sweet gift idea

I made this for my father's birthday back in February. It's all his grand children's hand-prints in the shape of "I love you" in sign language. Right after I gave it to him we found out there will be another grandchild born this year. We are so excited!

Christmas Cards

 Hope you have a Merry Christmas!

 I made these holiday card displays last year as well before I started this blog. I love to display the Christmas cards we receive and this is an easy CHEAP way to do it. Purchase a cross stitch hoop. I took mine apart so it makes two! Then using wood glue, glue on tiny clothespins to the hoop. 

Balloon Wreath

This is my lame attempt to convince my daughter that she wants a costume birthday party instead of my little pony. Her birthday is close to Halloween and I want to have an excuse to decorate a lot this year.  Either way, this is a fun decor craft you can do for any holiday or celebration. I got a plain foam wreath from Hobby Lobby and then bought 220 balloons. Half black and half orange. Then some size 20 super-fine sharp pins from the sewing section of Hobby Lobby to attach the balloons to the foam. It didn't take too long. I just folded the balloon in half short wise and pinned it to the wreath. I hope to post a LOT more Halloween crafts soon!

Craft...well sort of:)

We got this day bed frame last week. My oldest daughter really needed a bed so I was excited for her to have one. It was pretty ugly. Really dark stained wood. Not so good for her room. I have been priming and painting for a few days now and today I was proud to put it together (yes by myself) and show it to her. She was very impressed. Now I will have to redecorate the whole room around it but I think it will be fun!

card gift box

I am going to show you how to make this cute little gift box that holds 3x3" cards. I made this Valentines one for my daughter's kindergarten teacher. You can see below I was very busy. I made 5 more as gifts.

They are fun because the person you give them to has three cards they can pass out. I did a few different 3x3 cards. These above and the others at the bottom of the blog.

Cut your box at 5 1/4" by 9 1/2 "

Score on the 9 1/2 inch side at 1", 4 1/4", 5 1/4" and 8 1/2" then on the width score at 1" on both sides. Fold all your score lines.

Place your paper horizontal like above. With scissors cut the one inch vertical lines in your 1 inch crease one both sides. You can see the ends really well in the picture above.

Using double sided sticky tape place your tape in these places seen above. PUT THE TAPE ON THE BACK SIDE OF THE BOX. You can tell that my box curves from the folds. Fold the box into its final shape and glue.

 

Here is the final product.

Decorate your box anyway you like. Then make your 3x3 cards by cutting a piece of card stock 3"x6" and fold. Design and your finished.

Toothfairy box

My daughter recently lost her first tooth. She was so excited about it. She worked on pulling it out for about a week and finally I tied floss around it like my dad use to do for me. She yanked it out within 10 minutes. It was a fun experience to share with her. I feel like she is growing too fast so I made this little container for her so she doesn't loose her tiny teeth.

I had this tin can (like an empty Altoids can) lying around the house. I knew I wanted to do something with it so I just held onto it.

I pulled some patterned and plain paper out of my stash. She loves pink of course! I used one of my flower punches to punch out a few flowers. Then I used a glue pen and covered one side of the flower with glue. I sprinkled pink glitter on it and set it aside to dry.

I layered the paper and glued it to the can. Then I used some embellishments I already had to make it girly. The flower, button and the "a" sticker. I also glued some ribbon around the base. I wanted it to be fancy.

I took the glittered flower and put a white glittered one behind it. Stick a brad through that and it's done!

The back needed something because there was a manufacturer's sticker so I glued a piece of matching paper and recorded the date so she can remember when she lost her first tooth.

message board

I had this mirror from IKEA in my kids' bathroom for years but it wasn't doing it for me anymore so I decided to re purpose it. I took the hanging hooks off and sanded it down.

Then I removed the mirror (it wasn't hard, it was just hot glued on) and painted the wood an ivory color. Then I used a black stamp pad to shade the edges. My daughters room is black pink and white so I picked this paper to add to it. I just measured the frame and cut the paper out to the size I wanted. Then I used this spray adhesive I got from Michaels to adhere it to the frame. It worked great!

I used the chalkboard spray paint I had left over from another project on the mirror. It works fine just spraying straight on the glass. Then I glued the chalkboard square back into the frame, added some ribbon and it finished.

chalkboard containers

This project tried my patience. I bought these glass jars to hold my sugar, flour and brown sugar. They were so plain I wanted to do something fun with them. The ones I bought have these ribbed corners which was my biggest headache. I would recommend a jar that is smooth all the way around.

I cut out the design I wanted to paint onto my jars with my cricut. I used some left over vinyl so that it would stick to my jar.

Here is the jar ready to be painted

I put a plastic bag around to protect the rest of the jar. This chalkboard spray paint was VERY runny. I was not prepared for it. I have used chalkboard paint before but not in the can. I got the paint at Michaels.

You may want to do 2 coats of paint. The nice thing is that if you make a mistake you can scratch the paint off pretty easy so when you are writing with the chalk don't push too hard.

Valentine Wreath

I have seen this wreath done with felt but I chose to use napkins instead. I think it's cheaper and easier to cut out.

I got this wreath and these napkins at Hobby Lobby. The wreath is 12x1-1/8" and the napkins are 25cm x 25 cm. I got two packages of 50 napkins.

Choose the size circle you would like to use. I used this painters tape as guide to cutting mine. I created about a 3" circle. I found that cutting 3 napkins out at a time worked nicely.

Scrunch the napkin around your finger. They look better if you scrunch them a lot so don't feel you have to be perfect.

Add some hot glue to the spot where the tip of your finger hits the center of the circle

Press against the Styrofoam for a few seconds

Finished product

This project took me about 3 hours to complete by myself. If you have someone to help cut out circles it would go much faster.

art display

I made this little art display piece for my son. VERY EASY VERY CHEAP!  I have made a similar one for my daughter and he wanted one too (these are her drawings). Anyway I had this old frame sitting in my garage for a few years. My parents gave it to me and I haven't done anything with it yet. I decided to take wire for hanging pictures and run those across a few times so we can hang the kid's art on them with clothespins. The tools I used are in the picture below.

I just got a wall hanging kit and used the extra wire it came with to string across the frame. I painted the frame red to go with my son's room. Then I used tiny clothespins I got from Hobby Lobby to hang their drawings (I will paint the clothespins red too eventually).