Salt dough ornaments }{ tutorial

Dear friends, I'm beat. I wish I could tell you all that's going on. Soon.

But the Christmas/holiday season is here and if that doesn't inject a hefty dose of energy into a crafter, I don't know what does. The princess and I have been doing small little projects almost daily. On the weekends we go a little crazier and do more involved crafts, like this one. It can be done in one day, but why would you want to put more rush into your holidays?

Materials for the dough ornaments:

• 1/2 cup of salt
• 1 cup of flour
• 1/2 cup of lukewarm water
• cookie cutters
• chopstick or a pencil
• rolling pin
• cookie sheet
• parchment paper
• aluminum foil

Materials for decoration:

• white craft paint
• sharpies
• glitter paint
• brushes

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 250F.
2. Mix the ingredients in a bowl. It quickly becomes a pliable but firm dough. It's super easy to manage this one.
3. With some flour on the rolling pin and surface, roll the dough until it's about 1/4" thick. The thicker you make it, the longer it takes to dry (believe me, the princess didn't want to roll it and ours came out very thick)
4. Cut shapes with the cookie cutters. Make a hole for the string with the chopstick or pencil
5. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and place the ornaments carefully on the sheet. Cover them with foil and bake it for 3-4 hours (depending on thickness).
6. Let them dry for a while (we left them alone overnight).
7. Paint them with the white craft paint and let it dry. Our dried quite quickly because we used a blow dryer on the paint.
8. Draw designs with the markers, add glitter, or finish whatever look you want to give them. This part is up to your imagination.
9. Cut some string and put through the holes. Tie a knot and voila, you have ornaments ready to hang on your tree.

I don't know why she's so serious. She was smiling a second before.

We had so much fun making them, and the princess is so proud of hers she took them to school to share with her friends. This is an easy but fun way of making ornaments with the kids.

Glittery Spider Webs }{ holiday crafting

Ready for a "why didn't I think of that" moment? At least that's how I felt when I saw this idea on Pinterest (originally on Redbook). So easy. Why didn't I think of that?

We did this with a 4 year old and a 7 year old, and it was a hit with both. It was also messy and a bit hard for them to get it just right. So we helped. The hardest part is waiting for the glue to dry.

Materials:
glue
glitter
wax paper
patience

What to do:

1. Cut a piece of wax paper larger than you want the web to be and place it over some cardboard.
2. With glue, draw a spider web on the wax paper - start with 8 straight lines, like you're cutting a pie into 8 equal pieces; then draw curved lines connecting the adjacent straight lines to each other. Look at the picture to see what I mean.
3. Cover the glue in glitter. This was hard for the kiddos to do thoroughly, so we helped by shaking the cardboard and wax paper around a bit until all the glue was covered.
4. Wait until it's dry (3-4 days) and carefully peel the web off the wax paper.

The cool thing is that you can use the technique to make all kinds of designs. Sooo many glittery possibilities...

Are you ready for Halloween?

Painting Mini Pumpkins }{ crafting with kids

Here's an idea for an easy and fun activity during a Fall afternoon: painting some mini pumpkins.

These mini pumpkins are very inexpensive at pumpkins farms, but our grocery store also offers them as a kit that comes with some paint. Everything you need is right there in the package. If you get the pumpkins individually, acrylic paint should work fine.

Just give the kids (and adults!) some paint, brushes, sharpies or paint pens and let them come up with whatever design/pattern/faces they want. Fun for the whole family. And I also like the mini pumpkins early in the season because they don't rot as quickly as the bigger ones we carve every year.

Apologies for the wonky photos, they were taken while holding a 6 week old wiggly girl...

How do you like to decorate your pumpkins?

Upcycled Lamp ~ girly style }{ Tutorial

Don't you love a good thrifty find?

N.'s room had a tall lamp that didn't really match her girly taste and didn't seem to fit the rest of the room. But I wasn't really looking to buy something new. It needed to be customized.

