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Kids Craft Weekly giveaway!

Good news, guys! Amber from Kids Craft Weekly saw my blog post yesterday about her Christmas card swap and Christmas craft PDFs and wants to give away one of her PDFs to a Penny Carnival reader. 

Leave a comment below that's somehow related to Christmas crafts. You could briefly describe one of your favorite Christmas crafts, tell me about an ornament you made as a kid, link to a project you've done as an adult or link to a project you'd like to make one day (or have someone else make for you). Whatever.

Leave your comment by this Friday at noon, Pacific time, and a randomly selected commentator (commenter? person? bumble bee?) will win the 20-page Kids Craft Weekly Christmas Cards PDF.

Thanks, Amber!

Update: I didn't mean to exclude folks who celebrate other holidays. By all means, leave comments about Hanukkah crafts, winter solstice ... everything. Even though Amber's e-booklet is about making Christmas cards, there are ideas in there that you could apply to any holiday. 

Boredom busters and kid-made Christmas cards

I have this dream of one day running my family like a well-organized, stimulating boarding school. Each night after the kids go to bed, I'll lay out the fun and educational activities for the next day, prepare healthy meals and then have time for five miles on the treadmill, a bubble bath and an Ogilvie Home Perm. 

Or something like that.

I usually snap back to reality when the microwave beeper goes off letting me know the frozen burritos are ready to eat.

When I don't have time to put my long-lost degree in elementary education to use, these are a few of the no-brainer activities I fall back on when we need something to do:

-Freeze dancing. Play some '80s music, dance like mad, hit pause, freeze, rinse and repeat. It never gets old.

-Crafts. Of course. I always have the painting easel set up, a giant jar of Crayons on the kids' table in the kitchen, and plenty of blank paper on hand. Kid-friendly scissors go over big here, too. Lately Magpie will come up to me and ask, "Can I cut?"

-Play dough. This recipe for homemade play dough is way better than the stuff you buy in the store. 

-Baking cookies. This can be dangerous, but sometimes it's worth the extra calories when the girls are begging for something fun to do. When my willpower is strong, we bring the cookies to our neighbors.

-Cleaning. The girls love being put to work. They'll gladly spray and wipe down windows, put clothes away in drawers and wash walls. The house isn't always cleaner when they're done, but they have looks on their faces like they've just cured cancer or something. 

-Go to the library. They get so excited for this, you'd think they were going to Disneyland. Note: They've never been to Disneyland so maybe that's why it works? Keep the bar low when it comes to expectations for fun? Hmm ... Anyhow, I always make sure I have a diaper on library outings because there's something about that place that makes Magpie poop.

-Don't feel like getting in the car? Push the couches together in the living room to make one giant couch and call it the library. Pile up a stack of books and read them one by one. My sister and I did this for years when we were kids.

-Go for a walk.

-Clean out a closet.

-Watch home videos on the TV. Nothing thrills the girls more than seeing how they talked and looked six months ago.

-Have a picnic on the kitchen floor.

-Exercise. Pick out the cheesiest workout video from On Demand and press play. Avoid "strip tease." I made that mistake once.

-Give the girls a bath. It's like a playpen. The fewer toys in there the better. Just give them a couple of measuring cups and a washcloth and you've got a half hour of fun. Sometimes I dangle my feet in the tub and let them give me a foot massage. Brilliant, eh?

-Get fancy like Nancy. My mom (Nancy) used to be a makeup lady so I have a ton of old free cosmetics samples from her. This is a mess, of course, so you have to be in the right mood.

-Play school. Bo loves to "read" to her little sister. And boss her around.

OK, none of that was rocket science, but it helps us make the days fun. Care to add to the list? Let's get some ideas rolling.

