Christmas Gift Certificate Tree

If you haven't already caught on, the one thing I love as much as crafting is giving gifts. I think it's the perfect outlet for my creativity. I absolutely love coming up with thoughtful gifts tailored to the recipient.

For Christmas, I decided to get my brother and his girlfriend a bunch of gift certificates to restaurants in the neighborhood in Chicago that they lived. While I thought this to be a fitting gift for them, I thought it sounded kinda boring..."here....they're gift cards for a bunch of restaurants". So, I came up with a nice way to display them that didn't seem so flat.

First I purchased a piece of rectangular foam and a gift bag from Hobby Lobby. I used a wine gift bag, and the piece of foam was probably 3/4 of the height of the gift bag. I went outside in my backyard and cut 5 or so twigs off of the leaf-less tree (it was winter time), and arranged them so they looked like a mini-tree.

Then, I made little envelopes out of cardstock and scrapbooking paper that fit each of the gift certificates. Sorry I do not have a tutorial for these....but, stay tuned - I promise to do one soon! 

With this one I used a striped patterned paper and I cut it into strips. I laid the strips out to look like a Christmas tree and cut out a non-perfect star for the top (Who likes perfect things anyways?). This one is created as a sleeve, where the top is open and the gift certificate slips out of the top. 

This one was made with patterned paper, some cardstock (the off-white) and some stickers. This one is also created as a sleeve. Notice that I cut a semi-circle at the top for easy removal of the gift certificate. 

I tried to make this one look more like an envelope. The snowman sticker is meant to look like a stamp and on the back I cut a slit and tucked the folded part of the cardstock into it to close it.

I went simple with this one. This was the first one I made, so I didn't figure out that I should cut a semi-circle on the top. With this one you actually couldn't pull the gift certificate out unless you ripped the ribbon off. It is also a sleeve for the gift certificate.

At each of the restaurants I went to, they gave me a take out menu to go with the gift certificates. I slipped those in the wine-shaped gift bag, as they were the perfect size to hide in there. 

While the gift was slightly difficult to transport, I felt much better giving this than I would have a stack of gift certificates. I think overall it turned out to be a nice gift that keeps on giving. 

Happy Christmas Gifting :)

Paint Chip Calendar

As soon as I saw this idea on Pinterest I just couldn't wait to give it a try. I made this a little over a year ago shortly after I got my job right out of school. I thought this calendar was perfect for my desk at work. I could keep track of important work events and have a conversation piece in my cube.

I've seen this calendar done with more similar colors, but I decided to go with basically all the colors of the rainbow. The first step in creating this amazing calendar is making a trip to the hardware store to pick out paint chips. I hate it when any sales associate talks to me in a store, which is inevitably what you ask for by standing in front of the paint chip display for like ten minutes. I'm sure the paint guy either thought I was painting my house a crazy rainbow array of colors or he caught on that I was using him for his paint chips. In order to get the right size squares for this calendar, I grabbed the paint chips that have only 4 colors on them. For each color I took 2 paint chips and I picked which colors made the best ombre array for each hue.

The next most obvious item you need for this project is a frame. I went with a 19" x 15" size frame for this project. I also bought a poster board from the dollar store to use to mount the paint chips to. After cutting the poster to size, I laid out all the paint chips and made final decisions on the color arrays. For the days of the week across the top, I used a light color that looked almost identical to the lightest color in the array. I wrote the days of the week using Sharpie on the small cut-outs. The numbers don't go on the paint chips, they get written on the glass since that changes every month. After taping everything down, you're done! Now all you need is some dry erase markers and some fun events to fill up the calendar with.

Happy ombre-ing! :)

Thanksgiving cupcakes

Okay, I know this is a craft blog, but these were just too fun not to share. My boyfriend's aunt asked that we bring a dessert to Thanksgiving, so, inevitably, I began searching for an idea on Pinterest. I am really not much of a baker because I have never been a huge fan of sweets, so cupcakes with some simple decorations seemed like a perfect fun Thanksgiving treat.

