DIY chalkboard gift tags: For Christmas and beyond

So chalkboard is all the rage, right? We're well aware of that by now especially if you're a Pinner. I love the idea of chalkboard reusable gift tags but I haven't found any that I fell in love with or that I was willing to pay outrageous bucks for. Enter a random stroll down the craft aisle. I found some wood laser cut tags for Mason jars and my head immediately came up with a brilliant plan. So I bought them. {Of course, it's probably not all that brilliant, in fact, I bet you could find a gazillion tutorials on this exact thing via Pinterest, but we'll just go with my crafty brilliant intuition, shall we?}

So here's what you really need:
paintbrush
chalkboard paint {I happen to always have the stuff lying around…}
painters tape or masking tape
chalkboard pen
wooden tags {I found mine at ACMoore, $1.99 for ten.}

{Ignore that white crayon, I thought it would be a genius idea to use a washable crayon but it hardly showed up on the tag at all. Genius to stupid in one quick stroke.}

Step 1:
Tape your tags where you want the chalkboard paint to end. I made mine simple but you can get fancier if you've got the time. These are fairly small so I wanted to get as much writing space as possible but still keep some of the wood showing. You can paint the whole thing if you want and skip this step entirely. Up to you.

Step 2:
Coat the top with your chalkboard paint. I found it really seeped into the raw wood, so I ended up doing three coats, which really didn't take me that long at all.

Step 3:
Remove the tape and decorate! I ended up using my trusty chalk marker. The crayon didn't show up, the Target chalk pens were too light for what I wanted, and I didn't dare try the white colored pencil since I've previously noticed they don't erase off. Also these were too small to use regular chalk, and I don't want the tags to get accidentally erased in transit, so chalk marker it was.

 

Ah, aren't they pretty?! And if you're like me and, you have everything else on hand, they only ended up costing me .20 cents a piece!

DIY Mushroom Pincushions: a tutorial of sorts

You know you want to make one of these. Or maybe a few, for your sewing friends this Christmas…

The nice thing is they're boxes, so inside you could store measuring tape or extra pins or really anything you wanted. To get started you'll need a few things. First, the round box. I found mine at A.C. Moore for $1.00 each. How's that for inexpensive project? You'll also need stuffing, scrap fabric, scissors and hot glue/gun. Also you will need paint or wood stain, depending on what you choose to do with the bottom. The top pincushions have painted bases, the one at the end of this post has a stained base. Both were easy and quick, but the stained one did need to set outside for a night to get rid of the smell.

Step 1: Sandwich the stuffing in between the fabric and the box lid. Start hot glueing the four corners, keeping the stuffing in between and keeping it a little snug as you go. You want the fabric and stuffing to sit off the top a little to give it that mushroom shape. Once you have the four corners, start glueing the rest of the fabric to the lid.

Step 2: Once you've completed that, trim the excess fabric down, leaving enough to glue inside the edge.

Now here's the options part. You can go over and inside with the glue and fabric like I did, or if you don't have enough room when the lid is on the base {mine was fairly loose} then you may want to explore other ways to finish the edge. I tried cutting the fabric so there would be nothing glued to the inner portion of the lid.



I also tried glueing close to the top of the lid, trimming the fabric and then glueing on a piece of ribbon to keep everything hidden and snug. I honestly didn't like this option so much. It made things a little busier in my opinion. BUT if you want to do it that way, go ahead! Like I said, There are options at this point. What you do with them is up to you!

And then, you're pretty much finished! You can rework the stuffing a bit to get a better shape if you need to, but regardless it will look like a little mushroom when you're done.

PS: I do apologize for the photo quality. I was experimenting using my phone to capture the process and have come to the conclusion that I need to suck it up and pull out the big camera next time…