For the record, we do watch TV here, especially during the cold months. We have one TV. It's in the basement, so have to make a bit of an effort to watch it. I wish I could say we're TV free. I think a child's imagination can be stymied when they're constantly fed images instead of being forced to come up with those pictures themselves after reading a book or listening to a parent tell a story. But TV--especially movies--can be fun. And it can buy me three of those five miles on the treadmill.

On a related note, one project they did today was to make Christmas cards for 10 kids around the world. We're going to take part in Kids Craft Weekly's annual card swap, where you send a handmade card to 10 children and receive 10 cards from 10 different kids from all over the globe. 

I figured we'd better make the cards before signing up since I'm kind of famous for not sending cards to people I actually know. It's always my New Year's resolution to be better about that. Maybe 2010 will be the year I set out a stack of stamped envelopes on the kitchen counter and make it a habit. 

Here are a few of the girls' creations:

That's a reindeer on the right and a pissy post-op snowman in the middle. 

Speaking of Kids Craft Weekly, I bought Amber's Christmas Crafts and Christmas Cards e-booklets last week. I love everything she does. Her projects are based in reality. I love that my kids can look at her examples and not feel like total failures because their crafts don't turn out like something you'd see in a Martha Stewart magazine, as is clearly demonstrated by the photo above.

Tutorial: Coloring Book Birthday Party Favor

Have I mentioned here that I used to be a teacher? Eighth grade. Language arts and U.S. history. Three years in the late 1990s. I won't go into the why-I'm-no-longer-a-teacher thing tonight (the kids were great; it's just not what I wanted to do forever), but I will share two things I learned from the experience:

No. 1: Drinking a shandy is a great way to end the week. I'm having one now. Coors Light with about an inch of Sprite at the top. Delicious. I picked that up from an Australian exchange teacher we had with us one year. That may or may not have been the same night that the middle-aged science teacher flashed her boobies in the bar where our staff gathered on Friday nights. It was a small town. I'm not sure what she was thinking. But it was hilarious.

No. 2: Students try harder on writing projects if you tell them you're going to bind their work into a hardback book when they're done. 

The old book-binding trick came to mind the other night when I was trying to think of what favors to give at Magpie's Little Red Riding Hood birthday party this Saturday.

The original plan was to make red hats shaped like hoods (similar to last year's elf hats for the woodland party) and wolf ears for everyone, but time is not on my side this year.

So, instead, I made hardback coloring books that tell the story of Little Red in pictures. The kids will get them along with a small pack of Crayons for their colorin' pleasure. 

 

The faux bois fabric is from Jo-Ann's. 

Wish I could say I had the skillz and the time to do the drawings myself, but I just used some pictures from one of those freebie coloring page sites.

For the photo-illustrated how-to, visit my About.com Kids' Parties site. 

The girls and I also made a pretend forest in our foyer the other day because what Little Red Riding Hood party is complete without some trees made from empty carpet tubes?

 

 

 

That tutorial will be coming soon.

Now we just need some food, a cake, some gifts and a wolf. Stay tuned.

'The rain is like a baptism'

One of my favorite movies in high school (and this might make some of you youngins realize how old I am. 35) was "Say Anything." I was so in love with Lloyd Dobler. Still am, really.

The movie is set in Seattle, which of course is thrilling when you're 16 and you sort of think Seattle belongs to you even though you live in a suburb 86 miles away. That was before Nirvana and Pearl Jam made it big, and then we really thought we had something to brag about--even us sheltered kids from the 'burbs who probably couldn't relate to half of the angst those guys sang about.

My friend Simon, who lives in Seattle, has this for his status update on Facebook this morning: "The drive to work in the rain through tree-lined streets that were shedding their leaves, listening to Classic King FM ... I heart the PNW!" (Translation: Pacific Northwest.)

I'm four hours away, on the "dry" side of the state, and it's pouring down rain here today, too. The rain is like a baptism (a Lloyd Dobler line) on my back patio. (I don't have any profound rebirth to report. That line from the movie has just always stuck in my head.) 