I started with baking some boxed regular angel food cake cupcakes. I frosted them with chocolate, but I am sure these would turn out just as cute with another color frosting. 

For the last step, you need candy corn (I used 6 pieces per cupcake and made 2 dozen cupcakes) and something to use for the eyes. I used mini M&Ms (they only had the holiday colors when I was making these), but you could use something like these if you want them to look more real.

Happy Baking :)

P.S. Hi Molly.

Scrapbooking

I've been with my boyfriend for just over 3 years now. He has an Uncle, Warren, whose wife passed away in 2007, which is way before I met my boyfriend or any of his family (obviously). Warren had a bunch of sympathy cards from his wife's passing and he wanted to have a scrapbook made with them so he could look back on them and read the nice notes people wrote about his wife. I will take any excuse for a creative outlet, and I love making other people happy, so I volunteered to make the scrapbook for him. The scrapbook turned out much better than I (or he) expected, so I thought I would share some pictures I took of the scrapbook before I gave it to Warren. Sorry the pictures aren't the best, I took these before I even had the idea of a craft blog.

This is actually the first page I did. I never do the first page of a scrapbook first because I feel like I don't have the creative juices running. I like to get an idea of the overall theme of the scrapbook, so I usually do the first page last or close to the end. Anyways, the smaller cut out on the left hand page actually has some depth to it. I bought one of those 70 cent foam pieces from Hobby Lobby to be able to add a little depth to my scrapbooking. Kinda a fun effect. 

This page is the perfect example of a great color combination. With this project, I basically had a stack of cards to pick from. In the beginning, it was really easy to match colors and make great page compositions, toward the end you will notice some not-so-great color combos. 

This is one of my favorite pages of the entire scrapbook. I absolutely love how the page on the right turned out. I grabbed a bunch of scraps of cardstock in colors that matched the card fronts and just played around with it. 

This is another one of my favorite pages. I love the purple flower design with the light teal and purple. 

 

I was a little skeptical about using such a bright color in a sympathy scrapbook, but I think tying in bits of orange with the pastel pink actually worked okay without being too in-your-face bright. 

Again, love this color combo.

This layout is a bit mismatched. Basically I wanted to try some new techniques. I love the simplicity of the page on the left with the complexity of the woven scraps of cardstock. It wasn't too difficult to do, either. I had just bought a new hexagonal stencil (by far my favorite shape). I think overall the pages turned out nice separately, but I am not entirely sold on them together. 

This is another great example of the use of scraps of cardstock that turned out really nicely. 

Warren had these little heart cut-outs that people had written notes on. I am guessing they were from the service that was held. I punched holes in all of them and thought it would be cute to make them look like they were being strung up across the page. 

I love a simple last page. Especially for such a delicate topic, it's a nice way to wrap up.

Happy Scrapping :)

Washi Tape Find!

I am such a sucker for a deal, and I love to share my findings. Don't worry, I'm not an extreme couponer, but I rarely buy any type of clothing, household supplies, etc. at full price. I frequent the dollar store for things that they sell for a great price, but that you don't have to compromise quality for.

I was super excited when I found washi tape at the dollar tree. They had a huge selection (10+ different designs), so I couldn't help myself. If you have a dollar tree near you, check it out! Not the exact quality as non-dollar store washi tape, but it definitely does the trick. I use it mostly for scrapbooking, but who knows what types of uses I'll find for it in the future.

Happy Deal Finding :)

Desserts in a Jar

What do you get for someone who has everything or enough money to buy whatever they want? This is the issue I was facing when I decided to create these desserts in a jar. They are a nice thoughtful, simple gift for someone who enjoys baking. I made these as a retirement gift for my boyfriend's aunt.

I found a bunch of different recipes on various websites and I picked the ones that sounded the yummiest. (Please excuse my dirty kitchen in the background of my photos!)

