Showing posts with label crafts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crafts. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

How to make Adorable Felt Boxes, DIY

 
Make these adorable boxes from Felt! You can make whatever size, depending on the size of square felt piece you have.
These are perfect for holding jewelry, coins, or whatever else comes to mind!
 
Image from Duitang.com

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Flowers From Plastic Spoons!

Flower Made From Plastic Spoons
 
 
I came across this idea while I was browsing different ways to make paper flowers and thought I have GOT to try this! The best part about this craft is that plastic spoons are super cheap and the colors are almost limitless.
 
What you need
 
 
1 Burning Candle
Scissors
Plastic Spoons (Any Color, and at least 6, the more spoons the fuller the flower)
 
 
How to Make

 
Step One: Take one plastic spoon and sway it over the burning candle until it looks to start becoming droopy. (The closer you put the spoon to the fire the more of a burnt look you get)

 
Step Two: While the tip of the spoon is still hot (be careful spoon will be extremely hot) shape the spoon into the desired shape of petal you want. I usually pinch in the sides a bit and then make the tip fold outwards just a tad. (The plastic hardens quickly, so try to get the shape you want fast)

 
Step Three: Reheat the base of the scoop part of the spoon and snip off while the stem is still warm. 

 
Step Four: Repeat step two to the rest of the spoons and fuse them together one by one by heating the ends slightly and pinching them together.

 
Keep going around placing the petals where you want them
 
For this flower I used the ends of a plastic black fork for the center.

 


Tuesday, October 9, 2012

BOO! Cutest DIY Halloween Home Decor!!

 
I have been in Michigan visiting family for almost 3 weeks now and have not been able to craft much since all my craft supplies are at home, but I did this craft a while back and still had the photos of it on my computer still, so I decided with Halloween around the corner I would post it. I love making anything with paper, and believe it or not you can make a TON of different things from paper. I got this idea from a craft magazine I had that had something very similar. This was really fun and super cheap seeing that everything here is stuff from the dollar tree.
 
Things you need
 
Small buckets (dollar tree has these in the wedding favor section)
Floral Foam (dollar tree also has this)
Moss (this is also in the floral section at dollar tree, comes in a bag)
Ribbon/s
Wooden skewers
Colored card Stock
Glue Stick
Hot Glue/Gun
Wiggle Eye Balls

 
How to make:
 
Step One: Cut your colored card stock to your desired sizes for the background square and then a 3 little bit smaller squares in black for the inner background.
Step Two: Cut out the letters to spell BOO! (I used my cricut machine for my letters but if you don't have a cricut you can print out letters in your desired font on the computer then use them as a stencil on your card stock)
Step Three: Cut out a half oval for the ghost shapes.
Step Four: Glue all your cut pieces together and then place your wiggle eyes in place on the ghosts.
Step Five: Hot glue the skewer stick to the back of the finished card stock topper letters.
 
 
Step Six: Hot glue your ribbons around the bottom of the buckets
Step Seven: Break or cut off blocks the fit inside of the buckets from the floral foam.
Step Eight: Hot glue some moss at the top of the floral foam
Step Nine: Stick your finished letters into the buckets and Enjoy your super cute Halloween Craft!
 

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Bath Bombs


  

