Think Crafts Blog – Craft Ideas and Projects – CreateForLess

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

If your kids, like mine, love to play house for hours and hours, play food, you’ll know by now, figures largely into this imaginary world. My daughter loves to make tea and lunch for her babies and herself, and sometimes if I’m lucky, I’ll get a plate as well. This play pasta is easy enough to create that most kids can help out and the result will bring hours of play time fun.

If you can’t find beige felt, try soaking a few pieces of white felt in coffee or tea and allowing it to dry!

Here’s what you need

Tan or beige felt sheets
Pinking shears
Sewing Scissors
Needle and matching thread
Ruler and pencil
Batting

Tortellini

1. Cut 3-inch diameter circles from your felt.
2. Lay a quarter sized lump of batting in the center of your circle and fold over into a half-circle. Stitch a few stitches at the point to hold the shape in place.
3. Bring the two sides of the half-circle together and cross over, stitching them in place.
4. Fold the rounded edge over to finish the tortellini shape.

Ravioli

1. Cut 2 2-inch squares using your pinking shears.
2. Sand which a quarter sized piece of batting between the two layers of felt.
3. Stitch a square 1/2 inch in from the sides around the square, sealing the batting in place.

Linguini

1. Using your ruler, mark out 1/2 inch wide strips along the length of your felt.
2. Cut out the strips to make long noodles
(if you want you can also cut a wobbly shape out of red felt to make a blob of spaghetti sauce to set over the linguini!)

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

So I bet you’ve probably have been to one or thrown a bridal shower. My best friend is getting married later this month and I wanted to send her into matrimony with the best shower ever! The other bridesmaids and I were brainstorming ideas to add a little something something to the party to make it fun. That’s when it came – themed bachelorette party. More specifically a Kentucky Derby themed bridal shower party!

The most important part of the Kentucky derby (while besides the races I guess!) is the fashion. And the HATS! I started with a fun, big, bright red floppy hat. I choose some ribbon, feathers and flowers that matched my red hat.

What you need:

Wide, big brim summer hat
Ribbon
Silk Flowers
Hot glue gun and lots of glue sticks
Wire Cutter

Optional: Rhinestones, Gems, and Feathers

I wrapped a 1 ½” ribbon around the base of the hat. I choose this red and white polka-dotted ribbon because it’s obviously very cute.

Next I added a sheer white ribbon to the side; I looped and glued it 4 times to add some shape.

I arranged the flowers a few different ways before gluing to see what looked best. I glued on 2 silk hibiscus flowers after cutting off the wire stems. I liked the large hibiscus in the center, and the yellow forsythia and other branches around it. When gluing down the flowers stems, remember the glue gun is your friend!

Once you have finished gluing everything down, pat yourself on the back because you are ready for the Kentucky Derby! (The Kentucky Derby is usually the end of April beginning of May)

Check back later to see how I made a Bridal Sombrero for the “Margaritas and Senoritas” bachelorette party!

By Recycled Crafts Contributor, Anitra from the blog “Coffee Pot People”. 

Sometimes what you need isn’t a new project, but a new process, something that will spark your own creative juices (Can you spark juice? Hmmm…)  For instance, you probably have a dozen different ways to use marbles, both the traditional spheres and the newer flat ones, but have you ever wondered if there was a way to make your marbles look a little different? If they did, how would that change projects you have in mind?

Here’s a way to do just that, and it’s really easy. We’re going to fry them!

To begin, select the marbles you want to use. I just pulled out a pretty random handful for the purposes of demonstration; you might have specific colors in mind. This process will craze the glass, so don’t use marbles that are opaque, because the crazing is all on the inside, and you won’t see it. We’re also going to get the marbles really hot, so the painted ones are probably not going to work, either. You want plain glass, although there’s nothing to say you can’t use the cat’s eye style.

Now put them in a skillet or pan, one that’s large enough to lay them all out flat. We’re not literally frying them, so don’t put in any oil! (This is the method for flat marbles; I’ll get to the round ones in a bit.) Turn the burner on under the pan and pour yourself a cup of coffee or tea, and relax for ten minutes or so while the marbles get really hot. Don’t go too far away; you wouldn’t want to melt the pan!

When the marbles are good and hot, fill a bowl with ice water, and then gently slide the marbles in. You’ll hear them sizzling and popping in the water. Don’t worry; that’s what they’re supposed to do.

When they’ve cooled to the touch, take them out of the water. You’re done!

As you can see, they have a nice internal pattern now, which you can’t feel, and they’re not quite so see-through, which may be helpful if you want to obscure a flaw or graphic on the item they’ll be applied to.

Now, as mentioned, you’ll use a slightly different method for the spherical marbles, since they really touch the surface of a pan at just a single point and are too hard to heat that way. Put them in an oven-proof dish or pan, and slip them into an oven preheated to 500 degrees Fahrenheit. Bake 20 minutes, and then slide them into ice water, just the way you did the others. Same sizzle, same crackle!

Are you getting ideas yet? Here’s one more: You can do this with those big glass telephone pole resisters. We used to do that and turn them into quite elegant candlesticks!

Congratulations to Kelly Massman who was randomly selected as the winner of Free Stuff Friday and The Plaid Simply Screen Kit!

This kit comes complete with everything you need to make your own screen printed shirts. With Plaid Simply Screen Stencils it’s quick and fun to decorate and personalize all kinds of projects, such as memory books, frames, furniture, tees, tanks, hoodies, and much more! Simply Stencils are precision cut, have a non-slip pebble back and are made of colorful transparent material so you can easily see where to place the design. Designs can be applied in a single color, or with a multi-color effect by masking areas of the pattern. No muss, no fuss, no waiting. Just choose your design, paint color and shirt to begin creating professional quality screen printed garments.

Kit contains:

Plaid Simply Screen Stencil Chandelier
Plaid Simply Screen Stencil Love
Plaid Simply Screen Foil Pack 6pc
Plaid Simply Screen Glitter Fun Fashion 4pc
Plaid Simply Screen Paint 2oz in Oasis, Envy and Pink Pony
Plaid Simply Screen Foil & Glitter Adhesive
Plaid Technique Guide Simply Screen Printing

Kelly’s winning answer to ”What is your favorite cheesy joke?” was…

“Deja Moo: The feeling that you’ve heard this bull before.”

Congratulations to Staci Jones who was randomly selected as the winner of Free Stuff Friday and the Paper Accents Craft Pack!

The Pound O’ Paper are wonderful packs of paper that comes with a new variety each time. These varieties are great for making cards, invitations, tags or adding special accents to scrapbook and memory pages. It’s an assortment pack , the sizes and kind of paper change with each package. Create Your Own Journals are made with heavy chipboard on the front and back with 25 pages inside. Have fun decorating and personalizing these journals with stamps, stickers, embellishments, marking pens, and more. Each journal is spiral bound so they are easy to flip and stay together! Create Your Own Chipboard Pennants are great for Banners, Seasonal Sentiments, Names and much more. Made with heavy weight chipboard, they are acid free, and ready to decorate to your personal taste.

Staci’s winning answer to ”What is your favorite summer memory from your childhood, or your children’s” was…

“My favorite summer memories were visiting my grandparents in Seattle. It would take us 2 1/2 days to get there so we usually stayed for awhile. I loved going to the zoo and aquarium. It was so much fun.”

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”.

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.