The rain sounds more torrential than it is because we need to clean the pine needles out of the gutter, but I almost want to keep them there because the sound of the water crashing down onto the concrete reminds me so much of home. 

Rain was a constant growing up in northwest Washington. It didn't keep you indoors during recess--you just wore your slicker or played kickball under the "covered area" at Roosevelt Elementary School. It didn't stop you from riding your bike through Whatcom Falls Park. On especially wet days at home, you stayed inside eating grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup and doing arts and crafts at the card table with your big sister. When you got older, there were first kisses in the rain and nights out with your girlfriends when the roads always seemed to be wet.

I've got the icks (again!), so I don't much feel like being out there today. But it's a perfect day for hunkering down, getting some work done, and then hopefully finally sewing up the girls' Halloween costumes later tonight.

If it's rainy where you are and you're looking for an arts and crafts project to do with your kids, check out these 3-D pumpkins I wrote a tutorial for for the new About.com site. You can use them as Halloween decorations or save them for Thanksgiving dinner and set them out as place cards.

One other crafty thing to report--the last book sling I'll be making for a while:

 

(Note to self: if someone ever asks me to applique the letter "S" again, just say no! Damn those curves.)

I put my little Etsy shop on vacation for a bit. Just too much other stuff going on. It's not like I had that many orders, but it takes a lot of time and care and I really admire the people who make a living out of doing that. I'll open it back up soon, but I need to get some Christmas and birthday gifts made for my own family first.

Don't forget that you can make your own book sling. Tutorial here.

And speaking of book slings, one that I had the pleasure of making recently is hanging in a home that many of you are probably familiar with, if you're a fan like me. Meg from Sew Liberated did a trade with me--a book sling in exchange for some of her patterns. I was quite honored that a talented person like herself would want something from my humble craft room. You can see it hanging for little Finn here.

About ... my new gig. And little red riding hood love

I'm pretty sure I hinted that I was up to something new behind the scenes. Did I say it sometime last week? Last month? Honestly, the days are running together and I'm quite proud of myself for remembering to wear pants today. Sometimes I even brush my teeth (but not if I go to bed after midnight, in which case I wear my pants).

Are you following me?

Anyhow, for the past two months I've been preparing for a new writing/crafting gig that just went live the other day. I'm the new "guide" to kids' birthday parties and other celebrations on About.com.

Here's my new site:

kidsparties.about.com

It's really a writing job, but I'm planning on putting all sorts of birthday- and party-related tutorials on there (hence, the crafts). I'll always alert Penny Carnival readers here when there's a new toot there, but feel free to bookmark that link, too, for your party-planning pleasure. Just some basic stories are up right now and links to existing articles from other guides, but I'll be adding content almost daily so check back often.

Can you believe someone is actually paying me to write about how to throw birthday parties?! This is right up my alley. Really, it is a TON of work, especially as I've had to learn their whole formatting, programming gobbley goop (Hello! HTML coding?! Who has to do that anymore? Why don't they just use Typepad? Oh, because then their site would look as crappy as my blog does right now. I see.)

But besides the late nights, I'm having a blast brainstorming all sorts of birthday themes and crafts and decorations. And with the holidays coming, I've been writing about how to throw Christmas parties for kids (Caroling! Polar Express in Your PJs! Gingerbread House Making!) and what to do for Hanukkah and New Year's Eve and everything. By the way, we're totally going to celebrate Kwanzaa this year. I hate to admit it, but I didn't know a thing about it until I wrote a little article for about.com. What a beautiful holiday!

Rest assured, it is not going to be a site about how to throw over-the-top Super Sweet 16s and how to beat other parents for the best party favors. Good grief! You can read more about my kids' parties philosophy of the bottom of my bio page.

By the way, I also am featuring "real" parties on the site, so please, please, please tell me about any fun ones you've thrown and send me pictures. kidsparties.guide@about.com.

