What You Need to Start

• Grapevine (amount varies depending on size of desired basket)
• Sharpened Hand Snips/Shears
• Work/Gardening Gloves - (optional)
• Tub/Basin of warm water

Basket Weaving Video Tutorial

Step 1: Create The Grid

In a spiral fashion, take a long, flexible, thinner piece of grapevine, and starting at the center cross section, going over and under alternately, make your way from the center cross section of the grid going outwards. 

Step 4: Build Up Your Basket Walls

Keep wrapping around and around and in the over-under alternating fashion. Push the frame upwards as your weave, to form the basket's walls. 

Step 5: Wrap & Fill

Keep adding more vines if your original strand runs out. Weave in alternating in the same fashion of under-over, to fill in any gaps.

Step 6: Bend Down Frame Ends

Take any of the original vine frame ends from the grid you started with, bend them over, and weave them into the top sides of the basket to form an edge. 

Step 7: Add a Handle

Find a nice thick portion of grapevine, and taking two strands, twist them together to make one handle. Tuck one end in one side of your baskets weave, and tuck the other straight across on the opposite side in the same way. 

You're done! It's ok if it doesn't look absolutely perfect, your basket's true beauty is found in its uniqueness and the fact that you made it yourself!

Getting Started

Materials Needed:

Step 1 

Step 2 

Step 3 

Step 4 

Step 5 

Step 6

Step 7 

Step 8 

When they are glued properly, your ornament should look like this!

Finish with glitter or whatever you desire!

Getting Started

The great thing about making these paper bag snowflakes is that you can use them all year long. It's not just a ornament for a specific holiday. A lot of people do make them around Christmas to make their homes more festive, but you can make these a year round feature!

They are SUPER EASY to make, I taught myself to make one after about 5 minutes and one horrific rough draft. Tip: Do not cut too low on your design -if you feel like coming up with your own style- so you don't cut the bottom part of the bag. It gets too messy when you do and everything sort of loses structure.

I did a super simple cut that I will share with you that looks pretty and very starry. Make a room full of these just as is without lights or you can either by some cheap battery operated short string lights to wrap around them or you can design yours around a corded bulb. Whatever fancy may strike you, go for it!

Step 1: 

Cut out a regular lunch paper bag into the following shape. Using the first cut out as a template, lay the cut bag onto 7 more paper bags, and one by one, cut out the same shape onto all bags until you have 8 total.

Step 2: 

You can either use regular glue or a glue gun to do the next step. I used regular Elmer's glue which worked perfectly. The paper bags are pretty thin paper, so Elmer's was definitely strong enough.

Step 3: 

Using your glue of choice, make a line down the middle of your bag from top to bottom on the smooth side of the bag without the bottom flap. Then another line along the bottom edge of the bag. 

Step 4: 

One by one, place your bags one on top of the other with the same glue on the smooth side only, with that same side facing up. When you are done gluing, the bottom flap side should be sandwiched between the layers. Allow to dry for several minutes.

Next, put the same glue markings on the top bag in your stack, on the smooth side just like the previous layers. Carefully unfolding your stack until it forms a 3D circle, press that newly glued applied side of that top layer, to the bottom side of your first bag on the very bottom of your stack. When you are done, you should have your star formed. You can either leave glued with clips to hold in place until dried, or use a couple of staples to hold firmly together. Let dry well.

Enjoy and create to your hearts content! Send me pics of what you make, I'd love to see them!

This was one of the first jobs that I had as a teenager. Every holiday season I worked for a florist shop in my hometown of Greenfield Center, NY called Van Arnum's Flower Shop. 

I loved the smell of Christmas trees in there as we worked, but by the 50th kissing ball and having blackish sap stuck to your fingers because your rubber gloves tore, again, you pretty much never want to see as much as another pine needle for another 364 days.

But I learned a neat skill and it's one of my favorite things to make around the holiday season. 

They look beautiful indoors or out, and you can really let your creativity go wild by adding extra elements like pine cones, ribbons, and even lights. Plus you can substitute other materials for the evergreen branches, like fabric, paper, Christmas ball ornaments, and more!

Materials Needed

• Styrofoam Ball(s)- Comes in assorted sizes; keep in mind that the bigger the diameter of the Styrofoam ball, the larger the evergreen branches you will need, and the more of them too.

• Clippers/Pruning Shears- a nice pair of sharp shears to trim your evergreen branches.

• Wire Hangers- An easy way to hang up your kissing balls when you are done.

• Garden Gloves- Try to get a flexible leather pair to handle the prickly branches and pine sap.

• Ribbon/Extras- Whatever creative elements you want to add to jazz it up a little. I recommend using wired ribbon as it holds its shape better for bows and ribbon streamers. 

🌿 Get Your Supplies for This Project

A few helpful supplies to have on hand before you get started.

Affiliate disclosure: This section contains Amazon affiliate links. I may earn a commission from qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you.

