Basket full of love- Paper hearts in a paper basket , Valentine's day Craft for kids

Whenever my niece visits me , she makes it a point that she has some craft time with me and my daughter. I absolutely love that one on one time. I am amazed by how quickly kids learn things and how fast their fine motor skills develop.

These lovely little hearts were made by my sweet niece and my lovely daughter. Initially we decided we will make lot of hearts. Eventually we made a paper basket to hold them too.

After they finished their project they were super proud. My niece came to me and gave me a heart from her basket and said , " This is specially for you Mami ( Aunt). Thank you for all you do". It really touched my heart.

My daughter brought one and said, " This is for you Mommy for teaching me to make a heart - a symbol of love". And then I got a warm heart felt hug from her.

I guess this is why I love doing craft projects with kids so much..these priceless moments are my reward. I got so involved in teaching them that I took less pictures than usual. Apologies for that.

 Here are some of the best pictures I have. Hope they are of help along with the instructions of  the project.

Instructions for making the Paper Hearts:
- For making the hearts we used paper strips of multiple colors and varying widths ranging from 1/2 inch to 1 inch. Its better to use a light weight paper like print paper.


-  Hold the corner of the strip and fold it into a triangle along the width. Refer the first picture.
-  Crease the fold and the keep on folding the triangle till you reach the end where you snip a little and tuck the remaining strip in the flap.
-  Pinch the resulting triangle at the center and puff it a little to make it look like a heart shape.
-  To get rounded corners cut them a little with scissors ( refer picture )

Tips:
- Wider paper will result in a bigger heart.
- Adults should help kids for rounding the heart as it really needs muscle power and sharp scissors.
-  This is a very popular way of making heart. You can get video tutorial on you tube if you need further instructions. I did not use any particular video for this tutorial. I shared this project as I tried making it with kids for the first time.

Paper Quilling Typography

I made this for a friend's son's Birthday. He turned four this year. His parents requested for no gifts for the party. Initially I  planned to make a birthday card with his name in quilled typography. I thought that would be a meaningful gift and being handmade rather than store bought would respect he no gifts request from the parents too ;). But while making the project I changed my mind and framed it so if they wish they can display it in his room.

His name is "Avi ". In our native language Hindi it means Sun and Air.  I tried to include the colors Orange Red and Yellow to signify the brightness of Sun and a cool blue as background with a few scrolls between the individual letters to signify "Air".  I added a sun over the letter "I" using special quilling strips with golden edge. I tried the bee hive technique invented by Susan  for the first time and it sure was fun.

The letters measure almost 2.5 " in height. The finished design is 5 " x 7" approx and is framed in a 8" x 10" matted frame. Here is another photograph of the finished project.

I would love to get your feedback/ comments. They definitely make my skies brighter here in Seattle :).

Baby Shower Greeting Card with Paper Quilling

 

It was one of my friend's baby shower today. I made this card for her. As you can see, she is having a girl ! Baby showers are fun here ...we do both the traditional Indian God Bharai  ( Blessing the would be mom and baby) ceremony as well as the Baby Shower party with fun games and of-course lots of food. So its like the best of both worlds. 

Its their first child. I wanted to make something special and cute for them. And also something new....repeating designs is not much fun. So yesterday night I made this cute little pink and white onesie. I used crimped strips to get that frilly girly feeling for the onesie. I also decorated the envelope with a bow and tag for message. I ended up having a late night ( means less sleep when you have a toddler who wakes up at a fixed time in the morning) but her reaction when I gave her the card today made it all worth it. She simply loved it and I made up for the lack of sleep with a late afternoon nap after the function was over. Off to sleep now ...have a fun Sunday all of you!

 

Origami Boat made in Craft Class- Teaching kids Maths through Art

These lovely colorful boats are made by students of my craft class.
We have been experimenting with Origami since long. My love for Origami increased during my visit to Tokyo a while back. It seems to me that Japan is the heaven for craft enthusiasts.
Every nook and corner is so beautiful. Whether is a restaurant, hotel or workplace, you are bound to find something creative.
I still remember the lovely pair of origami peace crane on the table in the hotel I stayed.
They were just perfect. I knew origami that time but it’s been a while I practiced that. I guess after that I made it a point to practice anything in Origami that I liked a lot.

It was a pleasure to introduce Origami to my students. We started with fundamentals of Origami.
Things learnt in Origami Classes
- Meaning of Origami
- Brief history of Origami
- Types of Origami Paper
- Basic Origami Techniques
- Basic Tools
- Modular Origami
- Beginner level Origami creations like Paper Cups for Snacks, Paper Fan,
Paper Butterfly, Paper Airplanes, Paper Boats, Paper Box with lid,
Paper Basket.
- Basic Geometry concepts - Revision of geometry parents!!