So without further delay, here's one of my first tutorials for the site: How to make birthday invitations by creating a fabric collage, scanning it, and then printing it out. 

 

Step-by-step photo instructions at that link above.

I made those invites today for Magpie's 2nd birthday party (like how I'm multitasking?), which will have a Little Red Riding Hood theme.

Speaking of Little Red, a friend hired me to make matching Red Riding Hood capes for her daughter and her for Halloween. I didn't get a shot of the little one, but here's the mama version:

I'm kind of in love with Little Red Riding Hood right now (as if you can't tell).

OK. An hour until midnight. Maybe I'll make this a pajamas-and-clean-teeth kind of night. Maybe I'll even floss!!!!

G'night.

Repurposing a quilt top, this little piggy, and my sweet Bo

It has taken me 10 minutes to start typing this post because my hands are busy feeding my mouth a big hunk of bread that just came out of the oven. I would like to tell you that it's some earthy, nutty, whole wheaty bread, but it's not. It's white sandwich bread, made with overly processed flour. There's butter melting on top of it. And I'm in heaven.

First, congratulations to my friends Carolyn and Scott and their daughter Joey, who welcomed baby Julian into the world today. I always get weepy when that much-anticipated e-mail comes (or Facebook update, I should say. E-mail seems so old fashioned now, doesn't it?). Good work, Mama. Now cuddle up with your little bundle and get some rest.

I have a partial update from Saturday's trash-to-treasure presentation. As a reminder, the newspaper gave me $25 to buy some junk at the big indoor yard sale they host, and then I had 24 hours to come up with a plan to repurpose it. Then, in front of a (very small) audience, I transformed it.

One of the items I bought--for $5--was a quilt top. I don't think I'm going to win any points for creativity here, but I basically just used it like I'd use any fabric and turned it into an Emmeline apron:

This was the last project I did at the show because I knew it would take a while, so I sent the audience off to do more shopping while I sewed it up. They came back at the end (well, some of them did) to see the result.

Thanks again for everyone's encouragement before the show. It went fine. Later this week, I'll show you what I did with wooden alphabet blocks, an old picture frame, and a soda-bottle crate.

Now, shifting gears ... to poverty.

There have been a couple of pivotal moments in our 4-year-old daughter Bo's life. One was when she saw the Broadway production of "Annie" last winter. It's probably not P.C., but she still likes to don the Annie dress I made her and scrub the floors "like an orphan." Hmm ...

A second pivotal moment was when her beloved preschool teacher Miss Kathleen quit her job at the school to go back to social work, helping homeless women and children find permanent housing. Ever since then, Bo has been on the lookout for homeless people. She also sometimes asks me if Miss Kathleen has found a home for Annie yet. (After which I fruitlessly try to explain the difference between fiction and reality and then give up and assure her that Annie is with Daddy Warbucks now.)

Anyhow, on a more serious note, Bo's concerns about poverty--especially children without enough food to eat or without a place to live--has been growing. I asked her last week if she'd like to do something to help, and she said yes.

Together, we came up with a plan: she's going to make crafts that she'll sell at a local farmers' market and then donate the money to a crisis nursery here in town. So between now and Oct. 10, the date of her sale, we'll be stocking up on crafty-kid inventory.

She got started tonight with a project I've eyed for months now.

Presenting Bo's very first papier mache pig puppet:

 

(Turns out an empty thread spool makes a great snout.)

The little pig is drying now, and tomorrow he'll get a coat of paint and something to wear.

I'm sure we've all read articles about kids doing good things for charity, like donating their birthday gifts to a cause. I love seeing that, but I have to admit I've always been skeptical about how much the parents are pushing it rather than it coming from the kid. Not that it'd be a bad thing that they're pushing them to do. On the contrary. It's just the pushing I don't like--or the assumption of pushing, since it's just the cynic in me that questions the kids' motivation.