🌲 6" Styrofoam Balls
A good base size for making a full evergreen kissing ball.
Shop on Amazon → (paid link)

🧥 Wire Hangers — Bulk Pack
Used to create the wire pieces that secure the evergreen branches into the foam ball.
Shop on Amazon → (paid link)

✂️ Fiskars Pruning Shears
Sharp pruning shears make trimming evergreen branches much easier. This Fiskars pair also comes with a lifetime warranty.
Shop on Amazon → (paid link)

🧤 Gardening Gloves
A flexible pair of gloves helps protect your hands from prickly branches and that incredibly sticky evergreen sap.
Shop on Amazon → (paid link)

🎀 2.5" Wired Red Velvet Ribbon — 30 Yards
Wired ribbon holds its shape beautifully for bows and hanging streamers.
Shop on Amazon → (paid link)

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Getting Started

1.) Find Evergreen Branches

You can purchase some from a florist shop, or if you have property where you can go out back and trim some off of a tree, you can also trim off the lower branches of your Christmas tree to use those, or as a last resort you can take a ride out along the highway or a low trafficked back road at night and "borrow" some. 

Some places that sell Christmas trees are also only too happy to give away FOR FREE the cut bottom branches from trees they have sold. Typically, the large commercial Christmas Tree retailers are your best bet for free tree trimmings. 

2.) Trim Branches

Looking at your Styrofoam ball, estimate the length of branch cutting you will need to make the diameter Kissing Ball you desire. Figure into this estimation, that each branch you sink into the ball will have to go in at least 2-3" deep to be firmly in place. 

5.) Ribbons or Other Decorations

Getting Started Brewing Beer

Equipment Needed

1- Large Enamel/Stainless Steel Kettle with a Lid minimum size of at least 5 gallons-used to boil the brewing water and wort, which is the sugary malt extract solution that becomes beer

2- Large Stainless Steel Spoon (For stirring the wort)

3- 6.5-10 Gallon Plastic fermenting bucket with a tight fitting lid that accepts an airlock piece(Plastic MUST be food grade, and the best place to find this is a home brewery store)

4- Racking Tube and 5 feet clear plastic hose(The racking tube should be 3/8 " in diameter and the clear hose should be 5/16" in diameter-check your local home brewery stores- these materials are used for siphoning beer from one container to another. )

5- 5 Gallon Glass carboy- You can find this at bottled water companies or at a home brewery store-MUST BE GLASS!! This will be used as your secondary fermenter.

6- Three-piece airlock and No. 6.5 drilled white rubber stopper- Again, found at your local home brewery store, this will fit in snugly into your glass carboy . This piece is very important as it allows carbon dioxide to escape and prevents air from seeping in.

7- Carboy and bottle brushes- used to clean out the brewing containers

8- Bottle Capper- Check home brewery stores;The best kind has a stand for using one-handed

9- Hydrometer and a Sample Jar- The hydrometer measures the amount of sugar in the wort before the fermentation process begins. When fermentation is initiated, the sugar converts into alcohol. By comparing the sugar content before and after the process, this allows you to determine the alcohol content of your batch. Note:Hydrometers are only accurate at 60º F- Yours should come with a chart and instructions on how to correct your measurements based on temperature variations.

10- Thermometer- Best if bought at a lab supply store or home brewery store. You want a dial thermometer that is marked off at 1-degree increments and has an adjusting nut to allow calibration. The range should be on this thermometer from 32ºF to 212ºF or 0ºC to 100ºC.

11- Scale- You can find this at a kitchen supply store or at a home brewery store. You will need a small scale with a full range from 0-4 or 0-8 ounces, marked out in 1/4 ounce divisions. This will let you accurately weigh out the hops and specialty malts.

12- Bottles & Caps- Beer brewery supply stores, liquor stores, bars-The best ones to use are the brown returnable long-necks.

13- Fine-mesh nylon straining bag-This needs to be a very fine mesh to steep such ingredients as your malt grains

14- (4)1-Gallon jugs-glass preferred- These will be used for storing cold brewing water in your refrigerator

Beer Crafting Ingredients

Ingredient #1 - MALT EXTRACT

Step 2: Germinating the Grains

Spread the kernels onto a paper towel lined cooking pan. Take this an put it inside of a black garbage bag, closed tightly to keep in the moisture. At room temperature, barley can sprout in about 4-6 days.

Step 3: Stopping the Germination Process

You could crush it and begin the stages of beer brewing, or you can toast this to achieve darker beer colors.

Here are some Various Shades of Specialty Malts

Crystal Type Malts - Toast your malted grains at 275ºF for 1 hour.

Medium Crystal Malt - Toast your malted grains at 350ºF for 15-30 min.

Brown Malt - Toast your malted grains at 350ºF for 1 hour. Similar to commercial brown malt beers.

Step 6: Making the Malt Extract
    
Take some of your malted grains and crack them by grinding them very coarsely by rolling them over with a heavy rolling pin. 

Brewing Your Beer-The "Basic Method"

This may seem complicated, but it's really not- it is just a series of steps that need to be followed carefully in order to achieve the desired results. For your own edification the word WORT means - "a sweet liquid that is drained from mash made from crushed malt or grain meal and that is fermented to make beer and whiskey". 

Step 1: Making the Wort

A couple of days before you start brewing, prepare 4 gallons of cold water. Boil the water for 15 minutes, then let cool covered. Clean and sanitize (4) 1-Gallon glass jugs by washing them. Add 2 Tablespoons of bleach to one of the jugs, and fill to the brim with water. 

Beer Recipes