Easy Button Craft

This is a super easy craft I did a while back at my friend Shantel's house. You start with a canvas board. You can find them cheap and different sizes at Walmart.

You paint the background any color you wish.

Next you line up the buttons to make a letter, number or something else your creative mind leads you to. With a hot glue gun you paste the buttons on. I put smaller buttons on top of the bigger buttons for a neat design. You can do all sorts of designs with this project, it's super quick and easy. You can also use a mix of large and small buttons like I did.

Peppermint Tree Christmas Craft

So you know how I'm like all obsessed with peppermint and stuff? Well I made up this awesome craft that is easy, cheap and smells of lovely, lovely peppermint.

You will need those Styrofoam cones they sell at the dollar tree. They might sell them at Wal-Mart too. You can actually have any shape base of Styrofoam, a ball, a square, whatever be creative!

You will also need several bags of peppermints. They are $1 a bag at Dollar Tree and 1 and about 1/2 bags fully covers one cone.

Take a low temp glue gun and put a circle of glue on the back of a peppermint. Stick it on the cone, pressing a few seconds. Follow along in a line going all the way to the top.

If you come to a place where a whole peppermint doesn't fit, you can break it in half and stick it in the bare spot.

When you are done it should look something like this....

 

Make several of these for a centrepiece or put them around the house to smell it up like peppermint.

Kid's Handprint Keepsake Project

A few times a month I hold a craft club at my house. Moms and thier kids come over and do a themed craft and have playtime and snack. I have really enjoyed it, and had the opportunity to meet some awesome people. The girls get so excited when I tell them its craft day, its almost like a party for them. Today we had a Mother's Day theme.

We painted pots and each child got to take a packet of seeds home as well. (Makes a great gift for a mom or grandma)

We also did a fun keepsake project. I had the girls put thier handprints on paper and then I also wrote out this poem to hang in a frame beside it. The plan was to type and print it out but my printer decided to stop working. Pardon my slightly messy handwriting haha! Hey it's gotten a lot better, I failed penmanship in 1st grade. I mean come on who even gives a grade for penmanship in 1st grade?

Here is the poem, if any of you would like to do this project with your children also.

Handprints

Sometimes you get discouraged,

 Because I am so small

I always leave my handprints,

On the furniture and walls,

But everyday I’m growing,

 

I’ll be grown someday

Then all my little handprints,

 

Will slowly fade away

So, here’s a final handprint,

Just so that you can say

This is how my hand looked,

When I placed it here today.

And then of course you put the date. I'm thinking about doing this every year, changing out the pictures and saving the previous ones in a memory file. (I have a memory file for each of my girls where I keep thier special artwork and such.) There will be another post on how I organize that stuff coming soon.

Serenity's Tangled Party

My beautiful little Serenity turned 5 last week! It took me quite a while to plan her party, but it turned out awesome and she had a great time.

I got her a Tangled shirt to wear for the party. Isn't she pretty!?

 

 

 I had a table laid out with a poster for each girl. There were crayons and markers to make art like Rapunzel did in the movie. They also got a foam wand to decorate with glitter shapes.

 

I made each girl a long braid from yellow yarn and glued it to a headband.

 

 

This was our marvelous food table!

 

 

I handpainted a cardboard sign to be like the "Snuggly Duckling" on the movie. I cut the duck out of paper but painted the rest.

 

 

I made cupcakes and dyed the frosting green. I added a fake purple flower on top. The stand was also handmade from cardboard, styrofoam rounds and purple wrapping paper.

 

 

 I made jello boats from blue jello, half a mandarin orange and a toothpick with a purple flag.

 

We also had chips and dip, meats and cheese and fruit all served in frying pans. Notice the golden flower in the back? Yep got that in there too. (If you have seen the movie Tangled you will get the significance of it haha) I made brownie cake pops as well. I stuck them in styrofoam floral blocks covered in purple wrapping paper.

 

 

One of the games we did was pick a duck from the tub. If you got the duck with an X you got a prize!

We also played "Throw pascal in the pan". The girls threw rubber lizards into a frying pan.

 

 

This was our present table. I made the tower in the back from a pringles can, paper, yarn and fake moss. I wish I had gotten a better pic of it, it was a pain to make but turned out really cool!

 

 

I love her face, she was so excited about everything!

 

 

And here is the masterpiece tower my hubby and I made. He constructed it out of cardboard and I painted it and attached flowers and yarn hair.

 

 

Fun times!

Shamrock hats

Here is another cute craft we did on craft day.

For each hat you will need two pipecleaners, 2 shamrocks cut out of construction paper and two long strips of construction paper.

