Getting Crafty

I blame Pinterest for the fact that this normally un-crafty girl is suddenly consumed with ideas on how to copy pinned ideas at home. I'm currently in the midst of three craft projects that involve fabric, clip boards, felt, and Mod Podge (which I've never used before, but it just seemed like the right thing to get). I look at pillows for sale and say, I can make those; I browse catalogues and think, All I'd need to make that is... I'm like a woman possessed by craft ideas and the sudden belief that I can do it myself.

My latest and easiest project was inspired by some felt coasters that I saw for sale in the Christmas Crate and Barrel catalogue that found it's way into my mail slot.

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For $4.95, you can have six cute coasters for your holiday beverages. In all honesty, $4.95 isn't all that bad, and if I had a store close by, I probably would have picked up a set. But the thing is, we don't have a store close at hand, which means that by the time I pay for shipping and add tax, it's closer to $12 for six coasters, and it may just be me, but I think $2 for one felt coaster is a little steep.

So I put my crafty thinking cap on and drove myself to Michael's, by way of Target. It was while I was browsing around Target that I found my first solution - a set of 3/$1 felt Christmas trees intended to be used as ornaments. I picked through the batch for the stiffest ones and ended up with nine Christmas tree-shaped coasters for $3.

I was still patting myself on the back for that one while I was walking around Michael's, when I stumbled upon some starched felt for $0.99. I decided that one can never have too many holiday coasters, so I picked up four sheets (two red, two white) of the stiff felt and headed home to dig through my cookie cutter drawer. In the end I was able to get five coasters out of one sheet of felt, which means that for around $4.50, I have the potential to have twenty (20!) Christmas coasters. Hey, if you're going to go overboard, go all the way I say!

If you're interested in trying this for yourself, here's what you'll need:

• stiffened felt (you might be able to buy regular felt and starch it - but I'm not sure, and this was easier)
• 1 snowflake-shaped cookie cutter
• 1 fine-point black Sharpie
• sharp scissors
• A good movie to watch while you're snipping away

It took me all of five minutes to trace the snowflake onto the felt and then cut it out. While I have several snowflake cookie cutters, this one looked the most like the look I was going for. Another option would be to free-hand cut your design, or free-hand a pattern and then trace it, but even this craft-mad girl knows her limitations, so I went with what was easiest for me. A co-worker suggested that I take some red thread and outline the snowflake, which I may do in the future, but for now, I'm going with simple. Here's the final product...

No, nothing fancy, but they'll do they job they need to do, and each one is equally unique! I hope to be back soon with an update about some of my other Pinterest projects, including some stenciled pillows for Christmas. Fingers crossed that I can pull that one off - and if I can, anyone can! Happy Crafting!