Where I live, this is the transition time between Fool’s Spring and Second Winter. Swamp Spring is yet to come, but it, too, will be here soon. Then we’ll celebrate Here There Be Tornados Month!

I’m usually all for healthy outdoor living, but this is very much the time of year when I prefer to stay far away from the freezing drizzle, and instead light a candle, tuck up under a blanket, and do something cozy inside.

Kids, though? Kids get squirrely when they’re cooped up inside too much, but they also have that ridiculous tendency to get hypothermia if you let them play in the freezing drizzle too long. What you need to keep them happy and entertained and non-frostbitten on these miserable late winter days is games! Lots and lots of indoor games!

Homemade games add an extra-fun element to any indoor play. You can customize your homemade games to perfectly suit the interests and current abilities of your kids, and older kids can even help with their creation.

Below, you’ll find a list of my favorite homemade games. Invite your favorite kid to help you make one of these projects, then play it together. Before you know it, Here There Will Be Hurricanes Month will have passed and you’ll be ready to go outside for your week of Proper Spring!

That favorite homemade game will be waiting for you inside the very next week, when the season of Mosquitoes Have Entered the Chat begins.

Matching and Memory Games

• scrap fabric and felt Memory. Sew up a custom Memory game using all your favorite fabric scraps.

• matching game from a kid’s artwork. Kids can design their own custom Memory games using their own original artwork. The secret ingredient is a printer!
• photo Memory. Memory is even more fun when the matching pieces include actual photos of a kid’s family, friends, and pets. For extra fun, slip in a few images of their favorite book or movie characters, too!
• DIY Guess Who. Customize a thrifted Guess Who game, or DIY one from scratch. There are so many ways to make this game educational! Little kids will be thrilled to see the faces of their friends and family on the tiles. For bigger kids, you can make the game entirely about American presidents, or animals, or authors–whatever seems interesting and fun!

Cool Math Games

• Multiplication Touch. This is a game I made up to teach and reinforce the multiplication facts for my kids, and they LOVED it! They actually played it long after they’d memorized their multiplication tables, because the strategy and logic required are just that interesting.
• Lu-Lu dice. It’s a math game, but also a game of chance, so hallelujah those younger siblings get an equal chance at winning for a change!
• chess. There are tons of different ways to DIY your own chess set. I love this kid-friendly set with a potato-stamped gameboard and rock game pieces!

Kid-Friendly Whole Family Games

• Troll My Dame. It’s boring to stay sitting on your butt all the time. If you want to crawl around on the floor for a while instead, make this fun marble shooting game using corrugated cardboard and modeling clay.
• Quoridor. This beautiful strategy game requires some woodworking skills to create, but the result is an heirloom-quality board game.

• bottle cap tic-tac-toe. Bottle caps are difficult to recycle, so might as well upcycle them into a fun game, instead!
• cardboard box video game. Upcycle a cardboard box into a magnetic version of your kid’s favorite video game.
• DIY Connect Four. DIYing your own Connect Four game lets you customize it to your liking. Change the sizing to make it super challenging!
• fabric checkerboard. Checkerboards are generally cheap, ugly cardboard. This is a terrific way to make a checkerboard that’s heirloom-quality and lovely. Customize it with special fabrics, and upcycle buttons as the playing pieces.

• dinosaur chess. After you’ve customized your checkerboard, why not also customize the pieces?

• homemade Quirkle. Quirkle was our absolute favorite family game for years, and it’s still one that we pull out more often than not on family game nights. This DIY version is a great way to add some custom graphics to this awesome game. Instead of using the tutorial’s suggestion of vinyl, which is not eco-friendly, for the graphics, cut a reusable stencil and hand-paint the graphics.
• 3D Snakes and Ladders. You can customize this DIY game by choosing the boxes that you upcycle–I desperately want to see one that’s at least as tall as a person! Snakes and Ladders lends itself perfectly to this multi-level format, but feel free to get even more creative and figure out how to turn any of your favorite games 3D. Wouldn’t a Monopoly tower be so fun?!?
• color dominoes with rocks. What to do with your kid’s endless collection of rocks? Paint them pretty colors and make them into color dominoes! Use water-based, washable paint so you can make the rocks look good as new when their time as dominoes is finished.
• customized Candyland. Use the basic pieces of a game you already own to create an all-new game with a fun, customized theme. This is a great gift for someone who’s obsessed with a particular fandom.

• mancala. A very clever construction technique means that there’s no router needed to make this wooden mancala gameboard, although you’ll still want a good drill and a jigsaw.
• Konane. The tutorial for this similar gameboard does call for a router, but if you don’t have one, check out the previous tutorial and utilize their trick!
• triangle peg game. This little logic game was one of my favorites when I was a kid! I’m used to seeing them made with plastic and with golf tees as pegs, so this hardwood and nail version is much more classy.

Do you have a DIY game that’s a family favorite? Tell me about it in the Comments!

On the spectrum of weird American holidays, St. Patrick’s Day feels like one of the weirdest, so let’s lean into the weirdness together with this list of my favorite easy and eco-friendly St. Patrick’s Day crafts!

Each project link, below, leads to a completely free tutorial. Each project uses primarily eco-friendly ingredients, and each is easy enough that you’ll have plenty of time to finish it AND change into your favorite “Kiss Me; I’m Irish” T-shirt before the big day!

St. Patrick’s Day Crafts from Recycled Materials

• painted Mason jars. This is a great way to upcycle any jar that passes through your kitchen!

• pallet art. I love upcycling wood pallets to make outdoor art. This tutorial calls for scrapbook paper, but you could easily paint your lucky shamrock instead.

• recycled paper garland. I love decorations that aren’t too mitchy-matchy, and this garland fits that criteria perfectly. Upcycle green-forward magazine pages so that each flower on the garland fits the color scheme, but none are identical.

• shamrock wine cork stamp. Did you have a big night last night? Don’t waste all those wine corks–instead, upcycle them into a shamrock stamp!
• puzzle piece garland. Thanks to my cats, I am plagued by puzzles with missing pieces. This puzzle piece garland is an easy way to upcycle some forlorn puzzle pieces from one of those incomplete puzzles.

• embroidery hoop wreath. The beauty of this project is that an embroidery hoop wreath is so easy to change out seasonally. Here, we’ve used upcycled papers and paint, but an embroidery hoop will support any type of artwork that can be mounted to fabric. You could even–gasp!–embroider it!

• toilet paper tube shamrock. Y’all are obsessed with toilet paper tube crafts, and I don’t blame you! So here you go, Friends–another awesome way to use toilet paper tubes to make another super weird holiday decoration.

• toilet paper tube napkin rings/bracelet. This toilet paper tube craft does double duty as an emergency green accessory or a napkin ring for your pre-game lunch.

• upcycled paper shamrock brooch. Don’t get pinched this year!

• upcycled candy box shamrock. Did you receive an absolute haul of Valentine’s candy this year? Not only are you a lucky duck, but you’ve also got the perfect makings of a large-scale shamrock decoration!

St. Patrick’s Day Crafts from Fabric Scraps

• patchwork pillow. Here’s your best chance to use up all the green scraps from your fabric bin. The tutorial calls for fusible interfacing, but you can get away without it if you’re careful.
• fabric scrap wreath. Tie green scraps around a wire wreath form to make this festive St. Patrick’s Day wreath.
• shamrock hair clip. The tutorial calls for felt, but you can stiffen any fabric with starch and use it instead.

• fabric clover specimen art. I love this unexpected St. Patrick’s Day decoration, which uses the very scrappiest scraps of fabric! I think it would look especially cute if each shamrock was cut from a different fabric.
• stuffed shamrock garland. The secret to the understated fabric used to make these stuffed shamrocks is that it’s cut from an old dress shirt!
• quilted shamrock. I think this would make a fun pot holder for a special Irish-themed feast.

• patchwork log cabin quilt block. Whether you make a whole quilt or just a pot holder or table runner, this shamrock is a cute way to use up your green fabric scraps.
• shamrock table runner. If you want a tutorial specifically for a table runner, here you go!
• bunting. From the same creator as the appliqued pillow, this is another way to use up your scrap fabric. The pennant flags on this bunting are burlap, which is another eco-friendly fabric choice.

St. Patrick’s Day Crafts from Yarn, Thread, and Embroidery Floss Scraps

• embroidered four-leaf clover. It doesn’t take a ton of scrap embroidery floss to create this four-leaf clover. As you’re creating, you’ll also be learning satin stitch… AND how to embroider a heart!
• pom pom garland. Pom poms use up SOOO much yarn!!!! This is great news if you’ve got plenty of yarn you’d like to get out of your closet and into the world.
• wrapped yarn garland. Here’s another way to use up plenty of scrap yarn. I don’t think you need to stick to green for this garland–a rainbow of shamrocks would be wonderful!

St. Patrick’s Day Crafts from Paper Scraps

• paper mosaic shamrock. This paper craft is a great way for kids to have fun decorating for St. Patrick’s Day. Cut all your green scrapbook scraps into squares, then give the kids a glue stick and let them go!
• mini bunting. The secret to making this bunting project super quick and easy to complete is to use the free printable that the tutorial includes. Print it on the backside of some used typing paper, add twine, and you’re all set!

A Memory game is one of the easiest and most versatile toys that you can give a kid.

Little kids who can’t yet play a full-on game can have fun simply matching the tiles. Slightly older kids can play a simplified game with just six or nine tiles. More tiles support more sophisticated game play or multiple players. But playing alone is fun, too!

Your favorite kid may even already own a few iterations of Memory. This stitched scrap fabric and felt version, however, is special. Using fabric prints requires a kid to develop a different type of pattern recognition than matching identical images does, because two cut pieces of print fabric will rarely be identical. These pieces are also soft, so this Memory game can be played quietly while you’re on a Zoom or a sibling is napping. You can use fabrics with different textures to support kids with sensory needs or differences, or even just to up the challenge level by requiring a kid to match by feel instead of sight.

And if you happen to have the type of kid who’s prone to tossing the entire game board when, say, Candy Land doesn’t go their way… well, good luck throwing around a bunch of fabric scraps!

But of course, MY favorite part of sewing up this simple Memory game for my favorite kids is stashbusting! This is a great way to use up small scraps from your recent projects, and especially other projects that you’ve sewn for these same kids.

To make your own DIY scrap fabric and felt Memory game, you will need:

• frame fabric, 3″x3″. This fabric will frame the matching tile pieces, so choose a neutral.
• backing fabric, 3″x3″. This is the fabric that backs the tiles. Choose a dark color to make sure that you won’t be able to see any bright prints through it. No hints allowed!
• tile pieces, two each, 3″x 3″. This is the fun part! Any fabrics are suitable to use as matching tiles. I especially like to fussy cut novelty prints for these.
• interfacing. I hate purchasing interfacing, since it’s not eco-friendly, so feel free to use up any interfacing scraps you have for this project. Its sole purpose is to stiffen the matching tiles, so you can also use a thicker fabric like felt or denim as interfacing.
• measuring, cutting, and sewing supplies. I used a rotary cutter and self-healing cutting mat, gridded quilter’s ruler, sharp scissors, and a sewing machine with a universal needle.

Step 1: Cut felt pieces to size.