Best part of Origami is that you do not need to have a lot of supplies to make something. All you need is a piece of paper. It can be an old magazine paper. It is one of the best ways to recycle. There are amazingly simple and amazingly complex things you can make. Here is a link of some amazing videos for those who need inspiration.

Origami Artist Robert J.Lang- An American Physicist and Origami Artist is one of those who has made this wonderful and old art of folding paper appealing to this generation as well by showing the reach of Origami.

Amazingly inspiring video by Robert Lang on Origami Idea+ Square=Origami

Little more on Origami
3D Swan Origami
Big 3D Origami
Travel to Oriland
Quick Guide to Origami via Internet

Note to All Parents: Encourage your kids to learn crafts, they learn many more things from Crafts than you can imagine. It is definitely not just recreational; it is educational in a fun way.

Paper Quilling Flower and Butterfly Note card

I always knew that sharing your skills is a good idea and but didn’t know that it will be so much fun and at the same time will give such creative satisfaction.
This beautiful Paper Quilling note card was created by one of my students - A very talented, soon to be 9 years old girl. She is full of enthusiasm and very eager to learn new concepts and techniques. She made this during her first quilling class.

What amazed me was the ease with which she grasped use of quilling tool, the neatness in her work, considering it was the first time she was quilling. I am sure it came from the efforts she and her mom would have put in doing various kinds of crafts earlier. We believe that if you are good at one craft, it does give you an advantage in learning other kinds of craft. I guess it is something like if you are good in one sport chances are you will do well in others as well.


It gives me immense pleasure to share her creation here. In this class she learnt

- History of quilling
- Tools used for quilling
- Basic quilling shapes : tight coil, loose coil, tear drop shape, scroll
- Different kinds of paper strips used for quilling
- Quilling with multiple colors
- Concept of contrasting colors
- Using Martha Stewart Border Punch

She was very excited throughout the process. Hope she continues to learn this wonderful art and many other beautiful and challenging crafts.

Paper Quilling Flowers

Summer vacations are on here in US. Its amazing how busy parents get when kids are not going to school. It becomes a big task to keep them engaged and not listen to " I am getting bored " all the time ( so I hear from other parents..mine is still on two syllable words). Luckily when kids are interested in crafts its not that uphill a task :).

I have a new student and I must say for a 10 year old she is really is quick at learning. I enjoyed teaching her and was surprised how fast she picked up the techniques. She has little background in quilling so its not totally new to her. She saw one of the cards I made with husking flower and wanted to make one. Here is what she made on her first attempt.

Our second class was all about fringed flowers. We made variations of the fringed flowers and then arranged them to make a card. It was a fun project and now she has a sample of each to practice later at home.

You can see our tutorial for fringed flowers here.

It is so fulfilling to see your student understand and enjoy what's being taught. We are going to attempt making a butterfly in our next class. With summer at its best in Seattle, it seems to be just the perfect project to try.

Paper Quilled Theme Photo Frames for Kids

Like most of my creations, this one was inspired for two kids who happen to be my kiddo's closest and best friends. It just so happened that while thinking about some new product ideas for our online etsy shop (which I call product development) it dawned on me what to create if it were to gift to both of them. Luckily I didn't have to think much. I had a helper, my 3 yr old daughter helped me out.
She immediately told Fire Truck and balloons for Aarav and Air plane or Space ship for Arhunth. What followed was cute little photo frames with paper quilling embellishments of their choice.

It is so interesting to watch kids interpretate your creation. I was happy that Aarav could really see the fire truck in those paper quilled strips. And yes, what I thought was balloons were actually lollipops for him. Thankfully those are his favorites too. I learnt my lesson, look for a better way to make balloons :-)
This is what Aarav got for his birthday.



Now it was Arhunth's turn to get something personalised. He loves airplanes of any kinds. My daughter Anoushka had recently learnt about space shuttle so that was her obvious choice. This is what Arhunth got as a keepsake gift, a picture frame with paper quilled space shuttle and paper quilled alphabet A. This time I got full marks as he was able to identify the space shuttle as well as the alphabet A.


Both kids loved it, as well as their moms. Anoushka loved giving it to them.

Got a Blog Award !

Recently Dr Sonya awarded us with the Kreative Blogger Award. Thank you so much Sonya for thinking of us. We cherish your comments so much. We also appreciate how you find out time for crafting and are how much invested you are in your daughter's creative projects.

