Posts Tagged ‘paper craft’

Creative Ways to Use Cookie Cutters #14: Scrapbooking

Tuesday, May 7th, 2013

scrapbooking

What are some other creative ways to use cookie cutters? How about scrapbooking? When you need a specific shape for your pictures, you can slap down the picture, grab a cookie cutter of the desired shape, and trace around the cookie cutter. Cut out the picture, and stick it to the scrapbooking page with double-sided acid-free tape.

I traced around the cookie cutter with an acid-free marker so that each star was outlined with black before even attaching it to the page.

“But, Susan, I don’t scrapbook, so what’s the use for me to know this?” Well, I’m glad you asked, because there are many variations on this scrapbooking theme. First of all, you could do a photo collage on one piece of scrapbooking paper and frame it as a gift.

Another idea is to make a card. Outline the shape of a cookie cutter on a photo, and glue it to some card stock paper folded in half, and you’ve made yourself a greeting card. Take a look at the simple birthday invitations I made for my daughter’s upcoming “Secret Garden” birthday. All I did was glue some pretty flower paper to the front of the card, and I outlined down the sides with black marker. Super easy and beautiful!

scrapbooking-card

 

Creative Ways to Use Cookie Cutters #11: Garlands

Thursday, May 2nd, 2013

garlands-2

Another creative way to use cookie cutters is to make garlands for your loved ones to feel special. These are the items you will need for this 15-minute project:

  • colorful papers
  • needle and thread
  • thick black marker
  • scissors

Use the cookie cutter as a stencil, and draw around it with a pencil. Cut out the shapes. I cut several shapes at a time so that the process goes faster. Or your children could cut them out to practice hand-eye coordination. Grab your thick marker. I used a marker that had an outer diameter of one inch, so it was super thick. Write one letter on each shape. Then string the shapes together with a needle and thread, sewing up and down, one stitch on each shape. Leave a gap between words. Hang it up.

garlands

Ideas for garlands:

  • Happy Birthday!
  • Welcome Home, Daddy
  • Get Well Soon
  • Happy Saint Patrick’s Day
  • Aloha
  • Happy Fourth of July
  • Congratulations on Your Graduation
  • Happy New Year
  • Merry Christmas
  • Happy Valentines Day
  • Happy Easter
  • Happy Mother’s Day
  • Happy Father’s Day
  • You Did It!
  • Baby Shower
  • Happy Anniversary

As you can see, there are many occasions where you might want to make someone feel special. Why not take 15 minutes to make a garland?

Creative Ways to Use Cookie Cutters #4: Tissue Paper Art

Tuesday, April 23rd, 2013

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Have you thought of other creative ways to use cookie cutters? Today we will look at how to make tissue paper art using cookie cutters. A flower cookie cutter lends itself well to being shaped into a flower. I just cut out a stack of 4 hot pink flower shapes, stabbed a pipe cleaner through it, and fluffed the petals. That’s it. The daffodil was formed out of two pieces of yellow tissue paper, one flat and the other one pointing outwards. I got a lid of a coke bottle and put it into the middle of the daffodil, folding the tissue paper into a cup. Super easy.

If you have other shapes of cookie cutters, you can make a tissue paper stained glass window. Start with a light color of tissue paper, like light pink, peach, or yellow. Cut the large sheet of tissue paper into a vertical rectangle with a pointed top, like a cathedral window. Tape the tissue paper to the window. Then use your cookie cutter as a stencil to make colorful shapes to glue onto the larger piece of tissue paper. This is especially beautiful with a maple leaf cookie cutter with orange, red, and brown tissue paper leaves against a yellow background. Enjoy your stained glass window.

Next up in our blog series: Creative Ways to Use Cookie Cutters #5. Hint: This was my son’s idea. We tried it one way, failed, then modified the wonderful breakfast idea until it worked!

Creative Ways to Use Cookie Cutters #2: Shape Books

Saturday, April 20th, 2013

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This is the second idea in the blog series “Creative Ways to Use Cookie Cutters.” This time we are making a shape book. If you have younger kids, these shape books can encourage your young writers to write fun stories, descriptions, or summaries. For example, a child can draw (or cut out a small picture from a magazine) and describe a different flower on each page of her flower book.

Or your son could summarize the storybook, The Gingerbread Man. Each page can explain a part of the story where the gingerbread man kept telling each character that he couldn’t be caught. He is gobbled up by a fox at the end of the story, so the concluding shape book page can be funny, with cookie crumbs all over it and a fox licking his chops.

creative-ways-to-use-cookie-cutters-3Grab a card stock paper for your front and back covers, and using the cookie cutter as a stencil, use a pencil to trace around the inside of the cookie cutter. Do this to both pieces, and cut them out. Now use the card stock shape as a stencil, cutting a stack of 3-4 sheets of blank paper at a time, to make this process go faster. You can make the book as thick as you want, as long as the staples will go through it. Staple the book all the way through on the side or on the top. Two staples will make the book more sturdy than one staple, but I decided to staple the top of the gingerbread man with one staple through the top of the head, and it was fine.

Now give these cute books to your sweet, dear children. If you don’t have any children, give them away to a Sunday School class at church, for prizes. You can make a shape book of a lamb, and tell the story about how Christ came to earth to be our sacrificial lamb.

Stay tuned for “Creative Ways to Use Cookie Cutters #3.” Hint: This next idea will come in handy at your next tea party.