Making your own Bubble Mailers

Bubble mailers are a very useful for mailing items. So how would you go about making your own if you tried? Someone on Crasftser has an excellent tutorial on just that using decorate paper, bubble wrap, glue and a few other household items.

Choosing Wedding Favors

Weddings are a time of celebration, and included In the tradition are wedding favors. But choosing the right wedding favors can be a daunting task for the uninitiated. However, popular wedding favors include:
· Wine glasses
· Shot glasses
· Honey jars
· Photo frames
· Soaps
· Candy
· Lip Balm
· Ribbons
· Coasters
· Bottle openers
And don’t forget to use wedding favor boxes and the more personalized the better!

Take out Boxes at restaurants

Take-out boxes are a must at American restaurants, where the sizes of servings often border on a practical joke. The good news is that take out boxes allow you to take leftovers home and extend these portions out over 2 or more meals. Chinese take out boxes are among the more well-known of these.

Custom Shopping Bags: A Win-Win-Win

Custom shopping bags are a bit of a win-win for the retail industry.  Retailers get the option to customize shopping bags to suit their own brand.  So when customers subsequently use these bags, that retailer benefits from the free branding/advertising.  On the other hand, this is not a one-way deal.  Customers get to choose what customized shopping bag they are going to use.  What this means that customers get to customer their own shopping experience.  Add to this, custom shopping bags are likely to be re-used, which cuts down on the number of paper or plastics bags, helping the environment and making this more of a win-win-win situation.

Bubble Mailers and Bubble Wrap for Cardboard Boxes

Bubble mailers (often referred to as bubble wrap) make for a great investment choice.  By protecting the contents of items being shipped, bubble mailers help ensure safe delivery of the most fragile of items.  This is especially useful given the fact that  cardboard boxes provide very little protection from the shock associated with standard shipping methods.

Aside from its well-known use in the shipping and packaging industries, bubble wrap is sometimes used for other things.  Some of these varied uses include insulation for dog houses, protection for plants against freezing weather, and some even claim therapeutic success.  Environmentalists will be happy to know that bubble wrap is recyclable.

Back to School: Making Magnetic Bookmarks with Ribbon

Summer is almost over and you know what that means…it’s time to go back to school! You may be thinking of ways to create cute back to school crafts for your kids. From decorating notebooks with patterned cardstock to creating a personalized fabric pencil pouch, the possibilities are endless. One neat little project I stumbled upon is making magnetic ribbon bookmarks. These make great gifts for any book-lover and are perfect for your kids to have throughout the year.

Materials:
7/8” Grosgrain ribbon – your choice of pattern and/or color. If you have leftover grosgrain ribbon from other crafts projects, this is a great time to use them!

Scissors
Sticky back magnetic strip

Instructions:

1. Cut a piece of grosgrain ribbon that is 12 “ long.
2. Cut 2 magnetic strips that are each 4” long.
3. Take the sticky back off one of the magnetic strips and paste it onto one end of the ribbon.
4. Take the other magnetic strip and paste it on to the opposite end of the ribbon.
5. Fold the ribbon in half so that the two magnets touch and stick to each other.

Types of Hot Glue Guns

One tool that is commonly used in crafts is a hot glue gun, which is extremely easy to use and is relatively inexpensive. In order to use a glue gun, you will also need glue sticks which come in a variety of sizes. Make sure to purchase the correct sized glue sticks for your glue gun.

There are two main types of glue guns: high temperature glue guns and low temperature glue guns. High temperature glue guns are used for bonding material such as wood, plastic or metals while low temperature glue guns are ideal for lightweight materials such as lace, ribbon, or fabrics. Due to the nature of craft materials, many craft glue guns use a low temperature since it is less likely to cause burns and can handle delicate craft materials better. Dual temperature glue guns, that feature both low and high temperature options, offer the convenience of switching between temperatures for different projects.

As an adhesive applicator, glue guns are a great investment since they are cheap, easy to store, and last a long time. Glue sticks typically have a long shelf life compared to other forms of adhesive which may lose their effectiveness over time. Overall, whether you are a craft junkie or an occasional crafter, a glue gun is a great tool to have around the house.