Happy New Year!

Isn't this little guy cute? He came with my coffee on New Year's Day in Essen, Germany.

This year I learned a valuable lesson that I'm sure every first time Christmas present knitter learns: if you are knitting presents for Christmas, start them around Thanksgiving.  I, of course, learned this lesson the hard way by starting all my projects about two weeks away from Christmas.  This turned knitting into a stressful and time consuming endeavor which is silly since I really only like knitting because it is something relaxing and fun to do when I'm idle.  Along the same vein, all my other down-time activities (like blogging) fell by the wayside as well, so I'm glad that Christmas has successfully come and gone and now I can get back to all my other fun hobbies.  Please don't think I'm feeling down about this whole Christmas-knitting spree, though, because I was super happy with the results and I think that all my friends liked their presents so all is well that ends well.

Over the next week or two I will be blogging about the presents that I knitted for my friends for Christmas.  In this blog, however, I will just be showing you these fun pictures of one of the gifts I gave for Secret Santa at work this year.

For this Secret Santa project, I printed out a bunch of vintage ice skating pictures and then decoupaged them onto little tiny presents like the lip balm shown here.  I then left them for her to find almost every day.  I was aiming for every day, but I accidentally skipped a couple (we can't all be as awesome as the real Santa, right?).  I also gave her a store-bought present for the grand finale at our Christmas party. I seriously thought about knitting her something, but she would have instantly known it was me because I am the only knitter among us.  Overall, the whole Secret Santa experience was a good one this year; the girl I was giving presents to seemed really pleased, and I received some knitting supplies from my Secret Santa which was a total score.

I'll be back soon with the aforementioned Christmas knitting blogs!
xoxo
Laura

Cutesy Tools: How to Decoupage a Screwdriver

I work in a field where I occasionally need a screwdriver, and I bought a new one last weekend.  It is a perfectly functional tool so, rationally, I know that it is just as good as the one I was replacing, but the one I was replacing was pink.  This one is not.  Clearly, the only remedy for this situation was a craft project.

These are the things you will need to decoupage a screwdriver:

1. A screwdriver
2. A metal file
3. Scissors
4. Magazines (or another source of pictures)
5. Mod Podge or other decoupage glue
6. A brush for the glue (I used an old toothbrush)

And here is how you do it:

First, you will need to scuff up the hard plastic handle in order to create a porous surface for the glue to adhere to.  If you skip this step, your pictures will end up peeling right off the hard plastic as soon as the glue dries.

Then cut out some fun pictures from magazines.  An example is this hilarious selection of animals that I found in Martha Stewart Living:



Now you are finally ready for the decoupaging!  Make sure you cover your workspace with something like newspaper (or in my case, a paper bag) because this project gets very messy very fast.

Use your brush to coat the handle of the screwdriver in glue, then stick the photos all over it.

The reason why I love using Mod Podge glue is because it doubles as the glue and the sealant in one.  This way, once you finish sticking on all the photos, all you have to do is cover the whole thing in one more coat of the Mod Podge and leave the project to dry.

I did this project in the morning, left it out to dry while I was gone all day, and when I came home it looked like this:

I absolutely love it and I hope you do to!

xoxo

Laura