Grow Your Own Snowflakes!

    If you're like me, you're always looking for fun, fast and inexpensive crafts for your kids to do. Last Christmas, my kids and I grew our own snowflakes. I had seen a post or two about this floating around the Internet, but none of them explained as clearly as I wanted or included pictures. So, I hope that you all find this instructive and easy to follow!

Supplies:
     pipe cleaners
     yarn

     pencils or bamboo sticks
     microwave safe jar or container

     water
     Borax

     food coloring (optional)
    

     Step 1: Cut pipe cleaners in to 3 - 5 equal pieces (depending on what size you want your snowflakes). We cut ours into 5 pieces and used 3 pieces for each snowflake.

     Step 2: For a 6 spoke snowflake, fold 2 pieces in half and wrap around a 3 piece of pipe cleaner. Spread the spokes to desired position. Don’t stress about making them all “perfect” or identical. Remember, in nature, every snowflake is unique.

Step 3: Attach a piece of yarn to on spoke of each snowflake.

     Step 4: Tie the other end of the yarn around the pencil or bamboo stick. Make sure to tie it short enough that your snowflake isn’t touching the bottom of your container.

    

     Step 5: Measure in cups, the amount of water that you’re container or jar holds. Boil that amount of water. Once it’s boiling, pour it into your container. Then add 3 tbs of Borax for every one cup of water. (Ex: If your container holds 2 cups of water, use 6 tbs of Boraz.) Add food coloring, if desired.

     Step 6: Place snowflakes in Borax/water mixture. Make sure that your snowflake is completely submerged and not touching any edges of your container.

     Step 7: Allow snowflakes to sit for 12 -24 hours.

     Step 8: Remove snowflakes from mixture and lay them on a towel to dry.

     Step 9: Once the snowflakes have dried, tie yarn into a loop and hang as decoration. We hung some on our Christmas tree. They also make great hand-made gifts for the kids to give to grandparents. We also put one snowflake on each gift my kids gave last Christmas.

     For a new twist on this popular craft, cut a brown pipe cleaner into 4ths and shape like a tree. Follow steps 3 – 9 to grow your own Christmas tree.

15 Reindeer Crafts for Kids

     Reindeer are my favorite part of secular Christmas. When I was little, I loved leaving carrots for the reindeer more than leaving cookies and milk for Santa. Every year, my kids and I make a reindeer craft or two. So, I decided to put together a list of 15 reindeer crafts for kids. Some of them are going to require help from Mom or Dad, but that makes it more fun. A special thanks to Mommy of 4 Peas in a Pod for suggesting a few cute ones that I might have otherwise missed. Enjoy!

1. Candycane Reindeer

2. Christmas Critters

3. Clothespin Reindeer

4. Craftstick Reindeer

5. Paper Bag Reindeer

6.  Pine Cone Reindeer

7. Reindeer Bell Ornament

8. Rudolph Lollipops

9. Reindeer T-Shirt

10. Wooden Spoon Rudolph

11. Reindeer Finger Puppet

12. Reindeer Gift Bag

13. Paper Reindeer Ornament

14. Posable Reindeer

15. Reindeer Puzzle Piece Pin (not pictured)

Pinterest Weekly: DIY Laundry Detergent

     I have never had an overwhelming urge to make my own cleaning products. I'm just not one of those people. I think it's cool when others do it and have bought my fair share of homemade bath products at craft fairs and market days. Mostly, I think that it's more effort than it's worth. I don't mind paying for the convenience.

     But, when I saw a recipe for DIY Laundry Detergent on SlapDashMom, I just had to try it. It's only 3 ingredients and it just seemed super simple.

     So, I headed to the store to get my ingredients. Before we left, I told my sister, that I wanted Zest, Lever 2000 or something similar. When we got there, a 3 pack of Zest was $1.98 with a $1 off in-store coupon. So, that's what we got. We got home, and I decided that I would increase the recipe to use all three bars of soap. We don't use bar soap so it was easier to add it to the recipe and get it out of the way.

     It was as easy as SlapDashMom's directions made it seem and it took us less than 30 minutes to make. One thing I didn't count on was how much space the soap would take up once it was grated. With increasing the recipe to account for a third bar, my finished laundry detergent was about 8.25 cups.

