This and that

Washi Tape Love.... Why do I love this tape? I don't know but I can't refuse buying one or three when I see them. 

I started this plant from a Jade leaf as you can see. It's taking a long time to look different than this. I took this picture back in March and it still looks the same.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas Our tree is little this year but it is real. We put the village underneath as well.

I made finger puppets for our nursery (at church) this year. I got the idea from Etsy here. I didn't spend alot of time getting every cut correct because of time. My pattern for Jospeph and Mary was a stick of deodorant. I did this because I'd like to make more in the future for other lessons we do with the toddlers. A pattern I'll surly lose but not the stick :)

Halloween Bunting and decorations

Pictures from work. The girls I work with agreed to keep the decorations fun and cute instead of scary. The Halloween Garland is made from "dollar store" treat bags, news paper, ribbbon, and printed letters from the computer that were cut out.

 

Along came a spider...

This project was inspired by Cheswick Company from Etsy. The trick or treat bag was made from the help of a talented Nancy onYouTube.

MATERIALS REQUIRED:
- Rubbermaid container excluding lid
- poly fil
- black dyed quilt batting
- white quilt batting
- 4 pipe cleaners
- 2 pieces of scrapbook paper for hat and bag
- tempera paints
- round piece of cardstock or cardboard for back of bowl (body)
- piece of sheer fabric for hat
- assorted odds and ends for embellishments, ie ribbon, faux fur

With a glue gun and a needle and thread...

Hair Clips: Repurpose and save alot!

 

 We found old silk flowers among the mass of craft things and took them apart to re-purpose them into hair accessories for my daughters. My daughters are 8 years apart and that is why some look they are for a young adult and some for a preteen :)
Supplies:
silk flowers
buttons
sequins
old ponytails, barretts, & clips
ribbon

Tools:
thread
needles
glue gun & sticks
scissors
plyers

Take apart the flowers but keep them in order so you can recreate it the way it was (if you wish). Figure out what you want your clip to look like. Sew the pieces together and to the clip. Where you cannot sew, then use your glue gun. I use very little glue for the clips, but you can use glue exclusively if you wish.

You could also use wire to secure the flowers in place to the clips.

I've had these things around the house and it cost nothing to make these clips today. My inspiration was at the mall where they are selling some clips for over $10. I can't fathom paying  $10 for 1 clip!

If you aren't crafty and would like to buy some please check out my friend Jenna at Etsy: Frills And Fuss . She makes beautiful clips and they aren't from scraps around her house, (like mine are). All of her hair accessories are gorgeous and made from new materials.

How-To: Cute Paper Bunting

Chess Set for Dad

We made these for father's day. It was inspired by this post over at Gail's blog, but instead of making a set of dominoes, we did chess pieces. :)
I have 2 daughters. One did the black pieces and the other did the white pieces :)

For the Love of the Great Pumpkine

I was on a pumpkin kick this autumn and made treat bags to look like...

pumpkins <3

Wreath Upcycled

I found a new blog I love. She has a tutorial for this pretty wreath. If you have time check out her blog :)
Search: "Living with Lindsay" paper wreath

School is almost out for my girls,,, one more month.
This is my second year home schooling. I've learned so many things about being a mom. It's a huge blessing to be home with them. My oldest will be a senior in high school next school year; which means we'll be visiting colleges this summer. Where has the time gone? What are your plans for the summer?

Erasers

This eraser is super easy to make. We took 4 squares of felt that were about 4" X 4" and sewed them down the middle on the sewing machine and then we folded it in half. Lastly, with quilting thread we made some "X"'s. We use the white board alot for school and only have one store bought eraser. I thought we'd take the frugal way and make a few since we have plenty of felt :)

Here's my lil artist taking the real pictures :)

Seed Packets

The girls made pretty seed packets for seeds we harvested from flowers. They turned out really cute. We used a template from Gardens and Crafts.

