Flipflops

Today I will show you how to make flipflops like I made my sister for Christmas. 

Before you start, you'll need a roll of shelf liner (has to feel like rubber or a yoga mat etc), a BUNCH of hot glue sticks and a hot glue gun, like 1/8 of a yard of stretchy fabric, like swimsuit dance material, or stretch knit like I used, scissors and an Xacto knife, a pair of flipflops to trace, a marker, optional painters tape, and a bunch of time!

To begin, trace your shoes onto the contact paper. If you don't want to get marker onto your shoes, put painters tape around the perimeter of the shoes and trace them. You will want to do this at least three times, because the more layers you trace, the stronger your shoes will be. Now, cut all of the pieces out. This is drastically important, because if they are uneven, it will look so bad. That's why I reccomend using an Xacto knife. 

Once they are all cut out, take one for the left foot and one for the right foot and cut 2 slits for the part in between the toes. Put your foot on the shoe, and cut a slit in between your big toe and 2nd toe, then cut another slit a little bit above that. Now, cut the fabric pretty thin, probably like an inch or two wide and pull it half way in one hole and out the other so both ends are on the same side. Now hot glue all of the layers together, with the one with the fabric on top. When you get to gluing the center, pull the ends of the fabric tight underneath the top layer and cut the ends of the fabric so it doesn't bulk it up. Glue the top layer down over it. Once all of the shoes are glued, use even more hot glue to add little grips onto the bottom by gluing waves onto it. 

That's all for today! And even if you don't like the shoes, they'd be perfect beach or shower shoes! 

Cross Stitch

Again, I am continuing putting up various Christmas gifts, so today, I will be showing you how to cross stitch, like a phrase or picture that I made for my mom. 

So before you begin, you will need embroidery floss in all the colors you'll be using (each one is about less than a dollar), an embroidery hoop, cross stitch fabric, and a needle. Also, it is very helpful and pretty much necessary unless you've done this like a million times to have a pattern. I just found mine on Pinterest. 

To start, put your fabric in your hoop by unscrewing the outside hoop, and put it on top of the fabric, with the other hoop on the bottom. Stretch out the top hoop over the inside hoop, sandwiching the fabric, then screw the hoop tighter to secure it. Now open your thread. It is 6 strings together, but you only need like 2 at a time, so cut off a long string, then pull the 2 to seperate it from the other 4 while holding both sides. Now thread it through your needle, and knot one end by wrapping it around one finger three times, then rubbing it off and pull tight. 

On to the cross stitching. For those brand new beginners, the cloth is made up of squares. There are holes in each corner of each square. What you do is start on the bottom side of the fabric, and go in one of the holes (bottom left corner of a square), and out the top right square making a diagonal line. Then go up into the bottom right corner and down into the top left corner. That is completing an X. Every cross stitch design is made up of X's. To make lines, just make a bunch of diagonal lines on top of eachother, then go back down and cross all of them at the same time. Here's where the patterns come into play. If you have a cross stitch pattern to follow, it shows you what holes to put the needle in to create your desired shape. Here are the ones I used. 

If you run out of string (which you will many times) just tie it off, then cut off another piece and start again by knotting the end etc.. Only thing to know is that it takes 4 EVER!!! I couldn't find the one I made my mom, but here's a picture of one my mom made so you could see what cross stitching looks like.

Guitar Picks

As some of you may know, I've made a ton of crafts during the Christmas season, but due to the fact that they were presents, I was unable to share them with you all. So... My sister proposed an idea that I  post all of them in January. So here I am, with Catch Up January! (If any of you have ideas for a better name, comment!) 

Today's craft is what I made for both of my brothers. Guitar Picks. It cost like $7 from buying the pack of CDs but everything else I had at home. And with the one pack of CDs, you really could make millions of guitar picks, and burn a bunch of CDs. Plus if you have a CD at home, you could use it and not even spend a nickel ;)

Aside from CDs, you'll need strong scissors, sandpaper, a washable marker, acrylic paints and a paintbrush, and optionally but highly recommended, a guitar pick to trace. If you don't have one, simply print out a scaled image, cut it out, then trace it.