Cut 3″x3″ squares from scrap felt to frame the Memory tiles. Use a dark color for the back of each tile, and your choice of neutral color for the front.

Cut a 2″x2″ template from scrap paper, and use this to mark out the center of each front piece. Cut out these center pieces with sharp scissors.

Step 2: Cut Memory tiles from scrap fabric.

Cut pairs of 2.5″x2.5″ squares from any scrap fabric of your choice. These pairs will serve as the matches for the Memory game, so make sure that the cuts are similar enough for even a small child to identify them as matching. I had to discard a couple of novelty print fabric tiles when I realized that my small children couldn’t identify the fabric as matching if, for example, each tile showed a different fussy cut dinosaur from the same dino print fabric.

Interface the back of each piece.

Step 3: Sew the Memory tiles to the felt frames.

Your felt frames should look like this:

Place each frame over a Memory tile, then set your sewing machine to a medium zigzag stitch and sew the frame to the tile.

Felt doesn’t ravel, and the raw edges of the tile fabric will be sandwiched inside the Memory piece, so this is a very forgiving stitch.

When the tile is sewn to the inside of the frame, turn the piece over and trim away the excess Memory tile fabric all the way around. This will reduce bulk and keep the tile fabric from peeking out of the edges of the Memory piece. There are no hints allowed in this Memory game!

If you have an excess of interfacing, you can make these Memory pieces SUPER sturdy by ironing another piece of interfacing to the back of this stitched frame piece before you sew on the back.

I like to batch sew these pieces, so feel free to do all the stitching of the front frame pieces before you sew on their backs.

Step 4: Sew the backs of the Memory pieces.

Set each front piece over a back piece.

Use the same zigzag stitch to sew around the edges of each Memory piece, stitching the front and back together.

These stitched scrap fabric and felt Memory games make wonderful handmade gifts for young children. Pop a set into an Easter basket or take advantage of how light they are to mail a set cross-country to your favorite preschooler… just like I’m about to do!

You’ll never burn all of the wax in your jar candle.

Whether you’ve made your jar candle or bought it, there will always be at least a little wax left over at the bottom after the wick has run its course. Store-bought candles, which often have inferior and/or improperly sized wicks, are especially prone to this. I often have a LOT of wax left inside a spent store-bought candle!

It’s tempting to simply toss that mostly empty glass candle, but where? Glass is so recyclable that it’s criminal to add it to the waste stream. But that leftover candle wax will almost certainly raise the level of contamination over the 10% maximum that most recycling facilities will accept.

If you love DIY, there are also very compelling reasons to clean the wax out of your jar candle, beyond simply prepping the materials for disposal. You can pour another candle into that empty glass jar. You can also re-use that leftover wax for any number of projects, including pouring another candle.

My go-to process for cleaning wax out of jar candles used to be tedious and time-consuming. But now I’ve successfully used the Power of Science to come up with THE quickest and easiest go-to process. It took me less than five minutes of hands-on time to get two candle jars completely cleaned of their leftover wax. Here’s how to do it!

You will need:

• used jar candle. It’s very possible to use this method with any jar candle. The less wax that’s in the candle, the less hands-on labor you’ll have to perform. A jar with a lip to the inside will also give you a little more trouble.
• freezer. The one with your refrigerator is perfect for this project!
• blunt tool. A butter knife or screwdriver work well.
• old towel. You’ll use this to pad your work surface.

The secret trick to making this the quickest and easiest technique is to pop your jar candles into the freezer. Then, forget about them!

You want the wax inside the jar candle to freeze completely solid all the way through. If the layer of wax is on the thicker side, leave the candle at least overnight. I personally just pop jar candles in as I finish them. I leave them all there until I’ve built up both a little collection and the desire to spend a few minutes dealing with them all at once.

Lay an old towel over your work surface, and grab an old butter knife or screwdriver.

The first thing to try is setting the jar candle upside down over the towel. Firmly thump on it a few times with your fist. With a wide jar candle that has a thin layer of wax, that wax may just fall right out!

All I had to do with the jar candle above is wipe it down to remove any last crumbs of wax, then wash the soot off the rim.

The thicker the wax and narrower the jar, the less likely it is that the wax will just plop right out, sigh. Instead, you’ll likely have to chip away at it with your blunt tool. Fortunately, frozen wax is brittle, so chipping large chunks away is actually quite easy. When you get an especially large chunk chipped away, try turning it over and thumping it again.

You can see that with the novena candle above, I had to chip away quite a lot of wax. This novena candle jar is narrow, with a lip to the inside. Its poor quality also meant that the wick stopped working with quite a lot of wax left inside. Be warned that this was messier than I had anticipated! Thank goodness for that old towel to catch all the wax crumbs!

However, it still only took a couple of minutes to get all the wax out. Then I could wipe the jar candle down and wash the soot off. I am VERY excited about upcycling this particular jar candle into a novena candle of my own design!

To upcycle the wax, I like to melt it, sift out the contaminants, pour it into small molds, then empty the hardened and molded wax pieces into a storage container. I wouldn’t use this wax to make “nice” candles (I prefer a beeswax/coconut oil combo for those), but it’s handy to have when I want to make something just for fun, or to experiment with dyes, scents, new molds, or different wicks.

Recycle the glass jars, or upcycle those, too, into new jar candles. Re-theme the candle by creating a new wrap using tissue paper, kite paper, or transparency film, or paint or draw with Sharpies directly on the jar. Upcycle the wax to make furniture polish, homemade crayons, or new candles.

It will be your own never-ending candle!

What better way to occupy my time while spending five days hiding in COVID quarantine in my bedroom (sigh…) than to dream of Spring?!?

I’m busy dreaming up the new landscaping I want to try, ordering some new-to-me seed varieties, attempting to convince myself that I do NOT need more chicks this year (don’t I, though?), and planning what backyard games and activities my family might enjoy so I can get the gear ready.

We love outdoor games, and we also love indoor games that get us off our butts for a bit. Here’s my list of my favorite outdoor and active games to DIY. All use eco-friendly materials and methods, and all include free tutorials so you can have them in your backyard, too!

Outdoor Games

• Koob. This super fun lawn game is an easy build, and the finished product looks great!
• bottle ring toss. Upcycle glass bottles into the targets for this outdoor ring toss game. Paint points on the bottles, or just paint them to look cute! In between games, store them in a wooden crate.
• cornhole. You’ve definitely seen cornhole. Here’s how to make it!
• giant dominoes. Supersized versions of tabletop games are my favorite backyard party accessory.

• hide-and-seek arena. If you’ve always got a yard full of kids, this is the kind of obstacle course that you can set up for them that will last through at least a couple of thunderstorms. It’s fun for all kinds of hide-and-seek, water balloon, Capture the Flag, and Nerf gun games.
• giant Four in a Row. Here’s another supersized tabletop game! The build for this one isn’t cheap. It would be difficult to re-use scraps for some of these large-format components. But the finished product is beautiful enough to be the centerpiece of a backyard game area, or to be the prized possession of an outdoor schoolyard or day camp.
• garden math games. Gardening is the perfect outdoor activity to share with kids. Here’s how to gameify gardening with preschoolers to teach them those important early math skills.
• yard Twister. Use store-bought spray paint or homemade chalk paint to paint a Twister gameboard right onto your yard.

• football toss. I was an only child, so I have a special place in my heart for games that can be played solo as well as in a group. This DIY football toss is the perfect game for both, and it builds accurate throwing skills, too!
• paver hopscotch. Here’s a great way to make a functional garden piece into something that’s also fun!
• giant Memory. You KNOW how much I love Memory games! This giant Memory is such a great idea for sneakily encouraging everyone to work their brains while being active outside.

• tin can toss. Here’s a game that’s easy to DIY from what you’ve got on hand, and easy to customize to fit the kind of fun you want to have.
• horseshoes. If you love backyard games enough to make a permanent modification to your yard, a horseshoe pit is a great option.
• tree stump Tic-Tac-Toe. Put that tree stump to use, or upcycle a wood slice to make this cute outdoor Tic-Tac-Toe game.

• washer toss. If your friends or family spend lots of time enjoying your outdoor space in nice weather, this is another great game to add to your options. My favorite thing is how neatly and compactly it packs up!
• oversized checkerboard. Upcycle enough jar lids to make a set of checkers, then DIY a checkerboard to fit them!
• DIY ring toss. There are several steps to creating this game, but none of them are especially difficult. This makes the DIY ring toss game a terrific project for a beginning woodworker!
• giant Jenga. I LOVE super-sized outdoor games! Just… be careful when the tower falls, okay?
• bean bag toss. Upcycle plant trays as the targets for this game, and sew the bean bags from stash fabric.

• giant dice. Make these giant dice from upcycled cardboard, and they’ll be indoor-friendly, as well.
• ladder golf. The tutorial for this game set also includes instructions for how to easily take it apart and reassemble it. Because nobody needs a fully-assembled ladder golf game in their garage all winter!

Indoor/Outdoor Active Games

• giant wall Scrabble. Scrabble isn’t usually known as an “active” game, but it is when it takes up an entire wall and the tiles are as big as your hand!
• bean bag baseball. The baseball component adds more skill and strategy to an already-fun target game. And using bean bags means that this game is fairly safe to play indoors.
• Bimini. My favorite part of this project is that you can create it in any size from tabletop to large-scale, indoors or out!

What’s YOUR favorite active or outdoor game? Tell me about it in the Comments!

Need a quick and easy, super simple homemade Valentine’s Day gift for your favorite valentine?

This mini heart bunting is a low-key gift, since it’s nice and small. Big hearts are corny, but small hearts are cute! Small also means that you can upcycle some teeny scraps, which is always an eco-friendly bonus for any project. The wool felt scraps that I used to make these little buntings are so small that I’d honestly have thrown them away, nearly guilt-free, if I hadn’t thought up this use for them.

Cutting the hearts from felt means that you can choose your brand of eco-friendliness. Both wool felt and Eco-fi recycled polyester felt work well here, although if you do craft with animal materials, I think the weight and texture of wool felt is superior here. I think Eco-fi felt has good drape for those occasions when I sew it into a garment, but wool felt has better body to stand alone.

Because felt comes in every color that is, don’t feel like you have to confine your mini bunting to strictly the boring Valentine’s Day colors. I did make one of my heart buntings in the traditional red and white, but that’s only because it’s also my kid’s school colors. So now she’s got a cute little dorm room decoration that works year-round! I made my other kid’s bunting a little more reflective of her personal style, which she will tell you is NOT emo but… it’s totally emo. Ahem. And honestly, this bunting might end up having too much non-black in it for her taste…

Hot glue means that this bunting comes together super quickly. So I feel completely justified in presenting you with this project on the very eve of Valentine’s Day. Even procrastinators can give handmade gifts when the gifts are this easy to make! In this case, a different glue offers no advantages, so you can craft away quickly and easily!

