Think Crafts Blog - Craft Ideas and Projects - CreateForLess

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

I keep a bin of clothespins in my house even though I’ve long since given up on line drying in this humid part of the country. They are one of those super handy, tons of uses kind of things. They hold up the sides of forts, keep the chips bag closed, identify dinner napkins and hang this week’s art assignment up in the playroom. But you know, they’re kind of boring; especially for something that makes appearances in every room of my house. After seeing some painted clothespins featured on an online store a few weeks ago, I decided to give my set a makeover, and if there’s paint (and it’s washable) my daughter is only too glad to help. 

There are really two ways of painting the basecoat of the clips. If you aren’t bombarded with “I want to help!” from a three year old, go with spray paint. It’s fast, it’s easy, it dries quickly and the colors are nice and bright. If, however, you are also blessed with a little helper, washable craft paints are the ticket. 

Clip the clips along the edge of a sturdy box, leaving enough room between each for fingers (or spray paint cans) to get in there. Paint the front, back and sides of the clip and inside the top. Allow the pins to dry, take them off to check for missed spots, and add another layer (hint- turn the clips around for the second coat)

Once the base coat is dry, lay them of a flat, paintable surface and get going with the dots. Drops of puff paint will certainly work but I found that applying paint with the tip of a knitting needle gave me more control over the size and shape of the dots and had an over all nicer effect. 

Allow the dots to dry completely before flipping over and dotting the other side. 

The possibilities for these are endless. Hang art, mark a page in your favorite book, close a lunch bag. Imagine the possibilities. I’ve already got a set of green and red clips in the works for holiday gift bags and Christmas ornament hangers. 

By General Crafts Contributor Amy, from the Blog “Mod Podge Rocks!”

Happy Holidays!  This is Amy from Mod Podge Rocks, bringing you a great kids’ craft for the Christmas season.  Children and Mod Podge go so well together that I wanted to show you a way to incorporate the two AND decorate for your holiday parties.  This was so fun for me - your kids are going to have a blast!

First gather these supplies:

Fabric Scraps - I used about thirteen 12 - 20″ strips

FloraCraft® Styrofoam® Wreath Bulk 9″ White

Mod Podge - Gold Glitter Hologram

Kunin Rainbow Classic Felt 9″x 12″ - Apple Green and Kelly Green

Offray Ribbon Grosgrain 5/8″ Red - 12 inches

Beacon Craft Glue

Buttons - 6 coordinating

Flat Paint Brush

Scissors

This could be one of the easiest Mod Podge projects you’ll ever do, which is why it’s so great for children.  Simply grab your fabric strips (you can use squares or random shapes too) and spread a medium layer of Mod Podge onto the back (fabric face down).

Wrap the strips tightly around the Styrofoam wreath.  Make sure to cover all of the white.  If you have squares or shapes, simply glue them randomly down to the wreath form.  Keep going until you’ve covered the entire wreath.

Once the wreath is completely covered, coat the entire project with Mod Podge.  If you want the glitter to really sparkle, let dry and then give the wreath a second coat.

Take your felt and draw some holly leaves.  Cut out and then attach to the wreath with craft glue.  Accent with some buttons and then a strip of ribbon to hang on the back.

I don’t know that I’ve ever done an easier craft, or one that was more fun!  Your children are going to thoroughly enjoy their participation in your holiday decorating.  Have a great holiday season!

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

Once upon a time, when I led a much more exciting life than I do nowadays (it’s still great, just not quite as exciting!) My husband and two-year-old son took me to Paris for Mother’s Day. I know, major points for them! In those days we were the masters of childhood distraction and I was always on the lookout for great, small toys that could distract a busy toddler on our travels. That weekend, walking along the ile de citie, we stumbled into a small toy store hoping to find something that would keep our son busy while we toured nearby Notre Dame. The store was a marvelous jumble of exotic looking toys and we were instantly fascinated. We could have walked away with bags and bags of fabulous toys, but with limited funds we left with only a small box containing a set of puzzle blocks with six different pictures.

Our son literally spent hours with that puzzle. Not only building the puzzles correctly but also making an infinite combination of odd- looking animals, a lion with a monkey tail, a giraffe with elephant feet. It was one of the best purchases we ever made. And ever since I’ve kept an eye out for similar puzzles to add to our toy repertoire.

