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Tag: crafts

  • Creativity Matters with Crayola

    What a true statement! Creativity does matter! I try to be creative, I want to be creative. Sometimes my creativity is quickly tossed in the fireplace, where it will never be seen by anyone, and sometimes with the right inspiration and instructions from others it will hang above my kitchen table forever.  Instilling our kids with a creative sense, will help them achieve so much as they face problems and come up with solutions throughout their lives.
    Crayola wants every child to be creatively alive, so they´re inviting parents “Inside the Crayon Box,” for a special live chat with celebrities and trusted parenting experts that will inspire and spark ideas to expand your child´s creative thinking.
     The first “Inside the Crayon Box” live chat is TODAY at 9 p.m. EST.  Join Crayola and musician, children´s author and mom, Lisa Loeb for a 45-minute live streaming video chat on the Crayola Facebook Page. Lisa, best-known for her number one hit “Stay (I Missed You),” will share personal stories, practical advice and ways she brings a little creative play into every day for her daughter. Particpants will be able to ask Lisa their questions during the event.

    I, unfortunately, have another event tonight (Relief Society birthday party!), so I won’t be able to attend this live video chat. But I will be checking in later tonight to see what kind of tips and ideas were mentioned. Eventually when I have some time to sit down, I’ll be watching the whole session on Crayola’s Youtube channel. So if you also can’t be there tonight for the live chat, you can watch it tomorrow or the next day or next week, on youtube.
    How do you get the creative juices rolling with your kids?

    *I was provided with this information from Crayola through MyBlogSpark

  • Get Your Craft On!

    Get Your Craft On!

    I had a bit of a downer week (just look back through some posts and you’ll see the mess).  I feel much more relaxed now, and have begun some exciting and fun stuff!
    See this basket? Nice right? We got this basket for our wedding, and we loved it. The problem was we rarely went on picnics that weren’t in the backyard, and so for 6 years it has been more a storage basket.

    I have reclaimed the basket now for shoes! The front handle/latch was only attached by twist ties, so that was easily removed. The lid was a bit more tricky, and I ended up just ripping gently pulling it off the wire that had it attached.  This is what I now have!
    The perfect size for the Princesses shoes.  The plan is to put all the shoes in this basket as they come inside. Every Saturday we will clean out the basket, taking all but the Sunday Shoes down to their bedroom.  My next step is a towel, or some sort of mat to go underneath to catch any mud/snow.
    A new home for the basket and shoes!
    Mark walked in just as the lid came off and exclaimed “That was our Wedding Basket!”. 
    To which I responded “Yes dear, but we never used it except for storage, and now it is being used and looks nice” (or something along those lines, I may have rambled on more to him).
    He then proceeded to try and throw the lid away.  “NOOOOO! I’m going to use that” to which I was given a funny look like I had lost it.
    See! Once I removed the lid handles (also attached by twist ties) it became a perfect magazine and book holder. I debated hot gluing the handles to the edges to make a sort of serving tray, but they are curved just a little too much.
    I’m partying over at

  • Sentimental Sunday – Books

    Today I’m feeling quite sentimental about books.  I can’t remember a time of my life that books weren’t a part of it.  Some of my very early childhood favorites were Cindy Czekeres Counting Book 1 to 10 (which I still own!), and Earrings.

    From there it turned into my mom reading us chapter books like Little House On the Prairie
    And my dad reading us The Chronicles of Prydain

    So of course with my own children I have been reading to them.  I love finding new books, but also reading the classics.  Most nights I give the girls some books to look at in bed until they fall asleep.
    This morning, I had to wake Princess C up for an early church meeting.  I sat on the edge of her bed, and oh my goodness! She had taken our Childrens Classic Peter Pan book to bed with her.

    Of course I wouldn’t have minded except that she had torn about 20 pages out, and had them in a pile by her. I wanted to cry.  A classic, and there was no way to save it.  So I woke up Princess C, and tried very gently asking her why she tore out these pages.  In her own words
    “I saw Peter Pan, and Wendy, and Tinkerbell”
    Of course. I’d pull pages out of a book too, if I’d seen Peter Pan!  I couldn’t be mad at her, but from now on, she’ll only get board books at bedtime.
    Now the question was what to do with the book.  I’ve seen these Book Wreaths all over the place and have really wanted one.  Of course there was no way I was ever going to tear up a perfectly good book just to make a wreath.  Turns out I didn’t need to.  Once we got home from church I browsed around for a good tutorial.  Besides, a great tutorial, I found a great new blog too!
    Then on to making the wreath!

    The book in it’s destroyed form :'(

    I started out tracing my 2 plates, and then cutting them out.  The inner circle was a bit harder to cut out.

    Then we started rolling the pages into cones.

    Once they were rolled, I started gluing them on to the home made wreath. I should have placed them first, but I wasn’t thinking, so I had a lot of “holes”.  Thankfully a second layer covered that up!  I added a finishing touch, by gluing the book cover to the back, so we can see Peter and Wendy in the center.  Then I attached some ribbon, and hung it in Princess V’s room.

    She’s really excited to have this in her room.

    While I was over at Sit Relax and Read, I found she does a weekly link up called Sentimental Sunday.  I’ve been looking for some good topic to post about each week and was thrilled to find this link up.
    Sit Relax and Read

  • Upcycled Card Table

    Upcycled Card Table

    Due to my design impasse yesterday, I found another outlet for creativity.  My card table.  It was ugly, but I wanted to be able to use it wthout having to throw on a table cloth.  The mind sparked, and I grabbed the rolls of contact paper my sister in law gave me last summer (I knew they’d come in handy someday!)
    

    Before
    As you can tell, we’ve used our card table for some painting. 
    After

    I am just loving this new table top!  It was so easy too! I originally thought what I had was wall paper, but it wasn’t, it was contact paper.  You need to clean and dry the surface first, or it won’t stick. Measure and cut your paper to the desired length.  I had to use two sheets to cover the whole table, but they blended nicely.  I cut mine about 2inches longer than the table’s top so I could wrap it around the edges.  Peel off the backing and stick! The directions suggest using a straight edge to push any bubbles out and to get it all to stick.  I just used my hand and it worked nicely.  And Voila! this is my new craft and puzzle table!

  • Love Blocks

    Love Blocks

    These love blocks add a nice touch to the home for Valentines. Simple to make, and a great reminder for the family to do all things with Love!

    This was going to be part of my Valentines Decorations, but circumstances didn’t allow me to get to it until after. My mom’s ward was making these the week before Valentines.  I was supposed to be visiting their house that week, but the weather was bad, and we were down to one car.  So I finally picked up the blocks this week and made them on my own.  It was a lot of fun, and they look great!  I think they’ll be out for some time still.

    DIY Love Blocks
     

    What you’ll need for your Love Blocks

    Purchasing through the below links helps me keep this blog going!

    The blocks were already painted for me, but this would be really easy to do.  Cut a 2×4 down to the size you want your letters, then sand and paint.
     
    DIY Love Blocks
     
    Mod Podge some colorful paper on the blocks.  The letters are vinyl cutouts, with a sticky back.  There are a lot of places that make vinyl letters like this.  In the future, I’ll just use my cricut to cut the letters out of paper.  Then mod podge them on.  After sticking the letters I added another layer of mod podge to seal it all.
     
    DIY Love Blocks
     
    Once the mod podge has sealed add different embellishments – paper flowers, ribbons, gems – with hot glue. Then display for everyone to enjoy!
     
    Where would you display these Love Blocks?