Discover online free crafts tutorials at 'Totally Tutorials'

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

World wide web offers links to many online directories, online forums/message boards or blogs dedicated to crafts only. These online tutorials are a good way of getting ideas, tips to adopt these projects or create new stuff or projects. Not only text sites but video sites like 'YouTube' has many videos relating to crafts, or do-it-yourself activities.

'Totally Tutorials' is a blog with a lot of craft tutorials, patterns, recipes and more. There are many how to and do-it-yourself projects, ideas and tips which are very useful for the people having a passion for art/craft activities.

Readers are encourages to submit their articles.

Related links:

* 'Craft site directory' a guide to arts and crafts links on the Internet.

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Recycle your books into work of art

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

You have heard about recycling many products like paper, plastic, wood, clothes etc. But there is a creative way of recycling your existing or old books (which has a little resemblance with scrap booking) and it is called 'altered book'.

An altered book is an existing book that is awaiting your hands to glued, paint, collage, rubber stamp, cut and tear and transform into a piece or work of art. Yes! by using some techniques, idea and tips you can create crafts with easily available material around you own home. Let's get more information about 'altered book':

Definition from 'Wikipedia' is:
'An altered book is a form of mixed media artwork that changes a book from its original form into a different form, altering its appearance and/or meaning.

An altered book artist takes a book (old, new, recycled or multiple) and cuts, tears, glues, burns, folds, paints, adds to, collages, rebinds, gold-leafs, creates pop-ups, rubber-stamps, drills, bolts, and/or be-ribbons it. The artist may add pockets and niches to hold tags, rocks, ephemera, or other three-dimensional objects. Some change the shape of the book, or use multiple books in the creation of the finished piece of art.

Altered books may be as simple as adding a drawing or text to a page, or as complex as creating an intricate book sculpture.'


There is a very specific definition of making altered book at 'Kaboose.com'

An altered book, according to the International Society of Altered Book Artists, is "any book, old or new, that has been recycled by creative means into a work of art." Altered book artists change a book by cutting or rebinding; covering pages with collage, drawings, or photographs; stamping images on the pages, and highlighting particular words or images, while covering others. Different than a
scrapbook, altered books are preexisting books that are complete in and of themselves, not journals or blank bound volumes. Take, for instance, an old children's board book or a dusty garage-sale find and personalize it by adding your own thoughts, images, and art.

"Scrapbooking is using photos of your family and journaling a particular event" or time, says Aileen Roberts, a California-based mixed media artist.
"Altering books is not the same as scrapbooking. Most altered book artists are using the book as their canvas and altering it into an artistic statement just like you would a canvas or a sculpture."

Book Safe - Altered Book. You can turn an ordinary, hard-covered book into a safe to hide your valuables and little treasures. Not only are these books a useful addition to your own book shelf, it also makes a great gift!
'Book safe project'
'Altered book safe' is a great way to hide things on your book shelf Or in your school bag or locker.


Useful links:

* 'Getting Started with Altered Books and Other Altered Art' at 'Creativity Portal'

* Altered book: Craft, patterns and tutorials at 'Craftster.org' forum.

* Few article about 'Altered books' at 'Suite 101.com'

* 'Arts and Crafts : Techniques Used in Making Altered Books'

* 'Altered books ideas and tips'

* Few links at 'Craft Site Directory'

* 'Altered Books at 'Incredible art lessons' at 'Squidoo'

* 'Artful journey' wife, mother, teacher, writer, and artist trying to live a creative life. I make all kinds of altered books and collage art, and I write about the process as I go along.

* Making Altered Books :: Art in a Child's Hand

* 'Art ezine'

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Useful Links for paper crafts and origami projects

Saturday, February 27, 2010

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From the very early age I have a fascination for paper. I love to use paper for writing, for correspondence or making paper models which is called paper craft or origami. You can make a lot of crafts using paper, which is a vary cheap medium for this purpose like cards, paper models of cars, houses, dolls, famous places etc. I have written before about the online useful resources and links in my previous posts and it helps me to find the relevant information quickly as I teach a lot of origami models to my nursery class kids.

I believe that origami or paper craft is one of the best creative art form which brings a lot of benefits along with having fun for hours either you do it as an adult or as a kid. I am happy to share the information with my blog readers and hope that I it would be helpful for you to get ideas and tips from these resources to learn and create paper crafts or origami projects for yourself, your students or your children.

* Paper crafty is a site dedicated to origami and crafts projects.

* PaperCraft Art Creative' is the free collection of paper crafts, paper models, paper dolls and origami.

* 'Paper craft models of things that fly'

* 'Card models for free download'

* Paper modelz

My previous posts about origami:

* 'Amazing paper craft blogs'
* 'Useful links and resources for paper crafts'
* 'Learn origami at the internet'

Note: As my 'A learners diary' is hosted at 'Blogger' you might not get the link to the original post. In this case just go to the 'A learners diary' homepage and at category link you can find the posts under origami and paper crafts.