My laundry detergent

     Total, it cost me about $3.15 to make the laundry detergent. Since you only use 1 tablespoons per load, it'll wash 132 loads. That means that it's only $0.03 per load! When we were buy laundry detergent at the store, we pay $0.13 per load. I know that $0.10 per load doesn't seem like a lot of savings. But, when you think about the fact that, according to the EPA, the average American family does 400 loads of laundry per year. That's saving $40 per year on something that you're going to need, no matter what.

     Be sure to check out SlapDashMom's recipe for complete instructions!

Pinterest Weekly - DIY Mason Jar Soap Dispenser

     This weeks Pinterest Weekly was inspired by Money Saving Mommas and Poppas.

     Sunday, Thing 2 broke my liquid soap dispenser. It was the second one that had been broken in less than 2 months (the first was broken by my 20 year old sister...not entirely her fault). I wasn't thrilled at the idea of buying yet another liquid soap dispenser. Then, I remembered I had pinned a DIY Mason Jar Soap Dispenser.

     Her instructions were very good and I didn't need to alter them at all. I left my ring and lid silver instead of painting them and I didn't have any ribbon that matched my bathroom decor. So for now, it's pretty plain. But, it's doing its job (and it's still in one piece!). All in all, it took less than 10 minutes to complete this project.

     If I were to do it again, the only thing that I would change would be the screwdriver that I used to poke the hole. I didn't think that the hole would need to be too large, so I started with a medium width screw driver. If I had started with a larger screwdriver, I could have been finished in 5 minutes.

Pinterest Weekly - Button Letter

     My friend Marisa has started trying one project from Pinterest each week. You can see her crafts at The Scholarly Homemaker. Since I spend quite a bit of time exploring Pinterest, I have decided to do the same. Thank you for your inspiration, Marisa!

     This week, I was looking for a way to get rid of a bunch of miscellaneous buttons that I had. This craft was inspired by American Crafts Studio. They have a wonderfully detailed tutorial.

     Below are 2 pictures. Because I put it in a shadowbox, it was difficult to get a picture where you could see the entire letter and the actual color of the buttons. The first picture is the letter. The second picture is a more accurate portrayal of the colors.

     Because I'm slightly OCD and I picked a letter that is 95% curves, I found it to be a little harder than the tutorial seemed. I used only green and cream colored buttons. I had several different greens, so that gave it a little variety. When I first started, I thought that my edges looked too planned because I was trying to fill in all the space. As I put more on, it started to look more random. You know the saying, "less is more"? Yeah, that doesn't apply here. Less is not more, more is more!

     I did use craft glue, (NOT suggested in the tutorial). It worked really well, however because it doesn't dry very quickly, I found that it was easiest to do it in stages. I would put on about 15 buttons and then take a 30 - 60 minute break to give those time to dry. When I wasn't taking breaks, I was accidentally knocking buttons around and getting frustrated. Due to the breaks, it took almost an entire day to finish, but I love the end result!

Thing 1 Party Planning - Part 1

In your wildest dreams you can not imagine the SURPRISES that await YOU 

~Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory Golden Tickets

   My oldest is a planner. She loves to plan way ahead (which is fine with me). So when she told me several  months ago that she wanted a Willy Wonka party, I started looking for ideas. One thing that she insisted on was golden tickets. She wanted her invitations to be golden tickets. While looking, I thought that it would be cool to wrap chocolate bars in Wonka Bar wrappers and include the golden ticket. The idea was that the invitee would find the ticket just like Charlie Bucket found Wonka's ticket.

     When Thing 1 heard this idea, she was very excited. There was no going back. I started scouring the internet for Wonka Bar Wrappers. I found several places where you could purchase them. This would have been an option if we had found something we liked and they weren't $1 or more for one candy bar wrapper (that I would have had to wrap around the candy bars myself). So, I decided to make one.

     Once it was done, I was very satisfied with the results. So, I am sharing them with everyone. Here it is for you to download and/or print all you want. I hope that you enjoy them!

Wonka Bar Wrappers

 
     Once you print the wrappers, assembly is very easy. These are made to fit 1.55 oz candy bars. Tape the flaps of the original wrapper to the bar. Then, lay it face down on a piece of foil large enough to wrap the entire bar. If you have golden tickets, place your golden ticket face up on the candy bar. Then, wrap the bar and ticket in the foil. If you feel like your ends aren't staying down on their own, a little piece of double sided tape is an easy fix. Cut out your Wonka Bar Wrappers (I printed mine on regular printer paper but if you think that's too flimsy, you can use cardstock). Hold your candy bar so that it is behind the Wonka logo. Then, gently press the paper back at the top and bottom of the candy bar. Run your fingers the length of the candy bar. Lay the entire thing face down and use double sided tape to secure your Wonka Bar wrapper. It's that simple and they look great!

