Season's Greetings and Christmas Cards

Crafty Kid got an offer to have her cards in a local store. She's SUPER excited. I'll show you the cards we worked on the other day below and talk more in depth at the end about our new adventure.

For this project we used the following:

• Cards
• Scrapbooking Paper (Holiday Themed)
• Decorative Scissors
• Crafting Glue or Hot Glue (we used a glue gun)
• Snowflake Punch Out
• Scissors or Paper Slicer

For the two cards above it was really simple. We used the paper slicer to cut the scrapbook paper. Then Crafty Kid used the decorative scissors for a more interesting edge. We had some scrapbook paper that had holiday phrases on it so we cut those out as well. Then we hot glued the cut outs onto the card. (Use the glue of your choice to adhere it.)

We used silver star brads for the card above. Taking the tip of a sharp scissor we made a small puncture in the card. We put the star through and bent the flaps through on the other side. Then we glued the cut out holiday phrase scrapbook paper onto the card. 

This one above I had so much fun with. We had scraps of paper left over from other cards and cut them into different stacking block shapes to make a tree. For a finishing touch we put a punched out snowflake as the star. The Merry Christmas card on a polka dot green background seemed like a nice modern twist for a holiday card.

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Ok. So back to the entrepreneur adventure.... There have been a lot of talks in our house as to what to make, how much to sell it for, and how much work goes into it. I'm proud of her, and I think this opportunity will help her understand things from a business perspective. I want her to be aware of the time, energy, and money being put into the creation of the cards, but at the end of the day I just want it to be fun. I think it will make her appreciate what it takes to be a hard worker.

She's already mentioned to me that sometimes she just doesn't "feel like" crafting. She also said that sometimes she doesn't feel like she does enough. (For example I hot glue all the pieces because our new glue gun heats up to 380F. Very effective. Not so good for kids.) I remind her that she is the creativity behind the crafts, and to be excited she has naturally intuitive vision when it comes to things of an artistic nature. (She draws and paints in addition to what we work on.) I've explained to her that the construction of the craft can be improved through repetition, and that her creativity will only expand as she uses it. Bottom line is to have fun and spend time together. I think she gets it. She's a smart kid after all.

We'll be sure to keep you updated!

Holiday Ornaments: Part 1

It's that time of year to make the Christmas ornaments. This is the third year the kids will make homemade ornaments for the family. I have to admit the two prior years I picked the projects and I kept it simple and fun. This year with Crafty Kid being so interested in crafting I let her help me pick out items at Michael's that we would use to decorate and fill our ornaments. I have to take advantage of what little time is left where I am "cool step-mom" and she wants to spend hours on end with me seeing where our creativity will take us.

Below are a list of items we picked up to use. Other than the ornaments themselves this is just a suggested list of decorative items you can use:

• Ornaments (plastic is best for kids to work with)
• Punch outs (Star, Snowflake, Heart)
• Scrapbooking paper
• Glitter
• Epson salt (looks like snow!)
• Crafting glue (dries clear)
• Glitter glue (silver, gold, & white)
• Embellishments

We chose clear plastic ornaments that were flattened so the items didn't have as much room to move. However round, square, or any size plastic fillable ornaments would work for (most of) these projects.

I had found some Mickey Mouse scrapbook paper on sale for $.07 and thought it would be fun to use different punch shapes with this paper. I started to punch out the paper and realized filling the ornament was going to be very hard to do. Since the paper had a white backing this made for a great snowflake cut out. I decided to glue some of the snowflakes and some carefully cut out Mickey's to the inside of the globe. Through trial and error I found that crafting glue (for foam, wood, or plastic) works best as it dries clear. I used a Q-tip instead of the brush in the glue jar, as that was too messy, to put the glue on the cut out paper. I then put the cut out on the top of my pinky and carefully put it inside the ornament. Each time before the glue would dry I would swirl the glitter around so that it would stick to the sides. Hopefully you can see in this last picture that it turned out great once the glue was fully dry.

While I worked on my Mickey ornament, Crafty Kid was up to her own projects. She really loved using the glitter glue as you can see below. She thought it made everything look nicely "frosted". The glitter glue bottles were a $1 a piece find. Go figure it was her favorite thing after all the money we spent! (LOL) The Epson salt we are still deciding if it's as cool of a "snow effect" as we want. Full disclosure that we originally wanted to make "melted snowmen" but that didn't turn out as nice and easy as what we saw on Pinterest. I might share my "fail" with you in the next blog. (Hence part 2 of Holiday Ornament's coming soon!)

Below are some of the ideas we came up with using what we had on hand. It's always great to save what you can from previous projects. Those yellow flowers and the red cherries are left over from when I made my Mary Poppins hat!

Hope you enjoyed seeing some of the things we made. Stay tuned for Part 2.

Creepy Science Lab - Halloween Party

I know Halloween is over, but i just HAD to share this blog with you even if it is late. I did promise you in my last blog post about the DIY Fake Blood - Tablecloth Decoration that I would follow up with other Halloween decor I was working on. The friend who offered their home up for the Halloween party really wanted to have a Creepy Science Lab theme.

