Make a Spring-y Wreath

Do you have any grapevine wreaths lying around your house collecting dust? If so, go get one! If not, then get thee to a thrift or craft store and pick one up. While you are there grab a can of pastel spray paint.

Go outside and spray that thing until you can't spray it anymore. It will take several coats, but if you just go back out every once in awhile and squirt it a bit each time, it will eventually go from looking like a somewhat "dated" country accent to this ---

Okay, well not quite yet... first you have to wrap some ribbon around the wreath and tie it in a bow. Then you have to make some tissue paper flowers! Go here and learn how to do it. It's really very simple. Once you have some flowers, hot glue them to the wreath and you're done!

Isn't it cute?!

Sharing Scrapbook Pages #3

Grid designs are a great way to include multiple photos on your page while keeping the page simple to-make and easy on the eyes.

a list

small photos surround the list in the center -- all the things we wanted to do before leaving our temporary home and returning to North Carolina

card stock, sticker letters, journaling spot, photo corners

A New Room for Caroline

this way there's one block for the title, one for the journalling, and similarly-sized photos take up the rest of the space -- easy!

patterned paper, card stock, sticker letters, stickers, vellum

Summer Fun

less photos and more room for decoration... journalling is handwritten around each picture.

patterned paper, card stock, cardstock stickers, pen

April showers bring May flowers

grid in the middle again with a little more decoration and minimal journaling...  it's all about the pictures on this page!

die cut paper, card stock, rub on letters, die cuts

Sharing Scrapbook Pages #2

@ 47

Here's another simple one-page design for 2 photos: turning 47...  so young!

patterned paper, card stock, stickers, stamp & ink pad

too much fun

Similar design, with a journal card added for a bit more detail: a fun time with my siblings.

card stock, patterned paper, sticker letters, rub-ons, journal card, photo corners

family

Same basic 2-photo design with a bit more embellishment and handwritten journaling along the side: summertime family visit.

patterned paper, chipboard letters, stickers

our tiny dancer

This last page is based on the same 2-photo idea but this time the photos are vertical: youngest daughter's first dance recital.

die cut paper, card stock, sticker letters, stick on jewels

Sharing Scrapbook Pages #1

A few years ago I scanned a lot of my scrapbook pages.  It wasn't a perfect system -- in the process I lost some of the details on the edges, but it was a good feeling knowing I had a digital version of all those somewhat vulnerable paper pages.

I thought I'd occasionally share a page or two or three with you -- even though some of them might look a bit "dated" (after all scrapbooking is an extremely trendy craft!) maybe some of the ideas, page design, subject matter, will inspire you.  At least, if you're like me, you'll enjoy looking at what someone else has created.

First Day '07

Simple design, simple text, simple story:  first-day-of-homeschool snapshots taken on the back porch.

sticker letters, ribbon, cardstock, pen

Singing Beach -- Manchester MA

Same basic layout, rotated and journaling added along the side, this time computer generated: a visit to a much-loved beach in Massachusetts.

sticker letters, patterned paper, cardstock, stickers

 {3}

Again, same basic layout, turning the photo strip a bit on the diagonal this time, with more room for lots of hand-written journaling along the side: celebrating my sisters and our relationship over the years.

patterned paper, cardstock, rubons, chipboard numbers, photo corners, pen

First Day of School

Back to the same design as the first layout above!  This time with a bit more liberal use of patterned paper and stickers.

patterned paper, stickers, stamps & ink

Craft an Easter Egg Tree

Here's a very cute decoration that anyone can make to celebrate Spring and Eastertime! It's also a decoration that you can make without spending a lot of money.

Go to your local dollar store and pick up:

• a styrofoam cone
• several packages of colored plastic eggs
• plastic Easter basket "grass"

Grab your hot glue gun.

Begin gluing the whole plastic eggs around the base of the cone (see photo). Continue spiraling around the cone until you reach the top and then add one egg at the very peak of the "tree".

When you are finished attaching the eggs, go back and insert some plastic grass into each gap between the eggs.

Display and enjoy!

(Yes, it's that simple, but so colorful and cute.)

This Little Guy was a Favorite...

...so we'll post him again!
Last year I made these ornaments for several family members and it was a big hit! If you missed it the first time around, here it is again!!!

Be sure to check out the comments section on the first post because there were some great reader questions and suggestions.

So easy to make... got the idea from here. Modified.