Creek Swing

Every year we try to go camping for a few days on the farm where my father-in-law grew up. There's been a rope with a piece of wood as a swing hanging there for years that the kids use to jump into the middle of the creek. My husband wanted to change the rope this year. We used 25' of natural 3/4" fiber rope. After we cut down the old rope we secured the new one with a bowstring knot at the top so that (hopefully) the loop will expand with the growth of the limb it is secured to.
My nephew was the first to try it out.At the end I made what is called a monkey fist. They are supposed to be made with smaller line and I wasn't sure we could make one 3/4" thick rope. I think it turned out well and we all hope it will be there for many years of fun.

Fish Bowl Treat bags for a birthday party

In the name of "use what you have first" before you buy supplies, the girls and I came up with a treat bag we gave away for Lizzy's "sea themed" birthday party. The fish "swims" between 2 pieces of sheer fabric.

I had sheer fabric that I bought on clearance at Joanne's Fabric a few years ago. These are like the tucker bags I posted in June except we used foamy for the back. The sheer fabric is folded in half with the fold side up at the top of the bowl. We tucked a foamy animal inside the fold of sheer fabric, set (yarn) strap in place to be sewed over, pinned it all, then sewed.


Sewing with foamy on the bottom was very easy. We made the stitches very long, which gave the bag a nice look.
After sewing the bags were trimmed with pinking sheers to cut down on fraying.Bags were then decorated on the foamy side by the kids with smaller foamy stickers. While they were eating lunch, some of the older kids filled the bags with real sea shells, taffy, stickers, erasers, and a piece of chocolate :) Our frugal find was finding sea shells at the dollar store.

By the way, I thought I'd let my friends know I'm still alive. We have had alot projects to do this summer which has taken me away from blogging. I've felt a little overwhelmed with them all. I hope to post about them when things slow down, we have pictures :) I can't wait to check out what you all have been blogging about :)

Down Under Tucker Bag

Next week we will be boarding the Boomerang Express and going down under to Australia, (aka vacation bible school) . We are trying to use things that we have at home in order to keep costs down. Klazane and I will be helping with Pre-K and K for the week. We will be giving the kids lil cards with scriptures on them. The teacher's kit came with a brown tucker bag and we could buy them for $1.24 a bag. I say no worries Mate, this is cheaper! I have a good bit of felt and yarn. We made about 45 of them and didn't need to buy anything.

The front of the pouch is 5" wide and 3.5" high in the center. The back & flap is 5" wide and 6.25" high.

Materials:

1 piece of felt

33" of yarn

Easy Blown Easter Eggs

Klazane explains how she hung these little treasures here. The Adventures of Mub posted about an adorable project she is working on for Easter. This has inspired me to begin working on gifts for Easter this year. Last year was our first year to make blown eggs. I have not ever tried it before because it looked too hard.
With a little coaxing begging from my kids we gave it a try. We were all thrilled that it worked and we had made alot of them.
This is how easy it is:
1. Wash all eggs with cool or warm water. You will have your mouth on the egg shell.
2. Dry
3. Poke both ends of an egg several times with a sharp sewing needle. One hole needs to be larger than the other. The smaller hole size only needs to be big enough to blow in. The bottom hole should be about 1/8" to 3/16" big because it needs to be big enough to allow the yolk out without cracking your egg. (Hint: It worked easier if we poked a circle of holes less than 1/8" apart). If you break the yolk it should come out easier :)
4. Blow your eggs into containers (like Gladware) so that you can use them. If they sit for a while egg shell pieces usually will settle to the bottom of the container.
5. Now you can wash your eggs with a little soapy water, but I think we just rinsed them off and let them air dry.
6. Decorate as usual. You may have to shake out dye that gets into your eggs.
7. When your creations are finished add ribbon for hanging.

Well, I'll be making everyone eggs for breakfast for a few weeks so that we have enough to make plenty of gifts.

Note:If you search tutorials for this you may see that they recommend you blow out the eggs after you decorate them. I think they recommend this because an empty egg does not sit in the dyed water, it floats. I didn't want to risk blowing out a masterpiece only to have it break in the process, so we blew out our eggs before hand. Hollow eggs are alot more fragile than hard boiled.


