On the 28th of March, after one week of quarantine, due to the pandemic caused by coronavirus (Covid-19), a good friend has recommended me to use the opportunity to share my DIY ideas with the people who are #stayingathome to entertain them. I thought it was quite a challenge because I am focused right now on the development of a new brand to manufacture kits for parties, however I recognised it was a great opportunity to call the attention and let the people know what kinds of crafts I develop, and the chic style I pursue with my creations for parties.

Here we went! I accepted my friend Scott challenge and we have being published fun crafts to do at home called #creativequarantine during 34 days in a row. You can see our work on our Instagram account @fiesta_4u

Although most of the crafts I develop are part of party collections, all of them can be made at any occasion just to have fun and entertain yourself, to entertain your children and also to have a little bit of something special to pass the time.

Following our goal, we have been publishing crafts religiously every day. And as you will see, because our crafts tend to be related with parties, all of them belong to one of the following categories: invitations, decorations, costumes, entertaining activities, party bags and food. This means that they are good crafts for every day, but also for your home celebrations.

I am glad to say that this initiative has paid off, because we have received more followers on Instagram and more party printables sales on our Etsy shop. We have learned where the interests of our followers are, seeing how popular the cakes and recipes as well as the paper crafts; like our tutorials about how to make basic Origami figures (see bellow), and all the seasonal crafts we have posted for Easter; especially our Easter Egg Gift box (see bellow) made out of recycled Waitrose egg boxes, or our Easter Egg Painted Bunting (see bellow), hand-painted with watercolour. 

Here we share our most successful #craftideas of our creative quarantine:

Basic Origami Figures

During DAY 17 of the creative #quarantine challenge we proposed our followers to make an origami figure or two or as many as you wanted to. We recommended you to follow our YouTube video to choose which origami figurine you preferred.

The origami figures you could choose from in this video were:

• Origami Pakupaku or Fortune Teller
• Origami Little Bird 
• Origami Butterfly 
• Paper Crane 
• Kusudama Flower 
• Paper Boat 
• Origami Water bomb 
• Jumping Frog Game 

Easter Egg Gift Box 

For DAY 3 of our creative quarantine we posted this cute #Easteregg box on our instagram @fiesta_4u with a YouTube tutorial on our IG stories that taught our viewers how to make this easy and original craft using a small egg box from #waitrose.

This idea is meant for encouraging our viewers to #recycle and #reuse packages, in this case, an egg box from #waitrose to make a cute and fun gift box.

To make this popular gift egg box at home follow the instructions below. 

MATERIALS

1. Used cardboard egg boxes
2. Steel wool
3. Tim Holtz® Distress acrylic spray paint in assorted colours
4. Ink for stamps in assorted colours
5. Alphabet stamper
6. raffia ribbon
7. Latex gloves

STEPS

1. Using gloves, sand the surface of your recycled egg box to get rid of all the writing from the supplier
2. Using the gloves, spray the paint over the box in a uniform manner. Allow it to dry.
3. The day after, stamp a message on the containers such as “Happy Easter” or the name of your guest
4. Put the Easter eggs in the box and place the ribbon around the box making a nice bow

Easter Egg Painted Bunting

On DAY 9 of our creative quarantine we offered the idea of livening up the house by getting ready for Easter. We proposed that our viewers used the DIY Easter bunting idea from our Easter Painted Egg collection.

Download, print the bunting and make it in just a few minutes with some scissors a hole punch and ribbon. Materials that are easily found laying around the house, this idea proved to be successful for its simplicity and the vibrant color it adds to the house, instantly making it Easter ready. A craft so simple, that even the children will want to help!

This design is adapted so that you can cut it either with scissors or with a cutting machine such as  #silhuettecameo or #cricut. 

Watch our YouTube tutorial to follow the simple steps and make it yourself!

All in all, these results have made us analyze where to put more or less effort, and that the digital market is uncertain. As our audience is unknown in some way, we can afford to not be entirely loyal and representative of our actions. In this regard it is necessary to take a step back and interact with real people instead of online; potential clients or collaborators, so that they can let us know in better ways their opinions over what is most demanded of our business and products.

Therefore, although this quarantine is not ending, we cannot commit to anymore daily publishing and posting. We are going back to our roots; product development, to deliver the best products possible: Party printables, tutorials, and now kits for parties, with the aim to entertain you in a fun and chic way. But please, continue following our progress in Instagram @fiesta_4u and YouTube @Fiesta4U and if you missed our daily quarantine crafts, hop on board and check them out!

Thank you for your support,

Lucrecia Rodríguez de Acuña

Founder & Creative Director

Fiesta4U.com