My gobsmackingly awesome niece is due to turn eighteen next month and I’ve been wondering what to gift her for a while. I know I wanted to make her something, but I was unsure exactly what I could do. My boys were sitting down watching Sleeping Beauty, I was half listening as the fairy godmothers were blessing Aurora when it suddenly clicked, my niece needs to begin her adult life with a Fairy Godmother, and that’s exactly what I made [...]

Seventeen year old Shealynn is far more constructive than I was at her age, and instead of being the wild child that I was, is spending her free time created beautiful art work and tutorials and sharing them with the Internet. Way to go Shealynn! She recently shared this lovely tutorial for creating a beautiful clock out of an old book, including details on how to fit the mechanism into the pages, create the cleanest cuts and even alter the [...]

Jessica from How About Orange has created another awesome tutorial, this time how to create your own mini-boxes from paint chips. She offers a pattern for both the box and lid plus detailed instructions on how to put them together. They’re the perfect size for storing paper clips or pins, or even better using as cute little boxes – how great would they be as a ring box?! See the full how-to here.

Kate from MiniEco shows us how to create this very cute space invader paper weaving, in both rainbow and a very neon green. I love how striking it looks against the white. I don’t think I could waste this one on a gift topper though! I love the thought of creating all four designs that Katy has made, framing them in some op-shop frames spray painted bright colours and hanging them in a group somewhere in the house – I [...]

Stella from The Lovely Residence posted a tutorial to make a funky modern star decoration that would be perfect for Christmas (too soon to start thinking about Christmas?), and a nice change from using a wreath – just make sure you put it undercover so it doesn’t get wet! All it takes in six pieces of scrapbooking paper and some cuts in just the right spots. See the full tutorial here.

If you want everyone to get a little bit of handmade from you for Christmas, but don’t have the time to make up 30 different gifts, this is a great way to send a little bit of homemade festive cheer to everyone. They’re very quick and simple to make up, and look like they too far longer than they actually did, exactly what you need when you’ve got a list of handmade gifts about a mile long to make up! [...]