Preschool Flower Pots

   
     The reaction to the flower pots in my Eco Orbies Review post was both large and positive. So, I thought I'd show you how we made them. I got the idea from Preschool Crafts for Kids. They used old milk jugs, to make "green" flower pots.We tried that, and they're cute. However, I didn't like how flimsy the flower pot was. Also, if you let the kid carry it, there's a chance that they'll push the edges in (because it's flimsy) and then the fabric scraps come off.

     Here's what we did. First, we went to Dollar Tree and bought some eccentric ceramic flower pots. They're small (each holding about 2 cups of dirt/Orbies), but they were only a dollar!

     When we got home, I went through my craft bin to find fabric. I let the girls choose 2 fabrics (one mostly solid color and one print). They wanted to use the same two, which was fine with me. If you're going to buy fabric for this craft, check the remnants bins. Both of the fabrics that we used came from the remnants bun. Then I cut 1x1 squares out of their chosen fabrics. If you have a rotary cutter, use it! I don't know exactly how many pieces each pot took, but remember that the pieces will overlap, so you really need more fabric than will wrap around the pot one time.

Next, we used mod podge to stick the farbic to the pot. They put some mod podge on a section of the pot, then they stuck fabric to the glue. After each section was complete, I added a layer of mod podge over the fabric. This needs to be done by an adult because if you push too hard, the fabric is going to move.

     Once the entire pot was covered (no spaces between any of the pieces), we let them sit until they were completely dry. Then, the girls added another layer of mod podge and let it dry again.

     Lastly, I used some purple felt quilt edging to finish the top edge of the pot. Thing 1 tried to do hers, but it takes nimble fingers and more patience than she has.

     For additional decoration on their recycled pots, I pulled out some butterfly fabric that I had (no idea why). Each girl picked out 2 butterflies and we glued them on.

R is for Refashion

     If you have a daughter under the age of 10, you know these two things. One, the toe of their dress shoes are going to get torn up after just a few wears. And two, glittery shoes like the ones above are popular and sometimes the source of her meltdown in the department store. So, what parent wouldn't jump at the opportunity to get their daughter glittery shoes for just a fraction of the retail price?

     Yesterday, I saw a tutorial to refashion children's worn out dress shoes into glittery shoes. Thing 1 has several pairs of dress shoes that are less than perfect and upon seeing it, I immediately thought, "I could do that." And I did!

     Instead of bookmarking the page and promising that I would try it later (like I usually do), I left the page open and decided to try it as soon as the kids took a nap.

   
     These are the shoes that I started with. As you can see, the toes are very scuffed and no longer shiny like the rest of the shoe. I wasn't sure how it was going to work on black shoes, but I was pleasantly surprised.

     First, I wet a wash cloth and washed the shoes off. After I dried them, I got out the painter's tape and taped off the areas that I didn't want to be glittered. I taped off the soles, the velcro and the bows. I also put packing paper in the toe of the shoes so that they would keep their shape.

     Then, I picked a glitter color. Thing 1's school colors are going to be orange and black, so I picked orange glitter, thinking that she can wear them on spirit days. I didn't measure anything. I poured a little glitter in the bottom of a cup, then I poured in some mod podge. I alternated adding glitter and mod podge until it was sufficiently glittery.

     Next, I was ready to coat the shoes. I used a regular paint brush and slathered the glitter glue mixture over the entire shoe.

     It took two coats of glitter glue before I was satisfied with the coverage. Make sure that you let one coat dry completely before trying to apply an additional coat. When the second coat was dry, I removed the painter's tape. When doing this, remember "slow and steady wins the race". The glue was stuck to the tape, so I had to slowly pull the tape while making sure that I didn't rip the glue off.

     When all of the tape was off, I touched up any spots that I had messed up. While that dried, I took a minute to glitter the bows. I held a piece of paper under the bow and slathered them with mod podge. I then dumped black glitter on the bow. The paper prevented the black glitter from getting onto the shoe and it also made clean up easier. I was able to blow off the small amount of black glitter that did get on the main part of the shoe.

     Lastly, I gave the entire shoe a nice coat of mod modge, just to be safe. Thing 1 loves them and Thing 2 already asked if I can "fix" her shoes. 

     Here are the before and after pictures. What do you think?

