Sarah Jane's Craft Blog

Just a quick recycle craft tutorial this week. You know you might have a problem when you need to make a special container for your hot sauce packets. That being said, I needed a special place for my hot sauce packets. :) So I salvaged a peanut container from the recycling and made a label by finding a photo of some peppers and then searching for a transparent logo to drop over the top. I put it all together in word and added my own glowing text. Then I printed off the whole page onto regular printer paper (24lb white). Then I cleaned the label off of the peanut container. It was a stubborn one. It required a trip through the dishwasher, scraping, goo gone, more scraping, more goo gone...you get the idea. But once it was clean I measured the area that the old label covered and cut my new label to size with a paper cutter. This particular container called for a 3 1/2 inch tall by 8 inch wide label. Then I used a foam paintbrush to apply a thin layer of mod podge ...

I bought myself a subscription to Martha Stewart Living last week. It was on sale--I don't usually buy magazines. After I rolled my eyes at Martha's calendar for March (which listed her plans for starting her garden and throwing birthday parties for her grandchildren), I came across a little project for a bracelet that I could do (and had all the stuff to make). Then, I went into my craft stash and got the things I needed and actually made it. Seriously, how often does that happen (and from a magazine no less and not the digital wonderland of Pinterest)? The answer--I can't remember ever making something I saw in a magazine. Well, there's a first time for everything. I started by fishing some charms out of my bins of jewelry making stuff. I found some skeleton keys, an owl, an Eiffel Tower, a shamrock, and a little blue circle that says "Happiness." I started by using some jewelry pliers to attach jump rings to the charms. If you've never ...

Happy almost Valentine's Day! I'm so glad I could squeeze one more Valentine's Day project in this year! I had one of those heart-shaped glass bowls you can get at Dollar Tree and I wanted to jazz it up. I just couldn't figure out what to do. Years ago, when I first started working with tissue paper and mod podge, I tried to use a paper punch to cut out shapes of tissue paper to decorate a glass candle holder . It didn't work. Not even a little. I totally had to shift gears and work with patterned paper. Since then, I've done tons of tissue paper and mod podge projects . Not too long ago I saw a tutorial for another one of those projects where they punch tissue paper with paper punches...and in my head I was like: nope, nope, nopity nope, can't be done . Then I kept reading. They said they had to layer the tissue paper by folding it over several times before it would punch. I had tried punching a couple layers the first time, but not several. Oops. Ti...

A couple years ago I found a metal flower pot at Dollar Tree and decorated it for Halloween . I've used it every fall as a candy dish and it's held up really well, so when I saw another one of these metal flower pots at Dollar Tree, I grabbed it and decided to make a Valentine's Day Canister. I started out by grabbing my alcohol ink supplies (inks, rubbing alcohol, applicator, felt, craft mat). I got some new craft mats (mostly so they'd be less dingy looking in the blog photos). In addition to my inking supplies, I also grabbed a roll of painters tape . I laid out some strips of tape to make a small sheet on the craft mat, and then I used a permanent marker to freehand a heart. It was a bit sloppy, but I knew it would get the job done.  I carefully peeled the sheet of tape up off of my mat and cut it out with a scissors. I had to go back over a couple spots with my scissors because the tape had stuck to the blade and left some uneven lines. After it...