But I can tell you this crafting project of Bo's is coming straight from her heart. It's the first thing she talks about in the morning and the last thing she says at night ("are we going to help the people tomorrow?"). I'll never question those feel-good articles again.

It's enough to warm a mama's heart. 

Bread warms up other parts of me. One more slice before bedtime ...

Our Swedes and our ABCs

We just wrapped up a week with guests from Sweden in our house. I wanted to put the word "wonderful" in there before "week," but in classic Megan style I ended up catching some sort of cold/stomach bug by Day 3 and was out of commission for most of the visit. 

Ugh. It all had started so strong. We set off on a 2-hour drive to pick them up at a lake cabin in a remote part of northeast Washington Monday night. 

"It's time to go get our Swedes," I announced to the girls cheerfully. 

"Are we going to put them in the ground and watch them grow?" Bo asked.

"Swedes, honey. Not seeds."

When Bruno and Iris greeted us with warm hugs, I knew in an instant it would be a good week.

On Tuesday morning, I made quiche and pumpkin muffins and set out an array of teas and coffee for breakfast. That night, J and I cooked up a feast for 10 that included this butternut squash pasta, this bleu cheese dip and this apple cake for dessert, as well as some rosemary chicken, fennel sausage and other yum. We have failed miserably at dinner parties before, but we seriously hit it out of the park with that one.

The food was meant to be Northwest and autumnish, but the company was truly international: 2 Swedes, 1 Dutch woman, 1 Canadian and 5 gringos. It was a mix of neighbors and friends, and they hit it off beautifully.

But by Wednesday afternoon, my head was in the toilet. And, no, it wasn't food poisoning (thank goodness).

Our kind guests were completely understanding and they thankfully felt comfortable enough to help themselves to what they needed. But I couldn't help but think that they must have worried that they'd walked into Swine Flu Central. (Despite the fact that eastern Washington is ground zero for swine flu right now, I don't have it. Again, thank goodness.)

But during the times I was coherent this week, I witnessed moments of intercultural, intergenerational beauty.

We'd never met Bruno and Iris before. They were part of a "Friendship Exchange" through one of the local Rotary Clubs, which J volunteers for. They probably assumed they'd be staying with a retired couple like themselves, perhaps not with two 35 year olds and their young, er, energetic daughters. 

But it didn't take long to see that Bruno and Iris love children--they have six grandchildren of their own--and my heart swelled when Iris put Bo on the kitchen counter on night 2 and sang a Swedish nursery rhyme to her. (Something about a mouse looking for a house. The mouse creeps up the child's leg and finally finds its house in her tummy. Giggles galore.)

We talked with them about history and war and the environment and immigration and health care and taxes and about the unbelievable polarization that's happening in this country right now. (Seriously. A day doesn't go by when my jaw doesn't drop open as I read the paper. And I'm a journalist, for Pete's sake! Nothing should surprise me by now, right?)

So, yeah, it was a bummer that I got sick. But besides going to a foreign country and staying with a family there, I don't think there's a better way to expose ourselves to another culture than inviting people into our home. It's important to me that the girls grow up knowing that their way of life isn't the only way of life.

We jokingly referred to Bruno and Iris as "our" Swedes all week. But, at the risk of sounding ridiculous, in some ways that's true. We now have a small connection to a country we've never visited, except vicariously while wandering the aisles of Ikea.

I've been thinking of making a table runner I would applique over the years with small symbols of our voyages and of folks who visit us (like a Swedish flag and a reindeer for Bruno and Iris). I mentioned this to my friend Klay and she suggested starting a signature tablecloth, like this one. I plan to get some hybrid of those ideas going soon.

We're back to normal life now, and here's a little activity I did with Bo this afternoon to 

help her recognize words and,

more importantly, to remind her where to put her clothes away. 

I cut out letters as she ran back and forth to her room to come up with things we needed to label, like her sock drawer, her pajama drawer, her zebra and her duck. Of course.

