Christmas Craftalong Tutorial ~ To Do List

I don’t know about you, but I always seem to find myself juggling about 17 different craft projects, never mind all the other boring old life stuff (cooking, cleaning, blah, blah). So to help you and I get a little more organised, my first ever tutorial is a fabulous To Do List.

These are incredibly simple to make, easy to tailor to your own tastes, and use items that you probably already have around the house. My son and I made some as gifts last Christmas, so why not make some together with your kids to give as gifts this year?

You will need:

Picture frames

Paint
Glue
Glitter and / or other embellishments
Dry-wipe board markers

Start by choosing your frames. They need to be at least A5 (or have a 10 x 15cm / 4 x 6” window) but you could make a larger size if you prefer. I’m going to walk you through 2 different styles here ~ Shabby Chic and Glam Goth ~ but as I said you can adapt yours to suit your own décor, or the décor of the intended recipient.

Let’s start with the Glam Goth frame as it was the easiest!

First cover your working area with newspaper. Remove the glass from the frame and spray the frame liberally with black gloss spray paint (I used a car spray paint from my local pound shop). As soon as the entire frame is covered, sprinkle the glitter on to the wet paint and leave to dry.

I went for a heavier covering across the top edge of the frame and just a light sprinkle on the bottom. Once the frame is dry, shake off any excess glitter. You can add a coat of spray varnish if you like but I didn’t bother. Now all you need to do is print off the appropriate skull pdf, or of course you can design your own version. Cut this to size and pop it in the frame, then simply stand or hang where you need it. Tada!

And now the Shabby Chic frame

I used a sample pot of ordinary household emulsion to paint a plain wood frame. While the paint was drying I printed off some little roses that I found on the Graphics Fairy website and carefully cut them out. You could also use wrapping paper or wallpaper flowers if you have some that you like. When the paint dried I used pva (white) glue to stick the roses around the top corner. Print off the appropriate rose pdf, or design your own. Tada, mark 2!

So you can see how easy and effective this craft is. I have included the pdfs I used to make these particular versions but it’s a fairly easy task to design your own, just please do not take images from the internet that belong to somebody. There are plenty of sites where you can get copyright-free images for free, I used The Graphics Fairy for this craft. Or why not get your kids to draw something special?

Other suggestions ~ how about using white spray paint and pink glitter? Or decoupage the frame with old damaged book pages?

I hope you've enjoyed my first tutorial! Perhaps you'd like the chance to win one of these frames yourself?! Simply subscribe to my blog or comment on this post for a chance to win. Next Sunday I will put all the names in a hat and one lucky person will win one of the two shown here.

(dimwit warning: I have never tried to attach pdfs before so please be patient! If the links don't work then please let me know, I'm happy to email them to you if that helps)