The boy has pretty much outgrown the old puzzle blocks, but his little sister is as fascinated as he was which started me thinking, how hard could it be to make a set of puzzle blocks?

As it turns out, not very hard. Here’s what you need:

• 4 or 9 wooden blocks - you could reuse old alphabet blocks or purchase plain wooden blocks
• Six images big enough to cover all your blocks when they are pushed together in a square. I used pages out of High Five and Highlights, but copies of family photos would be another great idea
• Mod Podge
• Paintbrush
• Scissors or paper trimmer 

The only trick with this project is that you need to be fairly precise with cutting, so it helps if you have a paper trimmer to make things easier.

First, cut the image down to roughly the size you’ll need, leaving at least a half-inch all around. Position your blocks on the reverse side of the paper and trace carefully all around the big square, then around each of the individual blocks. Trim the paper along the lines, checking as you go to make sure the squares line up on the blocks.

Once you have all your images cut out, it’s time to glue. Be sure that you only have one square for each puzzle per block (it’s easier if you separate the squares by picture and just take one per puzzle per block from each pile). Brush a thin coat of Modge Podge onto the surface of the block and smooth one of the squares over the top, being sure to line the edges up. Working in stages, cover each block with the six puzzle images until every square has been used up. When all your squares are covered and dry, apply a second coat of Modge Podge over the top to seal the images on. Depending on the thickness of the paper, you may want to add a third layer as well.

The variations on this are pretty much endless. And once you have one set done you can change out pictures as your child’s interest wane by gluing new squares over the top of old or damaged ones. Use family pictures, images from wildlife magazines or even drawings that your child has made for these fun little puzzles.

By Crafts-a lot Contributor, Mable who is an avid reader of craft blogs & magazines and has aspirations to improve her crafting skills.

What I love about crafts is the personal touch they add to your space, because you can create something unique and customizable. What I love even more is the spirited touch that holiday crafts add to your home. Well in this case, spooky touch!

With Halloween this weekend, it’s time to get ready! First I made a banner to hang above my front door to decorate the front where the trick or treaters will be. I also make sure to get the good candy so I can be one of the ‘cool houses’! Can’t take any chances with those trickers!

So I decided to make the Making Memories Spellbound Garland Kit. The kit came complete with 4″ Black glitter letters that spell out “All Hallows Eve”, 15 background squares, 10 chipboard shapes, 10 assorted buttons, 5 die-cut flowers, 5 yards of Black twine, and 1 sheet of adhesive foam squares. It was a breeze to put together because everything was all cut out, so I just got the fun part - decorating! All it takes is some glue to put the letters on the background squares. Then I added the buttons, die-cuts, chipboard shapes with the foam squares.

These Ravens add a little spook and glitter, and are easy to put anywhere. I hung some in my entry way above door. There are short wires on the back, so I attached some to frames, wall hangings, and even my plants!

Next I got Pumpkin Paper Mache Masks to decorate. I used Halloween Scrapbook paper and decoupaged the hat with mod podge. The Halloween 12×12 Paper Stack came with 24 designs that were bright, glittery and perfect for Halloween. I started with the polka dot paper for the top of the hat. I wanted a dark hat with some color. Next I choose the glitter spider web designed paper for the brim and used bright puff paint to bring out the webs.

My pumpkin looked bright and cheery so I decided that my pumpkin should be dressed up as a clown!

The masks are fun and very easy to decorate! You can use anything, be creative!

And look how nicely these masks are decorated! These are the cutest pumpkins!

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

After building myself (and my daughter) a brand spanking new hair clip holder last week, I set out to fill it with, well, hairclips. And as always, I was astounded by the price of clips in stores. Now I know very well that I could make the clips myself, but I don’t always have the time to carefully wrap each clip with ribbon and embroidered little doo dads to stitch on top. But I do, I realized, have time for hot glue. So with a selection of ribbons, plain hairclips, buttons that match my daughters fall wardrobe (she’s into orange and green at the moment) I set off on a fifteen minute-hair clip extravaganza.

