Holiday Magnet Name Cards

This was a craft I made to enhance favors for our Holiday Party at work. The only thing I had to purchase was the magnets for the back. I figured if I was going to spend 4 hours making 30 place card name tags I could at least make them a reusable item :)

You will need:

• Scrapbooking Paper
• Decorative Scissors
• Crafting Glue or Double Sided Tape
• Regular Scissors or Paper Slicer
• Snowflake Punch Out
• Snowflake Brads (if you want)

All of the name cards I made had slight differences. I am just going to show you an example of two different ones. For all of them I used my paper slicer to cut the base paper out, and used the backs of scrap paper for the center piece, which I wrote the names on. The one above I punched out 4 snowflakes and used the scraps as well. I glued all the pieces together using crafting glue that dries clear. 

For this one I used 3 pieces of paper that I layered on top of each other. Again I used the crafting glue. I also used the decorative scissors to create a fun edge. For an added touch I put 2 snowflake brads on the corners.

The final touch was to add an adhesive magnet to the back. I bought a 25ft roll and have plenty left over for other projects. Although this is a simple craft I do have a few tips:

• I found it easiest to stick with the 3 layered look. I just switched up which papers I was putting together. It was fun to play around with different patterns.
• I liked the common theme of them all having paper snowflakes. I only used the brads on my example.
• The decorative scissors really gave them a nice finish. You can even cut it to make decorative edges. (Which you can see in the right corner of the picture above)
• BIGGEST TIP:  I found it was much easier to use double sided scrapbooking adhesive. I use the permanent kind and it sticks together really well. Plus it saves you from waiting for the glue to dry.

Corkboard Picture Frames

A couple of months ago Crafty Kid was with me at Michaels and we picked up a bunch of raw cork for a school project she was working on. It was marked down 60% and I figured I would eventually find a use for it. Flash forward to a couple weekends ago, my sister was in and we went to the Salvation Army. I found a bunch of picture frames between $.50 and $1 a piece. Score! I knew immediately that I could make some pretty cute framed corkboard memo/keepsake holders.

Supplies needed for this project:

• Raw Cork Pads (4x4 size used here)
• Picture Frames
• Cardboard 
• Crafting Knife (exacto)
• Hot Glue Gun

First thing I did was take out the glass in the picture frame. (Consider keeping it for future projects if you have the room to store it.) I then took a cardboard box and cut it to the size of the frame since this is what you are going to glue your raw cork on to. Make sure to put the unmarked side of the cardboard facing up because the color closely matches the raw cork. Close the back of the frame up. Now you can start to space out your raw cork.

I glued a solid 4x4 square of the raw cork in the top corner with hot glue. From there I started to measure out the pieces that would fill in the rest of the space on the cardboard. I have no tip or trick here. I just eyed it up and tried to be precise. The crafting knife cuts the raw cork nicely. I scored it and then gently cracked the raw cork in half. I then used the crafting knife to clean up the cut edge. I glued these pieces into place until all of the cardboard was covered.

As you can see above they turned out nice! Don't worry about small gaps in the cork puzzle pieces you've now connected. The cardboard underneath is such a close color you can barely tell. Also, if you are truly using these for their intended purpose they will soon be covered in memos, pictures, and keepsakes.

I think this could make a great gift as it can be utilized in both your home or at the office.