Required - Decent quality printer paper suitable for photos
Sheet magnet
Roll of clear laminate (clear sticky tack?)
Very good scissors or art knife (box cutter, xacto...)

- Do a power search for paper dolls online
- Find and Bookmark the ones you like or save them to your hd
- Print them, in colour on the paper you've chosen (Make sure you arrange them in Word or something, carefully to avoid wasted materials)
- Carefully cut around the paper dolls and their clothes and accessories
- Cut a section of the laminate and pull of the backing
- Arrange the paper dolls face down on the sticky side of the laminate (carefully, avoiding air bubbles)(Again, arrange carefully to minimize wasted materials)
- Cut a matching section of sheet magnet, remove the back and stick onto the sticky side of the laminate (making a paper doll sandwich!)
-Carefully cut around the paper dolls and through the laminate and magnet.
-Trim up if necessary
**Be careful not to cut off the little clothing tab! They are part of the charm!**
- Arrange the dolls with their clothes in little boxes or baggies (handmade maybe) and give em to friends who'll love the kitsch

This is an easy and rewarding little project. Who doesn't love kitchy cute paper dolls!

It is hard to find decent representations of those great adult celeb dolls from the 50's but let me know if you want some URLs to some good ones.

I found a Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera set of online paper dolls for my friend who is a Kahlo (and Mexican folk art) freak, so I think she'll really love 'em.

Along the dollar store lines -- if you live in a large city, try Chinatown! I recently saw some beautiful soaps, that sell for about $2 each in boutiques, for 0.28 in a couple of the stores. Try the candies or sauces to make up an exotic basket for an adventurous friend. (Personal favorites are the ginger candies "ting ting jah"!) Plus, tons of cute stuff if you know a Hello Kitty fan. Also, a couple of years ago in a larger bazaar, I got some really cool dishes very cheaply. Maybe a colorful teapot and some exotic tea as a gift?
One gift I liked receiving: a friend matted a really beautiful piece of joss paper (very cheap) and wrote the translation and a message on the back.
This stuff is even better if you are going to be sending the gifts somewhere where your friends might not have easy access to them, i.e. a small town.

For Gardening Friends: A very cheap gift that gardeners (at least me!)would be crazy about are clippings of plants that they don't have. You could take them from your own plants or collect them from those of relatives and friends and put them in water in jars you have at home. To make it extra holiday-ish, wrap ribbons around the jars and put them in a pretty basket. (You might also want to write up notes with care instructions.)

i should have made a jar for myself....

As for oil, I am using apricot kernal oil, which was pretty inexpensive. You could probably use olive oil as well.

side note: is anyone else besides me having a hard time imagining yam carrying a purse?!?

In fact, I am wearing the necklace and one of the bracelets I made last night as we speak.

quote:

---

Originally posted by yam:
ooh, no, olive oil is a bad idea - even the extra light stuff has a very distinctive odor. it smells pretty gross with most essential oils.

mmm, bodyshop mango scent. I have some mango massage oil from them. soo tasty smelling. I love their vanilla perfume oil, too. actually wearing perfume gives me a rash, but I carry it in my purse on stressful days so I can whip it out and smell it from time to time.

---

Okay, I stand corrected.

Have you tried the Mango Body Butter? YUM!

This year the Body Shop has mini body butters 2 for $10 - which should go great with the scrub I'm making.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joanna:
I spent Friday night making marble magnets - somehow it never occured to me that the glass would magnify any image you placed it over! Duh. So half the cute little pictures I cut out were too big. Fortunately, I found some. It was fun! Currently they are sitting on my dining room table, still magnet-less, because my superglue had dried up. But I can't wait to make more.

---

I know - aren't those AWESOME, Jo? I did the same thing with the big pictures the first time, so I found some itty bitty pics in my Pottery Barn catalog and they came out great! (I can't believe how excited I get over those silly little things! )

Yey for all of us!

quote:

---

Originally posted by Joanna:
Hee hee - I've always noticed when people call me Jo out of the blue, it usually means we'll be good buddies. I never introduce myself as that, or think of myself as that, but some people take it upon themselves to nickname me and I know that if they do, they are a fun new friend!

---

I just think the name Jo is so cute (I hope you don't mind my assuming that it would be okay to call you that). I'm glad to have a new Digs buddy!

quote:

---

Originally posted by briddy:
it's so funny--all the digsters going home at night and working on all the same stuff--body scrub, magnets, etc.

---

Great minds think alike, briddy. How are you doing today?

Note: I have not yet done this myself, tho I may try tonight. I'll certainly report back!

Beaded Drink Coasters

Need: Florist wire, beads

Instructions: Thread the beads onto a long length of florist wire (I don't know how long exactly cuz I haven't dones this yet myself, but you can experiment)but only thread on as many as you need to make one layer in your coil and then start coiling it up to make a flat disc shape. Each time you start another layer of the coil, and at intervals around the layer (with more occurring as the disc becomes bigger) thread the wire through the last layer to affix it. Keep going until the coaster is about 3/4 the size of a CD.

Packaging: You can group them in sets of four or six or whatever and slip them into one of those little organza baggies that most craft stores sell in different sizes (like little wine bags but short and see-thru and cute!). Or for the ultra crafty, you could decorate a little round box in beads or decoupage as a permanent receptacle or gift container!

I just posted the beaded coaster thing, but I may add Shrinky Dinks and resin pendants to my list of things I am making for Xmas presents.

quote:

---

Originally posted by leanne:
OK, I've got a new one! I just saw this in one of those British decorating mags I get. It was in an ad, but I figured out how to do it at home.

