Crafty Marie

Pineapples make a perfect tropical or summer theme. Not just a delicious fruit to eat or fresh juice to drink on a hot day but they're great for crafting designs with too for that real summery and exotic look and feel. This pineapple Perler bead pattern makes a really nice sized finished embellishment that you can use to sew onto yarn or fabric projects or glue onto your paper crafts. Pineapples are a popular wedding and party scheme choice too and these are ideal to use as fun little party favors by turning them into magnets or keychains. Once you iron over these beads with the special ironing paper, it fuses or melts the beads together until all the design sticks as once piece. They are reasonably durable once made although they can be broken with force.

Enjoy these step-by-step photo instructions to make a really cute mushroom spool pincushion. The finished design makes a rather magical home for all your sewing pins. This is an easy, beginner tutorial with only a small amount of sewing involved. You’ll love this easy toadstool pincushion project because it is easy to sew and the completed design looks so cute. The mushroom makes a magical home for your sewing pins with the wooden cotton reel base and the spotty fabric mushroom cap. Once you see the technique for putting this together, you’ll find that it is an easy project to make. This mushroom spool pincushion is perfect for re-purposing wooden thread spools and also your scraps of fabric too.

Spring themed crafts are my personal favorite so I thought you'd enjoy this set of adorable 25 spring sentiments for cards. These are short and sweet little quotations based on this season for your cards, crafts and scrapbooks. Often these short snippets can help to suggest ideas for your projects too. If the weather stays fine, it's this time of year where I enjoy taking a tray to make and create outside. Messy crafts in particular are best done outdoors where paints and adhesives can dry quicker too. Enjoy using these short spring quotes for your cards and handmade projects.

Looking for some cute embellishments to use with your summer crafts? These beaded fused flip flops made with Hama or colorful plastic Perler beads are just the thing. They're fun and easy to make and can be used to decorate many handmade projects such as cards, scrapbooks, home and party decor and more. I had a whole lot of fun putting these together. Find how to make these with a link to my craft tutorial. Plus, discover lots of ways for how you could use the finished embellishments in your crafting.

As someone who does a lot of crafting, I'm always making my own templates so I can quickly repeat a design to make paper and fabric embellishments for handmade cards, scrapbooks, pennant banners and bunting, stencils, felt plush items and more. Learn how to make a butterfly template yourself with this craft tutorial. Yes you can get paper cutting machines now that can cut templates for you. I do have both a Sizzix and an electronic cutter but it doesn't beat making your own unique cardboard templates from scratch.  Butterflies are a favorite design element and here's how I make them with lots of different tips enclosed. They are pretty easy and fun to make. Get the paper and scissors ready!

It's not quite time to dig out the flip flops yet but I've been getting ready for the hot season with some fun crafts based on my favorite summer footwear. Since it's Freebie Friday again, I've made a free template that you can use for your own crafts. You've got a choice of two options here because the printable pattern is available at both my new tutorials. Enjoy a flip flop based greeting card template and tutorial which is perfect for your summer card making. Also make sure to visit the matching door hanger design.

Just in time for your St. Patrick's Day crafting, I've made a graphic here with 25 short sentiments and quotations that are ideal for using for your card making, scrapbook pages, paper crafts and more on this fun going green occasion. If you're making some last minute crafts for March 17th, try picking out one of the St Patrick's Day sentiments or quotes shown here and using it as the basis for a theme for you to get started.

Our recent investment in oak dining room furniture for my shared craft room means that all my stickers are now held in a selection of drawers. The image above shows one which contains all my peel-off stickers. I've had lots of different types of storage over the years to hold parts of my craft stash and today I'm going to give ideas on how you can best store your own paper crafting and scrapbook stickers. Get your craft items organized so you have more time for crafting.

For the Spring season, I really love the combinations of pinks and greens which both happen to be among my favorite colors so I guess that figures. A while back I showcased the butterfly picture frames I made and this pennant banner was what they were made to match. You will see a link to the picture frame page at the end of this post. Making your own pennant banners for home decor or parties is really not all that hard and the beauty of making your own is that you get the exact mix of colors and styling that you're after. Plus ones made with fabric and felt last a whole lot longer than paper versions while looking far nicer than those plastic banners.

Green happens to be one of my all time favorite colors so although I don't celebrate St. Paddy's Day myself, I enjoy many of the fun crafts and activities which typically use this color from the Irish flag. There are some fantastic St. Patrick's Day crafts that adults can enjoy and I've featured my favorite ones here. There are 10 of my favorite adult St. Patrick's Day crafts featured here today which I happen to think are rather brilliant projects for anyone who enjoys crafting like me. Get your green pride on and let's see what you can make for this March 17th occasion.

Do you enjoy clay crafts such as Polymer? Or even Play Doh? Well these butterflies here employ a really fun technique which is just like working with a material like this but in edible form. I'll show you how to make these beautiful marbled fondant spring butterfly cookies. These are perfect for the Spring and Summer season. Great for making along with kids. They're really very easy to make and so enjoyable. If you can make basic sugar cookies, even ones from a packet mix, then you're good to go!