Then she glued them to the background paper.

As you can see I probably should have coached her a bit more on the order of the letters, but she'll figure it out one day.

And finally, a visual report from our garden. This was tonight's bounty. The white tomato is courtesy of our youngest and most eager gardener, Magpie.

Tutorial: fabric flowers

I'd like to put a shout out to God, the angels, the fairies, and whoever else might be responsible for inventing preschool. It started last week--for both girls!--which means Mommy can now make work phone calls without someone screaming in the background about their stuffed zebra needing a diaper change.  

We're looking forward to some extra curricular activities coming up, like a neighborhood parade Bo is instigating and a visit from Nana and Papa soon.

Oh, and a Swedish invasion. J is in a local Rotary club here. Great organization, but it makes me feel like I'm 65 years old when I say that. Some Rotarians from Sweden are coming to town next week and we'll be one of the families hosting them for a week. I've been putting together a menu and trying hard to not just imitate the offerings at an Ikea restaurant. Tee hee hee. Wouldn't that be hilarious? (French fries, anyone?) In fact, I keep referring to our guests as the "Swedish meatballs," something J hopes the girls won't pick up on.

We checked out some Swedish-y books from the library for the girls to sort of prep them, and you might see a Scandinavian-inspired kiddie craft here by the end of next week.

Speaking of books, I just learned about an online service called Storybird where you can make your own storybooks with and for your children. The art you can choose from is inspiring. Despite that, I had total writer's block when I was dinking around there earlier today. I can see Storybird becoming a minor addiction down the road, though.

Anyhow, the only crafty thing I've got for you today is the fabric flower tutorial I promised a while back. The instructions here are for hand stitching since I created them for a make-and-take booth at the fair, but you could easily whip these out with a machine. 

Fabric Hair Flowers, A Tutorial

You will need:

needle and thread

2 felt (or fleece) circles, about 3/4 inch in diameter 

A button

A strip of fabric that's about 2 inches by 30 inches long*

Bobby pin or other hair clip

*Option: if you don't want a frayed edge, your strip of fabric should be about 4 inches by 30 inches long

1. Thread your needle. Insert it on one end of fabric strip, then make a "running stitch" along one of the fabric strip's long ends, going in and out of the fabric every 1/4 inch or so.

2. Once you've stitched all the way to the end, pull the thread so the fabric bunches up near the knot. Tie a knot to hold the bunching in place, but don't cut the thread yet.

3. Sew together the two short ends of the fabric strip with the right sides of the facing each other so that your "circle" is closed. Knot and cut the thread.

This is what your flower should look like now:

4. Hold one felt dot in the center of the front of the flower and the other dot directly behind it on the back side of the flower, sandwiching the bunched-up part of the fabric flower inside the two felt dots. The felt dots are basically going to hide the messy part of the flower where your running stitch is.

 

Thread your needle with thread that matches the dots. Stitch through all layers, making your way around the dots. Knot and cut the thread.

5. Thread a needle with thread that matches your button. Sew the button to the front of the flower, starting with your needle coming up through the back side. Knot and cut thread.

6. Sew a bobby pin or other clip to the felt dot on the back side of the flower. 

7. Put the flower in your hair and feel this fabulous:

*The flowers you see above have raw edges, so they will fray. I'm kind of on a fray kick right now, so I'm cool with that. 

But if you want your flowers to have a more finished look, cut your fabric strip twice as wide as you want the finished flower to be. Then, before you begin your running stitch, fold it in half lengthwise so the two long raw edges are together (wrong sides facing). Then do your running stitch through the two layers of fabric and all your messy raw edges will be in one place--tucked underneath the felt dots eventually.

This fairgoer made it that way and I thought it came out great:

Another alternative is to make two flowers, one slightly larger than the other, and then layer them on top of each other before you sandwich them in between the felt dots. That's what I did here:

I survived a make-and-take craft booth

As I just wrote on my other blog, I need a T-shirt that says that.