The key to this is to have all your supplies ready. And that doesn’t need to be hard. Next time you’re ordering supplies or shopping at your craft or fabric store, grab a few rolls of inexpensive, sold by the spool ribbon and a few packages of buttons that coordinate with the colors your child wears the most. I generally keep a selection of thin ribbon in a variety of colors around for general pony tail and or braid tying so I’ve gotten into the habit of grabbing a spool here and there when I see it on sale. Another great source is scrapbooking supplies. I picked up a bag of cardboard diecuts for this go round and loved the result.

Likewise, grab a package of plain hairclips of the variety that work best for your child’s hair. Personally I love the look of alligator clips but they do not stay in my daughter’s hair, nor do those cute little dinky bendy barrettes. For my purposes, I have to stick with the full sized bendy clips which, while not the cutest things in the world, offer a lot of surface area for decorations and stay all day and into the night in her hair.

With your glue gun ready, spread your supplies out and go to work. Mix and match and stack and glue the buttons and ribbons in different combinations. If you have a pigtail girl and are making two of each, be sure to flip the clip on one so you have mirror images. At the end of ten minutes or so you should have a nice pile of hairclips that will last you well into the fall months.

A few notes about the project, roughing up the back of the buttons and the tops of the clips with a little sandpaper can help the glue adhere more securely. You can also use a strong craft glue for this project, allowing, of course, for a longer dry time. And speaking of dry times, dont forget to be aware of your work surface when using hot glue. I glued a few clips to the table while pressing the button on. Good thing hot glue scrapes off easily!

Blog Contributor, Crafty Mom and Writer, Gillian, from the Blog “Dried Figs and Wooden Spools”.

Somehow, this year I’ve been roped into being the den mother for my son’s Wolf Scout Den, or pack, or whatever it is. I should probably figure that out since I’m now in charge. The fact that my son is even in Scouts was a coup for my husband in the first place. Last year, when he joined I didn’t really want yet another thing to do in the evenings, but my husband was adamant. Every boy should be a scout, ours included, so a scout he became.

As far as how I became a den mother, well, I’m actually not sure, but here I am, in charge of ten 7 year old boys once a week. This week was our first meeting of the school year and to kick things off we decided to work on sportsmanship and teamwork and woodworking skills. In other words, we were going to build a Washers game.

Now the first thing I should tell you is that I’ve never played washers in my life. In fact, I had never even heard of Washers until we moved to Virginia. Either it’s a Southern thing or it’s just not something that happened in my family. And considering the fact that my family is the most anti-sports family around, they are both good possibilities. In any case, I’ve HEARD a lot about Washers, and it seemed like a simple thing to make, and a good game for a bunch of rowdy second graders to play.

As it turns out, a Washers set is an easy thing to build and a fun thing to play. So fun, in fact, that we’ve decided to play it at the beginning of our meetings every week. It also just might become a permanent feature in our back yard.

Learning woodworking skills!

To build a Washers set you will need enough plywood to make two squares roughly 17 inches on each side. We used 1/8″ plywood because we had it around and it was easy to work with, but whatever you can get your hands on would be just fine. And the dimensions are approximate, if you can find a 30 inch piece of plywood, make two 15 inch squares, 40 inch piece and you dont want to cut things down, go for 20 inch squares. The main things is that there is enough room on the inside to catch at least some of the washers.

Next cut 2×4″s or 2×2″s (we used 2×2″s to make it shallower and easier for the boys) to make a square lip around the plywood. Nail through the plywood and into the bottom of the lip so you won’t have nails sticking up then flip the whole thing over and glue a 4 inch tall piece of PVC pipe in the center using Liquid Nails or another construction adhesive (this is a step that should definitely be done by an adult!) The diameter of the pipe is up to you, we used a three inch coupling segment because it was big enough to catch a few washers and came pre-cut in the plumbing section of the hardware store. Once you have the boards nailed and the pipes glued, make another just like the first so you have a matched set. When the glue has set, or set enough, it’s time to play. Pull out your bag of washers and get throwing!