Staple one end of the paper strips together, then wrap around child's head to get the correct measurement. Staple the other ends.

Next poke the pipe cleaner in one side of the base of the shamrock and out the other side. Repeat on the other shamrock. Staple the pipe cleaners to the base of the hat.

                                        The shamrocks are supposed to wiggle around.

Hehe so cute!

Easy Easter Bunting

I'm making some cute props for my Easter shoot. I like bunting but couldn't find anything the exact style I wanted so I decided to make my own. Fabric bunting is generally sewn but...ain't nobody got time for that! So I was lazy and tacky glued it.

 

Anytime I have clothes or fabric with stains or holes, instead of throwing it away I cut large squares out of it and save for projects. I picked out a bunch of easter/spring colors from my stash.

 



I cut one square into a diamond shape and used it as a pattern for the rest of my squares. (Yes I know its not totally geometric. I was lazy, don't judge)

 

After about a half hour of cutting I ended up with a nice pile of diamond shapes.

I folded the diamonds over a piece of yarn to make sure they would match up nicely. I pinned a few just to get an idea of how much space I wanted in between each piece.

Next, time to glue. I used Aleene's Tacky glue, and put a line across the middle of the diamond (where I stuck the yarn) and also down each side. I folded the diamond over and pressed.

 

 

I made two strands with 9-10 traingles each. I can't wait to show you my Easter shoot set up!

Damask Bulletin Board Redo

I'm doing my office/craft room in blue and damask. I may or may not be slightly obsessed with damask lately. I was going to sell this bulletin board we had because it didn't really go with any of our decor. I also wanted to get a classy idea/brainstorming board for the office. Instead of spending money on a brand new board I took the old one and re-vamped it. I seriously love how it turned out!

I first taped off the cork area with painter's tape. Then I repainted the border a glossy black. Next I took damask fabric and stapled it. If you do a project similar to this make sure you staple the fabric to the wood and not the cork (it will pull right out) Also make sure to use a heavy duty stapler like an upholstry stapler for best results.

 

This is what I started with...cute but too boyish.

 

Taping off

 

 

Looks way different right? I loooove it!

Tape Valentine Hearts

So I missed posting yesterday eeek! O well I'll post it on the tail end of our 2 weeks of Valentine themes. This is a fun easy craft for the kiddos to do. Sorry for the lack of pics, my memory card died on me this morning. I had several days worth of photos on it too...bummer.

 

 

Take some construction or painting paper and tape a heart on it. I used electrical tape since its easy to remove and doesn't rip the paper. Next, color or paint all over the paper. After the paint dries remove the tape. Sweet!

Melted Crayon Hearts

Wow its February already! I'm pretty into Valentine's Day so for the next two weeks I'll be posting a Valentine's themed food, craft or beauty tip every day.

My girls really loved this craft. I think my youngest is a bit of pyromaniac. She kept saying "I need more fire!"

 

For this activity you will need crayons with the wrapper removed, a small candle and some construction paper.

Start by drawing a heart on a piece of construction paper.

Next, carefully hold the crayon in the flame for a split second. (Supervision is required during this step, I held the crayon and then passed it to my girls.) You want it to be softened but not so much that it drips onto the candle. Run the crayon along the paper.

You can use different shades of red, pinks and whites. For the prettiest effect make sure the outline is covered.

Lastly, cut out the heart. You can then paste it onto a contrasting colored paper or lace or whatever you want to experiment with. Be creative and have fun!

DIY Magazine Holder for Cheap!

I seriously hate stuff on the floor. Whether its clothes, toys, shoes, whatever. We always save our magazines to use for crafts (or in the hubs case, bathroom reading material lol). They usually end up on the floor in the bathroom and of course this irritates me. Eventually I'd like to get a nice wood rack but at the moment funds are short and I needed a quick fix. I took a large cereal box and cut out a wave design. Then I spraypainted the box black to match the bathroom decor.

Ok so its not the fanciest thing in the world but it keeps the magazines off the floor and blends in. And of course its practically free!

T-shirt Fringe Scarf Tutorial

                                            This is an easy tutorial to recycle a favorite tee.

1. Start with a large t-shirt. Cut the bottom hem off, as close to the seam as possible.

                                                    Next cut the top of the t-shirt off.

 

Cut fringes about halfway up. Do this all the way around the shirt.

 

 

               Take the slits and stretch them out. They should roll up into a nice little fringe.

 

 And thats all folks! Really easy right? You can wear the scarf several different ways.

                                          (Forgive my trashy shorts, it was laundry day lol)