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

Die cuts for scrapbooking, cardmaking and MUCH more!

Hello All,

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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.

 

DYI Play Dough

This afternoon my daughter and I sat down to make some homemade play dough.  The store bought stuff I had purchased many moons ago, was all dried up and had to be tossed.  I saw a recipe online for homemade dough and I knew I had everything on hand, what I didn't realize is just how EASY and FAST it is to make this stuff!  It has the same consistency of the real Playdough and makes a ton too!

What You Will Need:

1 Cup Salt

2 Cups All Purpose Flour

2 Cups Water

Food coloring -OR- Kool Aid Packet**

1 TB cooking oil (I used Safflower Oil because I had it on hand)

1 tsp Cream of Tartar

Directions:

Put all ingredients into a medium sized pot.  If you are using Kool Aid dissolve it into the water first.

Turn the stove onto med-high heat and stir the mixture continuously. 

After literally about 2 min it's DONE!

Gather all the contents from the pot into a lump and dump onto the counter.

I let it sit for a couple minutes and then kneeded it all together...it was still pretty warm but not real hot.

Wait a few more minutes until it is cool enough for the kiddies to handle and then viola!

TIME TO PLAY!!!!

Store in airtight container in the refridgerator.

**Other people who have made this says that the play dough stinks a little.  However if you use the Kool Aid instead of the food coloring, the dough takes on the scent of the drink mix and smells pretty good!

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!!!

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.

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 :)