Ok, now to the making. Trace your guitar pick or template straight onto the CD. Don't use the clear disc protector, because it is not thick enough. Use the washable marker so that after you cut it out, you won't see the lines. I didn't know this, so I used a sharpie, but it is so visible. Once it is all traced, use a strong pair of scissors to cut the CD. I didn't think it would work, but it did! It only cracked once, so be sure to hold the disc straight while you are cutting it, and to go slow. You can cut multiple all on one CD. After they are cut out, sand the edges with sandpaper to smooth everything out. If necessary, wash the guitar picks to get the marker off. And finally paint it. Remember to only paint in one direction, and do multiple coats, and finish it with mod podge. I painted the ones I made, but I don't currently have a photo of them finished. I'll have to add that later.

Happy new year and have fun trying out your guitar picks!

Nail Polish Christmas Gift

I am so sorry for not posting last week, but as you all know, Christmas is the busiest craft time of the year. I hand make all of the gifts I give, but I can't put any of them on the blog because the recipients will see. I try my best though! And comment whether or not you'd like a blogpost next week on Christmas! Of course I'd pre write it ;) Also, my sister came up with an idea (I don't remember what she called it. Something like Catch Up New Year..?) where in January, all of my blog posts would be what I made people for Christmas! Be sure to comment your thoughts on that as well. Now on to the QUICK blogpost.

As I thoroughly mentioned, Christmas/gift giving takes up so much time, so quick little gifts are perfect to not spend very much money, but still be cute and useful.

What you will need is a red nail polish (or any color, but red is Christmassy), a green string (again, any color is fine), a silver piece of cardstock, scissors, a sharpie, and a hole puncher. 

To start, cut out a small piece of cardstock and punch a hole in the top. Then, write a cute (and punny) phrase on it. I wrote "A nail polish for your mistleTOES!" Because it has to do with Christmas, but you could write something that has to do with the color, like "you brighten my day (yellow)" or "you get rid of my BLUES." 

Now simply string the string through the hole and tie it around the nail polish. It's as easy as that!

Mistletoe Hair Elastic

Today, I will be showing you all how to decorate a hair elastic for Christmas. And to be honest, you could do this for any holiday/occasion by simply changing the colors. It would look really cute in a little girl's hair, but I wear it as well. Just depends on your style ;)

The materials you will need are an elastic (preferably the color matching the color skeme or a neutral color), scissors, and green and red spools of tulle.

All you do is cut a piece of tulle about I don't know, 7 inches? Whatever you think is best; we will be cutting them shorter after, but it will probably be easier to work with longer pieces. Cut 2 green, and 1 red. Now take your elastic, and either tie each piece of tulle on, or loop it on (by folding it in half, laying the loop under a side of the elastic, then pulling the ends through the loop, around the elastic). Do it in a green red green order, and pull each one tight and close together. 

Trim the ends to only like 1-3 inches so it's not ginormous. Now just put the elastic on like normal.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Hot Glue Gun Ornaments

I hope y'all had a happy Thanksgiving, but now it's Christmas time! For those of you who've been following my blog since last year, that means it's #CreNativity season!!!! Today, I'm showing you how to make really cute Christmas tree ornaments out of simply: glue gun sticks.

The supplies you will need are glittery/colorful glue gun sticks (if you can't find colorful glue gun sticks, you can use regular ones and sprinkle FINE glitter in it while it is hot and in your desired shape, but it won't look as good as possible), parchment paper, cute string (the string holding the ornament on the tree), and a hot glue gun.