As the rules of accepting the awards go, here are few random things about us (Amrita and Nimisha, Yes!! we are sisters. Nimisha is elder :-))

- We are both Engineers. I designed power plants for quite some years and she ( Nimisha) was a SAP consultant. Right now both of us are stay-at-home moms, doing what we love the most,raising our kids and creating.

- We LOVE flowers.

- We believe that one of the best ways to unwind after a stressful day is singing hindi songs loud( of-course when no one is listening!)

- Creating something new, different and amazing gives us immense satisfaction.


We would like to pass this award to these inspiring bloggers :
- Phillipa
- Asma
- Paula
- Jill
- Suganthi
- Antonella
- Anastasia

Happy Crafting!

Happy Birthday "Craft Ideas for All"

Two years ago, this day we started this blog. The idea was to have a portal to share our creativity and in the process inspire and get inspired to create new and beautiful things. We did not know then how much time and energy we will be able to devote, but we were sure about one thing, we wanted to give it a try.

Two years later Craft Ideas for All has become such a special part of our lives. A lot has happened in these two years. One of us has a little baby girl all grown up into a toddler( that too a crafty one), the other has had a baby boy who keeps her on her toes all day... we have had our share of joys and tough times. And in between all these CIFA had been the escape, the place where we both love to share our creativity and get connected with the creative world on web. Both of us live in separate cities , but CIFA has made our bond stronger too. Its so much fun to create something and ping immediately to get feedback from the other(Hoping its positive :)).

We have received so much love and appreciation from our readers and still get excited on each and every of your comments. Hoping that all the love and encouragement from our readers and the support of our family will give wings to our imagination just like this butterfly and we will keep bringing fun and new craft ideas for all of you to enjoy and create.

Happy Birthday CIFA and a very Happy Festive Season to all our readers.

-Amrita and Nimisha

Thank You Readers !

Dear Readers, Followers and Friends,

 Its celebration time for CIFA team ! With your support, encouragement and motivation ,our Blog now has 90 posts and got more than 55,000 hits.Thank you all so very much. Your readership, comments and invaluable suggestions for new projects keep us going.

We are happy to tell you that apart from the readers from around the globe, our creations have been  featured in multiple craft websites as well.  Our search page rankings have improved too and we get excited when our craft work like Pencil Shavings art, Spray painting and Quilling projects appear in top search results.

We have been trying to ,make our blog more interactive and easy to share. We are on Facebook at  Craft Ideas For All . You can follow us on Twitter too. We would love to have your input on improving our blog and any specific projects you want us to try. With upcoming holiday season, we will try to post interesting and relevant craft ideas to keep the festivities going.  Please post a comment or send your suggestions at craftideasforall@gmail.com .

We started this blog to share our creative world with all of you and now it has become something very close to our hearts. Recognition of hard work is the sweetest reward and its very heart warming to receive appreciation from people with whom our only connection is passion  for creating something new and beautiful.

Our heartfelt thanks to all our readers and a small shout out to our hubbies for their support and to our beautiful kids who inspire us to make their world beautiful, one creation at a time.

Keep creating and be happy !

- Amrita and Nimisha

P.S. : Nimisha made this cake for her hubby's birthday and Amrita did not get to eat it  :) .

Handmade Summer Flower Arrangement

Usually I need some inspiration or a reason to create something. I have been thinking of giving something handmade to my sister-in-law since long, but have not been able to do so due to some reason or the other. During the last long weekend when my sister -in-law and her family made a last minute plan to visit us, I thought what better occasion to give a handmade heartfelt creation.Like almost most of my creations this is also one of the creations which I created keeping the receiver and the occasion in mind. Since their marriage anniversary was also there in a couple of weeks I decided making a beautiful clay flower arrangement in bright colors to brighten their day. I decided on rose and hydrangeas as they depict the long lasting love and friendship which is the key to a happy marriage.



Well, time was a limitation this time too but since I had to do it, I had to find a way to do it. Clay flowers do take time and skill to create and this is one craft you cannot sit and do in one go. It does take time and I used any spare time I got during the day and the night.
For this lovely arrangement

Supplies used :
-Ceramic pot
-Deco Clay : white, red, yellow, green
-Foliage
-Wire
-Floral Tape
-Floral foam

Please refer previous posts for the step by step tutorial for the technique used to create rose.Hydrangeas are used as filler flowers along with contrasting foliage. The different shades shown in the flowers are achieved by mixing the basic colors of the deco clay (the japanese air dry clay).



The above pictures show the flower arrangement from various angles and close up too.
I am very pleased with the result and would love to know your opinion too.




p.s.: I am glad that my brother-in-law and sis-in-law also liked it along with my hubby. My hubby was there all along supporting me especially during the last phase of this project. Lucky me.

