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Back to the ’80s Craft Kit

I was trying to come up with a little birthday gift for my 9-year-old niece to go with a larger present, and I was thinking of getting her a Chinese jump rope. Horrible name aside, I remember really enjoying those as a kid. But then that got me thinking about other activities I enjoyed at her age, so I ended up ditching that idea and making her a “Back to the ’80s'” craft kit with all the supplies to make ribbon barrettes, friendship bracelets and friendship pins.

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The little set of drawers was under $5 at Target, and I had a lot of the supplies (ribbon, embroidery thread) already. In putting this together, I realized that if you use regular safety pins, your beads will end up on the “arm” that opens, which means you couldn’t attach the pin to a shirt or something. But we used to just put them on our sneakers, and you can just slip the back of the pin under a shoelace. (I’ve seen other instructions that say to use pliers to open the coil so you can slide the pins to the other arm, but frankly, that seemed too complicated.) And then I stumbled upon coil-less safety pins, in the jewelry making supply aisle at Jo-Ann Fabric. So that makes it even easier!

Here are a few pictures of the drawers:

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And here is a label you can download and print (without my niece’s name on it!) if you want to make one yourself! I also wrote a tutorial for AP, which you can find here, but you can probably figure it out from the pictures!

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3 comments to Back to the ’80s Craft Kit

  • Bonnie

    Great idea. I, too reach back to my childhood for ideas and realize how much creativity surrounded me without my knowing at the time that it was as special as it.was. I think your daughter is very lucky to have you to enrich her life.

  • So fun! We made a bunch of those ribbon barretts a few years ago for my daughters 80s karaoke night party.
    Wanted to say thanks for the astronaut helmet post, my son wants to be benny from the lego movie and I’ve been trying to figure out how to do the helmet… Yours turned out great! I saw it on Pinterest, then went… Is that Parker? I found lunchbox blues last year and got the book – What a small world!

  • […] the younger two girls, I made them a “Back to the 80s” craft kit like the one I made my niece last […]

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