Materials:

• 3 bottle caps
• ribbon
• acrylic paint
• permanent marker
• orange scrap paper
• embellishments (if desired)
• hot glue
• optional magnet dots

Paint the bottle caps with several coats of white acrylic paint. Mine took 3+. I also painted the backs of my caps because since it's an ornament, the back may be seen. I decided to ink the edges with a black stamp pad to make them stand out. Then I cut a little free-hand triangle from paper and glued it on as a nose. I used the marker to draw eyes, a mouth and buttons. I used some fluffy string/ribbon and a button to make a scarf for my snowman. Totally up to you on how you want to embellish him/her. My sister came up with the idea that this snowman could also be made into a magnet by putting magnet dots or a magnet strip on the back. Mine hangs from a ribbon loop. I also added some glitter to him to make his "snow sparkle!"

Try it! You'll like it!

A "Handmade" Christmas...

**SPOILER ALERT** -- Family members, keep in mind that if you continue to read this post your Christmas present surprises may be ruined! Read at your own risk. Fortunately this message will not self-destruct in 30 seconds...

 

This year is a "handmade" Christmas for our family! I have searched high and wide for gifts that I can make at home to give to our loved ones. All of these gifts include my children's hands in some way or another, hence my "handmade" title. It's really been fun. I won't list everything just now because I really don't want to ruin it for my family... but I will share one thing we have going on at our house today: Handprint Salt Dough Ornaments.

 

Oh my goodness. These things are SOOO easy to make!!!

 

Thanks to Olive Juice Mama, I have 4 of these very cute ornaments in the oven right now. If you visit her site you can see that with 3 ingredients, some elbow work (you have to knead the dough for quite awhile) and about 4 hours of bake time -- you will have the cutest ornaments that cost you probably like $.25 cents each to make! Sweet!!!

 

Here are mine cooking... I will update you with the final product later.

 

 

 

My daughter's hand is on three of these and the fourth is plain because my son wants to paint it himself. We will probably be making another batch tomorrow!

Chocolate Covered "Pumpkins"

Today we made some chocolate covered pretzels. We used small pretzel knots, dipped in white chocolate that we had colored with orange food coloring. I got this idea from this website and you can view it for a more detailed explanation of how to make these treats. She has great pictures, too!

What you need:

• Bag of pretzels
• Orange Food Coloring (I used this stuff because it's awesome)
• White Chocolate Chips (we bought a small Nestle bag)
• M&Ms (just the green ones)
• Oil and/or Butter

Melt your chocolate. I did 1 minute in the microwave and then another 30 seconds until it seemed ready. Don't go too fast or try to melt it all in one go, it won't work! Add some food coloring until you achieve the shade of orange you want. I added some butter and oil to my chocolate to thin it out. The original recipe states that you should use 1 Tbsp of shortening for about 10 oz of chocolate. I estimated and just added until I felt that the chocolate was runny enough. The reason I didn't use shortening is because we don't buy that stuff in our house! I had fine results. The chocolate could have maybe been a bit smoother had I used shortening, but it looks good to my 3-year old and that is all that really matters to me!

Dip the pretzels in the chocolate, lay them out on a cookie sheet and stick a green M&M in the top for a "stem." I let my boy do this part. He had great fun trying to get the M&M to stand up right. He put them wherever he wanted, which was fine with me, but ideally you would want them in the bend at the top of the pretzel to look most like a pumpkin.

If you accidentally overheat your chocolate, you may be able to save it by using these tips.

Another great thing about this activity is you can teach your child at the same time! While I worked on melting the chocolate, etc. my son sorted the M&Ms by color! He chose to eat the brown ones when we were all done!

Thanks, Butter With A Side of Bread!!!

Notes of Thanksgiving

 I have always done a Christmas countdown with my children... but last year my friend pointed me towards an idea for the month of November as well. I have been wanting to do an activity of Thanksgiving with them for awhile now and I decided this would be a great way to do it! I was inspired by this idea and came up with my own plan for a "Give Thanks" board. 

Most of the time when I get a wild hair and decide to create something "crafty" I try to come up with things around the house to use instead of going out to the store and spending more money! So, even though this probably could have looked cuter and been laid out better, I am happy that I could do it with little-to-no cost!

