Holiday How-to Christmas: Snowman Wreath Ornament

With the hustle and bustle of Christmas we didn’t get around to share our 2017 Sculpey & Swirly Holiday how-to project.
Our festive Snowman wreath ornament is telling you to hang in there and enjoy the holidays with your love ones. A fun project to make for your a holiday swap, gives as a gift or just hang on your tree.
You can find this project here.
Merry Christmas!

This project is for personal, non-commercial use ONLY.

Swirly in Craft Ideas Magazine Fall 2016

 We are thrilled to be part of the 2016 Fall issue of Craft ideas Magazine with a Thanksgiving project.

Corn cob place card holder

 

What we really enjoy with the how-to project for the magazine is that will supplied them with step by step photos to make the project.

 

 Be sure to check out a copy of Craft ideas Fall magazines at your favorite magazine seller.

Holiday How-to Summer: BEACH sign

This project is for personal, non-commercial use ONLY. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Ahhhhhh summer! Create this sea glass beach sign to display at your home this summer!

Learn how to here !

This project is for personal, non-commercial use ONLY.

Holiday How-to Easter: Petite Bunny Basket

This project is for personal, non-commercial use ONLY.

We are so Egg~cited to share our New Polyform Easter how-to:
Create and celebrate Easter with these sweet petite Bunny Baskets. These mulit-purpose designs can be used as décor pieces, to adore your Easter tree or placecard favors for your guests. Designed by Lianne and Paul Stoddard of Swirly Designs - Handmade Polymer Clay ornaments - these baskets are easy and adorable! You can find the project here.

Holiday How-to Christmas: Holly Snowman Figurine

This project is for personal, non-commercial use ONLY.

Do you want to build a snowman? 
Put on your winter sweater, make yourself a cup of hot cocoa and sit down for a little crafting on these snowy days.
Our new Scupley & Swirly how to is the perfect winter time project.
You can find the instruction here.

Revisit these fun Easter Tutorials

Easter isn't until Sunday, so that means you still have two full day of crafting. We thought we would revisit these two very popular Easter tutorials. Our Mini Swirly Bunny how-to is one of our most pinned project on Pinterest.

 

Creating these Egg Carton Baskets is a wonderful project and a way to recycle all those extra egg cartons from your Easter egg decorating.    

Happy Easter!

Somerset Holiday & Celebrations 2013

Even thou this magazine was released back in early September, it's one you can refer back to all year long, since it has how-to projects for many holidays and celebrations through out the year.
We are especially overjoyed to have had contributed two holiday themed projects: a Halloween project and a Valentine's one for the 2013 issue of Somerset Holidays & Celebrations.
If you were busy running around for the holidays like a lot of us and missed this issue on newsstands, you can pick up a copy online here.

A Mini Tree Make-Over

 

We had so many things we wanted to share with you during the Christmas season, but time always seems to get away from us, and we never get our posts up. Well until now, so even though this might be a Christmas project you could be crazy like us and display your trees all year round... so this idea is for you now or pin this for Christmas 2014. 

We did a mini makeover on this 30" green table top tree we picked up at one of our many visits to Homegoods over the past holiday season.

(btw Homegoods is one of our favorite spots to find all types of holiday trees)    

 Wish we had a shot of the tree base. Its base was in a brown burlap bag with foe fur wrapped around it...it was oh so UGLY.  So we had to look past that and focus on the tree. We liked the color, height and the branches were easy to bend. We have been looking for a natural looking tree to display our mini woodland collection and this one  fit the bill and for $14.99  how could we not.  At another outing to HG we picked up this pot with bark on it and was saving it for the right tree. Yay!!

How~To: When we removed the burlap from the tree we were left with a small square block of cement in a styrofoam base. We removed the styrofaom and left the cement block. Then we gathered some rocks and a small bucket of quick-setting cement. We added the rocks to bottom of the pot to level the tree. We put  tree in the pot then mixed the cement. We found using a plastic spoon made it easy to scoop and pack down.

 Once the cement was packed down and smoothed over with the back of the spoon we used a wet paper towel to wipe the pot edges before the cement hardens.