Here’s what you need to make your own mini felt heart bunting:

• felt. Upcycle all the scrippiest scraps you can find! Any medium weight fabric that’s not prone to fraying can also work here. If a fabric is prone to fraying but you want to use it anyway, just hit it with a little Fray Check or run a thin line of school glue around the edges of each finished heart. That way, you can experiment with hearts made from denim, corduroy, burlap, or all kinds of other interesting fabrics.
• heart template. Trace or freehand a small-ish heart. My template is about 1.5″, and I punched it from cereal box cardboard (the last scraps of THIS cereal box cardboard, in fact!). Hearts of varying sizes would also look cute! If you don’t want to freehand and don’t own a punch, just Google Image something and print it or trace it off your computer screen.
• hot glue. You could probably get away with using any kind of glue for this project. But hot glue will have your entire project finished within minutes. Low-temp hot glue guns make this project friendly for even younger kids.
• baker’s twine. Baker’s twine is a great weight for this mini bunting. If you don’t have it, substitute any other kind of twine–I think hemp would look especially nice! I don’t recommend yarn or embroidery floss, although if I had to choose between them I’d go with embroidery floss. Fishing line could also look pretty cool!

Step 1: Cut felt hearts.

You’ll need two identical hearts for every heart in your bunting, one front and one back. Felt isn’t always a friendly fabric to cut. So use your sharpest pair of fabric scissors–you know, the special pair that you’re hiding from the rest of the family!

Eyeball how many felt hearts you think you’ll need for your bunting. I thought my bunting looked cutest with about a centimeter between hearts, but really it’s dealer’s choice! I overestimated by a couple of hearts. So I guess I’ve got something to squirrel away for my next cardmaking project.

Step 2: Glue the hearts to the twine.

Sit down with a podcast, but don’t get too comfy, because this final step only takes a few minutes! It’s barely worth heating up the hot glue gun for, so consider gluing several buntings at once.

Glue each heart to the twine, then glue another heart over it, sandwiching the twine between the two. Press the heart flat, then move onto the next!

Try to be very precise, both with carefully lining up the two hearts and with avoiding glue seepage. But if you have a clumsy moment, both types of bobble are easy to fix.

This little heart bunting makes a sweet gift. And, it’s small enough to tuck into a Valentine’s Day card or a letter to your favorite college student. Bonus points if that letter includes ALL the latest family gossip!

I know it’s just a Hallmark holiday, one of those occasions created by big-box stores to cash in on our gullibility, but I love Valentine’s Day, regardless. I don’t think it’s ever a bad time to show someone that you love them, but an official holiday makes a great excuse to do so.

Handmade gifts are, of course, the best gifts, and Valentine’s Day is one more excuse for me to make something special for my loved ones. This Valentine’s Day, I’m giving my teenagers each this little gift created with their two favorite things in mind: sugar cereal and tiny notebooks!

Here’s how to make your own tiny heart-shaped notebooks with cereal box covers and upcycled papers!

You will need:

• upcycled cardboard. Cardboard food packaging works well for these smaller notebooks, but feel free to experiment with other types of cardboard. Corrugated cardboard, upcycled composition book covers, and candy box lids would also work! Or go rogue and use wood veneer or paneling instead.
• upcycled papers. For years now, my kids and I have been in a stand-off regarding their old school notebooks. I don’t see why they can’t simply use a notebook until all its pages are filled, and they don’t see why they can’t have new notebooks every year. I buy them their new notebooks, but I save the old ones, and I upcycle the pages whenever possible. Here, I’m upcycling the blank pages from three of their old composition books. And not gonna lie–I’m feeling wickedly triumphant about passing those unloved pages back to those kids, who will never know of my deception. Mwa-ha-ha! Scrapbook paper, typing paper, or kraft paper would also work to fill these notebooks.
• bookbinding materials. You’ve got tons of options for binding these mini notebooks. You could stitch them, hole punch them and thread an old notebook spiral through them, or glue them. To bind these notebooks, I’m using my decade-old Zutter Bind-It-All and scrap binding wires cut from previous projects.
• measuring and cutting tools. I needed scissors, a ruler, a self-healing cutting mat, a craft knife, and a guillotine paper cutter. However, you could do this entire project with just a ruler and a pair of scissors.

Step 1: Cut heart-shaped covers from the cardboard cereal boxes.

I don’t always buy sugar cereal, but my kids know that I am a sucker for limited edition novelty foods, and they can generally convince me to buy the latest name-brand gimmick. Then the kids get the sugary treat and *I* get the colorful packaging!

Use a heart template or freehand two matching hearts, then cut. You want your heart to have a 90-degree angle at the bottom corner, and straight sides all the way up to where the top curve begins. That’s a pretty basic heart, so you shouldn’t have much trouble finding a template online, but be careful about the lines and angles if you’re freehanding it.

Step 2: Measure and cut the upcycled paper interior pages.

I used a craft knife to cut the blank pages from these composition books, because I’m a sentimental hoarder and I want to keep the book with its filled pages intact. I love my kids’ little doodles and notes! If you don’t want to preserve the book, though, just rip them on out. Upcycled composition book covers would actually work great as the book covers for this project, too!

Measure the cardboard heart notebook covers to see how to size the interior pages. A wide, transparent quilt ruler works really well for this. Your interior pages should be square, with each side equalling the distance from the center of the heart to the edge at the point parallel to that edge’s adjacent size. See below for the visual:

The self-healing cutting mat helps you lay out the heart template in a way that makes measuring these dimensions easier.

Once you know the measurement for the interior pages, use a guillotine paper cutter to cut the pages in batches. Reserve the scraps for a future project, or do what I did and dig them into your raised garden beds.

Step 3: Bind the pages into a notebook.

Here’s how it looks to bind the notebook using a decade-old Zutter Bind-It-All. First, I punch the holes for the coils into the interior pages and the cardboard covers. Then, I use wire cutters to cut the coil to size.

Thread the covers and pages onto the coil, then use the machine to press the coil closed.

My favorite thing about this heart-shaped notebook is how it looks when you open it.

I love the way the pages line up so nicely with the heart template, and I love how the heart-shaped covers look so pleasingly symmetrical.

There are so many possibilities for embellishing these cute notebooks! I used double-sided tape to add some fussy-cut details from the cardboard boxes to the notebook covers, and you could do SO more more with scrapbooking or cardmaking supplies. A ribbon bookmark or pen holder would look cute. You could intersperse patterned papers with the notebook pages. You could even fill out this book yourself, putting photographs and love notes and meaningful ephemera on every page.

And Big Valentine didn’t have a thing to do with it!

Kid crafts can be SO CRAPPY!

And I’m not talking about the finished products. We all know that kid crafts ought to be process-oriented, not product focused. Kids are SUPPOSED to produce crappy-looking art. That’s how they grow their fine motor skills and creativity and practice decision-making.

It’s the supplies so often used in kid crafts that I have the biggest beef against. It’s junk like paper plates and plastic cups and glitter. Oh, the glitter!!!

Kids should also be encouraged to consider the methods that they use, the wants and needs that a project might fulfill, and the complete lifespan of the products that they create. It’s a tall order, sure, and even trickier to present in a kid-friendly, non-scary way. But that’s why these books are so special.

In the past year we’ve been blessed with lots of new kid-craft books that use eco-friendly methods and materials, and have the explicit intention of encouraging children and their caregivers to live green lifestyles. Here are my favorites!

Zero Waste Kids: Hands-on Projects and Activities to Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle, by Rob Greenfield

If you want to hand a kid one book that will help them understand the importance of living an eco-friendly life, and then empower them to do it, Zero Waste Kids is the book to hand them. Zero Waste Kids, by Rob Greenfield, explains the zero-waste lifestyle in an interesting, evocative, child-friendly way. It’s important to me that books aimed at children don’t use scare tactics or scary imagery to teach environmentalism. They also shouldn’t place too much personal responsibility for the planet’s ills at the feet of a child. I mean, you and I both know that it’s big corporations killing the planet, not plastic straws, even though we still shouldn’t use plastic straws, but that kind of nuance can be meaningless to a kid.

Zero Waste Kids does explain to kids why a zero-waste lifestyle is important, but the explanations lean towards hopeful and powerful rhetoric. The last two sections of the book are actually not even craft projects. Instead, they’re acts of activism, like starting a School Supply Reuse movement, and information gathering, like conducting a trash audit in one’s home. The book encourages kids to enact positive change within themselves, as well as with their peers, families, and communities.

The actual craft projects aren’t anything revolutionary. But Greenfield writes the instructions to children, and includes useful, colorful illustrations that should appeal to them. Like, I know you and I have seen a hundred different tutorials for seed balls and cloth napkins and windowsill gardens–but how many tutorials have our children seen? How many have been well-written especially to them? Kids will see these projects as all-new, and should be able to complete most of them independently.

The physical book itself is colorful and should be appealing to kids. The illustrations include a lot of diversity, including illustrating children of different abilities, a type of representation that’s often neglected. There are so many colorful designs decorating each page that this book, itself, could easily be upcycled into the pinatas, seed papers, and other projects included in the book.

P.S.–We Made This!: Super Fun Crafts That Grow Smarter + Happier Kids!, by Erica Domesek

Building by hand and imaginative play are crucial practices to, yes, grow smarter and happier kids. It can be hard to help kids get started, though, hard to encourage them when you can’t, yourself, think of any cool ideas or projects to inspire them. P.S.–We Made This!, by Erica Domesek, serves as a sort of clearinghouse of creative, imaginative kid crafts to solve that problem.

There are a LOT of projects in this book. At first you might feel overwhelmed by the options, or you might look at a few projects and think, “Meh, I/my kids wouldn’t like that one.” The trick is to flip through the book–or, better yet, have a kid flip through the book!–and find something that looks appealing to start with. Does a kid love pretend cooking and play food? Make the Brick Oven Pizza, upcycled from a corrugated cardboard box and some colorful papers. A kid who loves dress-up will love making the Butterfly Fairy Wings from the same materials. Add some toilet paper tubes and paint, and you can make the Magic Castle that’s the perfect size for Playmobil figures and other small world play.

Each project in the book comes coded with various educational “takeaways,” so you can see the benefits that kids gain from the hands-on activity. Mind you, I’m of the mindset that a kid happily immersed in any kind of hands-on activity doesn’t need more of a takeaway than that. But it IS interesting to notice the specific STEM, problem-solving, creativity, small-motor, and social-emotional skills inherent in children’s play.

10-Minute Nature Projects, by Elsie Olson

The 10-Minute Makers series is a staple of public and school libraries everywhere. Each of these short, colorful books is written to children. Each includes a handful of quick, simple crafts that most kids can complete independently. Scout troop leaders and day camp counselors LOVE them!

10-Minute Nature Projects, by Elsie Olson, makes crafting with natural materials just as quick and simple as any of the other books in the series. My favorite project is Frozen in Nature, which shows kids how to freeze natural materials and a twine hanger into ice decorations. This, in particular, is such a great project because kids can do it year-round with any available materials. They’ll make new discoveries depending on the season. How quickly will their ice decoration melt in the summer? How long will it last in the winter?

Some projects do call for plastic materials, so you may have to make substitutions. The Shell Buddies, for instance, are super cute, but the illustrated finished products all include pipe cleaners, googly eyes, plastic gems, etc. And the Rock Constellations, which otherwise are fun and educational and creative, call for my nemesis… GLITTER!!! Kids would have just as much fun painting the rocks or simply thoughtfully choosing special rocks for their constellations, and construction paper, cardboard, and popsicle sticks make shell friends that are just as cute. I do make an exception for googly eyes, however–googly eyes are crucial!

