DIY Strawberry Decor from Lucky Pineapple Lantern

Materials needed:

~lucky pineapple lantern
~pair of scissors
~double-sided tape
~extra string

Step 1~ Lay the folded pineapple lantern down flat on a table.

Step 2~ Outline the shape to be cut with a marker. You would need a sturdy pair of scissors as you                   would cut through folded layers.

Step 3~ Cut the marked areas. Carefully detach the dangling charm and knot back the string. In case                  you cut the string too short, replace it and knot at about 2 inches from the hole.

Step 4~ Since the part of the leaf with one of the rings will be cut off, poke a new hole at the edge                   with a blunt object. Put in the ring.

Step 5~ Reinforce with added double-sided tape before assembling.

Step 6~ Unfold carefully and attach both ends.

DIY Paper Mache Bewilderbeast Toy

This DIY is a request from my son and his wish-list for this project included a movable neck and tail. I did manage to give it that, plus a bonus of a movable mouth. The materials are really basic: paper strips, paper towel/tube, some wire, watered-down glue, shopping bag cloth and the star of the show-hot glue. I have put up a DIY video of it on my Youtube channel that I hope you'd enjoy. Further down I dissected the step-by-step guide of how I DIY-ed it, so please scroll away.

materials needed:

paper/newspaper strips
paper towel
paper towel tube
balloon stick/wooden stick
watered-down PVA glue
hot glue sticks
glue gun
white glitter dust
shopping bag cloth or any white fabric
wire
beads for the eyes


SETTING UP SUPPORT FOR THE BODY

Cut a paper towel tube and take apart a piece of about 5 inches in length. Attach two rolled part of the tubes in differing sizes. This will support the two pieces of about 1.5" cut paper towel tube that will be placed at both ends.

PREPARING THE HEAD

Crumple a palmful of paper in the form of an oval then start gluing strips over this as the paper-mached 'outer shell'. Cut a piece of cardboard and attach it to the 'head'. This will support the horns of the bewilderbeast.

LEGS, NECK AND TAIL SUPPORT

Create 4 paper-mached legs. For the neck and tail, take a stick of about 2.5' in length and glue a little ball. Mine was made out of paper, on hindsight this would work better with heavier material like aluminum foil or air-dry clay. Create two of these 'lollipops'-one for the neck and one for the tail.

MECHANISM FOR MOVABLE NECK AND TAIL

Take the body support and cut slots onto both ends; make a cut under the slot to insert the ball of the tail support easily. Make slightly smaller tubes and cut semi-circles on the edge of these. Attach the tail support into the tube. Insert the ball into the slot. Tape the cut below the slot.

SETTING UP THE MOVABLE MOUTH

Take the head and start cutting hole at the back about the size of the neck support. Hollow it out by taking the crumpled paper inside. Cut thoroughly across where the mouth is. Clean up the cut edges by gluing paper. Reuse a flip lid and attach it to the mouth as its movable mechanism. Hot glue the neck support at the upper portion of the head only.

TAIL AND ALL

Cut about 7' wire and attach at the tail support. Cover with paper strips. Start covering everything with paper, adding bulk where necessary and taking care that the neck and tail with still turn.

PAPER TOWEL SKIN

Cover it further with paper towel. Add paper-mache tusks and beads for eyes.

BONY FLAPS

Take a cloth from a shopping bag and cut pieces for the flaps. For the bony parts of the flaps, secure the flap on a flat and easy to remove surface and apply hot glue starting outside the projecting curves of the cloth. Make tiny cuts on the underside and hot glue on the sides of the legs. Cover the edges of the glued cloth with paper towel to clean up the transition.

Do the same on the tail.

WINGS

Cut six pairs of wire in differing sizes. Poke tiny holes at both sides of the beast's back. Temporarily attach cloth with hot glue, cut cloth into shape. Decoupage the wings all through out with paper towel strips.

At this point it is time to paint everything with white acrylic paint.

HORNS

This will need several sticks of hot glue and easy-to-remove surface like wax paper. After applying the glue on a flat surface, sprinkle some glitter dust. Remove carefully and add black tips using a marker. I've lost count how many I made, make sure they are in differing sizes.

DETAILS

The tiny poking horns all over the face can be achieved by directly applying hot glue on the beast's surface then slowly pull away the glue gun. The teeth is made of paper and the tongue is a piece of cloth laminated with hot glue.

Time to meet the alpha!

DIY Aluminum Sheet Flower Wall Decor

Flower wall decor out of stucco aluminum sheet.

This decorative piece was wrought out of left-over aluminum sheet from the DIY Large Royal Crown  project I made last Christmas as I do have the habit of saving excess materials.

Materials used:
~ aluminum sheet
~gold craft wire
~gold spray paint
~perfume bottle cap (alternatives: small round mirror, crystal drawer handle, etc.)
~a pair of scissors
~a pair of pliers
~glue gun
~glue sticks

I have to make sure I will not run out of scraps so I first made a pattern out of paper and found out that I can only make room for five bigger-sized petals. So I cut them by using just a pair of scissors as the material is really easy to handle.

