Craft Tools

There are essentially two types of crafters in this world: those who buy tools and those who make do. As for me and my house, we have always fallen into the latter category. My sister is a talented paper crafter. Her tool of choice? A nice, sharp pair of scissors. See what I mean? We’re simple folk. As much as I drool over the time-saving tools out there, I am usually just too cheap.

But, the other day I bought some tools. Paper punches. That’s right, I’m generally too cheap for punches. Oh dear.

Anyway. The last few times I have made cupcakes for parties or showers, I have thought it would sure be nice to have a couple big circle punches to make toppers with. Well, when I was at Joann’s shopping for my son’s Super Grover birthday party this past week, I caved. The punches were on sale, and I had an additional 20% off coupon, so I went for it. And I’m so glad I did.

I made the toppers, which were cute enough

But. What I was really excited about was this:

Polka dot garland! Cute, right? The weather forced us to move the party from the park to our house last minute, and I was feeling stressed about not having enough space or decorations. I remembered seeing a cute polka dot garland at second street and I realized with my new punches I could whip that up in practically no time.

Just punch out a bunch of circles and zip them through your sewing machine (which is considered to be an essential tool in my world). The longer you run the machine between circles, the longer the space between your polka dots. I made three garlands in about twenty minutes flat and they were so cute.

You can see the polka dot garland here under the cabinets as well as an easy (but more time consuming) pom-pom garland on the ceiling. I wish I had some better pictures, but I am sure I will be making them again soon!