Create with Cardboard, by Marcy Morin and Heidi E. Thompson

With kids, you don’t always need a big explanation of how to live a green lifestyle or why you should use eco-friendly craft supplies–you just need to do it! Create with Cardboard, by Marcy Morin and Heidi E. Thompson, doesn’t spend a ton of time talking about reuse, upcycling, and recycling. Instead, it offers tutorials that do reuse and upcycle cardboard into projects kids will enjoy making and using.

My favorite projects in Create with Cardboard are interesting geometry manipulations masquerading as desk organizers and ornaments. Once kids have mastered the open triangle construction, they can make anything from tiny versions to use as building blocks to giant versions that could become a real-life cat palace… or giant building blocks! The paperboard planets, as well, could also be decorative lanterns if you add LED string lights. Or kids could make them small, using upcycled magazine pages, and turn them into Christmas tree decorations or homemade greeting card embellishments.

These books are my personal favorites from the past year, but there are a ton of kid craft books, both recent and old, that have awesome, kid-friendly, eco-friendly craft projects in them. Comment to let me know your favorites!

Due to a regrettable incident while bleach painting some T-shirts, I was left with a bleach stain on my second-favorite but most precious Samoas hoodie. My teenaged Girl Scout had to sell an unholy number of Girl Scout cookies to earn that hoodie as a reward. And because she is generous (and a minimalist), she gave that awesome hoodie to me.

It took me a few days to process the unhappy accident. But once my distress had some time to settle, I realized that the situation really wasn’t as bad as I’d first thought. The stain was small, and should be easy to patch.

And the fabric to patch it with? Why, the hoodie’s hood is double-layered! And you rarely see the inside of a hood! If I cut some fabric from the inside layer of the hood, I could use that to patch the stain. Then I could use any old sweatshirt fabric to patch that little-seen place inside the hood.

So that’s exactly what I did!

If you’d like to try the same trick on your own hoodie, here’s how to do it!

You will need:

• hoodie, washed and dried. Wash your hoodie and dry it completely before you patch it. If any other weird stains are going to show up, you might as well know about them now.
• matching thread. I wore my hoodie to the fabric store so I could match it to my thread. I did look for matching sweatshirt fabric while I was there, as that would be the easiest patch. But nothing came even close to this periwinkle Samoas hoodie.
• scrap sweatshirt fabric. If you don’t care about the fabric color matching the patch, you can patch your hoodie with this fabric. Otherwise, use it to patch the spot inside the hood after you cut your fabric patch out of it.
• cutting and sewing supplies. My go-to supplies include a Frixion pen for marking my fabric, a small pair of super sharp scissors for cutting, and my sewing machine.

Step 1: Measure the stain, and cut the patches to size.

The bleach stain on my hoodie’s belly measured about 1″x2″. I measured and cut a patch about 1.5″x2.5″ from the inside of the hood.

Make sure the patch will follow the same grain lines on the front of the hoodie. That will make it even more inconspicuous.

I placed that patch over a piece of sweatshirt fabric from my scraps bin. Then, I cut another patch about another .5″ wider around it.

I didn’t give a flip about mimicking the grain lines here, because nobody is going to see this patch.

Step 2: Patch the front of the hoodie.

Pin the patch to the hoodie to cover the stain. Line up the grain lines to mimic the below fabric as much as possible.

Set your machine to a fairly short and narrow zigzag stitch. Since sweatshirt fabric doesn’t ravel, I wouldn’t go so far as a satin stitch. But I did keep my stitches pretty close together.

I had a lot of trouble with the thread snagging on the underside of this project. Perhaps the fuzzy backside of the sweatshirt fabric was tripping up my sewing machine. Or perhaps I have a nicked faceplate or some other issue. I suspect the latter, because I also had some trouble with the zigzag stitching on the stained glass dragon quilt I sewed right before Christmas. I guess figuring it out will be tomorrow’s project, sigh!

Stitch the patch to the hoodie. Then, if you’re very careful, use your super sharp pair of scissors to trim any excess patch fabric. DO NOT nick the fabric or the stitches. You do not want to do this project all over again with an even bigger patch!

Step 3: Patch the inside of the hood.

Place the patch for the inside of the hood behind the hole. If you do not want any stitching to show on the outside of the hood, you can carefully hand-stitch the patch to just this layer of the hood.

I, however, am lazy, so I used the same zigzag stitching to stitch this patch right through both layers of the hood. This means that the bottom stitching does show on the outside of the hood. But if the thread matches, it should still be fairly inconspicuous.

AND it saved me a lot of time and effort and squinting nearsightedly while hand-sewing, so there’s that!

Here’s what the finished patch on the inside of my hoodie’s hood looks like:

And here’s what that formerly bleach-stained belly looks like now!

It’s not invisible, but it’s pretty inconspicuous. And this periwinkle color is so weird that any color of patch would have looked weird, too. So I’m doubly happy that the fabric and color are identical.

I am going to be SO much more careful when bleach painting in the future! Also, do you want to buy some Girl Scout cookies?

One of my favorite hobbies is reading and trying out every new craft book that I can get my hands on each year. I’ll try just about anything, but my special interest, of COURSE, is eco-friendly crafting!

You’d be surprised (or probably you wouldn’t, sigh) to see how many of the tutorials in craft books call for toxic ingredients or encourage wasteful consumption. Buying a bunch of plastic crap from the Dollar Store to paint and glue into different crap isn’t the “recycling” craft that many so-called professionals seem to think that it is! So I’m always on the lookout and reserve a special place in my heart for those craft books that truly do use eco-friendly methods and/or materials.

Here, then, are my favorite eco-friendly craft books published in 2022!

Natural Kitchen Dyes, by Alicia Hill

Natural dyes are so fun to experiment with. And you don’t need a lot of experience or foreknowledge to enjoy making and using your own natural dyes. Turmeric and black walnut, goldenrod and red cabbage are quite user-friendly!

However, if you enjoy your first forays into natural dyeing, you’ll soon want to know more. How can you make your dyes consistent? How can you create vibrant colors? Can you dye wool, cotton, and synthetic fabrics the same way you dye silk? How can you keep your dyed fabric from bleeding?

Natural Kitchen Dyes, by Alicia Hill, is THE textbook for the interested dyer. It’s a good first book for the crafter who hasn’t ever so much as tie-dyed a single T-shirt. And it’s a repository of knowledge for the crafter who’s fairly handy with a dye pot but would like to be better. Best of all, Hill strives to use tools and ingredients that you can easily make or obtain yourself, rather than seek out or special order. When I wanted to get really serious about dyeing one summer, I had to make a larger-than-desired online purchase of mordant–I had no idea that I could use soy milk instead! Thanks, Alicia!

If you ARE pretty new to dyeing, you might find yourself a little overwhelmed by discussions of pH and modifiers and other technical things that will thrill more experienced crafters, but these sections are easy to skip. Instead, go straight to the tutorials and dive right in. Might I recommend that you start with the carrot top dye? The wool felt that I dyed chartreuse using that tutorial is phenomenal!

Learn to Dye and Print Fabric Using Shibori, Tie-Dye, Sun Printing, and More, by Elisabeth Berkau

Whether or not you use homemade, natural, or store-bought dyes and paints, or cotton, wool, or synthetic blend fabrics, there’s another entire world of nature-based techniques that you can add to your dye projects. Learn to Dye and Print Fabric Using Shibori, Tie-Dye, Sun Printing, and More, by Elisabeth Berkau, explores various ways to harness the sun to print and dye, and various natural tools, such as vegetables or wood, to stencil, stamp, and print fabrics.

I’ve long been interested in cyanotype, or printmaking with the sun, so I was most excited to read the step-by-step walk-through of exactly how to mix and handle the specific chemicals to create DIY cyanotypes. You do have to buy the special supplies for this. But you can customize your results that way, and experiment much more cheaply than you can via buying ready-made cyanotype papers and fabrics. However, I also learned that it’s possible to make some sun prints in a variety of colors using just regular paint. It turns out that I like playing with this technique a LOT more than I do fussing with cyanotype solutions!

Zigzag Rope Sewing Projects, by Katherine Lile

Know what would be a TERRIFIC material to dye with natural dyes?

ROPE! And once you’ve dyed it a beautiful chartreuse, you can use Zigzag Rope Sewing Projects, by Katherine Lile, to show you how to stitch it into the perfect basket, bowl, or bag.

The introductory chapter of Zigzag Rope Sewing Projects tells you everything that you need to know to have a satisfying experience with this craft, from the type of rope to the type of sewing machine, including how to figure out the best type of zigzag stitch for each project. Cotton rope is, of course, the most eco-friendly option, and is what’s called for in this book. But you CAN do most of these projects with paracord, for those who have it in their stash. For those who have even more stash to upcycle, check out Lile’s tutorial on wrapping rope in fabric scraps.

Zigzag Rope Sewing Projects includes a ton of tutorials to make items like Easter baskets, coasters, and bowls of all kinds, but my favorite way to use this book is to start with one of the bases that Lile teaches, then mix and match various features of her other projects to make my own entirely new creation. That’s how I achieved the exact dip-dyed hanging basket of my dreams!

Dainty Dress Diaries, by Catherine Carton

I don’t know what it is about that cozy cottage vibe! I go through all kinds of crafty phases, from industrial to steampunk, and rustic to fanart, and then I cut up a bunch of wooden pallets… and then, somehow, I’m back to decoupaging flowers on Mason jar lids and pouring candles in teacups.

Not every single project in Dainty Dress Diaries, by Catherine Carton, uses eco-friendly materials, but most do. You’ll have teacup projects aplenty, as well as all the cushions, buntings, and sweet little sewn holiday decorations that your sitting room can hold. My favorite projects, though, are the ones that upcycle materials in surprising ways. Would you like to make a vintage plate clock, perhaps? Or a glass bottle vase that looks much more interesting than you think a glass bottle vase is going to look? Carton will walk you right through both projects!

Dainty Dress Diaries also includes several garden projects that bring the cozy cottage vibe outdoors. I love the painted tire planter for my flowers (probably don’t plant veggies in an old tire, alas). And the Buzzin’ Bee Hotel has turned into by far my favorite insect hotel. It’s got so much room for insects, and it’s SO cute!

Adorable Applique Sewing Projects, by Olesya Lebedenko

Adorable Applique Sewing Projects is another book where every project isn’t doesn’t use overtly eco-friendly materials, but the substitutions for eco-friendly materials are easy to make in almost all cases. And the walk-throughs of various applique techniques, complete with close-up photos of key steps, are everything that you need to go off-roading with your own independent applique projects.

I was surprised to see how three-dimensional many of these applique projects and techniques are, and how Lebedenko customizes them further with embellishments like paints and decorative cording. While I haven’t made any of her projects exactly as-is, her techniques have informed a lot of other work that I’ve done recently. Now I know how to make the CUTEST zipper pulls!

My favorite projects from Adorable Applique Sewing Projects use materials in surprising ways, whether it’s applique to embellish a postcard or metal lids used to make a coin purse. I’ve been happily off and running with both techniques since. I’m pretty excited by sending my little DIY postcards off into the world (yes, you CAN mail them!) and saving up my metal lids in pairs to make various sizes of coin purses.

Did you read a craft book that you think belongs on my hit list? Tell me about it in the Comments!

Did you Live, Laugh, Love in 2008?

