreath (scroll to image 5 to see how you can make a Christmas wreath using old Christmas cards)

Recycle a card into a crochet ornament

 

This is a bunting I made for the Autumn Challenge on the Kool Crafts and Arts forum (please click on the pictures to enlarge them).

The inspiration for the crochet leaves came from this tutorial and it's a great way to use up leftover yarn.

 

With the days getting colder it feels good to wear warm and comfortable items. In the last couple of weeks I finished 2 pairs of crochet slippers for me and Alex and a neck warmer to send my sister for Christmas.

My slippers
Alex's slippers

Neck warmer

This knitted neck warmer follows the same pattern as these and it's really easy to make.

First you need to knit or crochet a rectangle long enough to go around your neck and wide enough to be folded in half. I finished mine with a crochet edging.

Now for the folding, fold your rectangle in half as shown in the photo below.

 

Sew on a button large enough to go through one of the loops.

Flip it over.

Fold the sides towards the middle.

Use a loop to button up your neck warmer.

This is what it looks like when it's finished.