One of my favorite things to do is sit in a nice hot tub with a good book!  I have always loved buying those big bath bombs that fizz away in the tub like a tablet of Alka-Seltzer, but they are kind of pricy considering they are only used one time.  I decided to try a recipe to make my own bath bombs at home.  There are several recipes out there, but the one I decided to try is made up mostly of things you may already have in your kitchen.
Dry Ingredients:
Silicone mold of any shape or silicone muffin pan
1 Cup Citric Acid
2 Cups Baking Soda
1 Cup Corn Starch
Wet Ingredients:
1 1/4 tsp Essential Oils
1/3 Cup Safflower Oil
2 TB Water
drop of food coloring (optional) -- I did not do this
I found some essential oils at a massage supply store, but you can order them from the internet.  Prices will vary, but I got tangerine scent for about $5.  The citric acid I went to several stores to find and kept coming up empty handed.  I ended up finding some in Walmart next to the canning supplies.  To buy it this way is more expensive, but I was impatient.  They do sell it in bulk at amazon.com.
Directions:
  • Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl and set aside.
  • Mix the wet ingredients into a jar and shake well to mix.
  • Slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients wisking quickly while you pour.  If it starts fizzing then you are either adding too much wet or not wisking quickly enough.
  • Once all of the wet ingredients are added the mixture will be dry looking.
  • Use a icecream scoop to scoop into the silicone mold and press down firmly to pack the mold full.*
  • Keep the mixture in the molds overnight to ensure that they are dried thoroughly.


  • After they have dried all night in the mold carefully remove the bath bombs and either place in a jar or package for gifts.
  • Take a nice bath with your new bath bomb and RELAX!



*Once in the molds my mixture kept fizzing up, and I had to keep pressing it down nume
rous times to stop the fizzing.  Other recipes call for witch hazel instead of the water as a binder to minimize the fizzing....I will try this next time to see if it works better.  I finally gave up on pushing them down after repeated attempts and just let them fizz up.  They ended up hardening, they just looked a little funny on top.


I tested out one of the bath bombs and it fizzed away just as it was supposed to.  The tangerine smell was perfect...not too powerful. The Safflower oil really made my skin feel nice and soft too!


ENJOY!!!

Friday, September 28, 2012

Hair Bow Holder

I decided that with all the hair bows I've been making, I need somewhere to put them all where they are easily accessible, but cute too. I ended up making a bow holder out of a large frame.  It's a great place to clip on all sorts of bows and barrettes and it is SUPER easy to do.


What You'll Need:

22"x 18" piece of thin fabric
3 yrds of 1in ribbon
16"x20" frame
hot glue

Directions:
  1. Take out the piece of glass or plastic from the frame and lay it on top of the fabric of your choice.
  2. Pull the fabric so that it's taut and glue the edges to the back of the glass/plastic.  Wrap the corners like you would wrap a present and secure with hot glue.
  3. Decide if you are going to hang your frame vertically or horizontally and then cut your ribbon to be slightly longer than the frame.
  4. Hot glue the ends of the ribbon either vertically or diagonally to the back of the glass piece, making sure that the ribbon has no slack in it.
  5. Once the glue is dry, place the glass back into the frame and secure it in place.
  6. Place bows and clips on the frame and hang up!


*I made mine to match my daughter's room so I used a piece of purple fabric with Disney Princess ribbon.  This would be very pretty with a nice looking frame, but I didn't want to spend a lot of money so I bought a poster frame for about $5 at Walmart.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Girls Hair Bows

I have decided to dabble in making hair bows.  My daughter is 5 years old and just started kindergarten.  I wanted to put all sorts of cute things in her hair, but I quickly realized that they were hard to find.  After looking online at some hair bow tutorials, I thought "I can do that!"  Feeling pretty optimistic I went ahead and ordered a bunch of ribbon and cute adornments for the bows.  I ordered everything from www.theribbonretreat.com  because they had what I thought were great prices. 



What You Will Need:
  • Ribbon in a variety of colors and sizes (I used grosgrain)
  • String or thread
  • Clips or Headbands
  • Hot Glue
  • Scissors
  • Lighter
Some Possible Materials You Will Need:
  • Bottle Caps
    • Colored Printer (if you decide to do bottle cap embellishments)
    • 1 in hole punch
  • Jewels
  • Faux Pearls
  • Large Beads
  • Silk Flowers
  • Ric Rac
  • Wooden Dowels & Clothes Pins (for curling ribbon in the oven)

There are SOOOOO many different kinds of bows you could make.  The possibilities are endless.  Because there are several ways to form the different bows, it is easier to see it rather than describe how to do them.  I went to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUlvZ7xx6uE and watched some tutorials on how to make some basic bows and then started designing and putting together my own creations.  Once you have the basics down, you can put together TONS of different styles by layering the bows on top of one another.