Did you have a weekly commitment to Instagram your letterboard in 2020?

Do you now, or at any time, have a sign inside your house?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, you may love to play with words!

Word art as a design choice has a bad reputation, but it’s not the word art, itself, that is cheezy–it’s the WORDS! Putting a phrase that everyone has on their walls right that minute on your own wall, as well, isn’t a recipe for longevity. Vinyl transfers on plastic drink cups and pottery painted with sans-serif words (cough, cough, Rae Dunn cough) are also bound to be fleeting moments in popular decor.

But that doesn’t mean that you have to abandon word art entirely, nor do you have to avoid the trends if they truly speak to you. Just avoid wasteful consumption, particularly petroleum by-products, and otherwise do whatever you want to your own living space. If it’s Living, Laughing, Loving that you truly want to do, choose upcycled or natural materials and eco-friendly techniques.

If you have a phrase in mind that’s speaking your name right now, here are some fun, eco-friendly, DIY and NON-CHEEZY ways to get that word art out there into the universe:

Word Art from Shaped or Cut Materials

• bent wire word art. Take this word art in so many directions, depending on the look you’re going for. Shape the letters completely by hand for a more rustic look, or use pliers for a more polished look. Use copper wire to upscale the look, or cover the wire in yarn to make it look more homey.
• clay. When looking at tutorials, keep in mind how easily you could swap an eco-friendly material for the material used in the project. In the case of these stamped clay words, sub homemade salt dough or store-bought air dry terracotta clay for the polymer clay called for in the tutorial.
• felt letters. If you’ve still got your old letterboard, here’s how to upcycle some of those letters into a more permanent display.

• yarn-wrapped cardboard letters. Kids will love creating their own playroom decor from eco-friendly corrugated cardboard and yarn. Use stash yarn, or buy cotton yarn instead of acrylic.
• string art. String art is surprisingly easy, making it a good choice especially for the beginning crafter. This project looks great when done large-scale.
• reverse string art. Here’s a way to make string art look all-new–use negative space to shape your words!

Word Art from Pieced or Mosaic Materials

• button word art. For a shorter word and/or a framed piece, create your word from buttons! Glue or sew buttons to most surfaces, and consider using a limited color scheme, like the “Fall” art above, to match your theme.
• vintage silverware. Silverware is a dime a dozen (literally!) at your nearby thrift store. Take advantage of it!

• penny word art. Here’s what you do with all of those pennies you’ve got kicking around in your change jar. I mean, pennies are barely legal tender anymore, and they’re so pretty when polished!
• junk. I love the use of found and thrifted items here. Artificially weathering them is totally fair game!

• corks. Cork is a natural material, and when pulled from a wine bottle and reused, it gives you upcycled credit, too!

Word Art That’s Painted, Printed or Sewn

• fabric and embroidery hoop. This type of word art doesn’t have to be sewn, but if you do know how to hand-stitch, now is an excellent time to show off your skillset.
• painted wood. Pallet wood makes a great choice for this project, mostly because it’s free, upcycled, and I’m in love with the weathered look. Pallet wood is of highly unknown and generally sketchy provenance, though, so seal this finished piece before displaying it.
• stenciled over a thrifted canvas. I LOVE this fun idea that upcycles something high-quality but ugly as sin–a thrifted painting! Choose the ugliest painting with the nicest frame that you can find, then stencil your word art over the top.

• pretty paper and paint. Here, lovely paper is the background to simple, painted word art.
• embroidered. The best part is that you don’t actually have to know how to embroider to complete this project. Just cover your handmade template and have fun with it!
• watercolored. Use masking fluid to create your word art out of negative space in the middle of lovely splashes of watercolor.

• 3D typography art. Sometimes the most impactful art is also the simplest. For this project, you need nothing but two colors of cardstock, a craft knife, and a firm backing material.
• doormat. I doubt the longevity of this project, but if you choose your doormat carefully, you could repaint it seasonally.
• word search wall art. Don’t buy foam stickers new, but do check your local “Buy Nothing” group, because kids tend to collect these by the bucket-full and they are the WORST! Otherwise, hand-cut or die-cut felt or wooden letters would also work for this project.

Let me know what phrase you’re longing to display in your home–I promise I have NO room to judge you for being cheezy!

The most versatile children’s toy is also a toy that has infinite possibilities for DIY. There are so many ways to create your own building block sets, so many ways to embellish old or thrifted wood block sets to make them playable in an all-new way, and so many ways to upcycle wood blocks so that you can enjoy them in brand-new ways. Here are just a few of my favorites!

Create Your Own Building Blocks

• ice blocks. Encourage kids to spend time outdoors in the cold by surprising them with a fun new toy! Use silicone molds or cake pans to freeze a collection of blocks (dye with food coloring for even more fun!). Use milk or juice cartons to create a set of giant blocks for igloo-building!
• wooden blocks from scratch. Put your woodworking skills–and those fancy tools!–to good use.
• DIY Tetris. Technically you’re not making these from scratch, but you are turning them into a completely new type of block. Haven’t you always wanted to play real-world Tetris?
• rainbow square. While you have the cubes out, also DIY this set of blocks that are good for puzzling, patterning, and stacking.

• pallet wood building blocks. Yes, I know pallet wood is pretty gross, so don’t let your kids lick it or anything, but there is no better large outdoor toy than a big set of pallet wood building blocks. These blocks are especially fun in a sandbox or the dirt area where the kids play with their toy trucks.
• pyramid blocks. These are extraordinary blocks that any kid would be thrilled to receive.
• interlocking blocks. The notches cut into these blocks allow them to be connected in gravity-defying ways.
• giant interlocking blocks. Let the fort-building begin!
• giant Jenga. Just… please be careful when these inevitably fall. They are REALLY big!

• tree blocks. Tree blocks are the natural alternative to pallet wood blocks. You can even take them inside! Take extra care to cut the flat sides of these blocks nice and parallel.
• baking soda blocks. These sculpted blocks would be a great addition to small world play.
• stacker. DIY the ultimate in baby toys!
• soft blocks. If your baby can’t be trusted with wood just yet, here’s a set of soft blocks to sew.

Embellish Blocks to Make New Ways to Play

• art dice. Embellish wooden cubes with simple shapes, colors, or scenes, then roll them to tell you what kind of picture you’re going to draw! Or, substitute the art with story prompts, numbers, or anything else that it’s fun to combine and be inspired by.
• architecture blocks. Got a little city planner in your family? Thrill them with these hand-design architecture embellishments on their blocks. For added interest, create local landmarks or national ones like the Eiffel Tower or Great Pyramid of Giza.

• art blocks. Hand your kids the paint and let them create their own fantasy blocks for imaginative play. They’ll love incorporating their own art into their scenarios!
• snap blocks. Adding a set of snaps to ordinary building blocks makes them into an all-new building experience.

• painted blocks. While art blocks are a way for kids to create their own blocks for fantasy play, these painted blocks allow you to thoughtfully design a new experience. You can make blocks that teach colors, include architecture elements or animals, illustrate the animals of the world–your imagination is the only limit!
• color gradient blocks. Here’s how to paint blocks to represent a full color gradient. Ordering by color is an excellent way to improve one’s visual discernment and pattern recognition.

• chalkboard blocks. Sand some larger blocks very smooth, then cover with chalkboard paint. Kids will LOVE creating their own scenes with chalk!
• image transfers. Use Mod Podge to transfer fun images to building blocks without decoupage.

• puzzle blocks. This project works best with flat blocks like Kapla or Jenga. Make your puzzle fun, or use it to teach spelling or shapes.
• sand blocks. Here’s another good use for those Kapla and Jenga blocks!
• pattern blocks. For more open-ended puzzling, draw a simple pattern that kids can repeat or riff on endlessly while they play.

• watercolor-stained building blocks. Liquid watercolor is my secret weapon for adding vivid colors to ordinary building blocks. Depending on how a block was cut, each face might take watercolor a little differently. This project is NOT for children who still put things in their mouths!
• melted crayon blocks. Add a new art technique to your kid’s skill set by doing crayon and watercolor resist right on heated wooden building blocks.

• wood-burned blocks. Most building blocks are made from high-quality wood, and they take woodburning like real champs! Design something beautiful on your own, or let the kids have a try. Even younger kids can safely use a woodburner with supervision!
• sensory blocks. Oh, your sensory-seeking kid is going to LOVE these.

Upcycle Blocks to Enjoy in New Ways

• candle holder. You can drill a candle holder into any building block, but I’m partial to vintage alphabet blocks.
• tabletop. This is such a beautiful way to enjoy vintage building blocks.

• fabric-decoupaged blocks. You could make these kid-friendly, but I think the best use for these fabric-decoupaged blocks is display. They make fun holiday decorations (while, yes, still being workable for stacking!), and fun interior design components when used to show off your favorite fabric prints.
• infinity cube. Turn a handful of cubes into the ultimate fidget.

• paper-decoupaged blocks. Prefer paper to fabric? There are even more possibilities for paper-decoupaged blocks!
• photo cubes. Decoupaging photos is just as simple as decoupaging scrapbook paper.

• woodblock printing. This is an easy first printing project that works with any type of engraved block. Alphabet blocks are perfect for this!
• clock. You could use any size of blocks for this project, but those pallet wood blocks ARE nice and big…

Do you have another great idea for DIYing, embellishing, or upcycling blocks? Tell me about it in the Comments!

Whether you’re refurbishing a kid’s hand-me-down building blocks for a new generation, or adding new interest to a current toy, painting building blocks is an excellent way to turn an old toy into something brand-new and exciting.

It can also increase a toy’s educational value! Children are born pattern seekers. Practicing pattern recognition and creating their own patterns are prerequisites to unlocking reading and math. Painting blocks in such a way as to allow children to also match and organize and pattern with colors helps them build not just awesome towers, but also sophisticated mental faculties for matching and organizing and pattern.

But mostly, creatively painted building blocks are just really, really, really fun!

Here’s how to give old building blocks a second life with just paint and your imagination:

You will need:

• building blocks. Thrift them, dig them out from the back of your closet, or buy them new. No affiliate link here, but when my kids were little I regularly topped up their block collection via Barclay Wood blocks, usually through seconds and their scrap boxes. Feeling super handy? DIY your own building blocks from scratch!
• paint. For this project, I used water-based professional-quality acrylic paint, specifically this exact set. If you paint often, I highly recommend finding the best quality brand you can afford and then staying loyal to it, rather than mixing and matching various brands and types. Primers and glazes and glues can react differently to different paints, and I’ve had a lot fewer unexpected reactions since I started staying brand-loyal. For detail work, I like Arteza paint pens, also water-based acrylic. To stain wood, use liquid watercolors.
• sealant. Unfinished wood and unsealed paint picks up dirt and oils like you would not believe, so unless you plan to regularly wash your blocks, I recommend sealing them with a water-based polyurethane sealant. The sealant itself is not an eco-friendly material, but it IS a material that will keep your project heirloom-quality and extend its lifetime, so it’s often a worthwhile compromise.

Step 1: Clean and refurbish any old or second-quality blocks.

I have a whole tutorial showing you how to clean and refurbish building blocks here! This should be your first step when preparing to gift a kid a set of thrifted or hand-me-down blocks, regardless of whether or not you plan to paint them. It’s also a good process to undergo every few years that blocks are played with. Even second-quality blocks bought new will need some of this, as they’ll usually have some edges that need to be sanded and corners rounded.

