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Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Craft Hack: DIY Homemade Confetti Mix

I recently signed up for the Simon Stamps Stamp Card Kit of the Month, wow that's a mouthful. I was browsing around looking at cards for inspiration, I really don't know anything about making cards. I do know my grand-babies are going to move to England at the end of April for four long years. So my ex husband paid for the subscription so we can stay in touch.

I found a card I might base a design around (here's the link) It uses acetate as a transparency. I believe they call them shaker style cards because you add in a confetti mix and then sew them up and the mix shakes inside the transparency.

I'm sure you have noticed many crafters link to the supplies they use underneath their cards instructions this lovely card was no exception. It used a confetti mix, well a tablespoon of iridescent heart confetti mix was $3.20 and that was one seller's price. I'm sure you can spend a lot more.

Wow, I know it won't break the bank for most people and I'm not saying it isn't worth it. The mix is very pretty but if you are on a tight budget having different kinds of confetti's can add up. Honestly a tablespoon isn't that much I imagine you could only make maybe one or two cards with it. Yikes!

I don't know what it's made of exactly but I have an idea and I found a way to make my own. I haven't checked YouTube this may not be something new or earth-shattering folks may be making their own already. I haven't seen any, but I haven't looked either but I do watch a lot of videos. Speaking of which I will be making a video in the next couple days about this hack. I just thought of it because it looks like it's made of something I had just bought for another project.

Go to your Dollar Tree store and get the colored plastic index dividers I bought 8 sheets for a buck. The pack had 1 each of yellow, orange, clear, green and 2 of red and blue. Some glitter (optional) or glitter glue and you'll need a hole/shape punch. I have 3 which I bought over 10 years ago and you can make your own DIY homemade confetti. You could make many, many tablespoons for sure. If you have different size punches well you have it made, it's a quick and cheap way to save money. You could always cut up a few little ones to toss in there.

You can use the clear divider for the transparency instead of an acetate sheet. I sure there is a way to get around the shiny, the Dollar Tree store also has glitter glue you might be able to make a few of them with that. If you have a Wink of Stella pen (which i don't lol) that might work too. Above are three samples so you can get an idea of what I'm talking about, they are a heart, a star and a sunburst I tried with the glitter glue to see if it worked.

Those are the only punches I have at the moment I getting ready to buy a bunch from eBay most of them are .76 and up. Although they take 3 - 4 weeks to arrive. But you can pick your own, if you can't wait Amazon has some too just check the dates. The glue seemed to do okay although after it dries tomorrow will be the real test. My star punch is a bit rough around the edges might be time for an update. Plus it's 4 AM.

So grab your punches or scissors some cheap index dividers and cut up all sorts of little confetti and save your money for something else. To make a tablespoon it couldn't take more than a minute or two with a punch and a little bit more if you had to cut it out by hand.

Another idea is if you have a stencil cutter which I just bought and was going to try out this weekend. (I went to the dollar store for the index dividers to use to make my own stencils) that's why the idea was on my mind. You could make the confetti mix with the stencil cutter if you didn't have any punches. Just print off a page full of assorted shapes and cut away. You could make shapes for any holiday, you could write out small words with them. And if all else fails and you don't have punches or a stencil cutter nearly everyone has a X-acto knife.

So there are three ways to make your own confetti. When I started the blog post I just had the one idea the other two came to me as I was typing this out. One thing you should know these little plastic pieces love to stick to you so be prepared. Have some sort of pointy device or tweezers to keep them off you. A dryer sheet might work I didn't think of that until after I cut them out.

Since I'm going to use the sheet for stencils first I'll cut up the confetti with the leftovers.

I hope this post has inspired you to give it a go, I would love to see what you made. I plan on making some cards using this method myself I'll keep on working on perfecting it. It's a quick fix for now but with some glitter and a little touch of this or that it could work. After that I will let you know how the stencil making went too. If you have an idea leave a comment!

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