 What is more girly than a cute bow?!  I can't wait for my princess to see her new bows :)

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Our Crafternoons September Featured Etsy Sellers!

I want to take a minute to post some talented Etsy sellers and their items. If you have never been to Etsy I highly recommend it. It's a site full of wonderful people that hand make ALL different kinds of things and are available for you to purchase. Please take a moment to check out all these wonderful crafters and what they have to offer!

"Note: A BIG thanks to everyone who supported and followed our blog! I would LOVE to be able feature all of you in the blog post, but unfortunately it would be so hard for me to make that big of a blog post! Since the response on this post was so good I have decided to do a monthly Etsy featured sellers post. If I didn't get a chance to feature you this time and you would still like to be featured please, please contact via email (via contact us tab) for the next months feature post."



Candy Corn Inspired Pom Garland by Threading Marigolds
 
Crochet Pumpkins by ProchetByEAS
 

 Candy Corn Earrings by ginfish

 Embroidered hoop art field of daisys by atticusandcole

 Brass and Bronze Pearls Acorn Earrings by JacarandaDesigns

 Primitive Halloween Black Cat Wall Décor by SweetMeas

 Three Strand Pearl Flower Necklace Assemblage by ModernVintageStudio

 Thanksgiving Scarecrows and Turkey Decoration by CarolinaYardbirds

 Autumn leaves necklace by kimberleeannkreation

 Red flower pillow beige set by juliasfit

 Beaded Leather Wrap Bracelet by OrbObsession

 Autumn Fall Leaves Greeting Card by JessicaSherriff

 Pumpkin Orange Charm Bracelet by ChristalDreamz

Skull and Pearl earrings on sterling silver hooks by anacdesigns

 Black and Orange dog collar harness by UrbanOliveApparel

Milk and Honeycomb Soap by Bumblys

 Red Ocher Brown Crocheted ead Necklace by ArigigiArt

Ear Cuff Wrap Orange with Grizzly Feathers by RazzleDazzleMe
 Leaf Pin Brooch by ReGrowRoots

 Tote with Autumn Flower Design by LeLaStudio
PreMade Mini Accordian Album by TizzylishCottage
 
 



Crayon Art for a girls, craft or play room!


I SO wish I would have taken pictures along the way when I was making this craft, but since I didn't I will try and do my best to explain through words what I did.
This craft is a perfect way to add some decoration in a little girls room, craft room, or a kids playroom! This was actually WAY easier to make then it looks. There are a ton of things you can do with crayons and this is just one way you can use crayons for artwork!
 

To Make:

 
Things you need
 
Crayons (I used all the purples and pinks, but you can use any colors you want)
Canvas
Paper flowers or Flower embellishments
Colored Card Stock Paper
Blow Dryer
Hot glue and glue gun
Knife
 
Step One: Cut the Crayons to the length you prefer. It is easiest to score the crayon all the way around and then snap it at the score line (I think it gives it a cleaner cut).
Step Two: Hot glue them all the way across the bottom of the canvas, crayon tips facing up.
Step Three: Lean the canvas upside down (so crayons are now on the top of the canvas, tips facing down) up against a wall.
Step Four: Turn blow Dryer on high heat, but low air flow and run it across the crayon tips until they begin to melt and drip (be careful because the crayon drippings are more "runny" then I thought they would be so it tends to splatter if you have the blow dryer to close).
Step Five: After you have your crayon drippings to your desired length on the canvas, allow the drippings to dry (only takes a couple minutes)
Step Six: Turn Canvas back right side up and hot glue your flower embellishments onto the ends of the crayon drippings. Cut out petals from your card stock and add to the "stems".
Step Seven: Enjoy!!
 

