“This New Years Eve…toast in the New Year
with a little added twist of Photo Fun.”
MIY Make-it-yourself Photo Drink Charms
Hands-on time: Under one hour.
Skill: Easy & fun.
Materials & tools:
• Thick photo paper, matt or glass
• Various photos of your choice, friends, nature scenes, or emotioncons
• A ruler
• Pencil
• A circle template
• Scissors
• A large hole punch, or decorative punch shape such as a star, snowflake etc.
(Materials for this project are available at arts,craft and hardware stores, or on line.)
This New Years Eve…toast in the New Year with a little added twist of fun. Wine charms are used to identify wine glasses at parties. Instead of using the usual little decorative ornament charms, why not make amusing , personalized and all original “MIY Photo Clip-on Drink Charms”, using photos of your guests, movie characters or emotioncon graphic clip-art.
They are so easy to make in minutes and they will fit standard wine, champagne and Martini glass
stems. They make wonderful favors and hostess gifts as well.
Suddenly glass charms got a lot more interesting. They will give your guests something to talk about besides all the snow! Personalized “MIY Photo Clip-on Drink Charms”, are practical and fun; they are useful for they stop glass confusion, start conversations, and can let you keep track of how much you or your guests have had to drink (one can easily forget on such festive occasions).
Each photo tag clip-on Drink charm measures 3.8 in circumference. With a computer software of your choice, make a sheet of small squares sized slightly larger about 4.5 cm or for the circles in the exact size using various pictures. Use pictures of your guests, or go with a movie theme, with assorted characters from movies, or cartoons, one for each of your guests. I did a combination of these types of pictures, a personalized photo tag one of each guest, various winter nature pictures with numbers to clip onto a drink to keep
track of drink consumption, plus emotioncon graphics (you can get these on the internet) just for fun so the guests can let everyone know what type of mood they are in.
Have fun with this project, get creative and make a game out of it. Once your pictures are selected, make a printout of the photos on thick quality photo paper in matt or gloss finish.
For square picture shape print outs; use a circle template with a pencil to outline the circle shape around each image. Cut out the circle photo shapes
with scissors. You can also opt to use a rotary circle cutter or scissors with decorative edges.
Use a large hole punch to punch a hole in each circle photo tag charm. You can also use various punch shapes such as stars, snowflakes using
decorative punches. Use scissors to cut a slit from the edge going inwards to the center of the hole punch, and that is basically it, you now have party personalized photo tag clip-on charms. They simply clip onto the stem of a glass.
Place the personalized photo tag clip-on charms in a bowl near the drinks and let your guests pick a character or mood charm tag for themselves. Great
your guest with their photo on their glass, this is sure to make them feel welcomed.
Cheers! Have a safe and happy holiday season. All the best for the creative New Year ahead!
Variations: Customized “MIY Photo Clip-on Drink Charms”, can be made forbasically any festive occasion or party theme throughout the year. They also make wonderful dinner place cards, placed on a napkin.
Other ways to customized and personalize photo tag clip-on drink charms.
They can be made with various other materials, circle shapes can be cut out using card board, rigid plastic craft sheets, or thick decorative papers and pictures simply glued onto the shapes. Names and initials can be applied to the charms using gold tipped markers, glitter or gel pens. They can also be further embellished using assorted remnants or notions, such as
scrapbooking decorative stickers, tag shapes, numbers and letters of your
choice.
Photo tag clip-on charms can also be used gift tags. You can even use the same concept such as you would with bag clips to organize various items in bags around your home when storing things.
All rights reserved by MaddyLane Designs
Project creation and article by MaddyLanes Designs
Copyright Miycreations by MaddyLane Designs © 2007
For view more Miy (make-it-yourself) décor crafts projects visit www.miycreations.com
The art or craft of cross stitch is one of the most popular hobbies in the world. Easy to learn and do, ‘cross stitch’ is simply embroidery stitched with lots of little ‘X’ stitches to create a lovely design. This fun craft is sometimes referred to as ‘counted cross-stitch’ because the pattern and fabric require the crafter to count the number spaces to know where to place the stitches.
Most often, cross stitch patterns are done using a woven fabric called Aida cloth. Some advanced stitchers create designs on other types of fabrics using a special backing to help keep the stitching uniform. The kind of fabric you use depends on your skill level and the type of design you’re creating. I’ve cross stitched designs on my children’s clothing, bedding and other items for my home and as gifts.
Skilled cross stitch crafters create beautiful projects by stitching on plastic and various different papers as well. Gift cards and scrapbook designs may be made by stitching on paper of varying thickness and fiber.
Of course you can’t cross stitch without the proper thread. The threads used in counted cross stitch range from basic cotton, to wool or silk threads. Usually very colorful, embroidery floss as it’s called, comes in all kinds of colors and textures for you to play with.