I ended up making the following 4 recipes:

• Cranberry Hootycreeks
• M&M Cookies
• Chocolate Chunk Cookies
• Sand Art Brownies

I used a funnel to get all of the sugar, flour, etc. in the jars. In order to make them look pretty, you have to strategically layer each ingredient. Alternate between ingredients with contrasting colors. All ingredients are meant to fit in regular sized mason jars. Basically the idea behind these is that all of the dry ingredients are included in the jar, they would just need the wet ingredients to complete the recipe. In most cases that is butter, eggs, milk, vanilla.....all things most people would already have around the house. The complete recipes should be attached to the jar. I included all of the tags I used for mine below. 

Ingredients (layered in this order!): 

1 1/8 cup sifted all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup rolled oats

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup brown sugar, packed

1 cup dried cranberries

1/2 cup white chocolate chips

1/2 cup walnuts or pecans, chopped

I got this recipe & tags here.

Ingredients (layered in this order):

1/4 cup sugar

1 1/4 cup M&Ms

2 cups sifted flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 tsp baking powder

I got this recipe & tags here.

Ingredients (in this order):

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 cup semi sweet chocolate chunks or chocolate chips (per your preference)
1/2 cup pecans or walnuts, chopped

I got the recipe here. For this one I made my own tag.

Ingredients (in this order):

2/3 tsp salt

1 1/8 cup sifted flour

1/3 cup cocoa powder

2/3 cup brown sugar, packed

2/3 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup chocolate chips

1/2 cup white chocolate chips

1/2 cup walnuts or pecans, chopped

I got the recipe for this one here. I made this tag myself, also. 

I chose the same type of nut for all 3 recipes so that I didn't have to spend a ton of money on ingredients. Here is what each jar looked like before I did all the decorating. You can see all the layers, which really looks cool!

For the decorations, I used a lot of stuff I already had in my crafting collection. I did go to Hobby Lobby and buy 1/2 yard of white fabric to put over the tops of all the jars. Much more economic than buying a bunch of different fabric types. I also bought the yellow and white/red string from Hobby Lobby. The red/green/white/blue ribbon is actually from the Dollar Tree, along with the blue bow that I put on top of the Chocolate Chunk jar. I used card-stock and scrapbooking paper for all of the tags.

Since these ended up being pretty heavy, I used one of those cardboard half boxes that come in the bottom of large packs of soda from Costco. I cut it in half and folded up one of the sides so all the jars fit snug. 

The gift recipient loved the gift...she said the Cranberry Hootycreeks were her favorite. :)

Happy crafting!

My first post!

Hi all,

Welcome to Arhest.

The name Arhest comes from the Armenian word for craft.

I've been wanting to create a craft blog for a while now, so this is very exciting. I'm a pretty private person, but I guess I'll tell you a little about myself. I grew up in the Northwest suburbs of Chicago with one older brother. I spent most of my childhood being carted around to his little league games, and I loved every minute of it. After high school, I moved to Madison, WI to attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 2012, I graduated with a degree in environmental engineering (I won't make you do the math, that makes me 24). I now work as a sustainability analyst for a chemical company, attempting to make the world a more sustainable place to live. I live in the Western Chicago suburbs with my boyfriend and absolutely no pets (although he has been pushing for frogs lately). We spend most of our time playing 90's video games, drinking wine, watching The Big Bang Theory & Game of Thrones, and playing Settlers of Catan with anyone who will agree to play with us. I swear we're not that nerdy.

I am passionate about the environment, crafting and Morgan Freeman. I take any excuse to put a creative spin on things, whether it be the way that I wrap a birthday gift, how I write my name on a sheet of paper, or how I decorate a bathroom. I would describe my overall style as minimalist and modern. I like geometric shapes, grays contrasted with bright colors and clean lines. I try to find beauty in everything.

Don't get me wrong - I don't claim to know a thing about art. The furthest I got in studying art is a high school level photography course. I usually just go with my gut - sometimes it turns out well, sometimes not. On this blog I will feature all of my crafting projects, and I will try to include as much instruction as possible. For the most part, I borrow ideas from pinterest or other craft blogs and put my own spin on it. I try to give credit when it's due.