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Discover the extraordinary places and past with 'Curious Expeditions'

Thursday, February 25, 2010

'Curious expeditions' is for the people having interest in traveling/discovering wonderful and extraordinary places of past.

If you are interested in travel and like to discover amazing or strange places, museums and objects then this site is for you.

describes itself as being “devoted to unearthing and documenting the wondrous, the macabre, and the obscure from around the globe.” These two travel a lot, and bring things back — stories, objects, ideas, what have you. Michelle laughingly points out that she’d like to open her own natural history museum someday…which seems ridiculous until you remember that the first museum in England that was open to the public was a house full of curiosities called The Ark and created by Charles I’s gardener.


I picked up few titles of posts like:

- Museums of Lost Wonder and Mummy Madness
- Museé Mécanique: Where History Lives
- Museums of Lost Wonder and Mummy Madness


Related posts or links:

- 'Mapping the marvelous'

- Diary of a Mad Natural Historian

- 'Cabinet of Wonders'

- 'Extraordinary places' A blog about travel, history, word and phrase origins, curious customs, superstitions, and folklore.

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Floor cleaning tips

Home improvement or home cleaning can be a fun job if you love to do-it-yourself. Nowaday you have lots of cleaning equipments and chemicals which can help you maintain and keep your home a clean and nice place. Floors are the main part of our home which we need to keep clean and fresh most of the time.

Why we need to keep our floors clean?

Few of the reasons are:

# To beautify the floor
# To remove stains, dirt, litter and obstructions
# To remove grit and sand which scratch and wear down the surface.
# To remove allergens, in particular dust
# To prevent wear to the surface e.g. by using a floor wax or protective sealant.
# To make the environment sanitary e.g. in kitchens
# To maintain an optimum traction e.g. for dance floors

Tips for floor cleaning:

The treatment needed for different types of floors is different.
For safety it is most important to ensure the floor is not left even slightly wet after cleaning or mopping up.

There are a lot of tips and ideas which are available online.


Few Floor cleaning tips' from "eHow" are:

Dirt from the street collects on feet and gets tracked into your house dozens of times a day. The little dumps, spills, and heel marks of daily living accumulate with startling speed.

And unless your home has only one kind of floor throughout, you will have to deal with cleaning different kinds of hard-surface floors. The first step toward efficient floor cleaning is to know what your floor is made of. The cleaning method that works for one surface may ruin another.

Sawdust is used on some floors to absorb any liquids that fall rather than trying to prevent them being spilt. The sawdust is swept up and replaced each day.
It used to be common to use tea leaves to collect dirt from carpets and remove odours.

Soap or wax used sparingly cleans and beautifies surfaces. If you use too much, you will have to spend time removing the buildup.

To clean a dust mop without making a mess, slip a large paper bag over the head of the mop, secure the top, and shake so the dust falls into the bag.

Remember that either you clean the floor for yourself or get help from professional agencies, you need to look for proper floor care equipment for the perfect job.

More tips at:
- How To Clean The Floor

- 'Floor cleaning tips'

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Collectible and figurines for hobby or gift purposes

Tuesday, February 23, 2010


Collectibles or figurines are another form of products which we buy for keeping ourselves, decoration purposes, remember vacation or holiday trips or to give as a gift to our near and dear ones. Whatever the purpose may be these gift items are fun to check at gift shops. I browse through online gift shops for the gift ideas and most of the time I am successful to find suitable collectible or figurine for my own collection or as a gift for someone.

According to 'wikipedia' :A collectable or collectible is typically a manufactured item designed for people to collect. In this respect, they are distinguishable from other subjects of collections, which may also include natural objects (e.g., butterflies) and objects manufactured for purposes other than collecting (e.g., stamps). Some objects designed for other purposes, such as toys, become so popular among collectors that they are later marketed specifically to that audience.

Whenever going for shopping I specially look around gift shops and have fun searching for 'collectable gifts'. These gifts or figurines show your taste when you collect these items and decorate your homes with it.

Figurines or other collectible gift items can be expensive or cheap. It is your budget which helps you decide to go for cheap or expensive stuff.

What is figurine?

figurines is a statuette that represents a human, deity, or animal. Figurines may be realistic or iconic, depending on the skill and intention of the creator. The earliest were made of stone or clay. Modern versions are made of ceramic, metal, glass, wood and plastic.

These collectibles gifts can be kept as a personal collection or it can be a nice gift. Collectible gifts can be jewelry, decorative or hobby products which can be purchased from any gift shop or from an online mall as well. Online shopping is always time saving and within short time you can browse through many merchants with competing prices. Online shopping can save your money as well as you can compare prices with the click of your mouse.

There are many review sites which can help you make your selection easier for online shopping or to just get an idea for collectible items.

Related post:

* How to Choose a Forever Collectible?

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