If you’re just beginning to consider learning to cross stitch, your best bet is to learn about the craft itself before you start buying supplies. Your local craft store, bookstore, or library will most likely have several books available that will teach you and provide easy patterns to start with.
Once you know what’s expected of you in the craft of cross stitching, you’ll want to find some easy projects to begin with that will allow you to learn as you go. You’ll want to start with a project that requires only a few colors of thread and a larger weave Aida cloth. By doing so, you’ll prevent a lot of unnecessary learner’s frustration.
When you sit down to start your first cross stitch project, you’ll want to have all of your materials available and easy to get to. Start out by reading through the project instructions. You’ll want to look over your pattern and make sure that you understand all of the jargon and markings that you may find on the pattern. There will be a color key that you’ll need to understand so that you use the correct thread color. Make sure to have a pencil handy to make notes or your own marks on the pattern for later reference.
Cross stitching requires you to use a six strand of floss or thread and separate it into individual threads. Your pattern will tell you how many threads you’ll use at a time. Most often, the larger the weave of your fabric, the more strands of embroidery floss you’ll need at a time. Don’t rewind your floss and by all means don’t let it get tangled or bunched up. Your end project will look flat and even if you take care of your floss.
One key factor in learning to cross stitch is remembering not to knot your thread. Knotting threads in a cross stitch project will make your end result look lumpy and uneven; not a good thing. Just pull your thread through your Aida cloth and make sure to leave a length of thread on the end in the back. You can keep the bit of tail from going completely through the fabric by holding onto it on the back of your fabric as you make your first couple of stitches; they will overlap and hold the thread in place. You may have to practice this easy technique a few times, but you’ll get the hang of it soon enough.
Another handy cross stitching tip is when you’re ready to change thread colors, just simply pull your needle through the stitches on the back of your fabric to hold your thread before you snip it off with scissors. Make sure to leave a little bit of thread so that it does not come loose and unstitched. Change your thread color and start on the next area of your project as you did before. And during the stitching process, remember to drop your needle every few stitches, meaning, just hold your project in one hand and let the attached needle and thread dangle from the fabric so that the thread unwinds and your next few stitches will be flat.
I can remember learning to cross stitch from a school librarian when I was a young girl. She eased my newbie anxiety with this phrase: ‘If you have one eye and half a brain you can cross stitch.’ Now, perhaps that may offend some avid cross stitchers, but she didn’t mean it in derogatory way. Only that cross stitching is an easy to learn and do craft that just about anyone can master. I mastered it in the 1980’s and stitched on anything I could get a needle through and even taught classes to school kids myself as an adult. The biggest problem I and most other cross stitchers have is the addiction of the craft. One thing to keep in mind is to control the number of kits you buy or you’ll find yourself with drawers of unfinished projects. Have fun and keep on stitchin’!
If you’ve never had a tattoo before, you may not know where to find the best designs to express your very personal message. Many tattoo artists have their own websites where they display their artwork. The are also dozens of sites that are devoted to aficionados of tattoos and body art. These sites also feature designs and photos of tattoos. Most local artists have portfolios showing their work. You can also look at clip art and flash art designs online and offline to get ideas that work for you.
A tattoo can tell many things about a person that wears it. It is a very distinct piece that can stand for your life choices. Definitely, you can enter a tattoo parlor and choose something off their wall or book flash art collections. But do you want to go for a tattoo, which is not yours alone? Or do wish for a body art idea that is completely and uniquely yours?
To find the best tattoo ideas for your persona, you should begin by asking yourself why you want to get inked. What are your concerns? Do you want a tattoo because you want to celebrate your life or the life of someone important to you?
Are you commemorating a special day in your life? Are you trying to represent a social or political statement? Do you want to tell people about your convictions and beliefs? Or you just want to follow the trend and be as cool as everybody else?
Once you’ve figured out what your tattoo is all about, it’s now time to think how you can express your tattoo ideas in a picture. There are some places and things that you can go to and utilize to find an inspiration for the design you like.
Some people chose there tattoos from avatars or cartoon or animated characters that they relate with themselves. Japanese graphic novels, American comic books and other illustrated material can be a rich source of design. If you have a particular favorite, this may be a good choice. Some people like nature imagery while others may prefer oriental designs. Consider your choices carefully before making a final decision.
Because your hobbies tell what you like and what you enjoy the most, it will be helpful if you try to associate the things you love to do like surfboarding, riding horses or motorcycles to your tattoo design. Other things to consider are your CD collection, your photo album and even fine art museums.
The richest source of ideas comes from the Internet. Check out some online forums and chat rooms and discuss design ideas with the a group with whom you find common ground. They ca direct you to the best tattoo artists and design sources and give you ideas for your tattoo.
Before deciding where to get your tattoo, visit several local artists. Look at their portfolios and photos of their previous work. If you don’t like the work of one artist, keep looking. Most areas have several tattoo artists and you want the best and most experienced tattooist for your body art. A good artist will appreciate your input and do the best design for you.