The first part of this blog I will talk about some of the DIY stuff I put together to match her theme. The second part of the blog will show how the overall theme turned out when everything was put in place. (Please note that the lab stuff was borrowed and so i can only share with you the cost of things I helped to make.)

This first one was really easy and cheap. You will need mason jars, yellow food coloring, and rubber bats, rodents, spiders or whatever other creepy realistic rodents/pests you can find. Rubber rodents are $1 a piece, Mason jars $1 to $2, food coloring is around $3 and so it should cost about $10 to make 3 "mad scientist jars".

We left the rat alone in one jar. His beady red eyes looked awesome in the yellow water. The other jars we cut off the bats wings and put each wing and the body in separate jars. You just drop in around 10 drops of yellow food coloring and fill the jar with water.

Tip: A lot of sauces you buy at the store come in mason jars. Peel off the labels and reuse them for these kinds of projects.

Ripped up black curtains help set the mood for the room, which of course is always "dark and creepy" when it comes to Halloween. We took old curtains and shredded them using scissors. (If you don't have any black curtains lying around I suggest checking out your local thrift store.) In the above picture I'm showing you how to create realistic wear and tear on "50 years left behind" curtains. 

One method is to twist a piece of the curtain with your fingers, then cut a chunk of that off and that will make a jagged hole in the curtain. Another way is to get a pair of scissors (preferably dull blades) and instead of cutting straight, pull down tight on the curtain and rip up with scissors. This makes it so that your tears and cuts aren't all in a straight line.

We really scored when we found these mirrored wall candle holders at the thrift store. I believe we paid $1 a piece for these and $.20 a candle. We took black Plasti Dip ($10 a can) and sprayed that over it to get our desired look. The bonus on Plasti Dip is it peels off if you want your item to go back to the way it originally looked. We taped the mirrors before we sprayed them to get a clean look.

Well that about sums up the DIY projects I worked on for this party. I will point out things in the pictures below that we were able to find at a cheap price. Again the lab stuff is real and was on loan :)

Thrift store items: gold tray $1, candle holders $1 each, gray metal box $2, gray yarn $1 (and seriously what a cool "dust" effect that made)

Loved the use of the electronic tea candles. You can get a 12 pack of these on Amazon for around $10. Great thing is you can use them for many other events too.

There are some real brains and some fake brains in this picture above :)

Bought those pop up paper wall spiders you see above for $2 at Michaels. It was on clearance right before Halloween and was Martha Steward brand. The sconce was $2 at the thrift store.

Gold candle holder was $1 thrift store find. The light and cabinet above are covered in "creepy cloth" and bought at the Dollar Tree. Hard to tell from the picture but the purple light bulb was a cool effect in person.

Our guests even made "creepy" snacks and bought wines that had Halloween fitting names. It was a great night out and we had a lot of fun with this party.

DIY Fake Blood - Tablecloth Decoration

I'm helping a few friends decorate for a Halloween party and I couldn't wait to share the results of this project!! Let's call it a "sneak preview" because we have plenty of other great things we made I will blog about shortly. I've personally never tried to make fake blood and wasn't sure how this would turn out. I will happily admit it worked better than expected (with a little trial and error) and that I had SO much fun unleashing my inner Dexter! ( lol )

Now I will admit that there are plenty of "fake blood recipes" out there if you just Google them, but I decided to wing it with what I already had in the house. If you are a by the book type of person you might want to do a little research to see what recipe works best for you.

I started off with 2 cups of water and added some corn starch for thickening. My lesson here is that it didn't really do much. (So honestly you can probably skip the corn starch.) Also, when I put about 40 drops of red food coloring it only really turned the water a dark pinkish color. I didn't want to use up all my food coloring so I started adding chocolate syrup and cocoa powder until I got the color I wanted. It wasn't really that much, maybe 2 tablespoons of each.

My BIG TIP here from trial and error is to start off with less water! That way you don't have to mix in as much of the other ingredients. I will say that having 2 cups was helpful to me though since i decided to decorate the tablecloth with my hand. More on that below...

I considered using gloves and realized it wouldn't get me the desired effect I wanted. I just had to see what my hand print was going to look like because I was dying of curiosity. I also knew that it would reveal to me if the mixture i created was dark enough in color to truly show on the material. As you can see above it worked out well. (Note: I call this a tablecloth because that is what I'm using it for to decorate. It is actually a long white window sheer curtain.)

Now my next technique idea was discovered because of the fact that when i pulled my hand off the material my finger tips dripped the excess onto the tablecloth. I immediately thought, wow that looks like pretty authentic blood spatter, and no that doesn't make me crazy it just proves I've watched every episode of Dexter (some twice)!

So then I decided to take a page right out of the Dexter book and flick my fingertips outward. (If you haven't seen the show, he often recreates the blood spatter of crime scenes by throwing fake blood to see the velocity and trajectory.) The result was really awesome and seriously fun! See for yourself below...