I'm back from 5 fun-filled hours teaching eager crafters (most of whom were darling little kids) how to make stuff out of secondhand materials at the North Idaho Fair. 

Take a look at some of their creations:

The one this kindergarten teacher made was one of my favorites:

How cute is this little monkey?

He sewed a pillow instead of a flower. And charmed my socks off in the meantime.

This is how the booth looked:

I displayed some of my crafty stuff to show folks how they could repurpose old objects.

And, yes, that's Amanda Soule's new book Handmade Home sitting in that wire basket. I bought it two days ago but haven't had a second to look inside yet.  

You can see more crafty photos from the booth here.

My only regret about the fair is that it fell on the night before the first day of preschool and I feel like I haven't properly ritualized the whole going-back-to-school thing with Bo. I think we'll have to get up extra early and go out for some pancakes to make up for it.

There's so much I could say right now about how inspired I was by the crafty kiddos at the fair, many of whom had never used a needle and thread before, and their ability to turn old sheets into beautiful objects.

Instead, though, I'm going to bed. G'night.

Tutorial: no-sew triangle pennant banners with kids

I'm gearing up to run that make-and-take craft booth at the North Idaho Fair tomorrow. Basically that means my hands ache from cutting, cutting, cutting fabric and my head aches from trying to remember everything I need to bring.

The easiest of the three crafts we'll be doing is the triangle/pennant/birthday/circus banner/garland (or whatever you want to call it), so I'm hoping the littlest kids will enjoy this one. Plus, I think the finished product comes out pretty well. Definitely something you could hang above a child's bed or use at a birthday party. Big impact. Minimal effort.

I posted a tutorial for a sewn birthday banner several months ago. This is a no-sew version. 

Just to prove how easy it is, here's Bo (age 4) putting one together this morning.

And then quite thrilled by her results:

She insisted on draping it across the rooster, as if there isn't enough going on in that corner already.

Some of these steps might need to be done ahead of time by you, depending on the child's age.

By the way, all the fabrics you see here (and the cord!) were found at thrift shops. Most were originally sheets or shirts and were purchased for a fraction of what yardage costs at a fabric store. You could probably even cut up some of your own old clothes for this project.

Enjoy! 

You will need: fabric, pinking shears, glue (Elmer's is fine), a disappearing-ink pen or chalk, cardstock or an empty cereal box, and either string, twine, bias tape or yarn.

1. Cut out a triangle template from a cereal box or cardstock. Mine is 7 inches across the top and 9 1/2 inches down the sides.

2. Fold a piece of fabric so that it's overlapped by 9 1/2 inches. Place the triangle template's 7-inch side on the fold. Trace around the triangle with the disappearing-ink pen or chalk. Cut along the lines. You should have just cut a diamond shape (once you unfold the fabric).

3. Repeat several times, depending on how long you want the garland to be.

4. Cut your cord (or twine or yarn or bias tape or string) as long as you would like the garland to be.

5. Place the diamonds where you want them along the cord with about two inches between each diamond.

6. Sandwich the cord inside the diamonds, folding the diamonds so that you form a triangle again. The "right sides" of the fabric should face out.

7. Unfold each diamond one at a time and place glue inside, along the three sides of one of the triangles. Press down to seal the triangles shut.

8. Repeat the steps until all triangles are glued to the cord.

9. Allow to dry, then hang wherever you want to add a bit of festivity.

P.S. A few things I'm loving right now:

-Tutorial on making a wall-mounted deer head out of foam core. Squeal!! I cannot wait to do this.

-Tutorial on making a ruffled girl skirt out of an old T-shirt by Epicurean Style. Super cute.

-This camping activity blanket. My girls would go bonkers for it.

-Tutorial on making a cake stand out of log cross sections. I wanted to do something like this last year for Magpie's woodland birthday party. And now I know how.