**Suggestion: Once the cement hardens in the pot it became rather heavy. We preferred this since we were using it as a display at the craft show and we wouldn't have to worry about it falling over. But if you are using it for your home decor you might want to add more rocks around the sides, so you use less cement. 

The cement should harden in less than a day. We added moss to cover the base and embellished with pine cones and cinnamon sticks to give it that woodland appeal.

See how a simple little make over can turn this little tree into a treasure. We are sure this tree will be hanging around our home well into the spring season. We can already see bunnies and eggs displayed on this beauty.

Share with us your own holiday tree projects or if you have one that needs a little sprucing up, send us a photo and maybe we can help.   info@swirlydesigns.com 

Holiday How-to Easter: Bunny Egg Treat Box

The two of us here at Swirly Designs are so happy to be working again this year with Polyform Products. Together we can share with you some wonderful seasonal how-to projects. Our first

project this year is one of our personal favorites. You can create this really sweet and practical

Bunny Egg Treat Box. Find the how-to here. You can fill it with special treats for your kids basket, add it to your holiday centerpiece or even make it the golden prize for your annual egg hunt.   

The clay used in this project is called Model Air, air dry clay from Polyform. If you haven't tried it, we would really recommend experimenting with it. It's perfect for this type of project because you don't have to cook your piece and worry about the papier mache egg in your oven. But it is a lot more messier than we are used to working with since we mostly have worked with a cleaner clay like Premo for our own designs. That did take a little time getting use to. We kept a spray bottle and roll of paper towels with in hands reach so we could keep our hands clean.... but  you know it's good to get messy especially when you're in your creative groove.

Our project shows how to make feet for your bunny egg, but we also created a few without feet. On those we just decoupaged the bottom half of the egg with colored tissue paper, paint mini flowers and added a dusting of glitter. These work great to compliment your footed bunny. They also work if you plan on keeping them in a basket because they tend to be a little top heavy and roll over without the feet support. 

 

Let your creativity go crazy and paint your bunny to fit your own holiday decor. 

These are all the versions of the bunny egg we created for this how-to project. Once we made one they just started muiltiplying. :-)

The bigger the papier mache egg you choose to use in this project the more treats they can hold.

If you like this project and want to keep seeing Swirly Designs create more, be sure to visit Polyform Products facebook page and share your thoughts. You can also visit the Swirly Designs facebook page and share your feedback and share pictures of your finished Bunny Egg Treat Box.

Have a fun and Swirly Easter!

xo Lianne & Paul 

This project is for personal, non-commercial use ONLY.

How~to: St. Patty's Day Shamrock Picks

Swirly Designs is sharing a little Luck O' the Irish with you today! Join us and craft up this simple Shamrock Pick to fancy up your dessert table this Saint Patrick's Day.  

It's easy! Let's get started:

Materials: 

• Green card stock (solid or you can use a print)

• 1/16" hole punch

• heart shape punch

• mini circle brads

• bent nose jewelry pliers

• toothpicks

• green food coloring

• small bowl 

  

Step 1.

Following the direction on the food coloring box, mix the shade of green that will complement your green paper. Add in your toothpicks and let them sit approx 15 -20 minutes. The longer they sit in the solution the darker your toothpicks will be. 

Step 2.

Remove toothpicks from the dye and let them dry completely.

Step 3.

Take some green card stock and a heart shape punch and punch out three hearts. (You will need three hearts to make one shamrock so for every one you are planning to make times by 3)

Step 4.

Stack the three heart shapes together and with a 1/16" hole punch, punch a hole about an 1/8" up from the bottom of the heart shape.

Step 5.

Insert a mini circle brad through the 1/8" hole in all three heart cut outs.

Step 6.

Open the brad ends and lay your dried tooth pick in the middle, and then close the brad.

Step 7.

Use your bent nose jewelry pliers to secure the brad tighter to your toothpick. Then spread apart your hearts to create your shamrock.

Once you get one done you can really crank these out fast. Use on your cupcakes, Irish soda bread or you can write your guests name on each for place cards.

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!!

~Lianne & Paul

This project is for personal, non-commercial use ONLY.