craft | A Spacious Blog

Every November we put on an event called Gifted2Give, an afternoon where participants can make holiday gifts for only the cost of materials. It’s a fun day of crafting, music, snacks, and holiday cheer!

Here on the blog we’re going to be posting some of the crafts we’ve done at Gifted2Give over the years. First up, cork-backed coasters!

Coasters are best to gift in a set of 2 or 4. You’ll need thin cork sheets for the back, and pretty maps, cards, or sheet music for the decorative tops of the coasters.

You’ll also need something circular that’s slightly larger than a large coffee mug to use as a template, some good scissors, and a good decoupaging glue like Mod Podge.

01e91f3aff408d29eb2e5c705d347d855a8d67a348-2 — Matte or Glossy Mod Podge will both work. You’ll just have to pick what look you want!

Using your circular template (Kaye suggests that a plastic lemonade-mix container is a good size!), cut out circles of cork, and circles of your decorative top layer.

Kaye advised you can get sheets of cork at Lowes, both with and without a sticky backing. We used the ones with a sticky backing because it’s so much easier to just peel off the paper and apply the decorative top layer, no additional glue needed (yet).

After you’ve lined up your decorative top-layer on top of the cork backing, you’re ready to apply the decoupage glue to seal your coasters.

You’ll need to apply a layer of Mod Podge, let that dry for about ten minutes, and then apply another layer. Let the final layer of glue dry for at least 24-hours before packaging them up. Tying up your set of coasters with raffia or ribbon is a nice, easy way to keep them together!

The best part of this gift is that you can so easily customize it to match what your gift recipient likes! Sheet music for a music-lover, maps for a traveler, there’s no end to how you could make these for your loved ones.

Stay tuned for more Gifted2Give crafts, coming right up!

Mardi Gras is upon us once again! We made festive masks and beaded necklaces with our groups last week.

Some tips if you’d like to do this activity with your own group:

We chose to do four different mask shapes; our participants love the variety!
You’re going to want good scissors to cut out the outsides of the masks, and a sharp craft knife to cut out the eye holes. Trust me on that part.
To help the cords stay put in the masks, we put a piece of tape over that area of the back of the mask before punching the holes. The tape doesn’t hold down the cord, but it does help reinforce the posterboard of the mask itself.
We actually tied the cord to one end of the mask ahead of time, even before the participants had decorated them, as it eliminated a step (we didn’t have to hand out cords that the participants would need to keep track of, nor tie them twice for every participant). Streamlining the process can be very helpful!
For the beaded necklaces, we pre-cut the cord to a certain length, and made a mark on the cord about two inches from the end (using white cord, we just added a dot with a marker). We then explained to the participants to please keep their beads between the two dots, so there is enough room to tie a knot. The visual reference seems to help.
Of course green, yellow, and purple are traditional Mardi Gras colors, and we mentioned that to our participants, but we provided markers, feathers, and sequins of all colors. Everyone could use whatever they gravitated toward that day.