Star Wars wedding gift

Yesterday afternoon I remembered we had a wedding reception to attend later that evening. Not wanting to head out to the store, I decided to make a personalized gift for the newlyweds!

My husband worked with the groom and knew he was an epic Star Wars fan. So what better gift than a personalized gift with a fabulous Darth Vader quote!

Vinyl on a simple piece of 2x8, sprayed with a light coat of white spray paint and sanded to show some of the wood grain.

Hopefully this will be a wedding gift that will bring smiles to the couple for years to come!

Shoe Storage: Cement Tubes

Our shoe situation in our house is out of control! I kept looking for an economical (cheap!!) solution to all of the shoe overflow. On Pinterest I had seen a few pins using large PVC cut into pieces and stacked. I liked he simplicity of this and headed to Home Depot to see what I could find.

Our Home Depot doesn't carry large PVC, the largest diameter size they had was 3 inch and it was expensive!

So I walked through the store and came upon cement tubing, large enough and the right price range. A 10 inch diameter by 48 inch high tube was a little over $8!

So, I bought one tube a box cutter and some spray paint!

 

The tubes are thick cardboard and cut with a box cutter without any problem. It's not "easy" but take your time and you can do it without difficulty. I used a ruler and a sharpie and measured out my lines. I chose 12 inches for each tube.

 

 

This can fit several pair of kid shoes or a pair of adult shoes or two without any problem.

 Then the spray painting began. Since it is cardboard, they soak up the paint. After I was finished I thought craft paint could have been easier, but spray painted worked just fine.

In the end I purchased 3 tubes and made a grouping of 8 tubes by my front door and a grouping of 4 tubes by my garage door. To stick them together I used hot glue. It was simple and fast and adhering cardboard to cardboard, this seemed like a quick and easy solution.

Preschool: Yarn Wrapped Sheep

Last week I taught our mom preschool on farm animals. One of the crafts we made were yarn wrapped sheep.

I started with some cardboard and and cut out a sheep shape. I also needed popsicle sticks.

   

I spray painted all of these.

   

After they dried I hot glued the popsicle sticks on as legs.

   

Then they were ready for preschool! To start the sheep I tied a piece of yarn on the the kids wrapped and wrapped until the sheep was full. Then the glued a googly eye on both sides!

 

A cute little sheep!

 

Peanut Butter Chocolate Donut Holes

 

For my birthday last week I received a cake pop maker. Today my daughter and I tried it out and made Peanut Butter Chocolate Donut Holes! I based it on a vegan recipe I found on Meet Your Treat, but I'm not vegan so I made some changes. I believe these could easily be made in a mini muffin tin if you didn't own a cake pop maker.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Donut Holes:

• 1 Cup white flour
• 1/3 cup whole wheat pastry flour
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 cup butter
• 3/4 milk
• 1/4 cup chocolate syrup
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract

Glaze:

• 1 cup dark chocolate chips
• 1 Tbsp. creamy peanut butter

In a sauce pan combine butter, milk, chocolate syrup and brown sugar. Once melted and combined remove from heat and add vanilla. In a bowl combine both flours, cocoa, salt and baking soda. Add wet ingredients, stir until combined. If using a cake pop maker: Preheat cake pop maker and spray with non-stick spray. Once preheated fill cavities until level, close and flip. Cook for approx 3 minutes. 

Remove and cool.

   

If using a mini muffin tin: Preheat oven to 350, spray mini muffin tin (or use paper cups) fill 2/3 of the way and bake for 8-10 minutes.

Rubber band bracelets-no loom needed!

Last week I saw on a rubber bands posted on a deal site. I checked it out and was curious what they were for. It turns out you can make pretty awesome little bracelets out of rubber bands! I ordered my rubber bands from the rainbow loom website, but only ordered rubber bands and "c" clips, no loom. You don't need a loom to make regular rubber band bracelet or the fishtail rubber band bracelet. My 8 year old and her 10 year old friend had a blast making them.

So you need a bunch of rubber bands (I ordered the mixed pack but will be ordering more in specific colors) and clips. Each back ordered from rainbow loom comes with 25 "c" clips.

Pick out your colors, if doing an alternating pattern 2 take the 2 different colors and lay them on top of each other.Then loop them through each other and pull tight.



Then take your next color fold it in half and slid it through one end

continue doing this with alternating colors until you reach your desired length.

Then slide a "c" clip on the one end, then the other.

A variety of colors

Alternating colors

All done!!

To make a fishtail:

Take one color and put it on your middle finger, twist it once and put the other side on your index finger.

Then place 2 more rubber bands on you finger, no twisting (I chose alternating colors, but have also done a rainbow).

Then take once side of the bottom rubber band and pull it to the middle, taking it off your finger. Do that to the other side. You should now have 1 rubber band in the middle and two on your fingers.

Add another rubber band to your finger (NO TWISTING AFTER THE FIRST RUBBER BAND!) and pull the bottom rubber band to off and to the middle.

Continue, and you begin to see the fishtail!

Continue to you desire length and attach a "c" clip.

A pattern of 3 colors

Alternating colors

Rainbow!

This is a great craft for any age, for boys and girls, preteen, teen and adult. Buy rubber bands in your school colors, holidays, the sky is the limit!

Linked up at: The Girl Creative, Classy Clutter, sugarbeecrafts, Ginger Snap Crafts

Ric-Rac Flannel Baby Blanket

 

A friend is having a baby boy soon and I needed a gift! I like to make something for baby gifts because it's so much more personal. I pulled out a piece of flannel from my stash and started sewing. It was 2 yards so I just put right sides together and sewed until I just had an opening left to flip. Once it was flipped I was ready to top stitch and I thought it needed a little something more. I happened to have some orange ric-rac that went perfectly with that fabric. I didn't quite have enough to go around the entire thing so I just did 2 sides and I love how it turned out. Just a little something to punch up the interest!

Happy Sewing!

Simple String Art

I've seen a lot of string art floating around Pinterest and decided to take a stab at it. It was quick, I had all I needed on hand and a great result!

To make your own you need:

• A piece of wood (I used a piece of scrap 2x8 and quickly painted it with craft paints)


• Nails (I used 3/4 inch, they are $.97 at Walmart)


• Hammer


• A large printed letter (I printed it from word font Lucida Handwriting size 500)


• String, Yarn, Embroidery Floss, whatever you have

First I measured my wood to see how big I wanted my letter and then used Word and printed a large "K" (for my last name). Then you place you letter on you wood and nail through the paper in each corner of you letter. This holds the paper in place

Then continue to nail about every 1/2 inch or so until you fill your entire letter

After that you rip you paper off!


Then tie your string to one nail and start wrapping!!

I used a pencil eraser at some points to help hold my string down as I was wrapping

Tie off your end and tuck it under and you're done!

This project would be great for older kids learning to use a hammer and nails!