P is for Painting

     Today, I had to go register Thing 1 for pre-K. Unfortunately, that wasn't until 1pm. But, she was super excited about it and kept asking if it was time to go. So, I needed something to distract them, even if it was just for 30 minutes.

     The other day, someone posted a cool Masking Tape Letter craft on CafeMom. When I needed a busy craft, I remember it and decided to try my own version.

     I had some painter's paper (mixed media paper for acrylic), so I decided to use that instead of construction paper. Before we started, I tested the blue painter's tape on the paper to make sure that it wouldn't rip. None of the paper came off on the tape. The girls and I used tape to put their first initial on the paper.

Thing 1's paper

     I then gave the girls a pack of water colors and a cup of water and set them loose. I told them that they could paint however they wanted, just to cover all of the white area. True to their personalities, Thing 1 painted squares, not mixing the colors at all, and Thing 2 mixed all the paints as she randomly painted her paper.

Thing 1 painting

     When they were finished painting, we set their papers on a flat surface and let them dry.

Thing 2's painting drying

     We left the painting sitting for about an hour because I wanted them to be completely dry before removing the tape. The kids were excited to remove the tape. And when they pulled it off,  they had a beautiful painting of their initial.

Thing 2

Thing 1

     I hung them up on their art display in their room. Now, they're showing everyone that comes into the house their cool new craft.

J is for Jars of Pixie Dust

   
     This Saturday, we will celebrate Thing 2's 3rd birthday! Since she is old enough to tell me what she wants, I let her pick her how birthday theme. This year, she wanted Tinkerbell.

     I have been thinking about what I can do for party favors, other than the normal things. A parent can only take so many party blowers, rings, whistles and pencils. What I came up with was little jars of pixie dust. Scout then suggested that I make them into necklaces. So, every kid is going to find that the fairies left a pixie dust necklace in their gift bags.

     Here's how I did it.

     I ordered little glass jars from CT Taiwan. I got fifty jars for $15.96. Now, it is important to note that these products are actually being shipped from Taiwan. They do have to go through customs, so shipping time may be longer than normal. With that said, I received my package about a week before the estimated delivery date. These jars hold 1mL. They are just under an inch (without the cork) and are about half an inch wide.

     I then used a cake decorating tip (Wilton #5 to be specific...but any with a small opening would suffice), as a funnel. I put the tip in the bottle and slowly poured in the pixie dust (aka gold glitter).

     Once the jars contained the desired amount of pixie dust, I dipped the end of the cork in mod podge and then put the cork in the jar. I glued them so that the kids couldn't dump glitter all over their parent's house and/or car.


     Finally, I used some green braiding cord to turn them into necklaces. Thing 1 and Thing 2 were very excited with the final result. I think that their friends will be equally excited.

H is for Hair bow

     This year, at her request, we signed my girly-girl up for t-ball. When we went shopping, I knew that she would want all of her equipment to be pink. I was correct. We now own a pink bat, pink batting helmet, pink and black cleats and a pink and black baseball bag. She would have a pink glove, but they didn't have any right-handed pink gloves when we went shopping.

     The last thing I knew that she would want (well, she thinks she needs) - a baseball hair bow. I drew the line and told her that the hair bow needed to be her team colors (red and white). Surprisingly, she was ok with this idea. Well, I did mention that pink and red don't match...lol

     So, after we had all of the essential equipment, we headed over to look at hairbows. To our dismay, they didn't have any red baseball bows. They had many other colors, and they had red with soccer balls, but not what we needed. I started looking at how they were made and thought, "Hey, I can do that."

     I have a large supply of ribbon in my craft bins. However, I do not have any with baseballs. So, we headed to Wal-Mart to see what they had. They usually carry 2 types of baseball ribbon, but were out of both. Sigh. We weren't anywhere near a craft store, so we headed home and decided to look for baseball ribbon the next time we were out of town. Well, I did that, and came up with the same result. I then turned to ebay. Within 2 minutes, I found 5 yards of 3/8" baseball ribbon for $3.75. Not a bad price...and it's cheaper than the gas that it would take to drive the 2 hour round trip to the craft store.

     My ribbon arrived today and I started thinking about how I was going to make this bow. Instead of just making a hairbow, I decided to make a Pony O. Pony Os are popular with cheerleaders and are, sometimes, very colorful. Because this Pony O has a specific purpose, I used only black, red and white ribbon.
   