According to washers.org, the game boards should stand 25 feet apart, but if you’re playing with seven year olds, ten is probably the max, at least until they’ve gotten some practice time in.  Players stand at opposite boards and throw two washers each into their home board. A washer in the cup scores 5 points, the closest washer to the cup but in the box scores 1 point. There are some complicated rules about scores counting each other out and if you feel like playing that way, by all means, read up on that. But for our purposes, we just kept a running tab for two teams and let the boys play. And that’s the beauty of the game, if you want a serious game, that can be arranged, if you want to keep ten squirmy seven year olds busy for half an hour, it will do the job, and if you want to sit in your lawn chair and chuck washers into the box to see who gets up to get the next round of drinks, well, that works too.

Blog Contributor, Crafty Mom and Writer, Gillian, from the Blog “Dried Figs and Wooden Spools”.

When my son went off to school for the first time two years ago, I encountered the whole “lunch packing” thing for the first time as a mom. Aside from the all important cool snacks vs healthy snacks dilemma, I was also concerned about the sheer volume of plastic bags I was set to go through in a single school year. Since I am a) as cheap as they come and b) a sewer, I decided to make a few cloth wraps and bags to hold my sons food though the year, no baggies required. Fast forward two years and one environmental movement that has finally reached the masses and lunch wraps are everywhere these days.

While there are a variety of choices out there from metal tins to canvas wraps, I still prefer to make my own, largely because my son have very specific requests regarding what they look like. Last year it HAD to be dinosaurs but this year they just wouldn’t do, space was the theme of the day (or hopefully the year!) While buying them break the bank (and in fact, you’ll save a bundle over the span of a year from not buying baggies) they are even cheaper to make and can be done in a short afternoon sewing session.

In order to make two sandwich wraps and two snack packets you will need 1/2 yard of fabric, anything non stretch would work but I have found that quilting fabrics are a fun, economical option. 1/2 yard of mid-weight clear vinyl, a package of stick on Velcro and optionally four buttons and some elastic cording.

For the sandwich wraps cut two 12 inch squares out of each of the vinyl and the fabric, out of the remaining materials you should be able to get two six inch square for the snack packs.

With the vinyl on the wrong side of the fabric sew around the edge leaving a half inch seam allowance and a two inch opening for turning. Trim the seams to 1/4 inch, leaving the area around the hold at 1/2. Iron with the fabric side up on your lowest setting to assure sharp edges before topstitching around the edges to close the hole and to help keep the shape during repeated use.

From here, the sandwich wrap can be completed in two ways. The best way to determine where your fasteners need to be is to try it out with some slices of bread. Particularly if you use the same bread week after week, this way the wrappers suit your needs specifically. The first style of closure has the bread sitting in the center of the wrap with the points up and to the sides (so it looks like a diamond) Fold in the sides over the bread and then the top and bottom over the sides to close the wrapper. Mark where the top hits the bottom and stick a Velcro tab or dot in the correct location. For this style I also added a second piece of Velcro two inches closer to the point. This allows for larger or even multiple sandwiches to be packed in the same wrap.

The other option (actually there are many styles, but these are the two I prefer) has the wrap on the table like a square with the sandwich in the middle. Fold the sides in to make a rectangle then the bottom up and the top down marking a spot on each where you will sew a button. Before you stitch the top button on, add a two inch loop of elastic cording that will stretch around both buttons. This style also allows for larger or multiple sandwiches as the elastic make is very adjustable to shape.

The snack pack closes much like the first wrapper with the addition of Velcro on the sides as well as the top and bottom. THis creates a much more secure closure for loose snacks. Again, the best way to determine where your Velcro needs to be is to throw in a handful of snacks and stick a Velcro tab in the best spot.

Once you’ve determineed the positioning of the Velcro, stitch them in place with either parallel lines of stitching or an “x” across the tab.

And as a side note, BPA free vinyl is available to order online, however, these are easily cleaned with a quick wipe down so they don’t really get heated up, which is where the concern with BPA comes from. I have used the BPA free which allows you to just throw the wrap in the washing machine when it needs cleaning but found that I rarely needed to wash the whole wrap.

The average elementary school student produces about 100 pounds of waste per year and while certainly much of this is the food our kids throw out, baggies account for a good deal of that as well. If you replace two bags a day with reusable wraps you’ll save about 400 baggies from going into the landfill each school year!

Click here to read more of Gillian’s blog.