When you have squeaky clean, smoothly sanded, rounded-edge blocks, you’re ready for Step 2!

Step 2: Mark off a design (optional).

You don’t need to do this if you’re freehanding a design or painting an entire face a single color, of course. But if you’re going for a specific design, mark it before you paint.

My go-to tool for marking a design is a Frixion heat-erasable pen. These Frixion gel pens work well on unfinished wood. The color is very dark, which is great for my nearsighted self. Also, you can paint right over the pen marks. Just run a heat gun over the pen marks and they will disappear–even if you’ve painted over them! Depending on the darkness of the wood, I sometimes notice a faint white line. However, it’s so faint that you have to practically put your nose to the wood to see it.

Step 3: Paint!

This is the fun part!

Make yourself a comfy set-up for a painting marathon and then settle in for a quiet evening of creativity. Some tools that you might find handy include those Frixion pens, a gridded mat, a quilting ruler, and various templates or reference pictures.

And a cat, of course. It’s impossible to do anything worth doing if there isn’t a cat present.

Let each face of the building blocks dry completely, according to the paint manufacturer’s specifications, before you rest it on a surface so you can paint the opposite face.

Step 4: Seal the blocks (optional).

Again, it’s not required, but sealing the blocks with a water-based polyurethane sealant will increase their longevity and allow them to be played with without worrying about the paint chipping off.

I give blocks like these at least two coats per side, letting the polyurethane dry for at least two hours between coats. It takes at least three days, generally, for the polyurethane to be ready for light play after the final coat. Depending on your polyurethane brand, it might be even longer.

But when the sealant is completely cured, the blocks should be sturdy enough for all the wear and tear and semi-rough handling that a child-staffed tower construction crew could possibly provide.

Regarding this particular set of building blocks refurbished from some of my teenagers’ childhood stash, I painted a series of Montessori-style constructive triangles in rainbow colors on one side and as a color wheel on the other. One of my teenagers painted a series of Mary Blair-inspired blocks (some of which are pictured above). My husband and other teenager are less theme-driven, so they just enjoyed painting their blocks without having to instill an overarching theme, if you can imagine such a thing.

Combined with a few precious blocks handmade by the children’s great-grandfather and passed with reverence from one child to the next across the generations, they made an awesome, eco-friendly, heirloom-quality gift for the toddler who’s next in line to steward Grandpa Bangle’s blocks.

Wooden building blocks are an heirloom-quality toy… IF you treat them correctly.

Which my children did not do!

For at least a full decade, I collected–and created!–wooden building blocks for my two children. For that same amount of time, my kids played HARD with their blocks. These kids built with them inside and outside, in the sand and snow and mud. They painted them and printed with them, mixed them into potions and put them into slime. They forgot them outside, spilled juice on them, and absolutely loved them dearly.

And it shows!

One of my teenagers is weeks from moving off to college. I’m helping the other prep their long-disused playroom into a new bedroom that she won’t have to share with her sister during college breaks. This means that I’ve had to finally start confronting all of these childhood toys that are no longer played with. It’s time to decide what the kids want to keep for posterity, what they want to donate, and what we might want to upcycle.

Regardless of what choices we make for my kids’ HUGE stash of old wooden building blocks, they all still have to be cleaned and refurbished first. One can’t simply toss blocks sticky with old slime into storage, or donate muddy blocks, or upcycle blocks stained with who-knows-what-please-don’t-tell-me.

Perhaps you, too, have some old blocks that you’d like to make look new again. Perhaps you’ve obtained some blocks of uncertain provenance, and you want to make sure they’re clean and safe to play with. Or perhaps you’ve bought some scraps or seconds that you want to ready for play. Whichever it is, here’s how to deep clean wooden building blocks and simple wooden toys. Here’s how to refurbish them, and even how to polish them up so they look beautiful and fancy and like the high-quality heirlooms that they are.

To completely deep-clean and refurbish most wooden building blocks and toys, here’s what you’ll need:

• cleaning solution. I hate that I love Go Clean Co.’s homemade all-purpose cleaner so much. I used to be a straight up vinegar-and-water gal. That first wave of the pandemic got me panic-cleaning with a lot of less-natural cleaners, and I haven’t yet entirely weaned myself off of them. In particular, that Tide+water+bleach combo is SUCH a dang good degreaser and stain remover–ugh! For a much more natural cleaning solution, sub your favorite natural laundry detergent for the Tide, especially if you think it does a good job fighting stains without a lot of extra spot treatment. That’s why my frenemy Tide is such a solid all-purpose cleaner! Unless your building blocks have been through some shocking scenarios quite recently, they shouldn’t need the addition of a disinfectant.
• large storage bin.
• large blanket.
• sandpaper. Moving through the different levels of sandpaper annoys me. Fortunately, 150-grit sandpaper is rough enough to remove most stains and marks with not too much elbow grease, while leaving the surface smooth enough for play.
• wood polish (optional). This isn’t necessary to refurbish your building blocks, but it does make them look even more high-quality and feel that much more luxurious.

Here’s how to clean up and refurbish the dingiest of building blocks!

Step 1: Sort the winners from the losers.

If your building blocks are well-loved, and/or consist of hand-me-downs, thrifted finds, and scraps or seconds, first sort through them and see what blocks actually deserve the spa treatment, and what blocks may just want to move on with their lives.

My own losers’ pile consists of blocks that have large knots or other flaws, oddly-shaped seconds that look more like scrap wood than toys, and the occasional piece that’s clearly part of some other toy set, like wooden railroad tracks, that we didn’t keep or never owned. My kids loved and played with all these blocks just the same as they did with their “nice” blocks, but there’s no need to store them for future play. Instead, I’ll keep some for woodcarving or other craft projects, and we’ll roast s’mores over the rest.

All the rest of the blocks that you want to keep, upcycle, or donate should be cleaned. That’s the next step!

Step 2: Wash those filthy blocks.

As you can see, you can wash even blocks that have been painted. You can wash natural blocks like tree blocks, even ones with the bark still on. Vintage blocks are washable just like new blocks. You can even wash carved wooden toys, like peg dolls and stackers.

The only blocks that I do not put into the communal wash solution are the ones that we’ve already highly embellished. These consist of blocks that my children painted as “art blocks,” blocks that I’ve decoupaged with paper or fabric, and blocks that we’ve wood burned and stained. I hand wash each of those blocks individually with regular dish soap.

The cleaning solution is dead simple. All you need are a small amount of stain-fighting, degreasing laundry detergent, and lots and lots of hot water. Also remember that a little bit of laundry detergent goes a LONG way, especially when you don’t plan to rinse. Avoid oily additives like tea tree oil, because the goal is to get these blocks squeaky clean with no residues.

Soak the building blocks in the cleaning solution for a couple of hours. Stir them around every now and then to make sure all the blocks have their turn getting nice and clean. Do NOT soak your blocks for several hours, because water and wood aren’t actually friends.

An old plastic tub works great to hold everything. Although don’t do what I did and add so much water that you can’t lift it back up to the sink to drain it. SIGH!

Dump the clean blocks out on an old blanket (or vintage He-Man bedspread, ahem…) and let air dry.

Step 3: Sand stained or marked blocks.

To clean up blocks that have an old yellowed finish, or are stained or marked, sand them with 150-grit sandpaper. You can also sand the blocks to remove unwanted paint or varnish, although PLEASE use lead-safe practices for this! Use a palm sander to speed up the process.

When I’m sanding blocks to refurbish for more block play, I also round all corners and edges on each block. I don’t know why historical children got to play with so many pointy things. Today’s toddlers prefer to keep all their eyeballs intact, thank you!

Step 4 (optional): Polish with a natural wood polish.

When I’m refurbishing blocks for more block play, I often paint them and seal them. But there’s a lot to be said for providing children with simple, natural, unfinished wooden blocks as well as brightly painted ones! Kids don’t always need every single sense stimulated to the max, and wood is already so beautiful on its own.

If you leave your blocks unpainted and unvarnished, a nice way to shine them up and make them look marvelous is simply to polish them with a natural wood polish.

Your clean and dry blocks can now be stored as heirlooms, embellished and upcycled into fun, new playthings, or donated to someone who will love them all over again.

There are so many DIY Christmas garland options using one of the most eco-friendly and economical materials out there: paper!

If you’ve got some Christmas decorating to do, don’t feel like you have to choose store-bought garlands made from petroleum by-products. Instead, DIY one of these delightful paper garlands and make an eco-friendly heirloom. Or make an upcycled decoration that you can toss guilt-free into the recycling on January 1!

Paper Chains

paper chain. This is your basic paper chain tutorial, with the added bonus of a comparison of several different paper strip dimensions and a discussion of the qualities of paper chain that they produce.

printable pentagon paper chain. You’ll need to use a template to create the pentagons for this paper chain, and then tape to help you connect them, but the look is a fun change from the typical paper chain. I think this would be a fun project to do with children learning the names of regular polygons; to make it a higher-level task, challenge children to create their own templates to make chains from other regular polygons.

watercolor resist paper chain. Here’s how to turn a process-oriented kid craft into a beautiful decoration. Let kids paint with watercolors on large-format paper, then let them help cut and glue their art into this sweet paper chain. Due to the stiffness of the paper, you might find that you need a stronger glue, or even staples. I think this paper chain would make a lovely year-round decoration in a child’s playroom or bedroom.

glue-free interlocking chain. I love this completely glue-free paper chain, a perfect way to use only what you have on hand.

paper punched paper chain. You can do this to any paper chain to make it even fancier! If you choose a look with lots of negative space, as in the image above, use a paper with lots of structure. Cardstock and watercolor paper would both work well for this project.

Paper Garlands and Buntings

wrapping paper chain. This is a delightfully old-fashioned way to upcycle wrapping paper, although any very thin and flexible paper would also work well. I love the author’s idea to add to the chain each year using that holiday’s wrapping paper. What a fun idea to preserve the special papers that you’ve collected!

folded paper garland. The technique used here is similar to the one used in the wrapping paper garland, above, but calls for long strips of colored paper instead.

paper greenery. Use this DIY paper greenery to replace any plastic faux greenery in your home.

Santa and reindeer garland. This is the CUTEST garland for a mantle! It does require a significant amount of fiddly cutting if you want to achieve the proper number of reindeer. But I think the finished look is well worth it. These reindeer would look lovely all cut from brown paper bags or food packaging cardboard.

animal cut-out paper chain. Remember folding and cutting paper to make paper chains of little people all holding hands? Like everything else, that adorable children’s craft can get a LOT more sophisticated! Here are templates to make paper chain animals.

curled paper garland. If you have kids who don’t yet know how to curl paper with scissors, now is the time to teach them! This is the garland I’d hang to decorate for a New Year’s Eve party. You know, if I didn’t prefer to sit at home in my jammies and quietly eat fudge on New Year’s Eve…

paper fan garland. The rainbow colors in the image above are sweet and stunning, but this garland would look lovely in any colorway. I think it would make especially excellent birthday party decor!

paper flower garland. If you don’t live in an area where evergreens and snowflakes hang out for the holidays, why not go ham with what you DO have? These paper flowers do require some precise cutting, but the reward is a beautiful, colorful, flowery garland!

paper leaf garland. Pair those flowers, above, with these big paper leaves!

paper snowflake garland. White typing paper looks best with this project, I think you could get away with upcycling paper that’s been printed on one side. It would be a lovely little craft to do on the last day of school for a semester to use up a student’s completed worksheets!

paper Christmas tree garland. Solid-color paper in any color would probably work best for these trees, but I think the stars would look super cute cut from colorful, glossy magazine ads.

paper ball garland. These paper balls look just like Christmas ornaments, and I think you could also string them individually to decorate a tree.

