Category: Crafts

My niece, Sofie, loves to chalk. When she’s here she grabs some chalk and wants to use it all over the house. My sister said she will hide chalk at home to have access to it whenever she wants. We gave her a lap size chalk desk for Christmas and it just wasn’t quite big enough for the ultimate chalking experience.

I found this cute chalkboard when out junkin’ one day. I just knew I had to have it. After I got it, I realized it was a PB Kids easel! Score! It was in rough shape and needed a bit of TLC, so I set out to refinish it for Sofie’s birthday. Her party was this weekend and she was quite happy with her new chalkboard!

Here’s how it looked when I found it.

I wanted to make it more girly looking. My sister loves Amy Butler fabric, so I figured I’d spiff it up with some Amy Butler scrapbook paper decoupaged to the tray. It was my first time using Mod Podge and I hope I did it correctly and it doesn’t fall off later. I also got chalkboard paint and repainted the chalkboard. I made it pink!

I forgot to snap a picture of it before we left for the birthday party, so here it is after Sofie got started chalking. It’s the first thing she opened and she wanted to chalk between opening gifts. She was cute!

I took some fabric and fleece (felt may have worked better) and layered it to make an eraser. Then I attached it to a ribbon with a magnet on the back of the chalkboard so my sister can remove it to wash it.

To coordinate the eraser and the tray, I made some paper flowers to go at the top.

Here’s the birthday girl trying it out for the first time. I can’t believe she’s 2 already!

We spend lots of time at the pool during the summer. The girls turn into fish and then into prunes! They also need a few breaks from the pool to rehydrate, reapply sunscreen, etc. I was trying to figure out a way to keep them busy and entertained without begging for food each trip out of the pool. That’s when I decided to do pool “paper” dolls. I got the idea from the foam letters we had stuck to the wall in the bathtub. The clothes stick on the dolls when they are wet. These are also great for the tub. Our girls love paper dolls and are happily entertained with these. We couldn’t have a paper doll at the pool without a mermaid tail!

To make the dolls, I bought a stack of craft foam without the sticky back. The pack I got was had about 10 different colors and was about 50 sheets for $5. I cut out a paper doll shape for the body for each of them and then basic shapes for the clothing. I let the girls use Sharpies to draw details on the dolls and clothes. It was a fun project that will have lots of use over the summer. We have lots more foam left to make more outfits.

When I told some friends about this project, some wanted ideas for boys too. With all girls, I have a hard time coming up with boy ideas! So thoughts were cars, dinosaurs, etc. You could cut basic car shapes and trucks as well as different colored wheels, windows, etc, maybe?

If anyone has an idea for boy foam pool toys, please share it!

I swear I thought I posted pictures of Katelyn’s new desk, but I guess I was wrong. I found this desk at the Salvation Army and got them to give me a discount on it. The following day I went in search of a cute chair to go with it. I peeked into the back room at Goodwill and saw this cutie sitting there waiting for me. I convinced a worker that I really needed it and they drug it out for me and priced it at $4. Score!

Desk before:

Chair before:

Katelyn wanted the desk red, but we compromised with painting the chair red instead. I just love how it turned out.

After:

Now I just need to get the rest of her room finished. I have plans for the little table next to her bed, different window treatments and I need to finish painting the details on the walls. She’s been patiently waiting for an owl in that tree.

Last night Emily pulled the “Make Self Portrait Dolls” from the summer fun jar. I had a vague idea about how I wanted us to go about making these, but I figured I had some time to think about it. Guess I was wrong. It’s the second activity chosen.

These dolls were quite the trial and error project. I think they got tired of drawing by the end! We started off with them drawing a self portrait. Madison used some creative license with her portrait.

First I had visions of stitching their creations onto the fabric to make the dolls. Then I decided that was too time consuming for a toy they would probably toss aside after a day or so. If they end up loving these, we can try that next time.

So then I decided to try to do a crayon transfer from the paper to the fabric. That didn’t go so well either. The crayon transferred, but it was too light to see no matter how dark the original crayon marks were. Crayola makes fabric crayons, but I don’t have any and I wasn’t willing to drag a sick child through Walmart to find some.

At this point I decided to begin researching online about another way to do a crayon transfer. Turns out regular Crayola crayons don’t do well. I guess that’s why they make the fabric kind. Some people said they have had luck with using generic crayons. I found some generic ones my mother-in-law bought the girls and tried those. They didn’t work any better than the first try.

Moving on to the next idea. You can color on sandpaper and iron that to the fabric. So I went out to the garage to snoop through Jon’s sandpaper supply. He had a new sheet of drywall sandpaper, but it wasn’t big enough for all three girls to use. Then he had small sheets of a very rough sandpaper. I colored a corner of one of them and tested it out. It worked well, so I passed out the sandpaper with instructions to draw another picture. The rough grit didn’t work well with the details the girls wanted to do in a small area. So we decided that idea didn’t work well for this project, but I think it would do well for other projects. I gathered up the sandpaper and put it back in a pile on the shelves in the garage. Wait until Jon needs sandpaper again and finds crayon drawings on them!

