Lay the t-shirt on a flat surface. Then measure about an inch and then cut from one side of the t-shirt across the width of the shirt (e.g. right waist to left waist and NOT hips to neck).One inch is a good length because if it’s too many inches, the shirt will not roll well, and if it’s too thin, it will easily break or pull apart. Thus, one inch is ideal.

Then, grab the two ends of the loop and stretch the loop. The loop should naturally roll and go from a flat loop-create somewhat of a tube.

The wider or larger the t-shirt, the longer each loop will be. So, if you want a shorter necklace/scarf, use kids’ t-shirts or small shirts and for longer shirts, use men’s or XL t-shirts.

Continue to do this until you get to the sleeves. You can do a number of different things when you get to the sleeves. You can cut off the sleeves and then cut from shoulder to armpit of the sleeve to create smaller loops. The remainder of the t-shirt where the sleeves were will no longer be connected loops. You can tie the ends of these strips to make loops. Alternatively, you can make large loops from one sleeve end to the other. These will not be complete loops either, so you can also tie the ends.

Finally to keep the loops in place, take a scrap strip, with which you want to have an even thickness.

Later you will be able to adorn the loop ties iwth buttons, beads, or gems to make it prettier. You can also wrap those pieces so that the strips are wrapped perpendicular to the loops that are tied.

Ingredients

• 1 box of Rice Krispies
• 1 bag of marshmellows
• Stick of butter
• Green food dye
• M&M’s
• Star Rold Gold Yogurt Pretzels (holiday edition)

Guide

1. Make Rice Krispies Treats with the standard recipe.
2. Melt 2 Tablespoons of butter and 1 bag of marshmellows, and then mix in 6 cups of rice krispies.
3. Then, mix green food dye with the rice krispy mix.

1. Pour the mix while it’s still hot into a pan or bowl for the mix to set and cool.

1. You can use parchment paper to avoid dealing with the inevitable sticky pan.
2. Parchment paper serves as a great tool to also shape and smooth the mix so that it won’t stick to a spatula or other tools.

1. As you can see, I use parchment paper to pound and shape the mix.
2. Let the mix start to cool and then add M&M’s. You do not want to put the M&M’s in too soon, but you’ll want to wait for it to cool a little before adding in the M&M’s. If it’s too hot, the colors will bleed and the chocolate will melt. The M&M’s mimick ornaments.

1. Once the mix has cooled, cut the treats into rectangles. These will then need to be stacked with a cross at the bottom. Then, stack the next row so that the bottom layer is longer than the next layer. Continue this pattern until you only have one treat to add at the top. You can add Rold Gold holiday yogurt covered pretzels that are shaped as stars to top off the treats.

Each year, this show grows larger in both the participating artisans as well as the number of attendees. There was a wide range of artisans from needleworkers and fashion designers to papercrafters to green thumbs to jewelry makers, etc… I found that SFMade.org, which hosted it’s fair the prior weekend, December 9th with about 100 artisans, had a better representation of food artisans while Renegade had its fair share of fashionistas showcasing their work.

Typically at these shows you’ll see a fair mix of card makers and paper crafters, an overwhelming majority of jewelry makers or metalsmiths (usually a wide range of styles though), and a decent representation of crocheter/knitters/general needleworkers. I was please to see a lot of soap and fragrance at SFMade and innovative papercrafters (not just cardmakers) at Renegade. Renegade brings artisans from outside of the Bay Area, so you got to see a flavor of artisanal work beyond our Bay Area bounds hence the large representation of fashion and less emphasis on food.

Some of the trends that I saw at these shows included the following:

Sophisticated Green: Green and eco-friendly artisans are getting more sophisticated with their crafts.

Upcycling gone Wild: Upcycling, which is a subcategory of green/eco-friendly, has been around for the longest time. Repurposing our old goods to make them trendier, different, and fresh or just identifying a new use for

Innovative Paper: Papercraft is always a go-to for crafters everywhere. Whether its paper for card making or using paper within decor, its an essential item. Funky Paper offered exciting puzzle boxes while others showcased beautiful prints.

Fabric as Jewelry: Upcycling or using interesting fabrics to make jewelry was prevalent and a new version of standard gems and bling. Cotton necklaces that can also be reverted into scarves are popular new accessorizing fashion. Felt popped up as another material of choice for many of the vendors.

