Think Crafts Blog - Craft Ideas and Projects - CreateForLess

Guest Blogger, Gillian, from the Blog “Dried Figs and Wooden Spools”.

Ahhh, Plastic. Where would our children’s art projects be without it? Remember that commercial from a few years ago, Plastic makes it Possible? Well, plastic does indeed make it possible. It doesn’t matter how many hand made, toxin free, eco friendly wooden toys I buy my kids; they like plastic. They like shrinky dinks (which I admit are totally fun but also a little scary) they like foam stickers, they like the cheap plastic balls at the toy store, we’re even reading a book in which one of the characters is named Plastic, and they love it.

And to be honest, so do I. My son has spent at least two hours a day for the past week obsessivly making various things out of Perler Beads. Remember those? I think they’ve been around since the times of the Dinosaurs. I certainly remember spending hours of my childhood carefully designing cats and dogs and soccer balls out of them for my mother to iron together. And now I may have to buy stock in them. If they can keep him this busy all summer, they are worth their weight in gold, which admittedly, wouldn’t be that much since they are about as light as a bag of feathers, but you get my point.

So far Briton has created balls and stars and a dinosaur or three, several suns and some kind of psychedelic shapes that have no name. All of his teachers got something the last day of school. The neighbor girl now has her very own Perler Briton. My husband has at least four on his desk at work and I have a kaleidoscope of plastic thingys artfully arranged on my dresser between my Tiffany pearls and my Grandmothers jewelry box. All hail king plastic.

Does your child love plastic they way mine does? What kinds of cool thing have they made from Perler beads? And do you secretly love to watch them melt together the way I do? Come on…spill!

Click here, to read more of Gillian’s blog posts.

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Guest Blogger, Gillian, from the Blog “Dried Figs and Wooden Spools”.

Nope, I kid you not, this project will take you less than a minute, and I guarantee you have everything you need in your house RIGHT AT THIS MOMENT. And since Father’s Day is almost upon us and the kids and I just finished wrapping a Father’s day gift, I thought this might be a good little sit-down-before-dinner-and-make-something kind of project.

I used to do this with my class, back in the days when I taught where school didn’t let out for summer till the second week of June so you get to make Father’s Day cards with your kids. It’s one of those projects that looks so cool and takes so little.

So, ready? Set your timers (but don’t start till you get your materials because that will take you, oh, at least another minute, maybe two)

First your supplies. You will need 1 sheet of white paper. Really this can be any size and any paper weight. Personally I prefer a half sheet of regular old card stock so the finished card will be a 4 ish by 5 ish, an easy size to find an envelope for. And it could be any color, but I think white looks best.

Also a scrap of some other paper, about 1 inch by three inches long. Bigger if you are making a bigger card. This could be wrapping paper, construction paper, part of a cereal box or even just white paper that your kids color. If you are a scrapbooker, here’s a great place to use up a little bit of left over patterned border or paper. Anything will do.

Tape or glue. Tape works best, but if your six year old has recently taken to making tape sculptures like mine, then you are always out, glue will do. Lastly, scissors.

That’s it. See I told you, you had everything you needed!

OK. Onto the card, go ahead, time yourself.

First: fold the paper in half and crease it firmly.

Second: With the folded side on top, estimate about a sixth of the way down the narrower side of the card, cut a slit one third of the way in, repeat on the other side.

Step 2

Third: Fold the little flaps you just made in at an angle as shown. Do you see it? Yep, it’s a shirt! Now all you need is the tie, which brings us to step.

Step 3

Four: From the scrap of colored paper cut a tie shape that will go almost, but not all the way, down to the edge of the card.

Step 4

Fifth: Slide a piece of tape in between the two parts of the tabs to hold down the “collar” and then use a little loop of tape to fasten the tie on. And your done!

Happy Father's Day!

Seriously, how friggin cute is that? Cute enough that even after seven Father’s days, my kids dad will still like it. And I’m sure yours will too (or your dad! I’ve sent them to mine, even daddy’s of grown up girls like homemade Father’s day cards! I promise!)

Are you making a Father’s day gift this year? Let us know what brilliant things you’ve created for the men in your life!

*Remember Father’s Day is this Sunday!*

For more of Gillian blog posts, read them here.

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Guest Blogger, Gillian, from the Blog “Dried Figs and Wooden Spools”.

In two weeks my daughter Evelyn will be turning three. And unlike her last two birthday’s which consisted of a few family members and a cake, this time we are going for a full out party. And since my little girl thinks no day is complete without a tutu and a crown, we’re not just doing a party, we’re doing a fairy princess tea party, with all the glittery, poofy, ribbony details.

So for the past two weeks I’ve been plotting, planning, gluing and glittering things for the party. We’ve got princess crowns in the works, cupcake recipes to try (with white frosting so we don’t get stains on our pretty dresses) doilies and decorations for the table to plan and even the princess dress hanging in the closet.

Today’s project was the invitations. Now I may be crazy, but I just can’t do those mass produced, fill in the blank invite. There’s nothing wrong with them, and someday I’m sure I’ll find myself filling one out, but at this stage in my children’s lives, I like to go whole hog. We’ve had oragami box invitations, dinosaur bone invitations and hotwheel cars pulling birthday wishers banners. And for Flower Fairy Princess Tea Party invitiations I thought to myself, “What does every flower fairy princess need? A magic wand! That’s what!” So magic wands it was.

