Perhaps there’s a little Martha Stewart in us all.

I have never considered myself to be a very crafty sort of person. Well, maybe in the tricky, wily sort of way, I sometimes do. But when it comes to the arts and crafts, no. In fact, I’ve always looked a little enviously at those scrap-booking, painting, knitting, make something out of nothing, kind of people. However, this past Christmas I was inspired to make a present for a dear friend of mine. I set out to Jo-Ann’s, unsure of how or if my ideas would materialize. I am glad to say it turned out to be a very satisfying experience. So much so, I took some pictures to show you.

This is a jar of fireflies, or lightning bugs, as I often call them. To make the actual flies, I doubled a sheet of white tissue paper and cut five small rectangles out. Then I twisted the center of each and wrapped brown wire around the middle, so as to create a mid-section. The tissue paper wings I trimmed into their final shape and hung them by clear string. At this point, I had painted a one-part mason jar lid and poked five holes in it to pull the string through the top so I could glue them in place. The lid was then an eye-sore of strings and glue. This I solved by taking the center piece of a two-part lid and hot-glueing it on top of the other. You know what the best part is? The fireflies light up in the dark because I painted their wings with glow-in-the-dark paint.

This is a bouquet of flowers. These are not just any flowers, though. These are paper flowers, which means they won’t ever wilt. Okay, okay. Maybe they aren’t as beautiful as the real deal, but they’re brown, or in brown’s same shady family. Sadly, brown flowers don’t actually exist and my friend has always wanted them to. So, I faked it using green floral wire, scrap-book paper cut into different sized hearts, and beads from an old necklace of mine that broke. (It didn’t really break, I had to cut it up because it was hopelessly tangled). For a vase, I used a smaller mason jar with a painted brown lid.

Happily, the present was a success.