craft night!

We had a fantastic craft night last night. A bunch of girls got together at my house and brought craft projects to work on- everything from wedding decorations, to pillows, to bird mobiles to scrap booking to beading. What a fun night. The unfortunate thing is I only took photos before the girls came over! I had the camera sitting there the whole time and I forgot to pick it up... so all I got are photos of food!

Can you believe these are Little Debbie cakes? So cute!

Oh yeah, and one blurry photo of felt flowers.

At least we have the memories and the craft projects as proof of the fun night!

buried

Look what the hubs did to our pup the other night!

 He just fell asleep and stayed like that for over half an hour! All warm and snug with animal friends.

zucchini valentine

play dough necklaces and tags

I posted about these little play dough heart tags in my last post. They are super simple and fun to make.

You can even make them into necklaces!

Make them by rolling out the play dough to an even depth and then cut out a heart with a cookie cutter.

Then, with a toothpick, poke a hole for the embroidery floss to go through and spell out a name or initial.

Then put them in the oven until they are not soft anymore at 250F. It took a very long time for ours to dry out--like 3 hours. I guess you can up the temp if you wanted to. We baked ours on a Silpat liner (love them--even the generics are great!) 

Then just string them on some embroidery floss or other thread or ribbon. I needed an embroidery needle for some of them.

Next I added some punch outs of hearts and birds (and an initial, see up top) and Mod Podge'd over the entire heart a few times. You can design something for the other side of the heart (where you used a toothpick to write out letters.) This makes them more durable and keeps the punch out designs on.  

 Of course I made one with my valentine's and my initials too...

This would be a great gift for kids to bring to their classmates instead of candy when passing out Valentine's this year! Fun, easy and the kids can make them!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

valentines for our neighbors

 I wanted to make a little something for a couple of the neighbor kids for Valentine's Day. I saw this play dough recipe over at How Does She? and knew that along with her great idea to use Target's baby food containers, this was it!

I used an old citrus bag to bundle up a few for a larger family.

 I'll talk about the little play dough heart tags in another post.

To make the label, I just used my small hole punch around the edge of white paper and then layered red paper underneath. The little hearts are from a heart punch.  Then I just "glue-sticked" them on the container.

 A while back I bought these cute little pig containers over at the Dollar Store and just let my son play with them (take the lid on and off...). Now I finally have the perfect use for them, as I knew I would never use them for food (you, know the always reliable "China lead and other toxins thing" and all).

We sure had fun with this play dough! And it's true--it IS the best recipe I've ever used for play dough!

two sided valentine's kiss pillow

I wanted to make a heart for the front door, but I ended up with a pillow! Hey I wanted a Valentine's Day pillow anyway, right?

One side....

Two sides...

Here we go! Another little tutorial.

Cut out 2 large hearts. I used my awesome retro sheet I got at the thrift store a while back. I love the pattern and colors! I made Dana from Made's skirt of out it this summer. I never posted about it because I don't have a photo of it.  It's dang hard to take photos of yourself. When my 2 year old gets older, I'll enlist him as official blog photograher.

Okay, back to the tutorial. The heart I made is about 20" at the top. You can make it any size you like.

Use an old piece of brown craft paper (or paper bag) to make a heart pattern. (You know fold in half and cut/draw until you are happy)

Make the pups from felt (this was some cool heather gray felt that I had never seen before!). I added a collar for the boy and a pink pearl necklace for the girl. I made the girl's eye lashes by cutting little slits in a straight piece of the brown felt and then tweaked them up in the corners. I hot glued everything on since I will only be using this pillow at Valentine's Day and won't have to wash it (and it's felt, which would not be good in the wash).

 The ear blended in a little too much for my liking, so....

 I outlined it with a crayola marker! Use what you have!

much better!

I'm switching to the bird side to show that I added the felt pieces to the hearts before I sewed the hearts together.

I hot glued the pups on, but used iron-on backing for the birds--either way works. After adding the birds to the pillow fabric (again, before I sewed the pillow peices together,  I used embrioderly thread to sew around each of the birds, and used french knot eyes, and added some little felt hearts.