To start, lay out your parchment paper, and plug in your hot glue gun, putting in a colorful glue stick while its heating up. If there is already a plain glue stick in there which is not your desired color, wait for it to heat up a little, then either push all the glue out (wasting it) or rip the stick out the back. The end will look a little weird but it still works. Now once your preferred color is heated up, squirt it onto the parchment paper into that shape. If it is mixed with the prior glue, squirt all the way until there is a steady flow of the new color. Now to design your ornament, I first squirt the outline of the shape, then fill it all the way in with glue. For the Christmas tree one, squirt the green all the way out and put the gold in to do the star. I used mini sticks, so all of the shapes used up one stick each. Now let them dry. 

To add the string to hang it on the tree, cut a piece of string about 5 inches (just an estimate). Gently peel the shape off the parchment paper and flip it over onto the back side. Add a dab of hot glue on the back (either in the same color or clear) and place both ends of the string there creating a loop. Add a little bit more glue on top of the string. Once that is dry, you are done!!!!! 

¡Feliz Navidad!

Cornucopia

As those of you who follow The I in Creativity on Instagram and Facebook, you'll know that I postponed my craft on Sunday to today so that it will be okay to use tomorrow for thanksgiving (because it is food, as I mentioned in the posts). Well, here it is! A real cornucopia! As cool as this is, it's not my original design. As much as I am crafty, cooking really isn't my thing, so I thought up the idea, then searched for a tutorial, which is how I made this one.

I'll basically explain how I did it, but to see the one I followed after, I'll add a link at the bottom. Before you begin, you'll need to 3 packages of 14oz pizza crust dough. I only used two, but it's always better to have more than less. You will also need a LOT of tinfoil, pizza cutter, cutting board, cookie sheet, Pam, rolling pin, and optionally, a water bottle to size the foil mold.

Use your water bottle to roll up the tin foil into a cornucopia shape. I was confused with this part because the opening needs to be larger than the circumference of the water bottle, so I sort of rolled it into a bigger cone on my own, then just placed the water bottle inside to keep it strong as I roll up more layers. I found that if you gently roll up each piece of foil then unroll it and roll it onto the mold, it will be stronger than a smooth flat piece, but that could be just me so do whatever you want. Keep adding a ton of layers until it is really big and strong. With the opening, fold over the pieces around it to make the hole stronger. Don't forget to bend the tail like a traditional cornucopia.

Now unroll your pizza dough onto your cutting board, roll it out to about 1/2inch thick with your rolling pin, then use your pizza cutter to cut it into strips (the long way) 1inch wide. Oh, and spray your cutting board, rolling pin, cookie sheet, and tinfoil mold all with Pam. Once they're all into strips, put your mold onto the cookie sheet, and wrap the strips around the tinfoil. Even wrap it on the under side. This really stressed me out because the pieces on the bottom would sag and stretch thin, and they were too long to wrap around once, but just continue wrapping around the cornucopia and when it runs out, just pinch it to the next piece you add on. Mine didn't stick together very well, but as long as it's still hanging on there, it's fine. And for my other problem, just make sure there is a designated bottom side. If you want to do fancy braids with the dough, just take as many pieces as you need and braid them, or twist them. My only suggestion is don't do anything that won't lay flat. I did a knotted one and now there are holes in my cornucopia, because I couldn't pull it tight enough to, but it is still fine. 

Once it is fully wrapped, preheat the oven to whatever your packaging says. Mine said 400 degrees F, but the tutorial I was following said 350, so I did 400 and just watched it closely. While it is heating up, make an egg wash thing with an egg and 1 tsp of water and paint it on the dough so it looks golden when it comes out of the oven. Now, put the cookie sheet into the oven. I probably took it out after 15 minutes, so just keep your eye on it and stay in the kitchen. When you take it out, let it cool, then gently remove the tinfoil. I am going to wait to so that until tomorrow before thanksgiving.

Now it is done! It is really cool, and tastes great once you're done using it as decoration. Except it's a bit overwhelming for non cooks. But if I could do it, odds are you can too! To see the other blogpost's  information, click here.