Tag: Craft

Gold Foil Salad Tongs

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Salad with tongs

We recently shared one of our go to Spring salad recipes. You might have noticed (or not, we don’t blame you) these pretty gold serving utensils in our Spring salad. Well, we are here to tell you how to make those exact salad tongs. All you need is some gold foil, wooden serving tongs, and a little bit of patience.

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I always swoon over all the pretty gold foil crafts that scatter Pinterest, but have been too intimidated by using gold foil. I don’t know why, it’s just one of those irrational fears. It always looks so hard and time consuming, and ain’t no body got time for that. I like my crafts quick and dirty.

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Plus, I would have to buy even more craft supplies, and believe me our tiny apartment is already bursting with scrapbook paper, stamps, and washi galore. What kit would I buy? Did I need a whole new paint brush just for the foil or can I use one of our $1 ones where the bristle hairs fall off the moment you touch it to paper. These are things that kept me from gold foiling. That and my 0 patience for anything tedious or has a drying time.

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Now that you understand where my irrational fears came from, let me tell you how I overcame them. Well, we were perusing Homegoods (loveit) and came across a pack of wooden serving utensils that just looked so plain and boring. Cue the Pinterest inspiration (pinspiration) forever engrained into my brain and an idea came to mind. Let’s gold foil the ends of these tongs and make them oh-so-cute! This is how my brain works.. anyone else? nope, k I need to get off Pinterest.

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Anywaysss.. this idea lead us to buy our first ever gold foil pack! We used this gold foil kit from who else but Martha. This is our first time foiling so I’m not sure if there are better kits out there, possibly cheaper ones? But, for our purposes this one did just dandy. And let me tell you, it really isn’t as hard as it seems. Okay, it did take a few tries to get used to and Rose had to sort of clean things up a bit, but for a first time gold foil craft I think these came out pretty spiffy.

Gold foil tongs

How we did it was we used the adhesive anywhere that we wanted the gold foil to stick (duh). We liked just the tip to be foiled and then played around with some stripes once we got the hang of it. You let the adhesive dry for about 10 minutes or so and then gently lay the foil on top. Here is the tricky part, and we learned that it is best to do smaller sections at a time instead of trying to wrap the whole sheet of foil around. It helped to actually pre-cut the foil into strips that were about the size you wanted to foil, that way you could lay them smoothly down. Once the foil is on just let it sit like that for a few hours. Or, if you are like us, forget about it for a few days and come back to it (oops – I told you I don’t like things that have to dry). Gently press down and smooth the foil onto the wood. It may tear, but that is okay, you can do more than one coat of foil. Continue this process of putting the adhesive on then the foil for all 4 edges of the wooden tong. It might be delicate but hey, you can always add an extra layer of foil to cover up any big imperfections. We ended up doing two sides at a time just to make sure it wouldn’t be wrinkled. The final step is to use a food safe sealant to make sure the gold leaf will stay put and not tarnish.

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Rose was better at laying the foil and did a wonderful job cleaning up my mess. But, I got over my gold foil phobia! Now I can foil the world! Sorry Rose..

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Holiday Gift Tags

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IMG_4363Happy countdown to Christmas! We’re starting to get in the holiday spirit and thinking about how to wrap our presents in a fun and creative way.

IMG_4334Every year I like to come up with a fun and different way to wrap my presents for my family. Last year I made pop-out card gift tags for everyone. It’s a way to make all the presents you give unique, plus it makes it easy to identify which presents are from you when they’re all under the tree.

IMG_4276We decided to make gift tags that could be used not only for Christmas but for all sorts of occasions. We have a ton of stamps, washi, and fun shaped punches that we used to make each tag unique! These are so easy and fun to make. We used the traditional gift tag shape, though Haley was inspired to change up the tag shape up for a few.

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You can get really creative with these and go all out, or you can always keep it simple, whatever your preference. Even just stamping letters would look nice. This craft is so simple and you could make some really fun stuff with just a few different colors of paper, some good markers or pens, and scissors. The stamps, punches, and washi add a personal touch to the tags, but are no means necessary to make some cute gift tags!

IMG_4297What you’ll need:

  • Colored paper (TJ Maxx always has a good set of 6×6 scrapbook paper that would be fun to use. We used this paper for our Advent Calendar)
  • Scissors
  • Glue
  • Stamps
  • Washi Tape
  • Metalic Pens (we used Gel pens)
  • Fun Shaped Punches
  • Hole PunchIMG_4339 IMG_4301

What we did:

We started by cutting out a bunch of gift tags out of paper in different colors and sizes. You can either free hand the design of the gift tag like us, or trace an image from offline. For the designs on the tags we used several different methods. For some we stamped out simple shapes and would either leave them plain, or would color over them in metallic gel pens. Other tags we used washi tape to create stripes and other shapes. Lastly, we used punch out stamps to create unique designs, such as the snowflakes.

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As you can see, we made all sorts of different designs such as ornaments, Christmas trees, stockings, presents, snowmen, tea cups, macaroons, and cupcakes. We also made ones that aren’t just for the holidays. These are some of the striped ones and others with a simple stamp or a cute cut out. Go wild and let your creative juices flow!

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