Then, just the other day I was looking through a garage sale and found a lamp with a nice long, white base with a broken shade. I got it for less than $3... Then I headed to the thrift store and found a  nice shade that fit it. The color didn't matter at all, since I planned on covering it up.

At home, I got a scrap of fabric that was long enough to cover the shade and went to work.

Materials:

lamp shade and base
enough fabric to cover the shade
ruffles (or ribbon)
spray adhesive
fabric glue
craft paint (optional)

Steps:

1. First you need to make a template for the shade to cut use for cutting the fabric. I used directions from this video on how to make the template from the shade itself, and marked it right on the fabric.

2. Then you can cut the fabric a little above the lines from the template (I like to give myself a bit of wiggle room).




























3. Next, use spray adhesive to cover both the lamp shade and the wrong side of the fabric. Make sure you cover the surface you're working on... It gets sticky all over with the spray!

4. Then it's time to place the fabric over the shade. This is a bit trickier than you'd think, and don't get frustrated if you have to peel it off and start over. The good thing about spray adhesive is that you can easily that. I started by matching the seam on the original shade with the edge of the fabric, then slowly stretching it around the shade. I started the whole thing 3 times before I got it right.

5. Measure and cut something for the bottom edge of the shade- I used ruffles, but ribbon would have been cute too.

6. Then, using fabric glue, slowly adhere the ruffles to the bottom edge of the shade. Let it sit for a while to dry.

7. Paint small designs on the base using craft paint. (optional)

8. Place the finished shade on the lamp, place it in the room of your choice, and plug it in. You're done!

What's your latest favorite project?

This tutorial has been linked to Skip to my Lou's Made by You Mondays and Sew Can Do's Craftastic Monday

Little ghost garland }{ tutorial

Do you know one reason (among many) I love Fall? There are so many excuses for crafting and inspiration kisses your face as soon as you walk outside. I'm glad my husband isn't a jealous guy.

With a little one in my house, Halloween is one of these excuses to go crazy creating stuff, costumes, decorations, what have you. We can always use a new item to put up for the season, right? And we do end having so much fun doing it together as a family.

This project I'm sharing is a quick and easy one that we did last weekend - a garland of little ghosts that you can hang anywhere.  N. had a great time with this one. The ghost faces were easy enough that she could do some of them on her own, and she loved the results. She actually kept a few of the ghosts to play with.

What you need:

• scraps of muslin
• styrofoam balls
• string
• brushes and paint

Steps:

1. Fold the scrap in half (or a piece of rectangular muslin you cut), then paint the face near the fold.
2. Place a styrofoam ball under the top, behind the face you painted. Tie the fabric tightly just under the ball with the string.
3. Repeat with as many little ghosts as you want. 
4. Once you have your ghosts, place a long string through the knots under their heads and voila. Now all you need is to hang it up anywhere you want.

Happy Halloween everyone!

Swan mask }{ Tutorial Thursday

Today's tutorial was inspired by Angelina Ballerina, one of the few cartoons N. actually watches once in a blue moon. (we gave up the tv years ago, but that's a story for another post)

At the end of each episode of Angelina, she narrates a short segment called "Little Stars" where they show young girls in ballet classes doing all sorts of activities. In one particular segment they were showing the little ballerinas making costumes and playing in character for a short while. N. was fascinated by the costumes - and one of them I figured I could actually make! This is my version of the mask they had for the swans in the "Little Stars" Swan Lake.

Materials

• paper or styrofoam plates
• ribbon or elastic
• markers
• orange and white construction paper
• scissors or craft knife
• glue
• feathers (or any embellishment you want to add, we kept ours simple)

How to make it

Step 1: cut the plate across where your nose will be.

Step 2: cut a small triangle to fit over the bridge of your nose.

Step 3: draw and cut the eyes.