Afterwards, I laid down the cut petals and the tiny bits of the aluminum sheet left and made a smaller paper petal pattern for the inner ring. I had to make sure the pattern would fit the smallest piece of the scraps left for me to work with.

When all the petals has been cut I did some ruffly edge on them with tiny pair of pliers.

For the accent at the center I thought it was time to use the crystal-ly, sparkly perfume bottle cap I've been saving for a while.

I cut a round piece of aluminum and made a hole at the center where the cap would fit as this would serve as its holder as well as the 'bone' of the flower where all the petals would be glued down.

At this point I got engrossed at gluing everything down I failed to take pictures, I just used the handy-dandy glue gun to attach the petals down the round aluminum. The bigger-sized petals came first followed by the smaller ones- everything held up pretty well.

I also pulled out my extra gold craft wire to make some additional accents that I attached around the bottom of the crystal cap using hot glue.

After finishing the flower, which didn't really take that long; I thought I'd use the little bits of the scraps left to make climbing leaves to extend the design.

I then gold-bombed the leaves with gold spray paint to create contrast and tie up with the gold wire accents. I then hung it up on my wall using a wire tied up at the bottom of the cap at the center of the flower.

Corn Husk Poinsettia

Simple and biodegradable DIY decor for Christmas.

An almost costless Christmas is not impossible if we'd only look around for materials to recycle.

For the all-natural category, corn husks may- if not top the list for the most flexible. 

Materials needed:
~ dried corn husks
~ floral wires
~ pair of scissors
~ gold spray paint (optional)

 Step 1: cut into shape 5 petals

 Step 2: take a thin strip of corn husk and make a loop
 Step 3: make 3 pcs. of looped strips
 Step 4: arrange the 5 petals around the loops

 Step 6: secure the corn husks with floral wire

Create several others depending on the arrangement of the decorations that you've decided to make.

 Step 7: embellish with spray paint or glitter dusts for a more festive effect.

DIY Christmas 'Cookies' Ornaments

Only two ingredients plus a sprinkle of creativity.

Actually, this project happened because I found a pack of expired crushed graham that I wouldn't want to go to waste. If you do not have one in your pantry, don't fret because you could do with any store-bought air-hardening clay or visit my post about homemade bread clay to be just as economical.

To start off, you only need to mix these two ingredients to make a dough.

A pack of expired crushed graham and white glue.

Mix in the white glue slowly, checking out the consistency as you knead till everything clump together and nothing sticks on your hand anymore. Put the dough inside a plastic bag and let it rest for about thirty minutes.

Roll it flat then open up the plastic bag and you are ready to cut away.

Very much like preparing a real cookie dough.

Christmas cookie cutters would come in handy at this point but there's no reason to not use a craft knife when cookie cutters are not available.

Time for the fun part.

Decorate your 'cookies' with glitter dusts, tiny beads, shiny little trinkets and whatnots. Don't forget to pierce holes for the tag strings.

'Bake' or dry them cookies, beside the window maybe facing the sun.

Not forgetting to dry the underside of course.

Christmas 'cookies' ornaments looking good to eat.

DIY Large Royal Crown

1.5' in diameter crown for church pageantry

I was recently tasked to make a large royal crown for our church anniversary's opening pageantry. For this I needed about 1' x 5' of metal sheet. I was only able to buy a 3' x 3' stucco embossed aluminum sheet that I had to cut in half to make two 1' x 3' pieces.

Materials and tools used:
~ aluminum sheet
~ plastic gems
~ large sheet of paper (manila paper or an old calendar page)
~ marker
~ metal cutting/heavy duty pair of scissors
~ electric drill
~ several rivets and a hand rivet gun
~ pliers
~ gold paint spray (18k gold)
~ contact cement
~ safety gears(glasses and gloves)

Because I had little time to create it, I was not able to take a lot of pictures.

The Paper Pattern. Since I worked with a two-piece aluminum sheet I had to make a paper pattern for a half part of the crown. Take 1' x 2.5' paper and fold in half. Fold each half - in half. Draw  pattern on the folded paper and cut.

Transferring the Pattern. Trace the paper pattern onto the aluminum sheets (two of them) then cut with a metal cutting pair of scissors. Do wear gloves and glasses.

Folding the edges. To make the aluminum sheet appear thicker I slightly folded all the edges using a pair of pliers

Rivets. To connect the two sheets, first drill tiny holes and apply rivets using a hand rivet gun

Gold Paint. After folding all the edges (which will also make it easier to hold the crown) apply the gold spray paint in several coats, take care to read the instructions on the paint can.

The Plastic Gems. Plan the placement of the plastic gems before attaching them on the crown. Arranging them beforehand will make the glue-ing  a lot smoother. Because the surface of the crown is embossed and its structure itself is curved, I chose to adhere the gems using contact rubber cement.

Contact Rubber Cement. Carefully put this adhesive on the back of each plastic gems. Wait till the rubber cement becomes a bit cloudy and therefore stickier and no longer runny, then stick them on the crown.

Finishing Touches. While the rubber cement is drying some of the gems might slip a bit and that would be arranged as long as the adhesive has not yet dried completely. Carefully go through the gems from time to time to check, and that will make for the finishing touches and its done.

The finished crown.