Think Crafts Blog – Craft Ideas and Projects – CreateForLess

By Kid’s Craft Contributor, Gillian from the blog “Dried Figs and Wooden Spools”.

The summer I turned ten, my friends and I were all about friendship crafts. We made knotted friendship bracelets, walking around with in-progress projects pinned to the hems of our shorts, we collected plastic charms and tried to make our own to trade and wear, and we were obsessed with friendship pins. Our the laces of our shoes jingled and glittered with as many pins as could be crammed between the eyes of the shoes. We carried bubblegum tins around full of beads and pins and got in trouble the first weeks of class when we tried to make pins inside our desks during math.

But as much as I loved it way back then, I hadn’t thought much about friendship pins in twenty years, until I was puttering around the fabric store and found myself in amongst the seed beads. Although my son is younger than I was the summer that friendship pins hit it big at my school, he had no trouble at all working through my entire supply of safety pins over the course of 20 minutes. Simple and satisfying, it’s one of those crafts that kids will always love, especially on a too hot to go outside summer day.

You’ll need:

Seed Beads – lots of colors
1 inch long safety pins – as many as you can spare

Pour the beads into a bowl for easy access and open up a couple of pins to get them started. Beads can be strung randomly, all one color or in a pattern, just be sure to leave enough room at the top to fasten the pin back together. Once they are done, pin them onto the bottom lace of tennis shoes, stack a row on them onto a hair-clip or fasten them around rubber bracelets so your kids can show off and trade their treasures.

By Kid’s Craft Contributor, Gillian from the blog “Dried Figs and Wooden Spools”.

Whether you’re sending the kids off to camp this summer or just dropping them at your parents for the weekend, it’s always nice to get a note from them so you can see what they are up to. Send them off on their adventure with a set of cards made by their own hands (and don’t forget the pre-addressed and stamped envelopes!)  to help ensure you get a few scribbled lines from them while they are away having fun!

Here’s what you’ll need:

Blank card or half a sheet of cardstock for each card
Unpopped bubblewrap
Craft Paint (any colors!)
Foam brush

1. Brush paint in a pattern over the bubbles, try stripes or paint each dot a different hue, let them go a little crazy with the paint. You’ll want to work fairly quickly so that the paint doesn’t dry before you make your print, but even if some of the dots don’t print, you’ll still get a fun look!

2. Center your paper over the painted bubbles and smooth so that every bubble comes in contact with the paper.

3. Peel the paper back carefully and lay flat to dry.

4. Fold into cards and pack them up with the envelopes in their bags and they are ready to go!

By Kid’s Craft Contributor, Gillian from the blog “Dried Figs and Wooden Spools”.

Between the pool and the park and camp and play dates, summer can be a whirlwind of activity, and even the most energetic kids will sometime need a quiet activity to do in the cool of the indoors. If you have a burgeoning knitter this summer, or a child interested in learning to knit, but you aren’t ready to hand over your good needles, why not put the kids to work making their own knitting needles?

Here’s what you need

Dowels – 1/4 inch and or 3/8 inch
Pencil sharpener
220 grit sandpaper
Rocks, buttons or beads, even small toys
Hot glue or super glue

If you have longer dowels, cut them into pairs of even lengths, 12 inches long works well but you can go shorter depending on your preference.

Using the small hole of the sharpener for the 1/4 inch dowels or the larger hole for the 3/8, sharpen the end of each dowel until you have an almost sharp point.

Sand the sharpened end until smooth, then sand the shaft of the dowel to make sure there are no nicks in the wood to catch on the yarn.

Using either the hot glue or super glue, attach the beads, buttons or rocks to the flat end of the dowel.

Allow the glue to dry before using.

** a 1/4 inch dowel give you a size 10 1/2 knitting needle, a 3/8 inch dowel makes a size 15, both are great sizes for beginning knitters, especially when paired with a bulky yarn.

By Kid’s Craft Contributor, Gillian from the blog “Dried Figs and Wooden Spools”.