So after some more brainstorming, we tried to use freezer paper. That stuff does great for so many projects and it did better than using the regular paper, but wasn’t what we wanted either.

Then I decided I needed to stop wasting time trying to figure out how to do a crayon transfer. I just let them color directly onto the fabric. Then I placed a sheet of paper over it and used the iron to melt the crayon and set it right onto the fabric. Who needs to use a transfer?

After they finished coloring them, I let them go through my scrap fabric and choose something for the back of the doll. I stitched around the edges and turned them right side out. After stuffing them a bit, I sewed the bottom shut.

Now they have little self portrait softies.

Here are the backs of the dolls.

Today is what I consider the first official day of summer vacation. I didn’t want to spend everyday trying to figure out stuff to keep the kiddos from being bored. So we compiled a list of stuff we thought would be fun to do over the summer. In addition to the usual stuff like going to the pool, we now have a jar of fun ideas. I planned to get a cute jar with a lid to put the paper in, but since I had a leftover teacher gift with the letter “S” on it, I decided the S could stand for summer and used it instead. To make the jar, I simply cut strips of scrapbook paper and wrote a fun idea on each strip. I curled the strip and tossed it into the jar. Now each night, the girls will rotate choosing one strip and we will do that activity the next day. That give me a bit of time to plan the day and gather supplies. Every now and then we will have to alter plans if it’s a rainy day and the activity is outside, but most ideas are doable in all types of weather.

Now we are ready for summer! I also have strict instructions from a friend of mine to call her each night after we pull the strip to see if her and her girls want to join us for the fun.

Tomorrow’s activity is bubble blowing in the backyard. We will make some bubbles, use some store bought kind and experiment with different objects as bubble wands. Should be fun!

This year for end of the year teacher gifts, I made monogrammed vases. I got the idea after making a vase for a birthday gift. I ended up making 8 of these things! We only have these two left and I just remembered to take a picture of them. I cut the letter out of clear contact paper to use as a stencil. Then, I used Armour Etch to etch the letter. I was happy with the results and I hope the teachers are too!

I tried glass etching for the first time. A friend of mine had a birthday and I made her this vase. I got the idea from a cute vase my sister made me for Christmas. I cut my own stencils out of clear contact paper and used Armour Etch. I was tickled with the way it turned out. I love being able to personalize a gift.

Next, I’m going to etch a teacher gift. I hope it turns out as well.

I got on a kick before Christmas about painting little people for my niece. She loves Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Curious George. So after searching the web for inspiration for painting these little little dolls, I decided to just paint what she already loves. I also made some to resemble her family.

On Christmas I was so excited to give them to her. I forgot that I didn’t take any pictures of them before wrapping them up, so I put them on the floor to take some pictures. She kept trying to pick them up and play with them during the photo shoot. I’m glad she loves them so much.

I found the wooden dolls at Michael’s and used acrylic paint on them. I then coated them with a clear coat of non toxic stuff to make them shiny.

The wooden pegs start off life looking like this. They have different shapes available with more of a flared bottom for the female. They are all just under 2 inches in size, so be careful about making them for little ones who may try to put them in their mouth.

Here’s the finished product. Melissa was kind enough to send me a picture of them all together since I was having difficulty on Christmas! I first made my BIL too light and then too dark. Maybe one day I’ll try again. They are expanding their family in the next few weeks, so I’ll have to add a new baby to the peg family anyway. I was also going to add something like a pompom to give Mickey and Minnie ears that stand up, but I didn’t want them to accidentally come off and become choking hazards.

Here are the ones I tried to get…complete with little hands playing with them.

Now I need to get busy painting some more for the little girls in our house.

Last year for Christmas I made several gifts for family and friends. I loved this tile coaster idea. Thanks Melissa for sharing with me! I made these for friends of mine and for some teacher gifts, but I used their last initial and last name. After some trial and error on Melissa’s part, I used smooth tiles and Staz-On ink. It worked great. I also used the self adhesive felt on the bottom to keep them from scratching furniture. I love that they absorb the condensation from the glasses too.

Today I turned our breakfast room wall into an art gallery for the girls’ artwork. It was easy and only took a few minutes. I did this with a few eye hooks, picture hanging wire and some neat hooks I found at IKEA.

You gotta love IKEA!

Now they have their own art gallery and I have my fridge back. It was getting quite out of hand with the fight for the prime realty space on the front of the fridge.

The new rule is if you want something new hung up, you pick something of yours to take down.

This was a quick, easy solution for our ever growing mound of artwork around here.

It’s a cute way to display photos also. I had to throw up a picture of my cute niece on the wall too.

We also have a new, fresh, ever changing art display to view while we eat.