We used a white crayon and dye you get from the store to create most of these.

Garland

A few years ago I punched out a stack of flowers with a 3" flower punch bought from a craft store for around $10. My daughter and I then sewed them together on the sewing machine. The pictures were taken an older camera and aren't that sharp. But below you can kind of see that we only sewed the centers of the flowers. It held up really well inside. I'm not sure how it would for an outside party. Make sure you change the sewing needle before using with fabric because the paper will dull the tip pretty fast.

Hair Ribbons

Pom-pom bows can be made easily and will out-last the ponytail. I made these 6 years ago and they still look great. To start you will need ribbon. I used grosgrain and satin ribbon for most of the bows I made. You will also need pony-tails or clasps, and jewelery wire. For tools: you will need scissors, wire cutters, needle-nose pliers, and fray check.
1. Folding: These ribbons shown here were folded 4" wide to make 2 folds or loops on each side so that would be around 20" altogether.
2. Fold centers: Although this step is a pain, if you do not fold down centers and are using grosgrain or a heavy ribbon you will notice that the center is too chuncky when you secure it with the wire and it will not lay nicely.
I made 2" bobby pins, you can see one in the center under "Supplies". When you are holding your ribbon it goes easier if your wire is ready.
(It would have been great if I had 3 hands. If you have something like a clasp or clamp tool it may be very helpful in this step.)
3. Twist and trim wire to 5/8".
4. Turn sharp end downward toward bulk of ribbon to prevent someone from getting poked or scratched.
5a. When making more than 1 color you'll need to make each color a bit smaller than the bottom one. I didn't want the silver to stand out that much so I made it the same width as the blue layer.
5b.After you figure out how you want it to look, stack it and add a ponytail or barrette, and secure it with another piece of wire. Trim your ends and use fray check. I've noticed that some fray-checks leave a white residue so always test first.
6. Last step is to cover the wire with a scrap of ribbon and sew it where no one will notice.

Self Portrait

This project was fun for my 7 year old. I made things easy on her by pre-cutting the correct size square or rectangle for her to begin with. I did help her a little too much with this particular project. After she made the general shape I would fold the piece or double it so that both pieces or sides were symmetrical.
Steps:
1. We began with the shape of the head. It was a bit of a challenge to find the correct color. Basically and oval will work because it will be covered with hair eventually.
2. Explain that the shape of real eyes look like footballs or almonds. Have a white rectangle ready for you budding artist a little bigger than the appoximate size.
3. We cut 2 circles for her irises, (I found chapstick or something similar size to trace circles).
4. We used black paper & a hole puncher for the pupils.
5. Eye lashes: Self explanitory. See below.
6. Eye brows: Remember symmetry.7. Noses are all different shape, but basically all have 3 little bumps. When the nose is cut fold it the long ways and glue only the bridge so that the nose sticks out a little like a nose. :)
8. Lips are made from 3 ovals, the 2 on top a little smaller usually.
9. Ears: Cut a circle in half, same color as the face. Most of the circle is secured behind the head. After you attach the ears trim them a little if you wish.10. Hair: Look at first picture.

This is alot of fun. It might be easier if you don't glue until the very end if you have a perfectionist at your table :)

Squirrel Stamp

Yay! I had time to carve my first stamp on rubber! I cut lil too much on his front leg, but it still looks like a squirrel. If you are interested in making a stamp, visit Craft Pudding.
My daughter made a stamp out of a scrap, literally! It was 1/4" x 3/4". Hers turned out beautiful! I can't imagine what she will do with a regular piece of rubber :) Klazane's stamp is here.

Message Board

Serving trays serve as message boards with some chalkboard paint(I used Crayola brand), wire, 2 rivets, and 4 clear 3/8" vinyl bumpers for the back. When adding the rivets for the hanger, I also added a black washer to the front on one side so that I could add ribbon & chalk.
To personalize you can either paint or decal the edge. These make great gifts.
Serving trays can be purchased for change at thrift stores and yard sales. Certain steps of this project can be done with children as long as they are supervised.