This past weekend we celebrated our daughter’s fourth birthday with a Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. On top of the cake and the “Eat Me!” cookies and the croquet and the teapots, one of the things I knew we had to have to make it a very Wonderlandy party was, of course, hats! But how to make hats for a heard of three and four year olds? The answer came form one of my Aunties, who used to be an art teacher and is also the mother of a dress up loving girl. Wrapping paper hats! But don’t just think of these as party hats, this simple project is the perfect rainy day, or too hot and sunny day activities to keep the “I’m Bored’s” away.

You’ll need:

Wrapping paper cut into two foot lengths – any paper works here and a mixture of patterns makes it more fun, so this is a great opportunity to use of the last of the rolls you have tucked away in a closet somewhere
Masking tape 
Ribbons, flowers, streamers, stickers  – get creative here and raid your craft cupboard

Stack two or three sheets of wrapping paper so they are not quite aligned. Center them on top of your child’s head and shape it gently around the crown of their head. If you have an extra pair of hands available (older kids are great helpers here) have them hold the paper in place while you wrap the tape around the base of the crown.

Once the hat is formed, let the kids go crazy with decorating it. Roll up the edges of the brim, wrap ribbon around the crown, add bows or flowers or glitter or whatever they want to make the hats their own.

By Sewing Contributor Jessica, from the blog “Life Sew Good”.  

While it may be okay for the sun to rise at 5:00am, it’s not okay for my kids to wake up that early.  Whether it’s your kids getting up too early (or up too late!), you work graveyard, or you are simply interested in getting a little insulation in your window treatments, try making your own blackout curtains. 

Here’s what you need:

Fabric you like—can be anything:  heavy or sheer won’t matter
Black out material, which you can buy inexpensively at your fabric store or online
Scissors 
Thread 
Pins 
Measuring tape  (not pictured!)

First, measure the window!  When figuring out how much fabric you will need, take into consideration that you will want to make the curtains wider than the actual window measurement.  I decided to make 2 panels to cover the entire window.  To get an accurate measurement of how much fabric, I divided the original measure in ½.  Let’s just say ½ is 20”.  I’m going to want my curtains to be 1.5 x Width, which = 30”.  Then, add seam allowance, which I’m going to say 1” for the sides.

For example:  30”(1/2 width x 20”) + 2” (seam allowance each side) = 32” width for one panel. 

For the length, (40”),make sure you measure from where you want to HANG the curtains.  I added 10” total for the top seam allowance and loop (about 4”) and the bottom seam allowance and wider fold (about 6”). 

For example:  40” (length) + 10” (seam allowance) = 50” length for one panel.

This works perfect for extra wide fabric, which is what I used.  For this panel, I would only need 1 yd. of 54” fabric.

*Note:  You will need a bit less blackout material.  For the blackout material, don’t measure the seam allowances, except the top loop, which adds about 4” to the length.

Cut out the fabric according to your measurements, and lay the blackout material on top of the wrong side of your fabric, making sure the fabric has a 1” seam allowance on both sides AND the top.  There will be about 6” of  fabric showing on the bottom. 

Begin taking the raw edges of the fabric and fold in half, so that the raw edge meets the edge of your blackout material then fold the fabric again and pin.  See pictures for how to fold the corners.

Sew top and sides of fabric to the blackout material.

Next, fold over the top of you curtain 2-3” for your loop.  You have figured in enough for 3”, but I opted for a smaller loop, so the picture shows 2”.  Pin in place, and sew a seam close to the edge.   I simply followed the seam I had already made.

For the bottom, fold over ½” then fold fabric in half until It meets but does not overlap your blackout material.  Pin in place and sew a seam close to the edge.  You DO NOT need to sew this part of your curtain to the blackout material.  Just let it hang!

Now that you’ve got it down, go do it again for the other panel!

Since I made these for my little girls’ room, I just use a ribbon for a tie-back if I need them open.

By Kid’s Craft Contributor, Gillian from the blog “Dried Figs and Wooden Spools”.

Now that summer is in full swing around here, we’ve been hitting the pool just about every chance we get. My son is generally content to wander around after swimming in his dripping wet trunks, too busy to bother with drying himself or being warm. My daughter, either is just so freaking thin or whether it is a fashion thing, insists on being bundled up into a towel as soon as she emerges from the water. I started thinking about my own summers at the pool when I was a child and remembered that my grandmother made wraps for herself and for us kids out of towels and decided it would be just the ticket for my little fish.

