Valentine Flip Book

I love the cards that we made for my daughter's class but I wanted to make something a little different for family. Since I knew there is no way they would recieve anything before Valentines day ( the downside of living of overseas!) I wanted to make something they could use all year. I came across a cute idea on Color Me Katie. If you have never read her blog you should check it out - she is amazing!

Valentine Flip Book

You will need:
A camera
A printer
paper
ribbon

The first thing I did was a take a picture of my daughter blowing a kiss. This was a little trickier than it sounds. She kept making upset faces and it was a challenge to explain to her that she need to smile and blow a kiss! After a couple dozen tries I finally got a picture we could use.
I uploaded the picture to my computer and then opened my Photoshop Elements. After I edited and cropped the picture I looked through my graphics to find the perfect heart. Then I added the hearts one at a time saving the picture under a different name each time. Now if you don't have Photoshop you can use Picnik online or you could draw the hearts on yourself after you print out the pictures. I wanted to make small flip books so I printed my pictures out at 2.5 X 3.5 which meant I could print them all on one page of paper.
Once the pictures were printed I cut them out and tied a little bit of twine through the pages to hold the pages together.
Now I have a great Valentines gift for family. Whenever they are missing us they can pull it out and get a little love from my daughter!

I am linking up to:

Valentine Cards

I worked on a couple of fun Valentines gifts with my daughter over the weekend. The first thing we did was make her Valentines card. I had no idea what I was going to do but as soon as I stumbled upon this fabulous card made by 24-7-365 and I knew I had to recreate it. It was beyond simple to make - all I had to do was buy a bag of suckers.
I started with a picture of my daughter holding her hand out. I do own Photoshop elements but I wanted to add some extra Valentine fun to the card so I headed over to Picnik. I used the CinemaScope and Bokeh Hearts effects. If you have never used Picnik you have to try it! It is free (but you can upgrade to get extra features) and there are so many fun things you can do to your photos. I spent quite awhile playing around with my daughters picture and checking out all the features! I love that I was able to add text to the picture as well. Once I had her picture perfect

I saved it to my computer and then printed it out on 4x6 photo paper. Then I took my exacto knife and made a slit above and below her hand, slide in the sucker and clapped my hands with glee because our Valentine Card was done. Now just multiply the last part by 17 and with Hairspray playing in the background and that was how I spent my Friday night!
My daughter thinks they are wonderful and can't wait to hand them out on Friday.

Heart Shaped Crayon Melts

We had a lot of crayons at our house - an entire large sized ziploc bag to be exact. I decided to go through and pull out the broken ones so we could make some crayon melts. My girls helped me peel all the wrappers off and had a fabulous time breaking all the crayons into small pieces. To be totally honest the broken pieces sat in a bag for a couple days before I decided what to do with them. I had fully intended on using a muffin tin to make some round crayons until I came across a cute little heart shaped silicone pan at the store. The girls helped me sort the crayons and pile them in the trays to get them ready to bake. We had extra crayons so I pulled out my mini muffin silicone tray for the rest. This was a big MISTAKE. I am warning you now do not use any tray that you care about. The crayon does not come all the way out of the tray so you can never bake with them again. I now have three silicone trays that will always be used to make crayons!
At this point I realized I had no idea how long or at what temperature to bake the crayons. I did a quick google search and came across dozens of different ways. I decided to go with Close To Homes directions and ended up changing them just a bit.

You Need:
broken crayon
heart shaped or round silicone baking tray (that you don't love)
oven

Preheat your oven to 225. Remove all the crayon wrappers and discard. Break the crayons into small pieces and place them in the tray. You can sort them by color like we did or just pile them in there and see what you end up with.
Place the trays on a cookie sheet for stability and place them in the oven. Bake until all the crayons are melted. We started with 5 minutes but ended up baking them for almost 15. The time really depends on how thick you layer your crayons - ours were pretty thick.
Once the the crayons are all melted removed the trays and place them in the freezer. I cleared off the top shelf of mine and just stuck the entire cookie sheet in. Let the cook in the freezer for about 15 minutes. Now you can pop out your beautiful heart crayons and start coloring. My girls spent the entire evening making valentines with their crayons!