     This Pony O is made of ribbon that was 8" long. I have made them before, and made them much longer (up to 15" even). Keep in mind that the pieces hanging down are going to be a little less than half of the total length of the ribbon. So, the hanging pieces on this one are a little less than 4". Thing 1 has long hair, but I know that she may wear it at the bottom of her braid as well, and I didn't want it dragging the ground.

     I used three pieces of 1" wide black polka dot, three pieces of 1" wide red grosgrain, three pieces of 1/2" wide red with white border and nine pieces of the 3/8" wide baseball ribbon. I used a lot of the baseball ribbon because I didn't want all of the bigger ribbon to overtake it. It is after all, a Pony O for baseball.

     After I cut all of the pieces, you stack them like an asterisk. I started with the polkadot ribbon on the bottom, then baseballs, fat red, baseballs, skinny red and ended with more baseballs.

Stack your ribbon like this.

     When it was stacked how I wanted, I carefully moved it to my sewing machine and sewed a line right down the middle.

Sew where the dotted line is.

     If you don't want to sew (or aren't able to for whatever reason), you can skip that step. Sewing it just helps the ribbon stay in place and, in my opinion, helps the Pony O last longer.

     Next, scrunch up the center of the Pony O (where you just sewed), to look how you want it. Hold it like that for a minute so that it "remembers" how it's supposed to fold. Then, using a thin piece of string, tie the Pony O in place. Make sure that you tie the knot on the back of the bow for cosmetic purposes.

     Using a hot glue gun, connect your ponytail holder to the back of the Pony O.

     To finish your Pony O, choose one type of ribbon that you used in your Pony O and cut another small piece. I selected the red with white border and cut about 5". Tie a knot in the middle. Put a dab of hot glue on the back of the knot and stick it right in the center of your Pony O. Then, fold the edges around and glue them to the back of the Pony O. This is going to cover up (what I call) the "mess" that you made when you scrunched the Pony O.

     The most important thing, Thing 1 loves it. She already asked if she could wear it everyday. I told her no, but I think I need to make her more in colors that will match the majority of her wardrobe.

Edit - since a lot of people have asked me about this, I got the ribbon from Twice As Nice Ribbons and More. My ribbon was shipped quickly and was exactly as she had described it. I would buy from her again and I would recommend her, if you're looking for ribbon.

If at first you don't succeed...

If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried! - Steven Wright

     That is generally the philosophy that I have when it comes to crafts. I am a pretty crafty person, so if something doesn't work the first time, I tend to just ditch it and move on.

     Recently, there has been one craft that I couldn't get right that has just been bugging me. If you remember my Melted Crayon Art post, I said that I couldn't get mine to look like my inspirations. At the time, I found a way to make it work (using a hair dryer), but I didn't give up on the glue gun.

     So, I found another picture that I liked. This one is Thing 2 playing with her umbrella.

     To make it a little different, I painted the entire canvas black. I then traced Thing 2's picture onto the canvas with pencil. I used a white paint marker to fill it in. I had to let it dry completely and go over it a second time to cover all of the black. 

     I made an umbrella out of card stock and taped it around the umbrella on the canvas so that the crayon would run off of it like rain. I also covered all of the white paint with painter's tape.

     I then used my hot glue gun to melt the crayons onto the canvas. Since I kind of knew how my glue gun was going to act, it made it easier to get the look that I wanted.

     I also discovered that, in this case, less is not more. I think that one of my original problems was that I wasn't putting enough crayon on the canvas. I don't think that there is such a thing as "too much" for this craft.

     Here's the final product. What do you think?

Display Children's Artwork

     My kids love to draw and paint. But, my fridge is only so big. Also, my kitchen is "my place" so guests don't often go in there to admire the artwork hanging on my fridge. The last reason I wanted something different is my kids always want to hang their schoolwork in our school area. Unfortunately, there is no place in that area to hang extra papers.

     I first came across the following idea on CafeMom. The mom that posted it did not link back to the original, so I have no idea where the idea originated. After searching the internet, I have found several people that posted this idea as an original thought. Two of them are Home Furniture Catalogs and Clean & Scentsible.

     I ordered the clipboards from K-Mart for $1.16 each. Then, I had Scout nail them to the wall in the school area. Instead of nailing the entire clipboard to the wall (as others have done), we just put one nail  for each clipboard and hooked the clipboards on them. I also covered some wooden letters with school-themed scrapbook paper and hung them above the clipboards using double sided tape. 

     It was a huge hit with my kids. I take down the clipboard and they can put their art on it before I hang it back on the wall. In the future, I may have to add more clipboards, but for now, nine is the perfect number.