There are lots of variations on hooded towels and towel wraps out there. The easiest is to cut a hand towel in half and stitch it to the center of the long side of a bath towel. Once it’s attached, fold the hand towel in half and sew the top seam, creating an easy hood. You can also attach a button and loop along the long edge of a beach towel to keep it wrapped around you - strapless dress style. But for my little girl, who is always ready for a costume, I wanted something a little Red Riding Hoodish.

Because she is still small, I trimmed down a beach towel and used the scraps for the hood. But if you have a taller child, find a matching hand towel and cut it in half for the hood part.

Here’s what you need

1 beach towel
Sewing scissors
 Sewing machine and thread 

Decide on the length you want by folding the towel in half along the long sides (hamburger, as my son says, as opposed to hot dog which would be along the sort sides so you get a long skinny towel – where do they get these things?) If it’s a good length, leave it as is, if not, trim it down leaving enough for a 1 inch hem on the end you cut.

With the towel sill folded hamburger style, cut up through the front side at the center and then along the fold one inch less than the hood will be wide.

Fold over and hem the bottom, the sides of the slit and the front half of the hood opening, leaving the back side to stitch the hood on. If you have used the bottom of the towel for the hood, you’ll need to cut it in half and join the two pieces to make a more square shape before stitching it in place.

Serge or zigzag stitch the raw edge where the hood attaches and then pin the front of the neck onto the hood, sewing in about three inches on each side to make the shoulders.

Sew the top of the hood closed and add a ribbon tie at the neck to finish.

By Sewing Contributor Jessica, from the blog “Life Sew Good”.

I love making baby gifts!  However, I am a bit of a procrastinator, so on Friday night before my friend’s baby shower, I needed a quick project.  I settled on some practical flannel burp cloths.  Here’s how to make them!

What You’ll need:

½ yd. flannel  (or two 1/3 yd. pieces of coordinating flannel)
Scissors —preferably 1 pair for cutting your paper and a another pair for cutting fabric
Ruler
Paper—tracing paper, newsprint, or a paper bag works well
Pen
Pins
Sewing macine
Thread

Make sure you pre-wash your flannel.  Technically you would only need ¼ yd, but after the fabric shrinks, you will need a bit more.

First, we’ll make a pattern.  If you are making more than one burp cloth, making a good pattern will be key to uniformity!

1. Fold your paper in half length-wise and then in half the other way (in quarters)

2. I want my finished product to be 8″ across the top & the bottom, curving in the middle to 5″, and a total length of 14″. We will divide our total desired measurements in ½, then add ½” seam allowance.  So .  . .  Measure 3” in from the top corner fold in and make a mark.  Measure 7 ½” inches down from top fold and make a mark.  At 7 ½” from the top, (where you just made a mark) measure 4 ½” in from the center fold.  Using ruler, draw a straight line from the center fold in 4 ½”. Draw a curved line from the bottom line (4 ½”) to the top mark at 3″.  See example.

3. Cut paper pattern along your 2 lines.  Unfold.  You can use the full pattern now OR you can cut it in half and cut the fabric on the fold.  It’s up to you!  Both sides should be symmetrical, so if you cut it in half, you’ll have 2 patterns.  I’m going to use ½ the paper pattern and cut 2 pieces of fabric on the fold.

4. Cut your fabric.  You need 2 identical pieces.

5. Pin RIGHT sides together, leaving a 2” flipping hole on one of the center sides.

6. Starting on the side, sew ½” all the way around, except the 2” flipping hole.  Make sure to back tack your first and last stitches.

7. Clip corners and make small cuts on curved center.

8. Flip right sides out.  Iron, making sure to line up edges where you turned your fabric.

9. Top stitch ¼” all the way around, making sure to close your flipping hole.

10. Viola!  You’re done! Repeat to make more.

Finally, if you want a boutique look, packaging is everything.  Fold 3 burp cloths then roll them together and tie with a ribbon.