From Shirt Tie to Flower Headband

For Christmas my MIL sent my girls a bunch clothes. Among all the cute outfits was a random and way too big top that was not suppose to be in there. When I asked her about it she said it was a mistake and to just give it away. Of course I could do that so I decided to see what I could make out of it. The first thing I did was cut off all of the random ties on it. I couldn't just throw the ties away so I decided to see what I could make out of them. I grabbed my glue gun and this is what I came up with

Rosebud Headband

Items You Need:
Glue Gun
Headband
Fabric Ties off an old shirt or thing strips of fabric

The rosebuds was very simple to make. I took the fabric tie and added a dab of glue to the end and rolled in. Once I had a tiny center I started twisted the fabric tie around the center and twirling it at the same time. I stopped and added a dab of glue every now and then to help it hold together. Once I thought the rosebuds were big enough I added one last dab of glue and folded the remaining part of the tie underneath and glued it in place. I made three rosebuds and then I glued them onto a stretchy elastic headband for my daughter. They held up great - I let my 2 year old wear it to test it out! Next time I think I will back them with a little bit of felt for a cleaner look.

Old Shirt to New Dress

I have been rather obsessed lately with making old things into something new. My latest project was making an old shirt of mine into a new dress for Evie. I have owned this shirt for years and while I wear it occasionally it really isn't the most flattering top on me. I love the fabric and I didn't want to just get rid of it. After looking it over I realized that it would make the perfect sundress for Evie. The fabulous smocking meant I didn't even have to take it in.

Sorry about the pictures they were a bit of an after thought. Oh and the straps are even they just look funny in the picture!

Here is everything I did to make this adorable dress.
Step 1. I removed the bottom of the shirt just above the smocking. I decided I liked the raw edge look and left a little at the top.
Step 2. I removed the smocked neckline at the top of the shirt. I knew it was make perfect straps for the dress. I then cut it in half.
Step 3. I wrestled with Evie to get the dress on her so I could do a quick measurement on the straps. She was not happy and it didn't work as well as I would have liked. I pretty much had to guess on them.
Step 4. I sewed on the straps by hand. I still don't have a machine but I hope to get one soon. I stabbed myself a whole bunch so I am pretty happy I didn't get any blood on the shirt!
Step 5. After looking at the dress I realized that something was missing. It needed a flower and bow. So I used the leftover fabric from the top of shirt to make the flower and the ties from the top to make a cute little bow.

The dressed turned out super cute and I love it. Evie refused to put it back on so I could take a picture. She was busy in her tent and wasn't about to come out!

Old Tie Remake

The past few days we have been trying to get the closet and things cleaned out so we can start the New Year fresh. Both my Brandon and I ended up with a fairly good size pile of items to take to the thrift store. When I noticed that he had a bag full of old ties I immediately grabbed them and put them in with my fabric. I wasn't sure what I would do with them but I knew I couldn't just give them away.

I took them out today and looked over them to see if I could decide what to do with them. It didn't take me long to realize that they would make some fabulous headbands!

Ok the bottom one wasn't made out of a tie. That is the waistband of a shirt I was giving away!

Tie Headbands

You will need:
thread and needle
an old tie
thick elastic

Cut the bottom part off of the tie. Since the tie tappers on one end and gets wider on the other I cut out a middle piece so that it was more or less even. Measure and cut what you need. I used the sophisticated measuring technique of wrapping it around my head to see how much I needed.
Take the bottom part of the tie take out the stitching, and remove the liner. You are going to use the bottom part to make the flowers. You can either cut your own version free hand or head over to Wise Craft and read her great tutorial. Then you can use this great template like I did.
Take the top part of the tie and fold over and sew the ends. Then add a small piece of elastic between them so it looks like this.

Once you finish you can attach your pretty flower you made.
Now go and admire you beautiful new headband in the mirror. Mine was instantly taken and worn by someone...

Mustache On A Stick

Last week my daughter began rattling off a list of girls in her class that she would like to give Christmas gifts to. I think she may have named every girl in class. After a long discussion we decided that we would make a gift for everyone in her class so no one felt left out. The girls were easy - we would make them flower hair clips. I will do a post on them later. The boys were a bit harder. I don't have boys so I am never sure what a 6/7 year old boy would want. I wanted it to be something that would be easy to make and fun. After much thought came up with these:

Mustache On A Stick

I found a great post about these on Simply Modern Mom of course she used stiff felt for hers and drew the pattern herself. I am not creative enough to draw my own mustache so I did a little search and found a pattern on Martha Stewart and used that to draw my mustaches. I tried my hardest to find some black stiff felt but there wasn't any anywhere. I grabbed a sheet of brown foam and crossed my fingers that it would work and it did. I think they turned out adorable. I wasn't sure what to use for the stick and after the black felt hoopla I didn't feel like running around trying to find something. So I headed to the kitchen and grabbed some of my wooden skewers. I broke the pointy tip off the top and hot glued the sticks to a mustache. I made sure the smooth end was at the bottom. The only thing that could make these better is some fake fur to cover them - if you can't guess I couldn't find any. Still I think they turned out adorable and my daughter loves them.