A few other things I decided to do was write "help me" and take my hand and drag it across the material to make a smeared pattern. I let it dry for 15 minutes and then threw it in the dryer for another 15 minutes. The material seems to be holding the color. I do wonder though if it wouldn't just wash right out if I sent it through on a soak cycle. However, I advise that whatever you decided to decorate with fake blood that it not be something important in case the staining is permanent.

Halloween Card & Treat Bags

Crafty Kid and I made two different Halloween projects a few weekends ago. The first was a card. 

We took a blank white card and stamped it with some dancing skeletons. The bottom of one stamp had a spider and the top of one had a cat, so we inked only that part to get the desired look. Then we took scrapbooking paper and cut out parts so you could see the stamps poking out. After we glued down the paper we placed the spooky stamp on top. (See below)

The second craft was making treat bags. You can pick up plain bags at any local craft store and there are many great ways to decorate them. Below are just a few examples of what we did.

The bag above we decided to make the skeletons "dance" up steps.

This second bag we put a ghost on one side and a cat stamp on the other.

To get the desired look we put black ink on a Q-tip and smeared it around.

You can start off with light strokes and press harder to make it darker.

The third bag we used the Spooky stamp.

We cut out a border with the scrapbook paper and glued it on.

Below are the finished products.

As you can see, it only takes a few crafting tools to make lots of different designs.

If you try this project at home let us know how it turns out!

Halloween and Fall Decor: Philadelphia and South Jersey

I went home to visit my family in Philadelphia and South Jersey this past week. I couldn't help but be impressed by all of the decorating that happens for the Halloween and Fall season. I don't tend to see as many people decorating their homes in West Virginia, which is a bummer. I took a bunch of pictures to share all the cool stuff I saw and hopefully it will give you some ideas for your own home decor. 

The pics below are from storefronts in Haddonfield, NJ. Also, my friend happened to have a very accurate fake skull for schooling purposes and I found it very festive!

It's a jolly holiday with Mary...

So we've already talked about my love of Halloween, so it should be no surprise that I go all out with my costumes!

So who I am being this year is someone I've loved since I was a kid... Mary Poppins! Now anyone who knows me well knows I'm a BIG Disney fan. And Mary Poppins, my friends, was the start of my Disney experience.

It was the first Disney music I was exposed to as my Mom used to play the record for me when I was a toddler. She said I'd dance around to it for hours, so it's no wonder that this story has stuck with me all these years. I even took my family to see the traveling Broadway production of it in Philadelphia a few years ago and cried like a baby at the end! (Mostly cause she flies away with her umbrella! So cool to see live... a real flying Mary Poppins! Ahhh, I'll never grow up.)

Now I've been other Disney characters in previous years, including Snow White and Wendy Darling from Peter Pan. Mary, however, has been on mind for a long time and I just couldn't wrap my head around how to pull her costume off. That was until my friends and I did a clothing swap this Spring and I found the perfect Mary skirt! It was off to the races at that point as I knew the rest would be easy to put together if I set my mind to it.


So here in this post I'm going to show you how I made my Mary Poppins hat....

Luckily for me I already had a black bowler hat from a previous costume when I was a clown. The first step was to get rid of the rainbow strip on the original hat and replace it with a black strip of ribbon. Two reasons using the black ribbon works out really well for me:

1) The black ribbon covered the glue that was left behind from the original strip of ribbon.

2) I glued all the remaining pieces needed for the hat onto the ribbon. If I ever want to use

this hat again for something else it will be easy to take off and start again.

 

 

Below you will see the fake flowers and berries I picked up at my local Michaels. (Lucky for me Christmas stuff is out already so I didn't have any issues finding the berries. On the flip side, they didn't have any daisy flowers so I had to create my own.) 

 

I carefully removed the flowers from their stems and used scissors to cut the berries off. Notice I left the stems of the berries long so that I would have an easier time arranging them before gluing them on.

 



 

 

I chose to stack the petals to give the flower more depth. I learned from the first flower I did that the best way to achieve the look I was going for was to hot glue the center of the first petal to the ribbon. I then hot glued the center of a second petal on top of the first petal.

Now I could position the berry where I wanted it and hot glue it, making sure to press down on the petals and seal the berry stem between the ribbon and the petal. Once it dried I put a third white petal hot glued in the center to cover up the hot glue marks on the petals below.

Final touch was to the small yellow center flowers. Again, I stacked two yellow flowers to give it more depth.

 

 

 

Now the clown hat had come with a flower sticking out of the side. This was amusing to me as you might have already noticed from the picture I posted above of Julie Andrews, that Mary Poppins also had a flower coming off the one side of her hat. I didn't think the original flower worked so I altered it to make it a white flower with a yellow center.

 

 

 

So that is how I turned my cheap clown costume hat into a pretty decent replica of Mary Poppins hat. I can't wait to share the final look of my costume! Only 3 weeks until Halloween.... stay tuned for pictures :)