I found a piece of wood in my husband's shop and painted it red. We had some leftover paint from the quart I bought to paint my front door. Since it was red paint, it did require several coats... but it was small and they dried fast! I used a foam paintbrush so that I wouldn't have any brush strokes on the surface.
 

I measured and cut out 30 little pockets out of scraps of scrapbooking cardstock. If you don't know how to cut out envelopes, here is a website that may help you figure it out. Or if you are blessed to have a Cricut, there are several cartridges with envelope designs. Also there are manilla coin envelopes if you want to spend the money but save your time!

I attached them to the board and then added sticker numbers from 1 to 30 for the days of the month. Then I cut more scraps of paper in fall colors and slipped them into each pocket.

Each day in November I will ask my kids to take turns writing something they are thankful for on the papers and we will stick them in the pockets.
 

Pictured with the papers already inserted in each pocket.

Can you tell that my daughter is saying "cheese"? She just learned that one...

p.s. from Emily...  how about taking out all the notes and reading them aloud during your Thanksgiving Dinner?   (Maybe in between courses so no one gets itchy...  you could divide up the cards evenly among all or have the youngest readers in the house do the honors.)

Trick or Treat...Smell my Really Cute Feet

Here's a fun activity to do with your kids for the month of October: Candy Corn Footprints.

I found a similar idea online and created this decoration for my home. I happened to have two frames that I had bought for 25cents each at a yard sale. We had spray painted them black and they were just sitting around waiting for something to frame! Fortunately my two littlest kids both wanted to participate so I used the frames for this project.

Materials:

• Black Construction Paper
• White Paint
• Orange Paint
• Yellow Paint
• Foam Brush
• Scissors
• Glue
• Patterned Paper
• Sticker Letters (or markers, etc.)
• Frame

Paint the bottoms of each foot like a candy corn (toes are yellow, middle of the foot is orange and the heal is white) and stamp them on the construction paper. After it dries, cut out the feet and glue them to a piece of patterened paper (cut to the size of your frame, in my case I used 8x10). Spell out whatever you want. We did "Trick or Treat... Smell my Feet! Give me something Good to Eat!" Then I did my kids' initials and the year.

My plan is to hang these each October and it will be fun to look at their little feet for many Halloweens to come!

UPDATE: Crocheting a Rag Rug

I am having a lot of fun with this project.  Here's how it looks now:

I started with 6 sheets of different sizes that I bought at my local thrift store for $2.50 each.  The sheets were green, yellow, orange, pink, floral, and red -- the red one turned out to be a tablecloth, I think, since it was not sheet size but was the same fabric.  The sheets were all different sizes -- obviously you'll get more out of a double or queen-size sheet than a twin.

A few things I learned as I went along:

• After tearing the first sheet I decided I didn't like tearing.  It was messy (tiny bits of fabric flying everywhere), created a lot of loose threads, and was noisy.  Cutting the sheets into strips with sharp scissors works just fine and is a great mindless activity to do while you are doing something else like watching a child at a practice or listening to a podcast or watching a game/movie.
• My strips were about 1 1/2" in width and that seems to work well.  I did not stress about keeping them even.
• After a while the rug will be too big to hold in your hands and work on comfortably so I took to sitting on it and working on it that way.  This also helps you to see whether you are keeping it flat and need to increase or decrease your stitches.  If the rug is curling up you need to increase -- try adding a stitch every 10 stitches and do that for a few rows.  If the rug has curled up badly you may need to take out a row or two and start again. If the rug is kinda "bunchy" and you can't flatten it out easily then maybe you need to decrease a bit.
• When you put the rug on the floor you can flatten it out by spreading it with your hands from the center.  It should lie flat.  I expect I will have to put a rug gripper under it or maybe rug tape to keep it from slipping around.  At the least you could hold it down with a furniture leg.

Here is a photo with my slippers sitting on the rug so you can see how big it actually is.  I bought three more sheets today and hope that will be enough to finish because I want it to be about another foot in diameter. 

I love how colorful and fun this looks!  And I think it will be very cozy on my daughter's sitting room floor.

Crochet a Rug from Old Sheets

The other day I posted on Facebook in frustration that I couldn't find just the right area rug for my daughter's small sitting room here in our new (old) house.  A friend commented that I could crochet one.  At first I kinda laughed at the idea and then the more I thought about it the more I liked it!  

There are all kinda instructions online but here's a blog post I found helpful especially because she doesn't make it seem all that complicated.   And guess, what?  It's not!

