Butterfly Palooza

I'm a believer in positive thinking, in the fact that your thoughts create your future, so today I'm thinking.....butterflies, butterflies, butterflies, and hoping for SPRING!!!!

Let's start with this adorable little girls necklace made by Brandi at Rosie Rosies. I'm sure they're out there, but this is the first time I've seen a statement necklace for a little girl. Makes me think I need to make a skirt to match!

I never get tired of the great idea's over at lollychops. What little gal wouldn't love this in her room?

How about this cute butterfly punch art by Ali Edwards. Although this isn't a new idea, I love that she used magazines instead of scrapbook paper. Wouldn't this be cute with the butterflies cut out of vintage children's books?

Love, love, love this butterfly wedding bouquet by Martha.

In fact, forget the wedding bouquet, I may just have to make one of these to put in a pretty vase in my entry way. GORGEOUS!

Polka dot Shamrock - Tutorial

I recently had a customer ask me if I could make a shamrock to go on her daughters skirt instead of the usual flower. My answer was, "Sure, I don't know how I'll do it, but it will be fun to figure it out!" And sure enough.... it was fun figuring it out. Now that it's "figured out", I might as well share and let you have some fun with it too.
You will need:
green fabric
thread and needle
Clover yoyo maker is optional
(Clover is the brand, not the shape. They do have a shamrock shaped yoyo maker but I thought it looked more like a flower than a shamrock. I think the heart shaped one works better.)

Make 3 heart shaped yoyo's
If you're using the yoyo maker just follow the instructions.
(obviously)

When you take it off of the yoyo maker it looks like this, so I'm thinking you could just stitch around the edge of a heart shaped piece of fabric if you didn't want to get the yoyo maker.

At this point you'll want to just pull on the thread to gather the heart into....

...a smaller, rufflier version of itself!

Lay 2 of the hearts (RIGHT SIDES TOGETHER) and hand stitch them together. Begin about 1/3 of the way down and go all the way to the point at the bottom.

This is why I wrote RIGHT SIDES TOGETHER in all caps!

OOPS....just keepin' it real. Time out while I unpick and try again.

There we go, much better. Do the same thing with the 3rd heart.

You're almost done.

For the stem you will want a rectangle approximately 2.5 x 2 inches big.

Fold it in half so that the shorter ends are meeting.

Fold the two ends in a little bit. That way you only have one raw edge and that will eventually be beneath a little circle of felt.

Starting at one end, roll the piece of fabric into a stem.

Like so.

Hand stitch all the way down the back of the stem.

Then stitch the stem onto the back of the shamrock.

And there you go.... a polka dot shamrock!

To finish it off just add a circle of felt to the back. I added a pin, since they were going on skirts, but you could do so many different things with these. You could make a giant one for your door, put a bunch on a wreath, decorate napkin holders with them...just all kinds of things!

HAVE FUN!

No TV????

Last Saturday our two youngest decided they weren't

going to watch TV all day (it didn't last, I'm pretty sure I

remember hearing Sponge Bob by 4:00 or so). They

had great intentions though, and made this big long

list of things they would do together. Among the

adventures was "make crayons".

HERE'S WHAT THEY DID.....

They unwrapped a bunch of broken crayons

Broke them and separated them into little condiment cups.
They then melted them in the microwave.
VERY, VERY HOT...this is a big kid or mommy job.


They started with one color, poured a little in the bottom of
each mold and let it set for a few minutes before they
poured the next color.


....and this is what they ended up with!

TV IS WAY OVERRATED!!!

"Note"worthy

Wondering what I did with the twigs and the old hymn book?

Well.... we have this weird empty corner in our music room

where piano meets couch, (small room, big furniture). I've

watched enough HGTV to know that my weird corner is a

no no. The problem is....we don't have money to go out and

buy new furniture, so I decided that maybe I could at least do

something to soften the assault on the eyes.

It is important to me that the things in our home have personal

meaning. So I thought that rather than go to the store and buy

a fake tree, or a screen, I would make something from things

that mean something to us. So I snipped of a bunch of limbs

from our favorite tree and found an old hymn book (we have

a bunch of them) to make into leaves, and now we have a....

"NOTE"WORTHY TREE

It's not to tough to figure out how it's done.

Just make a leaf template and trace leaves onto a page.
I cut several pages out at a time so all of them weren't

outlined.

To remedy this I just went around the edge of each

leaf with a permanent marker.