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Craft Room Designs

Lately, I've starting crafting more and more.  When we moved into our house about a year ago, I had my craft supplies in a couple different places throughout the house, but then as I started buying more and more supplies I quickly realized that I really had to have a central location to get my work done efficiently.  I am a clutter freak and I do not like to have things sitting around the house for everyone to see, but at the same time I didn't have an extra room to make into a craft room.  Lucklily I had a nice open space in my dining/livingroom, so I decided this would be my new craft corner.  Since my craft area was going to be in the middle of the house, I knew that I had to make it look as cute as possible so it wasn't an eyesore.  Organization and a low cost were my major concerns in designing my crafting space.  As a one income family, I can't always go out and buy whatever I want when I want.  I worked with things I had on hand and ran to Michael's to buy some things to help spruce the space up a bit. 


~ My Craft Corner ~


Organization ~

I actually had all of the Rubbermaid drawer containers and shelves on hand.  I used to be a teacher, and when I returned home to be a SAHM I kept everything, so I was lucky in that I didn't have to buy any of the drawers, shelves, table, etc.  I organized each drawer/shelf into it's own category, i.e. fabrics, glue, pains, ribbon, yarn, etc.  Everything has it's own home in my area and to ensure that I don't get lazy on myself, I used a label maker to label each drawer and shelf so that I can easily find and put away all my materials.

Decoration ~

My decorations in my craft area are all things that I made.  Below is a tutorial on how I made them.




What To Do ~


Framed Spool - I bought a unfished picture frame (frame only) from Michael's on sale for 50% off.  I spray painted in with a black gloss finish. I also purchased an unfinished spool rack from Michael's and then spray painted in in a cherry red gloss finish.  I hung the frame and then used mounting tape to secure the spool rack centered inside of the frame.  As a finishing touch, I added my sewing spools onto the rack, spaced out to balance out the aesetics.



'CREATE' Letters - Originally I wanted to buy wooden letters and paint them to hang above my sewing machine, but as a last minute substitution I decided to try these instead.  I used an old box that I was going to recycle and made big box letters with a sharpie and cut them out.  I used some red yarn that I had on hand and started wrapping the letters using Tacky Glue underneath the yarn.  Once they were fully wrapped and the glue had dried, I trimmed off any access cardboard that was showing, and then hot glued a yarn loop on the back so I could hang them.


Bow Holder -  I recently ordered a bunch of ribbon wholesaled with plans to start making hair bows for my daughter and her friends.  I decided to make a bow holder to display the bows as they are being made.  To do this, I used some cardboard from an old box and covered it with a large piece of red felt.  I basically wrapped it like a present and then sealed the ends with hot glue.  To add some color, I added a piece of fabric that I had on hand that would match the colors I wanted to use.  I used hot glue on the back to secure the fabric to the now felted board.  Next, I measured and cut some black ribbon to put on the board diagnolly, to which the bows will be secured to.  I hot glued the ribbon ends onto the back of the board and then put a dab of hot glue in the middle of the ribbon directly onto the fabric to make it a little more secure. I secured this to the wall with mounting tape.


'SEW' Sign -  I found a cheap unfinished wooden laser frame at Michael's for about $3.  I also picked up the letters to spell 'SEW' for about $1.50 each.  I used the same paint colors that I used for the frame and spool rack to paint the 'SEW' letters and the laser frame.  I used one nail to secure the frame to the wall and then used tiny strips of mounting tape on the back of each letter to center it inside of the frame.


Framed Sign - First off, I would have prefered to have framed this in black to coordinate with the rest of the colors, but I used a silver frame that I already had on hand.  I printed out the sign in dijon color from the website http://www.leblahg.com/2009/04/get-excited-and-make-things.html and framed it in the silver frame.


Boxed Shelves with Jar Decor - I bought these boxes as an unfinished set from Michael's and painted them in the same black spray paint I used on the other projects above.  I also got two small jars that I got for $1 each and filled them with beads and buttons, to use and decor.



~ The Finished Result  ~