My local thrift store had a pretty good selection of flat sheets for $2.50 each.  I bought more than I'll need because I wanted color options -- pink, yellow, orange, green, a deep red, and a pattern that has all those colors in it.

  

This rug needs to be about 5 feet in diameter.  I don't think I'll have any trouble making it that big!

What you'll need to crochet a rug from old sheets:

• basic crocheting skills -- you need to know how to make a chain, how to do a slipstich, how to do a single crochet, how to increase and decrease
• old sheets that you can tear up into strips (about 1 1/2" -- just eyeball it)
• an "S" size plastic crochet hook
• scissors

The time-consuming, potentially-annoying part of this project is the tearing up of the sheets into strips, but go ahead and put on a movie and you'll be fine.

This kind of project is very forgiving.  You really don't have to worry about perfect stitches or bits of fabric sticking out here and there.  Adds to the charm!

I also think this would be a great way to make custom chair pads.  Or a bathroom rug.

I'll let you know how the finished product turns out! 

Create a Menu Board

Here I go again, trying another way of keeping myself on track with meal planning!
This time my attempt looks pretty, so maybe it will work...

Supplies needed:

• 8x10 picture frame (find one at a yard sale or thrift store, you are going to cover it anyway so it doesn't matter what it looks like!)
• Scrapbook or other patterned papers
• Black card stock
• 2 solid colors of card stock
• Very small cardboard box (I used a box that was leftover from photo tabs.)
• Stickers
• Letter stickers (or a marker!)
• Accessories (as desired)
• Mod-Podge and a foam brush
• 8 Clothespins
• Circle punch
• Card stock for menu cards (as much as you would like, cut into 1x3 strips)
• Computer labels or a pen (to add your menus to the cards)
• Glue dots or hot glue

1.  Clean the frame (unless you bought one brand new) and prepare to cover it by taking out the backing and glass.

2.  Rip your scrapbook paper into random strips and mod-podge them all over the front of the frame. Wrap the strips around the edges and continue to glue them down.

3.  While that is drying, punch out 11 circles and add the S, M, T, W, H (I used this for Thursday), F, S and spell out M, E, N, U on two different colors of cardstock.

4.  Cut a piece of black card stock to the 8x10 size and glue your MENU circles to the side of it. Glue the circles to the clothespins, leaving one extra clothespin to decorate and add separately.

5.  When the frame is completely dry, glue the 7-day clothespins to the left side of the frame.  TIP: Start with "W" and put it in the middle of the frame and then work out from there so that everything is centered.

6.  Now it's time to decorate and cover the little cardboard box. Do that however you want. Insert the glass, black card stock and backing into the frame. Glue the cardboard box to the glass leaving enough room to put your Menu Cards into the clothespins next to it. I added the 8th clothespin to the top right hand corner so that I could stick on encouragement verses, schedules, recipe cards, etc. to my board whenever I wanted. It just balances things out and adds some personalization.

If you make your own Menu Board, send us a picture and we'll post it!
Send your photos to shewhomakes@gmail.com

Now...off to plan my menu for the week!!


String Wrapped Letters

So I had double inspiration for my creative project this week... my friend, Mariah, found this idea on Pinterest and she adapted it to suit her needs in her boys' playroom. She used clear push-pins and created a cute saying in the colors that matched her decor. :-)

All you do is print out the letters in the font that you want on your computer. Make the letters as big as you want them. Put them up on the wall and place the push-pins through the paper on all of the points of each letter. Remove paper and leave the push-pins in place. When I did it, I just left starter holes in all the corners and then after taking away the paper, pushed the pins in all the way. Once the pins are in place, tie a string of yarn around one pin and begin wrapping. Tie it off at the end!

Here is what I came up with for my boys' Star Wars themed room:

I have to fix the "R" in "Star" because my son said the tail needs to be longer. Oh well. Maybe on another day. My fingers are a little sore from all that pinning! ;-)

Thanks, Mariah, for the great idea!!!

Make an Obstacle Course for your Kids!

The boys asked Daddy to make an obstacle course today... or as my three-year old said it, "Dad?! Can you make us an awesome horse?"

So, off my three guys went into the back yard to see what they could make with what we have lying around.

[There's supposed to be a video here... but we are having technical difficulties... sorry!]