Kusudama Flowers in a Vase

Origami Kusudama Flowers are one of the cutest origami creations. It is easy enough for kids to make with little adult supervision. These make a perfect gift for their Mom this mother's day. What can be more simple, easy and beautiful?
Follow the instructions and pictures to make one of these for your mom this Mother's Day.

Supplies you will need:

- Origami paper 3 inch squares : 5 for each flower
- Green Chenile stems - 1 for each flower
- Glue
- Vase (if you want to keep in vase)
- Scissors (optional, if you want to cut squares from bigger size paper)

Origami Paper is easily available from various online resources like Amazon.com
We have used Melissa Doug Origami Paper 6" squares They are great for beginners. We cut them into 3 " squares.

Follow the steps shown in the set of pictures to create your first flower.


1. Collect the supplies.
2. Cut into 3 inch squares.You need 5 such squares for one flower.
3. Take one square.
4. Flip it so that the white side is on top and fold bottom corner to top.
5. You get a triangle, now hold the right corner and bring it to the top point.
6. Now bring the left corner to the top. You will get a square.
7. Fold the right flap down so that it matches the edge of square.Press firmly.
8. Fold down the left flap so that it matches the left edge of the square.
9. Open the right side flap as shown to flatten them.


10. Open the left side flap in the same way.
11. Fold the top triangle on the right side towards you. Crease gently.
12. Fold similarly on the left side.
13. Fold the triangles back.
14. Put little glue on the edges as shown.
15. Glue the outside triangles and hold it till it sticks.
16. One of the five petals is ready.
17. Make five such petals.
18. Glue the five petals together to make a flower.



19. Make one more such flower in any other clor of your choice.
20. Take two chenile stems. Keep the length about 1 inch more than height of vase.
21. Simply push the stem from the center hole of the flower.

Your flowers are ready.



Give them as is or put them in vase. Gift this lovely Kusuduma Flowers in a Vase to your mother on mother's day.


Tips:
-Make 5 of these flowers and tie them with ribbon to gift as a bouqet.

-Make 12 of such flowers and glue them together to make the famous Kusudama Ball.

-Kids can gift it to their friends or decorate their table too.

Coin Purse with Foam Stickers

This cute little coin purse was decorated by my 2 year old daughter on her birthday. I was not too sure whether this project was ideal for her age or not. Still I gave it a try. To my pleasant surprise it was a great hit. The moment I showed her this coin foam purse and the glitter stickers, she got so excited. This purse is still the favorite handmade possesion she has. Decorating the foam coin purse with attractive foam stickers is a very good activity for little kids esp girls.
You as a parent just need to give them the supplies and let their creativity juices flow. Help only when they ask for it. Once it is done, they feel so happy about creating something on their own. It boosts their confidence.What follows is hours of playing and admiration of their own little creation. This is a good idea for birthday favors as well as play dates.
This is how we did it.
Supplies needed-
Ready to decorate Foamies Coin purse 3 1/2" tall & 4" wide .
Foam stickers with glitter flowers and leaves

Follow the pictures for the steps of creating this cute craft.



Tip
The purse and stickers are easily available in craft stores like Michaels and Hobby Lobby. It is cheaper to get them online if you need them for lot of kids. Click the links above for some of the resources I found online.

Yipeee !!! We got our first Blog Award

We are very happy and excited to announce that couple of days back we received our first Blog Award....
The "SUNSHINE BLOG AWARD" by Christine of Blossom Crafts

The Sunshine Award is awarded to bloggers whose positivity & creativity inspires others in the blog world. This Award truly brought Sunshine to our days ...

Thanks so much. It feels wonderful to know that our creations inspire our readers and make them smile. We take this opportunity to thank all of our followers and readers for their support and encouragement. Their kind words motivate us to keep creating better and more beautiful creations.

More on this award soon.....

Craft Ideas for All

Craft Ideas for All (CIFA)  is a blog for all things creative. We share our craft ideas and provide step by step tutorials for crafts  varying in difficulty and interests. This blog is a platform for us busy moms to share our creative world with fellow artisans and all others who share our passion for all things creative.


A few words about the CIFA team :

Amrita:
As unique as everybody else, I like to live my life surrounded by family and friends. Creating gives me immense satisfaction, whether its paper quilling, clay flowers or just any new medium I get to try my hands on. I am a busy stay at home mom and am learning to live life as it comes with a smile on :)

Nimisha:
Very passionate about creating crafts to amaze myself and people around me. It gives me immense pleasure when I create something new. I believe that "A thing of beauty is joy forever"