Step 4: cut a medium triangle of orange construction paper and fold 1/8" of its base. Make a half cone shape and glue the folded part over the nose triangle on the plate. 

Step 5: trace the outside of the plate on the white construction paper. Cut the paper about 1/2" below the shape you traced (so you'll have paper to glue on the plate). Cut triangular shapes of different sizes and directions around the line you made on the paper. These will be the swan "feathers."

Step 6: Glue the paper under the line all the way around the edge of the plate. At this point, make one small hole on each side of the swan mask to hold the elastic or ribbon.

Step 7: using a black marker define the edges of the eyes, then using a pink or red marker make swirly "eyelashes" or any shape to make the eyes stronger and more interesting.

Step 8: glue feathers (or other embellishments) to the paper feathers on top of the head. warning: the feathers I used to do this made a mess in my workspace! Even after vacuuming I'm still finding little pieces everywhere. They're taking over my craft area. *sigh*

Step 9: add a piece of ribbon to each side of the mask ti-eying it through the holes made in step 7. These will secure the mask on the wearer's head. I prefer using ribbon because then I can adjust the size depending on who's wearing it, but elastic works wonderfully too.

Here's the finished mask.

We had a lot of fun pretending to be swans and "dancing ballet" around the living room today.

Have you ever been inspired by a show your kids watch? Where do you find your inspiration?

Goals and headbands, but not together }{ WIP Wednesdays

I'm sure many of you have read tips and advice for achieving success in your endeavors, right? Or am I the only one who seems to notice these things popping up everywhere?

Well, I do appreciate them and try to follow the ones that make sense to me and my context. One of these, probably the most common, suggests (actually it's more like commands) that we must make short term goals that lead to long term goals. They must be realistic and measurable goals with a deadline. That way you can keep yourself accountable to them - another well repeated tip.

Where am I going with this? I need to refocus my time on my goals. This blog is part of the picture, so this isn't a "I'm spending less time on this" kind of post. In fact, I use my blog to keep me accountable to my dreams. I have much respect for the written word, and once I write it down it's like a contract with myself. I don't want to write down exactly what I'm working on this summer because I think it may be too premature. But soon.

I need to rethink my strategies and stop being afraid of failure. I have this sign hanging on top of my craft space that says "a man is not finished when he's defeated; a man is finished when he quits." I need to take these words to heart.

I have less time now to work on my goals, what with the husband gone. Still, that does not mean I'm finished with them. I just need to adjust my strategy.

Enough rambling. 

I've been working on headbands for N. because I love them and think little girls look adorable with them. I learned how to make this particular one from a tutorial on No Biggie, a blog I love. The only modification I made was to keep the squares open when making the scalloped edges, it just worked better for me with the materials I chose. 

As you can see, N. refused to make normal faces today.  She wanted nothing to do with the camera today. I love this child.

How do you work towards your goals? How do you stay focused?

Paper flower card }{ Tutorial Thursday

And I'm back with a card tutorial!

Are you sick of them yet? They are just so easy, quick, and you can use them for so many occasions, even just a simple hello to an old friend.

Back in April, I made some paper flowers based on a Creative Jewish Mom tutorial. I wasn't very happy with how I used them, but I loved the flowers themselves. So I let some ideas brew in my head of how to use them. This is one of those ideas.

Materials:

• cardstock in two coordinating colors
• green patterned paper
• red and light pink tissue paper
• scissors
• glue
• buttons
• permanent marker or pen

How to make it:

Step 1: Choose a card stock backing for your card and then a coordinating top panel. I choose a simple blue backing with some sparkling off white for the top panel to get some glitz in there.

Step 2: Cut the top panel on all sides slightly so that the backing shows, then glue them together. My backing was 4.5 wide by 6.5 long, and I cut my top panel down to 4 by 6.

Step 3: Cut the green patterned paper the same width of the top panel, and about 2 inches long. Cut the top in narrow strips (about 1.5 inches)  to make it look like grass. Glue it to the top panel.