Step #1 -- climb up the ladder and go down the slide.
Step #2 -- ride the tricycle over to the t-ball station and hit a ball.
Step #3 -- zig zag through the traffic cones
Step #4 -- step on pots and across a raised plank of wood (on cinder blocks)
Step #5 -- jump over a post
Step #6 -- crawl through the tunnel
Step #7 -- go over the firepit (they asked for real fire... yea right.)
Step #8 -- swing on the monkey bar

They were having so much fun doing it over and over again to see if they could do it faster the next time! What do you have at your house that you can use to make an obstacle course with?

The Ugly Green Bookshelf

So, my middle child likes to break things. He averages one item (usually it belongs to me) per day. Recently he broke an entire dresser. He apparently thought that pulling out the drawers like steps and then climbing up to reach the clothes on the hangers would be a good idea. Of course in the middle of doing that he also broke the hangers...

He's okay. No blood.

But the dresser is not.

Instead of purchasing another one and spending like $100, I decided to buy this from a thrift store for $12.

Stay tuned for what I do with it....

Simple Handmade Headbands

Here is a great place to go for easy directions to create simple homemade flower headbands out of tee-shirt fabric. I wanted to make these because I thought that the fabric (being stretchy) might just feel more comfortable on baby's head over the elastic ones that are sometimes a bit tight. Plus they won't mess up her hair.

Tip: One thing that I did a bit differently from the original directions is how I attached the flowers. I put them on-top of the seam that creates the band (to try and hide it) as well as attaching them in more than one place so they stayed in a better shape while being worn.

Since it was my first time making them, I decided to use clearance fabric and so these are not double-sided... it doesn't look too bad, but I am sure that they would be better without the white backing. Maybe I will make another one with a bit higher quality fabric.







Hopefully she likes her headband a bit better than she does having her picture taken. Haha!

Using the Dyed Pasta [Sensory Play AND Fine-Motor Skills Play]

Our last post talked about making dyed pasta to use for all kinds of crafts and activities with your children.

Here's one way you can use your pasta--sorting! As you can see in the pictures, my son used both kitchen tongs and tweezers as he picked up each piece of pasta and dropped them into his dividing tray. Fortunately the colors that I chose to dye the noodles matched the colors in his tray! Love when stuff like that works out!


What ways are you finding to use dyed pasta? ~ Link up your ideas in the comment section below!

Dyed Pasta [Sensory Play, Ep. 3]

Here's another great idea for ways you can help your children learn through Sensory Play! Make some Dyed Pasta! If you have all different kinds of pasta shapes your child can make projects with them. We are going to draw pictures on card stock and glue these pasta bow ties to it. We are also going to use them for sorting and matching colors. It was very easy (though smelly) to make them... I found the directions here. Next time I dye some pasta, I will use tube shaped ones so that we can string them on yarn and pipe cleaners.

You will need: PASTA (duh), RUBBING ALCOHOL, FOOD COLORS and BAGGIES.

Patchwork Quilt Inspiration (Yes, someday you will have time for projects like this!)

My mom and I managed to make these a few years back after my holding on to the fabric squares for several years and doing nothing with them... I know you know what I mean!

Dearest mommies of littles, some day you will have time for projects like this, don't despair!

Meanwhile you can dream of time spent at the sewing machine or scrapbook table or with your knitting needles, whiling away the hours happily creating. (Oh and it helps a lot to have a mom, as I mentioned, who is supremely capable and willing to help you finish uncompleted projects!)

[The following is a slightly revised re-post from my old blog.] 



A long time ago I joined a quilt-square swap with other moms from the Five-in-a-Row message boards online. The squares were chosen to each represent a book used in the unit studies. Recently my mom and I finished putting the Before Five-in-a-Row (unit studies for age 2-4) squares together. We did the designing together and she did the sewing on these two.  We decided to group the squares by color theme rather than by another method (say, putting all the books from one volume together).



These three below include squares that represent books from Five-in-a-Row (unit studies for age 4-8). I put the green one together and my mom finished it off for me by adding the backing (which is a nice green fleece -- very warm and cozy!  And no fussing with adding a layer of batting.)



My mom made this blue and red one.



I made this yellow one all my myself! :-)



You may notice we decided to tie these quilts -- I think it is not only is more consistent with the patchwork but it also adds a nice homey quality to them, I think.  Plus it's easy and doesn't take much time at all!

I hope this inspires you, hang in there, some day you will craft again!

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