Modge Podge Letter

I have recently fallen head over heels in love with Modge Podge. It may possibly be the greatest crafting item ever invented. You can use it on everything and believe me I have. I first discovered it earlier this month while I was working on my big sisters Christmas gift. I can not show it to you until after Christmas cause she reads this blog. Since then I have been using it on everything. Here is an example of what you can do with Modge Podge.

Scrapbook Letters

Items you will need:

Cute Scrapbook Paper I got mine at the craft store on Kadena but the BX currently has some super cute pads

Wooden Letter The Craft Store on Kadena has tons of these in a few different sizes

Modge Podge The Craft store on Kadena also carries this

Small brush to apply the Modge Podge

Any embellishments you want to add I used my fabric flower I made and some string out of my scrapbooking stash

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Take your letter flip it over and trace it onto the backside of your chosen sheet of scrapbook paper. Cut out the letter and Modge Podge the paper to the your wooden letter. When using Modge Podge with paper is best to dilute it with a little bit of water. You want to put Modge Podge on the back of your paper and the surface of the letter. Line up the edge and press it down while smoothing it at the same time. Then paint a layer of Modge Podge over the top. The paper will bubble a bit but don't worry it will smooth out as it dries. After it is dries you can paint as many more layers of Modge Podge on the top as you would like. I did 3 coats on my letter to make sure it was good and sealed. Then add your desired embellishments and you have a super cute letter to hang on the wall!

Fabric Flower Hair Clips

During the Summer I picked up some super cute fabric scraps at the craft store. I wasn't sure what I would do with them but they were too cute to pass up. Well I finally pulled out the fabric and decided to use some of it to make some flowers. I did a little searching and found a great pattern on Wise Craft. It was easy to follow and I loved that she provided a template for the flowers. If you would like to make some cute flowers for yourself grab some fabric scraps and print out the template.
You will need to cut out 4 small flowers and 2 large flowers. You will take the small flowers, fold them in half and then layer them like you see above. Place the layered small flowers on the two large flowers.

Then get out your needle and thread and put a couple of stitches in the flowers to hold them in place. Don't cut the thread yet. Find an adorable button for the center and sew it in place.

Once your button is sewn in place your flower is ready to use. You can put on a pin and use it on a cute dress, or you can put it on an alligator clip and use it in your hair. I made these for my niece and plan to use them on a couple of different projects. The pink one is going on a hair clip and the plaid one is going on a belt I made her. The bottom green and blue one is going to go on the the large wooden letter than I made for her. If you can't tell I have been working on some fun Christmas presents for her. I promise I will post details about them soon!

Flower Hair Clips

Don't you just love these flower hairclips that I made for my niece? Well you are in luck cause the post is all about how to make them!

You will need:
some fake silk flowers
clear thread
glue gun and glue
alligator clip
center piece (this can be anything from a button to a jewel to a vintage piece of jewelry)
fake leaves

The first things you are going to do is pull the flower apart and discard the middle piece. Some people leave them in but I have found that they flake and fall out so it is best to get rid of them before you even start.

Now that your flower is in pieces you have a choice to make on how you will put it back together. This depends on both your centerpiece and the age of the girl who will be wearing it. If you have a button for the center it is best to sew it on. If you are giving this to a young child and you want it to be secure it is best to sew it. Normally I just use my glue gun (my daughter is older) but I decided to use a vintage button on this flower. When my grandmother passed away I ended up with a bunch of broken and mismatched pieces of costume jewelry. I wanted to make this flower special for my niece so I decided to use one of my grandmother's buttons.

Ok once you have your flower and centerpiece secured you will glue on the alligator clip. I like to use the silk leaves on the back of the flower as well. It makes it look nicer and it keeps the clip from sticking together.

Once everything cools you have you beautiful flower clip to wear or give away. I am currently working on some to give to all the girls in my daughter's class - I hope they love them!