Step 4: Draw the stem on the top panel.

Step 5: Make the flower with tissue paper following the tutorial on Creative Jewish Mom. The only change I made was that I didn't secure the petals together with paper brads. Instead I glued them down on the card and on top of one another.

Step 6: Glue a button on the center of the flower.

You can add whatever sentiment you want to the card or leave it as is.

Here's another one I made with a paper flower:

I really like how the flowers pop out of the cards and create some dimension.

How would you use the paper flowers? 

"Rose" Altered notebook }{ WIP Wednesdays

Can you believe this is my 100th post? How quickly this all goes! If we stop to think about the blog as a book, each post being a page, then I'd have a short little novella. Amazing.

The "Rose" notebook

I've been wanting to make something for my mother, but I had a hard time trying to figure out what. I think she likes to write and I know she likes vintage items. Her name is Rose.

The graphics fairy shared this rose image a little while back, and it finally gave me an idea of what to do. I remembered this hardcover notebook I had that looked a bit like an old book. I decided to alter it to add my mother's name and the rose image. It was my first time altering a book, and cutting the front page was a lot trickier than I thought. But this is the result.

As you can see, the edges are a bit frayed and they're very uneven. The frame isn't proportional in all places. There's not much I can do at this point to fix most of these issues, but I am still trying to make the edges a bit cleaner. I'm hoping since she's my mom that she won't mind the defects too much.

Do you ever give handmade gifts to friends and family? What kinds of reactions do you get/think you'd get? 

Butterfly garden shadow box }{ Tutorial Thursday

Just a reminder: Don't forget to enter my 6-month celebration giveaway here. 

I've had a handsome little boy on my mind a lot. Today's craft and tutorial was made with him and his family in my thoughts - a little butterfly garden.

Looking back at it, there are a few things I probably could and should have done differently, so I'll start by listing them. If you try to make this, you can always try my suggested improvements. 

1. Make smaller flowers and butterflies, or use a bigger box.
2. Make different sizes of butterflies.
3. Add some sparkle or drawn designs to the butterflies.
4. Make flowers that are lower to the ground, rather than tulips.

Just a few things that might improve today's project, and that I plan on trying myself next time we make something like this. 

Ok, on to the tutorial.

Materials:

• shoe or any "shallow" cardboard box
• origami paper
• green tissue paper
• glue
• utility knife
• thread
• scissors
• sewing needle
• gesso
• craft paints (blue, purple, white)
• paint brush
• an old plastic card (like a phone or grocery card) you don't use anymore

How to make it:

• step 1: make some origami butterflies. You can find instructions for a whole lot of different butterflies HERE and if you prefer a video, go HERE for an easy one.
• step 2: do the same with the flowers. For directions in pdf, you can check for these instructions HERE, or for a video go HERE.
• step 3: with a utility knife, cut out whatever you need out of the box so that the front is wide open.
• step 4: cover the inside of the box with one coat of gesso and wait for it to dry. If you don't like waiting, use a blow dryer to speed it up. Alternately you could glue some pretty paper.
• step 5: after the gesso is dry, drop a little paint on the background. Using the card, spread the paint over the background until you're happy with it. I actually added some extra gesso over the paint to add whites and make the background a bit more muted.
• step 6: glue the green tissue paper on the ground to make grass, then glue the flowers to the grass.
• step 7: using the sewing needle, make a hole on the top of the butterfly (around the middle) and pass the thread through it. Glue the thread to the top of the box and wait for it to dry. 

step 1

step 2

step 3

step 5

step 6

step 7

This whole process took about 2 hours, longer than I originally intended, so I didn't have time to add any designs or other embellishments to the garden. But there we have a small butterfly garden shadow box.  I'm thinking you can also do the flowers as a mural and do a butterfly bunting over it. If anyone tries it, I'd love to see what modifications you come up with.

Happy Thursday!