Paper Sunflower Chain • Bring light into any room!

A chain of sunflowers can lighten up any bland room. This cute and simple tutorial is perfect for your bedroom, dorm, living room, or anywhere else flowers are appropriate (which I'm pretty sure is everywhere). 

Making the flowers is incredibly easy; you just need paper, glue, and scissors. The first thing you have to do is fold your paper in half twice.

Next, fold in the corner. This part may be a little tricky. You can refer to the beginning of this video for help.

Now, cut a petal shape out of the paper. It's important that the petal is even, otherwise your flower will look deformed.

There you go! Make a second flower the same way, but slightly smaller, to layer on top. Finish it off with a circle cut from brown paper.

Glue all the pieces together and voila, you have a beautiful flower! A glue stick worked great for me! You can adjust the color of the paper you use to create flowers of any type (white and pink daisies would be adorable).

To create the chain, I varied the sizes of my flowers. Then I used tape to fasten them to a strand of twine. I knotted loops at each end so I can hook the sunflowers anywhere!

And there you go! An easy and adorable craft that's pretty much foolproof. 

Remember crafters, be crazy!

xxx,

Zaria

Cute Decorative Letters • Personalize any room!

Decorating the walls of any room is an easy way to make somewhere feel more like home. These cute and easy letters are the perfect way to spice up your dorm, kitchen, bedroom, or pretty much anywhere else!

The first thing I did was buy simple cardboard bock letters and a bouquet of fake flowers. Buying a bouquet to take apart is cheaper then buying a pack of individual flowers or flower stickers!

   

My next step was to pull the flowers off the branch and paint the letters very lightly. If you do one light coat of paint the letters look somewhat distressed. 

Then, I used a hot glue gun to attach the flowers to the letters! Be creative with how you put on the flowers! You could cover the entire letter if you want!

The craft store ran out of the letter "E" so we created one with two of the letter "F" and some glue! We put a flower over it and you can't even tell in the final product. 

The letters turned out amazing, and were incredibly easy to make!

Have fun personalizing!

Remember crafters, be crazy!

xxx,

Zaria

The Ultimate Yard Sale • Get some cash for your old stuff

The only thing better than saving money is making money! Selling your old stuff is a fun and easy way to make some extra cash! My friend Emerald and I decided to throw a picture perfect yard sale to clean out our closets and replenish our bank accounts. 

The key to any good yard sale is obviously customers. And how do you get customers? Publicity!

We made adorable flyers printed on color paper and put them all around the neighborhood. Placing an ad on craigslist is also a free way to draw in a lot of customers! Feel free to use this JPEG to make your own flyers!

We also made a larger sign with cut out letters for the actual sale!

We used tables and blankets to display our "merchandise." Emerald also had a clothing rack that was perfect for hanging our favorite items!

A Tip: People will buy your miscellaneous things you think no one will ever want! Put them out to sell and see what happens! Worse comes to worse no one buys it, but it can't hurt to try!

We drove all the things we didn't sell over to Goodwill at the end of the day. Donate useful things instead of just throwing them away (unless it really is trash, in which case, toss it)!

Yard sales are fun and easy! Grab a friend, make some flyers, and throw the cutest yard sale you can!

Remember crafters, be crazy!

xxx,

Zaria

Glass Jar Labels • Rock your coffee in style

Who doesn't love glass jars? Who?! They're perfect for holding anything - especially coffee grounds! I decided to paint cute labels on the jars to help distinguish the "decaf" from the "caf." This same tutorial can work for labeling jars holding fruit or just about anything! 

The first thing that I did was tape a square of blue tape on the jars and fill them in with chalkboard paint. What works best is to paint the jars layer by layer. Use a hair dryer to dry each round of paint before adding more.

The next step is to use chalk (or a permanent chalk marker, yes, it's a thing, yes, it's great) to label your jars! And thats it! Incredibly easy and simple!

 

And that's it! Easy, simple, and adorable!!

Remember crafters, be crazy!

xxx,

Zaria

Wrapping Presents • The perfect package

Gift wrapping is a huge piece of any present! It's so easy and doesn't require expensive wrapping paper or ribbon. You can wrap presents with basic things around your house!

I wrapped four separate presents, all with items I had laying around (if you don't own twine, are you really a crazy crafter?).

The first gift I wrapped is very basic and simple. I wrapped the present with newspaper and then cut 2 stripes from a paper bag and tied twine around the whole thing!

I wrapped the next package with newspaper again, but this time I splattered some paint on the paper first! Then, I did the same thing with the brown paper bag and twine! 

For the third present, I went straight for the paper bag. I wrapped the present with the bag and then cut stripes from plain white paper. I took a ruler and marker to the stripes and added some lines! You can add any (or no) design to the paper, or even choose pretty scrapbook paper to start! I finished it off with the twine!

The last wrapping is beautiful but slightly more complicated! The wrapping is made from paper towels died with food coloring. I wet the paper towel, then wrung it out so it was only slightly damp. After, I dropped some food coloring on it and wet it again. I continued the wet, wring, dye, wring, repeat process until I liked the amount of "water color" on the paper towel. I did it about 2 times. I then used a hair dryer to dry the towel. The layers of paper towel might separate but as long as you hold them together, they should be fine. When you're done, wrap the present, add the paper bag stripes, and finish it off with twine!

These easy wrapping ideas should keep you inspired and remind you that you never have an excuse to not wrap a present!

Remember crafters, be crazy!

xxx,

Zaria