Platonic solids garland. Ah, to be a geometry teacher! This project would make a lovely classroom bunting, or a sneakily educational family craft. Do it in holiday colors for a Christmas tree!

paper twinkle lights. The light bases would look great when cut from brown paper bags or any kind of cardboard, I think. For bonus points, string them along with real twinkle lights!

paper net garland. Want to get a LOT of decoration coverage for the least amount of work? I think this project is your solution!

basic bunting. This basic bunting is incredibly versatile. You can make it in pretty much any size or shape you can think of, with any type of material!

Wall Hangings

ombre paper chain wall hanging. I love the idea of a paper chain wall hanging. It’s significantly more fragile than fabric or macrame, of course, but it’s so much more accessible. This particular project does require quite a bit of colored paper in specific colors that might be challenging to source without buying new. So keep that in mind!

paper chain Christmas tree. It’s made using the basic paper chain method, but this is actually a wall hanging! The author uses it as an Advent calendar, but I’d just as happily create it simply to look at all season.

reindeer and snowman paper chain hangings. These are also meant to be Advent calendars, but are also cute enough to live all season as-is.

Do you have a great paper garland craft that I’ve never heard of? PLEASE tell me all about it in the Comments!

Here’s a craft that’s old enough to be a classic: the paper chain!

Okay, hear me out: paper chains are AWESOME. Yes, you did them in preschool. Yes, you made them out of construction paper. I don’t blame you, then, if the phrase “paper chain” unlocks a core memory of that hokey long-ago classroom with its corny, lopsided, faded construction paper chains.

And you can still do those kinds of paper chains, if 1950s Sunday school classroom is your decoration aesthetic. You can hang it above your large-scale bulletin board with the scalloped edging and a laminated, hand-drawn Noah’s Ark set. For bonus points, make both the lions boys.

However, you can do a lot more with the classic paper chain, especially in terms of Christmas tree decor. Because wouldn’t you rather have an eco-friendly, customized garland that fits your specific vibe instead of a mess of shiny plastic tinsel that’s going to break down into micro-plastics and/or live out the next several millennia in a sanitary landfill?

New paper is fine for this project, especially if you upscale it to something handmade or created by an indie artist or small business. Also consider organic cotton paper, hemp paper, or even more unusual offerings like papyrus or vellum.

My absolute favorite materials, though, are upcycled papers. With upcycled papers, you can fit any decorative style without engaging in the manufacture, packaging, and shipping of yet more new products in our already overcrowded world. Book pages give you a clean, black-and-white look. Sheet music gives the same, but is even more festive. Magazine pages are shiny and colorful, while children’s book pages are just as colorful but lack the shine. Brown paper bags are a nice neutral that’s easy to embellish. Children’s artwork and used coloring pages have a ton of personality.

With any of these options, at the end of the season you can make a guilt-free choice to carefully pack your paper chain away for next Christmas, or recycle it and just make a new one next year! If you’ve chosen an unusual paper, just double-check that it IS recyclable first.

Supplies

To make a paper chain, use the following supplies:

• paper. Holiday-themed scrapbook paper is an easy option, as is paper or cardstock in your specific color scheme. But feel free to be as creative as you like in your choice–after all, it’s only paper!
• cutting tools. A guillotine paper cutter is my tool of choice for batch cutting the strips for paper chains. Simply using scissors to cut by hand works just as well, though, and is a sneakily educational project for a younger kid who could use more fine motor skills practice. Cutting with scissors is SO good for strengthening the muscles in one’s writing hand! for the easiest shortcut, you can buy pre-cut paper strips.
• adhesive. A glue stick works quite well with most paper, but yikes does it have a lot of plastic! PVA glue is a little better, especially if you buy it in a gallon jug and simply decant it into a smaller bottle as needed. A good, eco-friendly option to the glue stick, especially for young children, is cornstarch paste. Cornstarch paste uses only food ingredients and kids can apply it easily using a popsicle stick… or, fine, their fingers.

And here’s how to make it!

Step 1: Cut paper strips to size.

There are two variables that affect the look of your paper chain: your choice of paper, and the size of your paper strips. I raved on about paper choice in my intro, and here’s what I mean about size:

From left to right, the paper chains above are made with the following strips: 1.5″x6″, 1″x6″, 1″x4″, .5″x6″, and .5″x4″.

The 1.5″x6″ and 1″x4″ chains are quite stiff; they wouldn’t drape well, but would hang straight down in a lovely, saturated way that would allow you to create a decorative wall hanging.

The 1″x6″ chain drapes beautifully while retaining some structure. There’s some negative space, but you can still see the paper colors well. Below the blue and green 1″x6″ chain, I made another short chain with the colored sides of paper to the inside, and it also looks lovely.

The .5″x6″ chain looks most similar to a traditional metal chain, but it’s quite fragile and I don’t recommend it.

The .5″x4″ chain is the perfect size for an 18″ doll. Let your American Girl dolls hang it on THEIR Christmas tree!

Step 2: Glue!

Creating these chains makes for a wonderful family activity, especially while listening to music or a podcast or watching a movie together. My teenager and I made this entire glorious paper chain while watching a documentary on M.C. Escher together:

We know so much about M.C. Escher now (did you know that he used to tell people that he was NOT an artist?!? He was only a mathematician, he insisted!), and we have a delightful Christmas decoration to show for it!

Although technically I’m still deep in what I have, as the parent of a young ballerina, eventually come to accept as “Nutcracker season” and I ought to simply be focused on driving children to and from the ballet studio and keeping at least one pair of tights snag-free and trying to avoid having random snippets of Nutcracker music constantly playing inside my head (but to be fair, that Trepak number is a banger!), I’m already looking forward to the final curtain drop on my kid’s run as Mouse #2/Officer #3. At that moment, the frantic pace will cease and my family can relax into our Christmas holiday.

And our Christmas holiday crafts!

Last week, I showed you all of my favorite felt ornaments. Here, then, are some of my other favorite felt crafts that I make around Christmas-time. The simpler projects are perfect for, say, my Girl Scout troop to work on during our holiday camping weekend. I prefer the more sophisticated, detail-oriented projects that keep my hands busy during family gatherings or while waiting in the carline to pick up my kid from yet another five-hour Nutcracker rehearsal. You can make most of these projects with Eco-fi or wool felt, and some of them with recycled wool felt.

Wreaths and Garlands

felted wool sweater wreath. This kind of project that relies on the thickness and color variety of the fabric is where felted wool sweaters really shine. Save your scraps from larger projects and keep a weather eye out for wool when you’re thrifting!

circle garland. Use a die cutter or get a LOT of hands-on practice cutting circles, then chain them together into an easy and colorful garland.

garland. I love how simple these felt garlands are. This particular garland uses up all your scrippy-scraps and looks excellent on a Christmas tree in lieue of tinsel.

wool felt chain garland. Okay, this garland is on the opposite end of the difficulty spectrum from the simple scrap garland, above. But unless the moths get to it, this garland will be a treasured heirloom as thanks for all the time you’ve spent creating it. Wool felt is the best here, with just the right thickness. But you could possibly double up Eco-fi felt for a similar feel.

ribbon candy garland. It’s like having a tree full of candy!

twisted felt garland. Here’s a nearly no-sew garland that you can make at any length.

Christmas light garland. This garland is adorable when made with your most colorful Eco-fi or wool felt scraps. I especially like using non-Christmassy colors!

Stockings and Wall Hangings

stocking. Felt is a fabulous fabric for making stockings. Eco-fi and wool felt take fabric glue like champs. Even non-sewists can make stockings that are as elaborately embellished as one likes. I have to say, though, that my absolute favorite fabric for a stocking is felted wool. I LOVE a Christmas stocking that looks just like a cozy sweater!

Christmas banner. This sweet wall hanging makes a good replacement for a wreath.

felt wreath. But CAN you make a wreath entirely out of felt? Yes, you can! Instead of the styrofoam wreath form called for in this tutorial, glue the felt leaves to a cardboard or wooden form.

mistletoe. Real mistletoe is poisonous, and fake store-bought mistletoe is plastic. Use felt instead!

Decorations and Toys

Christmas tree candy cane holder. Here’s a simple favor holder for a candy cane. Make the base holder before the party, then let each kid decorate their own!

Christmas tree toy. I’m not convinced that the snaps version will hold up to a small kid’s enthusiasm, but the Velcro certainly will.

felt-covered letters. Start with premade cardboard or wooden letters, or DIY those, too!

felt tree on a stand. Make a simple 3D evergreen with a dowel trunk and wood slice stand, or decorate your tree with embroidery, beads and baubles, and yarn garlands.

Christmas tree pin. Wear a smiling Christmas tree pin to tell everyone you’re festive without telling everyone you’re festive!

play tree. This large-sized felt tree and all its decorations–and presents!–mount on a wall or door so that small children can decorated and redecorate it.

stand-up play tree. Not everyone has any functional wall space to hang a play tree on (ahem, this may just be me…). However, anyone with a square foot of floor space can make this stand-up tree that kids can decorate and play with!

pine tree. If you’re feeling a little more ambitious, upgrade your felt tree to a full-on pine tree!

gnomes. These are so popular right now, and SO cute! A premade cardboard cone will save you some work.

poinsettia. The tutorial turns this felt poinsettia into a brooch, but I think I want to make napkin rings!

ribbon candy. The tutorial turns this felt candy into a garland, but I have a young niece who is 100% going to be receiving these as an addition to her play kitchen!

Christmas cookies felt food. Your favorite small one’s pretend kitchen is going to be doing so much holiday baking!

independent pattern makers. If you have just a few dollars to spare, don’t forget that you can buy high-quality patterns for adorable felt creations while supporting independent pattern makers and crafters! I bought the pattern for this felt Mouse King and Soldier for four dollars each, and I’m using stash felt to sew them up as little gifts for my kid’s fellow Mice and Officers.

Felt is one of my favorite materials for holiday crafting, because whether I’m keeping a project, making it as a gift, or crafting with a group, there is a felt that works for everyone!

Prefer a natural fabric? Wool felt has a wonderful hand and dyes easily into a rainbow of colors.

Prefer a non-animal fabric? Eco-fi felt is widely available, and is made from 100% post-consumer recycled plastic.

Prefer a recycled fabric? Thrifted wool sweaters felt into a thick, dense, sturdy fabric that’s different from anything you can buy new.

Felt is excellent for children and beginners because it doesn’t fray. It can be hand-sewn or machine sewn, and while it has zero drape, it has a ton of structure that allows you to skip the starch and interfacing.

So pick your favorite ornament, your favorite felt, and start crafting!

