craftgrrl | Tutorial and Misc. Pictures

Just joined, though I have been meaning to for a while. Lots of neat stuff posted in here :). I have always wanted a friend to make me a home- made gift. I don't have any craft training per say, I tend to use the trial and error method. I do have a BA in art though. Here's what I wanted to show you:

I took his favorite brand of beer (Tsing Tao) and made new labels in Photoshop. There are images of us in there too.

What you'll need:
-40" of bamboo that will be cut into eight 5" pieces
-something to cut bamboo (I actually used pruners)
-hot glue gun
-glue sticks (I use about two small sticks)
-scissors to cut the paper
-two 15" pieces of twine
-optional images to paste on the side of the lantern
-optional glue stick for the images
-the following templates
-nice paper to cut the templates

Appr. time to complete: 30- 45 minutes

Step 1:
cut out one base (dotted lines mean bend inwards, thick lines means cut)

Step 2:
Hot glue spots show how you will fold the corner pieces inward to create a corner

Step 3:
cut out two sides (dotted lines mean bend inwards, thick lines means cut)

Step 4:
With the first side piece, hot glue the "glue here first" area to the outer side of the base (leave the "glue this second" area for now.

Step 5:
With the second side piece, do the same thing.

Step 6:
Now glue the "glue here second" portion onto the outer base, as well as glue the flap under the larger portion of the side piece.

Step 7:
At this point, if you'd like to add additional images to the sides, do so by gluing them with a glue stik.

Step 8:
Hot glue two parallel pieces of 5" bamboo to the sides of the lantern

Step 9:
Glue two parallel pieces of bamboo to the other sides. I put hot glue on the edge of the lantern as well as a dot on the bamboo

Step 10:
Flip over the lantern and repeat steps 8 for the top

Step 11:
Before you glue on the second set of bamboo like you did in step 9, place two 15" pieces of twine along the bamboo already glued onto the lantern

Step 12:
Now glue on the second set of bamboo pieces like you did in step 10

Step 13:
Flip the lantern back up and bring all the twine edges together into the center above the lantern and tie them all together. Cut off any excess twine.

Voila!

click to make bigger:

click to make bigger:

My husband made one too:

click to make bigger:

My husband and I made this pole out of some bamboo in our yard (sawing off all the little branches is a pain in the butt :)). It's a lantern holder. We have a terra cotta lantern that hangs from it.

I don't have pictures, but I made a magazine rack out of bamboo yesterday and a while back my husband made a bamboo windchime.

Future bamboo plans include making:

cups

bench

ladel

For an art show opening including some of my photographs, I crafted up this hair style. The red hair was fake hair and the rhinestone hearts were glued directly into my hair via Elmer's. It's water- based so I just washed it out later.

After seeing MAC's eyeshadow prices, I made my own. I had all these old brightly colored chalks from my art classes that I bought from art supply stores really cheap. I took a hard object (I think it was actually a metal hair barette) and scraped the edges of the chalk into an old contact case. I haven't had any irritation from it. It does tend to stick better if i start with a "base". I just use non- minty chap stick.

Up next for me: hand made paper from flowers I have hand grown and pressed myself :).