Note: I have not yet done this myself, tho I may try tonight. I'll certainly report back!

Beaded Drink Coasters

Need: Florist wire, beads

Instructions: Thread the beads onto a long length of florist wire (I don't know how long exactly cuz I haven't dones this yet myself, but you can experiment)but only thread on as many as you need to make one layer in your coil and then start coiling it up to make a flat disc shape. Each time you start another layer of the coil, and at intervals around the layer (with more occurring as the disc becomes bigger) thread the wire through the last layer to affix it. Keep going until the coaster is about 3/4 the size of a CD.

Packaging: You can group them in sets of four or six or whatever and slip them into one of those little organza baggies that most craft stores sell in different sizes (like little wine bags but short and see-thru and cute!). Or for the ultra crafty, you could decorate a little round box in beads or decoupage as a permanent receptacle or gift container!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by leanne:
I just posted the beaded coaster thing, but I may add Shrinky Dinks and resin pendants to my list of things I am making for Xmas presents.

---

Shrinky Dinks!!!!! I haven't thought about those for ages! Do you mean the old timey ones, or have you discovered a new way to do them?

Suz - Shrinky Dinks branded shrinking plastic. I know a few companies make them, but when I asked the girl at Michael's where in all of gawd's creation were the bloody shrinky dinks (after coming the likliest places for an hour while Sean sat in the car while I ran in "really quick, hon" no doubt fuming as hard as I was melting!) she said, "Oh, they're in the ScrapBook isle! Weird place for them huh?" So, we all seemed to be in on the magic shrinking plastic sheets thing!

Need: Scissors, aluminum pop cans, old pizza box, tape, hammer, small nails/tacks (like carpet tacks or copper brads, push pins, ball point pen, gardening gloves/work gloves, hairspray.

Prep: Bend up your pizza box so that it forms a surface about four layers thick (or more) and tape it up a bit so that it doesn't unfold.

Put on your gardening gloves (believe me, you do not want to cut yourself with aluminum shards!!!) Poke a hole in the aluminum can near the bottom and cut the bottom and top off then cut down the middle so that you have a curled up rectangle.

With the pizza box as your work surface, place the aluminum coloured side down and secure the corners with your nails/brads but hammering them through the tin and into the pizza box.

Punching Tin: You may want to take a few minutes to look around the net for Day of the Dead images and mexican folk are stuff for some ideas of how to decorate your tin.

With your ball point pen, draw the design you will punch out on your piece of tin (but don't press too hard! You don't want to leave impressions!). With your push pin, punch through the tin along the lines of your design, spacing them about half a centimetre apart (1/4 to 1/8 of an inch).

When you have finished punching the tin, spray a bunch of hairspray on a paper towel and rub the ball point pen off. Trim up the edges and or cut it down to the proper size.

To secure the tin to wood, simply hammer it in with some brads. To affix it to other surface may be trickier -- get yourself some decent contact cement or something.

To use around a nightlight - fiddle around with the bottom so it is the same shape as the original nightlight cover or wrap it around the nightlight and bend the pieces over each other to secure.

To use on a cigar box - I coated the back of mine with Alene's and hammered through the corners and every inch along the edges, affixing it to my pizza box work surface and left it for a few days. Some of the glue came through the holes, but I wiped and later washed most of it away (it's water soluable).

just had a question and a comment: Has anyone combined sea salt and brown sugar in a scrub? sounds weird, i know, but i bought coarse salt and wondered if it might be too rough on the skin, so i thought about combining them.

i found some really, really cute dark blue small mason-style jars with secure lids to put the scrubs in. they cost $2.60 each in a bath/hippie/herb store called scarlet sage in san francisco. they had smaller clear jars for $2.10. i like that they'll be reusable for sure.

quote:

---

Originally posted by virgin_bubbles:
one more question: when you decoupage, how do you make a thin layer of glue over whatever pic you're using? do you spread it with your fingers or with a paintbrush? to get a nice shiny surface, should you use something besides elmer's glue, or is that best?

---

When I've done decoupaging in the past, I used one of those disposable sponge paint brushes (usually about .33 apiece at Hobby Lobby or Michael's craft stores) to spread the decoupage stuff over my picture. I liked it better than using a regular brush because it didn't leave little brush marks in the final product. Does that make sense?

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pinkegrl:
When I've done decoupaging in the past, I used one of those disposable sponge paint brushes (usually about .33 apiece at Hobby Lobby or Michael's craft stores)

---

I use a cheap soft fat little natural bristle brush I got at IKEA, actually. They're pretty good for wee projects like that.

I also don't use glue to decoupage, I use a clear gel acrylic. Get thee to an art supply store and get a pot (only cost me about $5 CDN and it's lasting forever!). This works as an adhesive and a shiny coating. I don't mind the texture of the brush in the finish -- it looks mighty cool.

I am a mad decoupager, I brush on the gel on the surface, then on the back of the paper piece and then make sure I brush a layer over the whole front of it as I brush it down flat. This has some advantages over doing it the squirt and stick way: it gets the coating stage in with the affixing stage, all the edges are absolutely down for good, you can keep brushing over a piece of paper until it really starts to stick and doesn't have any bubbles. The finished effect will be like you sprayed plastic coating over the whole thing and while it isn't truly waterproof, have you ever tried to liquify completely dried acrylic?