Food with a Twist: Artisan food makers weren’t just making standard chocolates or jams but adding twists and unlikely flavors. Salt and balsmic chocolate was one of my favorites.

Get printed paper , wrapping paper, or magazines as paper to use.

The side of the paper that you should face bottom. Measure and mark one inches apart on one side of the paper, and then on the parallel side measure one and a half inches apart. You can then connect the one inch and two inch marks to the one and half inch to make a triangle shape (if this is the pattern you decide to  use).

Then use a chopstick or a cylinder stick to wrap the bead. First, wrap a little bit of the paper so that it initially covers stick. Then add dabs of glue on the upside of the paper . Do not use too much glue because it might make the bead stick to the stick.

You may need to roll and unroll the beads so that it keeps straight.

Finally, when you are at the end slather the tip of the paper with glue to make it stick.

To dry, put the sticks on or in a cup or jar. Do not leave them on the table because they will stick to the table.

You can make a bunch that you then string together as a bracelet or necklace.

Reeses (or even carmels or square candy), Hershey Kisses or holiday Crunch bar bell-shaped candy (used in this example), chocolate sauce, and blue sprinkles.

Toothpicks or pretzels both work as the spinner.

See the chocolate sauce recipe here.

Make a hole in the Reese’s (or square candy) at its center and then another in the Hershey as well. Make sure that these  candies are aligned.

Use chocolate sauce or nutella to stick together the Reese’s (or square candy) and the Hershey kiss (or Crunch bell) to stick together. Then take the toothpick and put it into the Reese’s and Hershey’s . This will make it easy to dip into the chocolate sauce.

Once it is covered in chocolate sauce, pour blue sprinkles over it. Use a bowl to be able to catch the excessive sprinkles. Then lay them down to harden or dry. Before it is completely dry you can add a straight pretzel in place of the toothpick as a spinner.

[Tip: For the chocolate and sprinkles to harden, you can put the dreidals' toothpick in styrofoam and sticking up so that you don't have to misshape one of the sides.]

 Materials:

• Required: Magazine
• Optional: Glitter, spray paint, glue, felt

Directions:

1. First, find an old magazine that you will able to use for this project. Second, open the magazine. It can actually be at the beginning or at any page where you’d like to begin. You will be using all of the pages.

2. Open the page so that you are looking at the page with the left side as part of the binding and the right side facing outward. Next, take the upper right-hand corner of the magazine page and fold it toward the left side where the binding is. Fold so that the upper-right corner and the top side of the page is now aligned with the left side binding. [Note: you can do this also the opposite direction where you are turning pages from left to right. Take the upper left-hand corner and bring it inward to the right side where the binding is.]

3. Then, take the new right corner, which is in the middle of the page and at the end of an angle. You can see this new corner in the photo. Take this corner and fold it into the binding. You can see the arrows that point to the outer corner and the inner binding, to where you should fold it. Press down the fold to make sure it stays in place.

4. Turn the folded page from the right side to the left so that it is out of the way, and you are on a new, unfolded page. Do not tear the pages and keep them bound. Below this examples of what the pages should look like after you have completed a few pages. However, in the right photo, the pages are folded out of the way just to show a few complete. The left photo shows the aforementioned directions.
 5. Repeat this with each page of the magazine. It will naturally create a cone, which will free stand on its own.
6. Finally, you can decorate these trees with spray paint, glitter, paints, pens, or other decorations.

Paper Butterflies

Some of my favorite crafts made included paper butterflies that wind up and fly. These are often placed in cards, and then when you open the card, they fly! These are pleasant additions to make any occasion special.
Here is a tutorial on how to make them!

Frames

We also decorated frames with yarn, felt, and paint! Here is a photo of one of them.

They purchased basic wooden frames form Michael’s or Ikea, and then used colorful yarn to wrap it. Start wrapping the frame, and make sure each wrap is taught and close to one another. The end of the yarn can then be tied to one of the wrapped pieces. A few people used glue on the back side to secure the placement, but it is not required.The corners are the trickiest part. These either need to be placed using glue otherwise the angle ends up slipping of the corner. Alternatively, you can just put felt or some other design or material in the corners.

Snow Globes

Snow globes were a fun project. This was a Martha Stewart inspired project. Though, some of the instructions weren’t totally clear. So, here is a tip: we found the epoxy instructions to be a bit odd. Note you need to seal it after you’ve closed the jar. If you put the epoxy on before, the jar will not close. Also, be careful not to put too much glycerin in the distilled water otherwise the glitter will stick.