The Easiest Ornaments to DIY

candle ornament. This is a fun ornament to make with older kids, as it calls for simple hand stitching or the use of hot glue.

cookie cutter ornaments. Here’s another simple ornament that’s good for beginning sewists. Master the blanket stitch and adding simple embellishments and you’ll be ready for embroidery!

traditional ornaments. These templates for traditional ornament shapes are fun for kids to embellish. Skip the glitter but pass the rick rack!

mandala ornament. It’s the pattern seeker in me, but I LOVE the potential of these mandala ornaments! They’re user-friendly with the potential for machine sewing, hand-sewing, or glueing, which you can also use to add beads, buttons, dangly bits, or other embellishments.

felt bauble. So many of these felt ornaments are single- or double-sided that this nice and round one is even more special! It requires only a little sewing, and can be made in any size.

two-toned stars. These simple ornaments still manage to add a huge pop of color to your tree.

pinecone. Instead of a Styrofoam egg, upcycle an old plastic or wooden Easter egg and glue the felt pieces on.

Ornaments That are Great for Gift-Giving

gingerbread house ornament. Okay, don’t freak out, but this gingerbread house will be a LOT of work. There are so many adorable details and embellishments, though! If you use Eco-fi felt, you may need to line the inside of this house with thin cardboard to add more structure.

letter to Santa. For maximum cuteness, make the envelope yearly and enclose your kid’s actual letter to Santa!

felt letter. Many of these ornaments look best made with Eco-fi or wool felt, but here’s an ornament that I think would look lovely when cut from a felted wool sweater. A sweater pattern would allow you to skip most of the elaborate embellishment without leaving the ornament feeling undecorated.

felt ice skate ornament. There are several cute ornament tutorials here, but my favorite is this ice skate.

mitten ornaments. Mittens on a Christmas tree are so cozy! Feel free to experiment with different types of embellishments for these, especially fabric paint.

message hearts. Here’s the perfect ornament to make for a crowd. It’s easy to batch sew, but the message box allows you to personalize each one.

Food

felt taco ornament. Because you should have your favorite things on the tree!

hot cocoa ornament. Stitching on the smiling little faces is a great way to practice your embroidery!

felt gingerbread man. His buttons are so TINY!!!!! Also, tiny things use up scraps!

gingerbread cookie ornaments. The key to making these ornaments is adding LOTS of embroidered details.

easier gingerbread house. If you suspect that trying to create that elaborate gingerbread house ornament will make you cry, make this one instead!

peppermint stuffie ornaments. I love how cuddly these plush peppermint ornaments are. Feel free to fill them with fabric scraps, thread bits, newspaper, and other odds and ends instead of batting.

candy. These easy no-sew ornaments are a fun way to add candy to your Christmas tree! If you have a small child, make an extra set to add to their pretend food collection.

The Most Christmassy Ornaments!

Santa ornament. Whether you’re a true believer or not, you still can’t have too many Santa ornaments. Anyway, it’s another excuse to upcycle a button!

poinsettia. I’ll take any excuse to upcycle a button!

3D snowflake ornament. This is a remarkable and brilliant way to easily sew a snowflake. It would look wonderful not just as an ornament but also on a wall hanging or in a garland.

two-toned ornaments. I love using two different colors of felt for these ornaments.

retro no-sew ornaments. The previous ornaments look modern, and these ornaments look retro!

jingle bell ornament. The addition of a real jingle bell make this ornament absolutely magical!

wool sweater and button snowmen. There’s no tutorial associated with this image, but it’s easy enough to copy. Sew all your buttons and embellishments onto a piece of felted wool sweater, then back it with another piece and blanket stitch the two together.

ugly Christmas sweater ornament. I can’t even find ugly Christmas sweaters in the thrift stores anymore, because the hipsters have snatched them all up! Fortunately, these miniature versions can be as ugly as you want!

Christmas tree. A Christmas tree on a Christmas tree is a little meta, but I think your brain can handle it.

Animals

felt owls. I love an ornament that has a lot of “scope for the imagination,” and these owls have a lot! You can make so many fun color choices with the same pattern.

deer and fox ornaments. Projects like these are where felt really shines. Look at all the detail you can put into each ornament without having to worry about stitches or fraying!

animal ornaments. There are SO MANY cute felt ornament patterns here! All would work equally well with Eco-fi or wool felt.

alpaca ornaments. I don’t know what the deal is with alpacas, but my teenagers LOVE THEM.

sloth. I don’t know, you guys. If you’re making alpacas, you might as well make sloths.

felt squirrel ornament. The templates for this squirrel are simpler than most of the other felt animal ornaments in the previous listing, so it’s the perfect canvas for adding detail through embellishments.

unicorn. Add some unicorn magic to your Christmas tree!

I am always trying to collect new ornament ideas. If you’ve got a felt ornament that you love to DIY, please tell us all about it in the Comments!

You’ve picked out an old book and prepped its pages–what’s the next step in creating an altered book that you’ll love?

Let your imagination be your guide!

There is no limit to the magical art you can create from an old book. Don’t feel like you have to confine yourself to what’s already been done… but also check out the following list of my favorite altered book projects. These free tutorials can help you add all kinds of interesting embellishments and working parts to your altered book, getting you closer to the book art that you’ve been dreaming of.

18 Ideas for Making Altered Book Art

smash books. Smash books are super low-stakes and fun, so they make terrific beginner projects. Smash book creators also pride themselves on using as many junk elements as possible, so they’re a great fit for the eco-friendly crafter.

junk journals. A junk journal is even quicker and easier to make than a smash book!

Artist Trading Books. If you love making Artist Trading Cards, I think you’ll also love this book version.

blackout poetry. This is one of my favorite ways to play around with book pages that haven’t been painted over.

bound journal. Cutting out all of a book’s original pages and replacing them with new pages is a LOT more work than the smash books and junk journals detailed above, but it’s worth the effort to have your own custom-bound blank book.

ring-bound journal. If you don’t yet know how to stitch books together, you’ll find this ring-bound journal much easier to accomplish, with the bonus that you can easily add and remove pages.

books with secret compartments. Okay, you don’t want to do this to the book that has all its pages lovingly gessoed and prepped for art–instead, choose a nice, thick old tome and get cutting! Here’s how to hollow out a book to make secret compartments. And here’s an amazing music box made from a book with lots of lovely hollows!

book box. I LOVE my collection of book boxes. They sit on my shelves with all my other books and hold all kinds of useful things. Here’s how to make your own using an old book, pretty paper, and a yardstick.

monogram book. It won’t work with every letter, but if you’ve got a letter with a vertical left line, you can cut a book into your monogram.

folded book art. Here’s how to create your own template for folding words and designs into a book’s fore edge.

flip-out pages. Double, triple, or quadruple your working space when you add hinged flip-out pages to your altered books.

books with accordion pockets. I love how useful this project is! Use primarily cutting and pasting to create an organizer with accordion pockets roomy enough to keep all your stuff properly corralled.

folded-page pockets. Here’s how to create pockets just by folding book pages. Use these to store ephemera or other journal elements.

book organizer. Turn an entire book into an organizer with this tutorial from Kaleidoscope of Colors.

DIY Rolodex. Here’s another type of organizer to create from an old book: a DIY Rolodex!

transferred images. With the miracle that is Matte Medium, you can transfer images from paper directly to a book page.

torn paper layers. These are a great way to add texture and dimensionality to your altered book.

faux antique books. Make a book look MUCH older than it is using this simple tutorial!

What’s YOUR favorite way to make altered book art? Let us know in the Comments!

Tights feel like such a wasteful purchase sometimes. They can be so delicate, so easy to snag and rip, so quick to stain and so challenging to wash. And yet they can be so warm and so pretty that you can’t always simply choose not to purchase them!

You can solve some of those problems in some part by choosing high-quality natural materials, of course, but no matter how much you paid for your tights or what they’re made from, you’re probably not going to get a lifetime of wear out of them. Tights are here for a good time, not a long time.

Fortunately, those stained, snagged, or simply outgrown tights don’t have to go into the wastestream! Or rather, they don’t always have to go immediately into the wastestream.

Here’s how to upcycle your old tights in a myriad of ways:

hair ties. These hair ties won’t last as long as ones designed specifically for that purpose, but since you can make them from quite narrow strips, they really are an excellent way to get a little more use out of every last bit of tights. They’re nice and grippy, too, without being rough–I quite like them!

infant headband. Thin nylon tights may not be eco-friendly, but they ARE soft and comfy when upcycled into a baby headband. I wouldn’t normally advocate putting nylon on a baby, but you and I both know the baby’s going to rip this headband off within five minutes, so take your photos quickly!

yarn. Upcycle tights into yarn, then knit or crochet them into something fabulous. This could be an interesting yarn to use when teaching a kid how to finger knit or use a knitting spool.

scrunchie. Don’t know what to knit? I can ALWAYS find you a knitting project! Here, you can learn how to knit old tights into new scrunchies. Scrunchies aren’t as hip as they were a couple of years ago, but my teenager will still wear one to keep her hair out of her face, even if she no longer wears twenty on each arm…

wool tights to fingerless mitts. I hate how gloves and mittens make my fingers clumsy… almost as much as I hate having cold hands! These fingerless mitts, upcycled from wool tights, are an excellent compromise between warm hands and dexterous fingers. Continue tapping away on your phone with ease!

arm warmers. Last year’s thicker fall and winter tights nicely upcycle into this year’s arm warmers! I think that decorative tights with cute prints look especially fun here.

tights to knee socks. This is a great way to upcycle outgrown tights or to refashion them for cooler weather. Embellish them with lace and bows.

shredded tights. Lean into the rips…

melting paint refashion. Here’s a very fun way to refashion an old but wearable pair of tights. They won’t be comfy, but they’ll be memorable!

leg warmers. Leg warmers from old tights couldn’t be easier! My dancer especially loves leg warmers upcycled from thick cotton or wool tights.

footless tights. Piece together old tights to make these pseudo-leggings, perfect to wear under a dress or skirt. To embellish them further, here’s how to add LOTS of ruffles! Make them without ruffles to wear under pants for additional warmth.

underwear. Probably not the most elegant refashion, but isn’t there always a use for a pair of underwear that you wouldn’t be sad to toss instead of wash? This is also an easy way to make some doll underwear when upcycling a small child’s tights.

handwashing station. An old pair of tights is essential for keeping outdoor enthusiasts clean! Nylon is actually the best choice here, since it won’t hold the water.

lampshade. Upcycle a large pair of tights with a super cute print into a lovely translucent lampshade. Use an LED bulb, though, so you don’t catch your house on fire.

mend natural fabric tights. Tights made from thicker fabrics like cotton and wool lend themselves well to mending. Darn holes using a darning loom or patch them with fabric of an identical weight.

wreath. Festive tights make a festive wreath! Kids’ holiday tights, especially, probably won’t fit next year, so are an easy choice to upcycle here.

octopus stuffie. Babies have the best chance of outgrowing their tights before they ruin them. It’s great, then, that baby tights are the perfect size to make this stuffed octopus! I also love the idea of having this keepsake of how tiny your tiny one’s legs once were.

potholder loom loops. This is the gold standard way to upcycle thin polyester tights. I don’t know if I’d actually use them as potholders, ahem, but every potted plant needs something cute to sit on!

Do you have a favorite way to upcycle your old tights? Tell me about it in the Comments!