Starting with some unpainted flowers mounted on dowels (I thought about stars but I could just imagine the tales of siblings being poked in the eye with pointy stars) I painted the stems and the flower (pink! Of course!) added lots of ribbons for swishy magicy fun, and lettered the invitation information on some pretty die cut cards and topped it off with just enough to be pretty and not irritating glitter spray. So, how did they fair? Well my daughter shrieked with glee when she saw the bundle of them on the table and then spent the rest of the evening dancing around waving her wand (because I had to make one for her too!) and “ZING!ing” everyone she passed. So I guess they’re a hit.

Fairy Princess Tea Party Birthday Invitations

A Flower Fairy Tea Party in honor of Evelyn's 3rd Birthday

Now onto the crowns, and the cakes and the table decorations and….Well, check back here and you’ll get to see.

So what great party ideas do you have? Pass them on! Share the love! And the glitter!

Click here, to read more of Gillian’s blog posts.

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Welcome Guest Blogger, Chris Steele.

I love googly eyes.  They’re just plain fun.  They can turn anything into a crafty project.  Literally.  Anything.  Anyone can use them, and everyone enjoys them.  Kids LOVE them, in fact.  They’re great for spontaneous giggles.  I’ve included a few pictures of our recent googly-eye forays-hopefully you can use the ideas yourself.

First, the magnetic sketch board (Doodle Pro?).  My 2 ½-year-old daughter, Emily, looooves the episode of “Blues Clues” where the kids put googly eyes on things around the house…but that is not exactly practical.  At least not at my house.  Plus, I’m not sure that I want Emily to get used to sticking things all over everything.  It’s something I could regret later.  So we compromised.  We put some on the Doodler (as it will be named from here on out), and she had the best time drawing all around them.  There was a turtle.  Then a dog.  Then Daddy.  Please don’t tell her that they all looked the same to me.  But the best part - only one set of googly eyes, dozens of different pictures, hours of fun.

The doodler with googly eyes

Next came the plastic-ware characters.  These were SUPER easy, and lots of fun.  They also lasted a really, really long time, which surprised me.  If you’re like me, you have all sorts of random plastic-ware around the house, just begging to be turned into crafts.  I used sharpies to draw faces (those did need touch-ups every so often), then we played around with chenille stems to dress the characters up a bit.  Emily’s favorite was the dog (come on…it looks like a dog if you squint a little).  I’m certain you could also use something actually crafty, like Popsicle sticks, too.

Plastic-ware Characters

Emily showing off her creation

Then came what I consider to be my crowning glory.  Those who know me understand that I am NOT a girly girl.  Those same people laughed hysterically when I found out that I was going to have a second daughter.  Needless to say, I’ve done my best to turn Emily into a tomboy, and she is basically as far from that as you can get.  She is a princess through and through.  Part of being a princess is having weekly (or daily, if she had her way) pedicures.  I’m always looking for ways to spice them up-new colors, painting little flowers or hearts or polka dots.  But as I said, I’m not very girly.  These things tend to elude me.  BUT, in the midst of my googly frenzy, I decided that they would be the perfect accent to newly-polished toes.  They were a big hit.

Emily's new pedicure

So, go crazy with the googly eyes.  And share your good ideas with me, too.  In the future I’m thinking that I might stick some on a balloon.  Or on a lunch sack to make a puppet.

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Returning Guest Blogger, Gillian from the blog “Dried Figs and Wooden Spools”.

Spring is in the air, the flowers are blooming around town and I’m in the mood for some embroidery!

I’m not, as a rule, an embroiderer. I lack the patience that it takes to finish a project of any size and have a pile of half done cross stitch/embroidery projects in my sewing box to prove it. But when I received the book Sublime Stitching as a gift a few years ago, it opened my eyes to a  new world of embroidery. The book, and its successor The Sublime Stitching Craft Pad, is packed with cute, slightly funky patterns for projects that you can use to embellish just about anything. And for me, there’s nothing like stitching a little something special to a store bought outfit to add some “awwww…” to my kids’ wardrobes. So far we’ve done cowboy patches on worn through knees, Scottie dogs on a bland dress or two, Siamese kitties to turn a little boy coat into a little girl one and a rocket ship tie that was the hit of the school concert. The tie was, in fact, such a bit hit that I’ve been commissioned (and paid in kisses) to make another, this one with dinosaurs.

Kid’s ties are hard to find and when you do, they are usually plastered with cartoon characters in garish colors. But ties are also remarkably easy to make. No, really they are! I used to make them for Christmas gifts for my teachers when I was in elementary school. I wonder if Mr. Koep still has the jungle with glow in the dark eyes tie I made him all those years ago… Kid’s ties, are even easier, since they require less fabric and don’t need to be perfectly smooth and tailored.

For a pattern, I used one of my husband ties that I had put on my son, adjusting it so that the narrow end was the right length and the wider end was too long. With a pin I marked the spot on the front of the tie where I wanted the length. After I’d removed the tie and ironed it I set it out on the fabric I planned to use and cut a rough pattern using the length and width as a guide. Keeping in mind my seam allowances I embroidered the dinosaur of choice. The rocket ship tie was fully line which made it a little thick so this time I only lined the ends before stitching the seams closed and giving it a whirl. The result was a perfectly proportioned tie that my son is excited to wear anywhere he gets a chance, which, given the fact that he would stay in his pajamas all day if allowed, is saying something.

Have you embellished a store bought piece of clothing with embroidery? What projects do you go stitch crazy for?

To read more of Gillian’s posts, click here.

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