Felt Animals

Finally, we made some felt animals including owls, which are quite trendy these days. Owls are great not only for kids but even adults. Felt animals are quite fun. There are a bunch of templates around the web. You can use home jars as circles or of course stencils.

Find your favorite paper. Thicker card stock is better for sturdiness and structure. Fold the paper in half.

Then fold the paper in half again so that it’s in quarters.Then unfold the paper, and cut the paper in half on the fold that it separates the two parts.

You want to make sure that one half fits well inside the other half of paper. They should both be identical pieces and one inside the other should be parallel.

Take the inner part of the card and then make cuts about half an inch thick.

You can choose a certain word or design that you want on the pop-up card. Then push the cut in the opposite direction as seen below. These cuts will then be perpendicular to each side . When you close the card, the popped out cut will be pushed out. You don’t want to cut too deep into the card so that it pops longer than the card.

Cut out adornments or designs. This can be a word, such as ‘Joy’ in my example or some other design. Each item that you want in a different dimension, you should have a different half inch cut. Then glue the item to popped out section that is perpendicular to the bottom of the card.

Finally glue the outside of the card to inner part of the card using glue. Glue the outer edge and the near the fold. Let it dry for about an hour .

Below are a bunch of project ideas including the following:

• Board games (chess, checkers, cards, etc..)
• Crochet , felt, or fabric stuffed animals
• Holiday decor, ornaments, and wreaths
• Other games (tanagrams, concentration, connecting blocks, etc…)
• Backpacks, clothes, hats, booties, scarves, gloves, onesie, etc…

Guides and lists of great toy projects:

101 Gift Guide by Everything Etsy : One of my favorite guides for a wide variety of 101 projects.

25 Educational Games for kids by Babble

Highlights

Papercraft:

• 101 Free Printables
•  Oliblocks
• Blocks
• Paper Punk
• Hopscotch
• Paper hot air balloons
• Tangrams
• General Crafty Gifts by Instructables

Crochet & Needlework

• Pillow Clock
• Booties
• Hats
• Decor
• Crochet patterns

Board Games & Education:

• Board games graphics 
• DIY Chess
• DIY Checkers

Other Gifts…

• Jewelry
• Home Decor
• Other great pinboards
• Backpack 

• Marshmellows
• Chocolate sauce
• White chocolate chips (or pre-made candy eyes)
• Pretzels
• Red M&M’s or cinnamon candy heart sprinkles or Twizzlers

Chocolate sauce:

• 2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 oz. bittersweet chocoalte
• 1 2/3 cups white sugar
• 1 1/4 cups waterr
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1.  In a medium saucepan, whisk together the water, sugar, and cocoa powder.
2.  Over medium heat bring it to a boil. Once it’s just begun to simmer and boil, remove from heat and  then add the chopped chocolate; stir in the chopped chocolate until melted.

Nutella or one of your dipping chocolate sauces can be alternative to making your own chocolate sauce.

Prepare 2 white chocolate chips per marshmellow and one red candy (cinnamon or red M&M). If you have chosen to use Twizzlers, you might want to unpeel a few of the strings to make it smaller so that it won’t cover the whole marshmellow side.  Then slice the Twizzler like you would a carrot or cucumber into slices.

For the antlers, break the pretzels in half. It will require a few since many of them break. Even if they do not break evenly, you can break the mirrored pieces off the other side.

Then add the two white chocolate chips as eyes and the cinnamon candy (Twizzler or M&M) as the eyes and nose. You can add with a toothpick chocolate as the pupils of the eyes.

Finally add the antlers at an angle down to the sides of the marshmellows. They should be at somewhat of a 60 degree angle.

Take a marshmellow and cover it in chocolate sauce. You can do this using a toothpick or other appetizer stick or even a fork. You make want to keep one side not covered since you will lay the marshmellows on a pan that might make them stick or get messy. This also depends on the type of sauce. If it hardens quickly or well like a store bought sauce, you can cover the whole marshmellow.

If you have a sauce that hardens fast, you need to work quickly and do one reindeer at a time. However, if the sauce seems to take some time to cool and harden, then you can cover a bunch of the marshmellows in chocolate before adding the decorations.

You can let them cool for about 15-20 minutes or put them in the refrigerator to keep them for awhile.