Next you put glue on the back of two leaves.
Adhere them to the end of the branch, one being the front
of the leaf, the other the back.

I didn't try to be precise and perfect with the outlining.

Problem solved....weird corner is softened.

Fluffy Valentine Frame

Inspired by this beautiful wreath on Tatertots And Jello, I whipped out the cupcake liners and went to town on this sweet little picture for our entry way. It was practically free too....gotta love that!!!

I wanted to see if I could do this project without spending any money and I almost, almost did it.

I ended up having to buy the cupcake liners, but still at 2 packages for 1.74 each, it was pretty cheap. I raided my stash of old frames in the basement and utilized a free clipart site, which I will link you to later in the post.

You will need:

• A frame
• A hot glue gun
• Cupcake liners

Begin by twisting the liners at the bottom to form a tiny little "fluff".


Glue them on the frame.
I used two packages of cupcake liners, exactly 150.

One of my favorite clipart sites is Karen's Whimsy. She has free stuff, .99 cent downloads, silhouette's and a lot of vintage pictures. Love her site!

HAVE FUN!

The 3 P's

Learn how to make a....

Picture Pocket Pillow

Hop on over to Rosies, get inspired to have some mommy/daughter time and learn to make a pocket pillow all at the same time!

Fluffy Flower

I saw a paper lantern today that sparked this idea for a fun little fluffy fabric flower.

Cut a strip of fabric 18" x 2.5".
Fold it in half and snip into it about every quarter of an inch.

Baste, by hand, along the unsnipped edge.

When you get to the end, pull on the string.

This will gather the strip of fabric into a circle.

There's your flower!

Just add a button for the center and you're done!

Beaded Safety Pin Watch

Did you ever make beaded American flags out of safety pins? I did when I was little and then again with the kids right after 9/11. Here's a fun little spin off on beaded safety pins. The girls and I have been wanting a watch (one of the joy's of teenager daughters....sharing), one that was whimsical, fun and different from everyone else's. Here's what we came up with.

A beaded safety pin watch.

You will need:

• small safety pins
• seed beads
• stretchy jewelry floss
• a watch face
• needle nose pliers

I found all of these at our local craft store.

I cut two 10" pieces of floss, folded them in have and tied them to each side of the watch.

Next, I loaded beads onto the safety pins and then slightly pushed the large end of the safety pin together with needle nose pliers. This creates a small hole in the top end.

Next, I slipped the safety pins onto the floss. I would thread "every other" pin through the small hole I created with the pliers. Doing this will give the piece more stability and will make it look fluffy. I tried it only going through the middle and it ended up looking more like something you'd make at camp! Not what we were going for :)

Last.... when both sides are finished tie them together in a sturdy knot.

FUN, FUNKY AND DEFINITELY DIFFERENT!

Valentine Bracelet Cuff

Here's a fun little Valentine's Day project sent to me from Angie at Treasures For Tot's

You could make one for your little "somebody" or better yet have a little mommy/daughter date and make them together for her little girlfriends. Go here for the directions!

Fun Friend Gift For Kids

It snowed ALL day today and felt so Christmasy, I loved it! After a little Christmas shopping, sledding and hot cocoa, Nater Gater and I sat down to make his friend gifts. This is not a new idea, in fact every one of our older kids made this same gift for their friends when they were little. But maybe some of you haven't ever seen it, so I thought I would share.

How To Make Money Soap

You will need:

• Clear glycerin soap and soap dye (I got both at Michael's).
• Some sort of mold. I used a Christmas tree cupcake mold but you could use ice cube trays, muffin tins, really any small container.
• Coins.

The glycerin will come in a great big block. Cut it into small squares. It is soft enough that Nate could cut through it with a butter knife, otherwise I would have done the cutting.

Put glycerin cubes in a microwave safe bowl and melt according to directions on the box.

Add desired color and stir.

Carefully pour melted glycerin into molds. It is hot so you might want to do this part if your children are very little.

Slip coins into the soap before it begins to harden. If you have waited too long just skim the hardened top off and slip the coin in.

Nate used the left over soap to make himself a funky tie died bar in a condiment bowl. He put a couple of drops of blue into the green glycerin and swirled it around a little with a knife. You can't really tell in this picture, but it looked kind of cool.

The soap hardens up after about a half an hour. We'll slip them in cellophane bags with a wash cloth and call it good!