Then stitch around the heart, right sides together, leaving a 4" hole to stuff your stuffing in. I made little notches (slits) at the curves and the divit (top) of the heart so it would not pucker--it still did, but not as bad as if I left it alone. Turn it right side out. Stuff it! Hand sew the hole closed and...

Done!

Ahhhh! kissy!

Here's that birdy kissy side again.

It works pretty nicely with our duvet cover. Above you can see where I hand stitched it up. I am not the best at that, but that's okay.

edit: Here it is on our bed to give an idea of the size. I finally had some day light to photograph it.

(yup, we have no art work above our bed...over 2 years in the house and we still need to decorate the bedroom)

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

felt heart for valentine's day

I made this little felt flower heart door hanger for a friend's birthday this past week. Here's a quick tutorial.

It's made from:

*white cardboard cut into a heart shape (I had some left over matte board, but you could use a breakfast cereal box)

*pink felt (I used 3 sheets of $0.35 acrylic felt). Of course you can use wool felt too.

*patterned ribbon

*glue gun

*needle and thread (optional)

 I made the felt flowers pretty much like this (with a few insignificant changes). Although I first learned them from another blog, I cannot for the life of me find the source.  
Tip: Start from the outer-most part of the spiral. It will look more "flower-like" and pretty. You can see I tested out both methods below (starting from the inside and the outside). The ones that are tighter start from the inside and the ones that are looser start from the outside. I prefer looser, but whatever floats your boat!

Oh yes, another tip: Sew or glue the flowers?  I sewed some (so I could lay in bed and watch TV) and hot glued some. You can do either way. Again, whatever tickles your pickle (so to speak). If you want to lay in bed and not get hot glue on your sheets, sewing is the way to go!

After you have all your flowers made, hot glue them close together on your heart shaped cardboard. Make sure there are no gaps. I think I had about 30 flowers at the end. Just squish 'em on there. I worked from the outside in--made a border and then filled in the rest.

Next, hot glue the ribbon on all around the heart (sorry all the pics I took of this were horrid, so I left them out). Start at the top and work your way around. When you get to the starting point again fold over the ribbon a bit and dab a bit of glue to hold it (like a hem) and then glue the rest of it down.

Lastly, Hot glue another piece of ribbon on the back in two places for a hanger.

Done!

There are lots of places to hang it...it does not have to go on a door.

Husband has still not had time to install a photo editor on my new computer, so still not able to crop or otherwise edit (let's face it, cropping's about all I know how to do anyway). I think I may try out an online photo editing program--I hear there are a few good ones? If you know of a good one, please let me know!

HAPPY ST. VALENTINE'S DAY! <3

xoxoxo

thrift store finds

I thought it would be fun to share some of the goodies I find at thrift stores. I went to a lot this week--during my lunches and even today! So fun!

This loot is from a local thrift store that we went to today:

 Wooden Elephant $0.75

~ needs a new paint job-I'm thinking glossy gray-he's kind of gray-blue now~

 Phone my son would not put down: $2.00. I usually never give in, but he had been a really good sport during a lot of stops, so he deserved a treat.

~needs a clean up and sanitization. I totally sanitized his hands as soon as we got out of the store~

 Looks like a good read: $0.25

~needs a wipe down-I wipe down all my used books with a sanitizing wipe 'cause I'm weird like that~

pup had to be a part of sniffing everything

an adorable tiny brown leather purse: $1.00!

~also needs a good clean up and sanitize~

The other day I bought a few things at Goodwill.

I bought some fabric for someone else and also this picture: $12.00 (possibly my most expensive thrift store purchase to date!)

I bought it purely for the frame and I did not even look at the actual artwork until taking a photo of it today. I had no idea it was of a bar room! Funny!

~needs a new coat of paint (grey, black, white?) and new art work~

At another local thrift shop I bought this sweater: $2.00

~the plan was to felt it to make some sweet Valentine's birdies, but I don't know that I'll be able to do that to such a sweet sweater~

I'm mean, look at those flowers?

I also bought this scarf: $1.00.

 ~I have no idea why, but something told me not to pass it up, so I listened~

Oh yes, I also bought the cutest little 3T sweater for my son and several books for him. The sweater is in the wash and the books are in his room where he's napping so I'm not messin' with that to get pics! ;)

So that's my thrift store round up this week. The next time I score at the thrift store, I'll post again.