This and That

PLAY ROOM ART

You have seen a photo of the kids play room here, but one thing that has been missing is artwork on the walls. 

I whipped up this piece yesterday.

 

Materials:

• square canvas
• acrylic paint
• scrapbook paper
• ribbon
• sand paper
• 2 x screw eyes
• mod podge

How to make:

Coat the front of the canvas with a layer of mod podge.  Smooth the scrapbook paper over the top.  The paper will appear to bubble a little but don't worry.

Paint the sides of the canvas.

Lay the canvas front side (scrapbook paper side) down on a flat surface.  Place something heavy into the recess of the canvass on the back side to apply pressure.  Wait until dry.

Once dry, trim any overhanging sections of scrapbook paper (I had a few millimeters around that needed to be cut off).  Apply the second coat of paint around the sides of the canvas.  Leave to dry.

Take a piece of fine sandpaper and very gently sand the edges where the scrapbook paper meets the painted edges.  It will blend the paper into the canvas and paint and give it a worn look (see photo below).

Apply a layer of mod podge to the painted sides and over the front of the scrapbook paper.  Again, the scrapbook paper will appear to bubble, but don't worry, as it dries it does smooth out.

Once dry, wind the screw eyes into the top of the canvas and attach the ribbon. 

MY FIRST ART BOOK

Having 3 children and being a crafter who encourages her children to explore arts and crafts regularly means that we have boxes upon boxes of art and craft projects in our garage - those that aren't hanging on the wall of course.  We are not going to be able to store these forever so I have been looking into alternatives to hanging onto everything.

For example, recently I posted about the kids wearing their art.  One day these art shirts will be used as part of a quilt for each of the kids.

So when I was presented with an opportunity to try out American Greetings PhotoWorks I jumped at the chance.  I knew exactly what I wanted to create. 

 

A coffee table art book. 

Marisol absolutely adores it.  She has asked my husband and I each to read it to her a couple of times, and it was only delivered today.  I chose pieces of art that had a special meaning behind them - her very first crayon art, Holiday projects, a few special school projects and a handmade card that was sent to her daddy while he was deployed, to name just a few.  Each piece has a meaning behind it and most of them have a little story that goes along with the image.  Like the time her and her brother decided to paint the downstairs bathroom pink and blue and then paint themselves.  Yep, that was included.

 

Once all of the pieces of art were scanned or photographed it was extremely easy to upload them to the PhotoWorks site and arrange them onto pages.  Their editing tools are a breeze to use and you can change the page layouts, colors and typefaces with the click of a button.  

Over time I plan on whittling away at the boxes in the garage and make a series of books for each of the children.  A series that I can pass onto them when they are older, that they can share with their children.  

Disclosure: "I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central on behalf of American Greetings PhotoWorks and received a free photo book to facilitate my review."

WEARING ART

You have already seen how we display the twins artwork at home, but recently they have done some artwork that I have been so proud of that I thought it would be great to display it in a new way, and in one that they could show off.

Marisol drew this picture of a princess back in December.  

We were stuck on a plane for what felt like forever as it was in line waiting to be de-iced.  To keep her amused, and knowing that she had just recently taken on a love of drawing people, I asked her to draw a Princess, then she used stickers from her sticker/coloring book to embellish her drawing.  I was so proud of her.  She must have made about 5 or 6 of these as we sat there.

Then, one day last week whilst I was sitting at my desk in the office, the twins both sat on the floor to draw beside me.  They had used stencils once or twice previously, but Flynn really took a liking to an alphabet one. 

This was what he drew:

 

I had been stock-piling plain white t-shirts (long and short) recently in assorted sizes when I had found them on clearance and thought this would be a great way to showcase the kids artwork.

So after doing a little minor editing of their drawings on the computer, I printed each onto t-shirt transfer paper then ironed the image onto a plain shirt.

I decided that Marisol's needed a little bling though, afterall it is a princess shirt.

 

The end result:

 

THE WAND THAT LOST ITS MAGIC

I think this fairy wand broke when it ran out of magical wishes.

Unfortunately it would have been all but impossible to repair without pulling it apart completely.  So I decided to re-purpose it. 

Whenever I'm in my office Marisol likes to come in, borrow pen and paper and lay down on the floor to draw next to me.  I thought it might be nice if she had her own very special pen to draw with whenever she comes in.

To transform her beautiful wand into a pen this is what I did:

• Cut the broken wood attached to the flower to about 1.5cm long.
• Remove the end of a pen.
• Wrap ribbon around the length of the pen, gluing it at each end
• Using a hot glue gun, apply glue to the wooden end on the flower and insert it into the end of the pen.
• Tie pretty ribbons over the glued section.

THE RED SCARF PROJECT

Craft Hope partnered with The Orphan Foundation of America and Vickie Howell (who donated a pattern) to provide college bound teens with a hand knitted or crocheted red scarf.

 

I hope whoever receives my scarf feels the love in every stitch as it warms them.

I only wish I'd had time to knit a few more.

Details:

Pattern: Vickie Howell's Star Stitch Pattern

Yarn: Lion Brand Vanna's Choice Cranberry

Needles: Clover Takumi Bamboo Knitting Needles - size 9 5.5mm

Note: pattern amended slightly to account for different needles and yarn. I cast on 33 stitches and instead of counting rows, I continued pattern until the scarf reached 60" long.

HEART CRAFTS

For my littlest Valentine's to hand out to their school friends.

Necklaces

Bags to hold Valentine's Day cards

I was inspired by this project from Wise Craft.

The kids had a great time crumpling all the tissue paper into tiny balls.  Thank goodness I'm a hoarder and had piles of used tissue paper in the garage.  We mixed and matched colors and patterns.  Nearly every bag and necklace made was a little different from the previous one.

They also gave these gifts to their teachers.

VALENTINE'S DAY FRAMES

The twins made these earlier in the week to give to their teachers at school. 

Michael's currently sell the unfinished wood frames in a couple of different sizes for $1 each.  They come with a peg to put into the back so the frames stand up. The kids used our own supplies from home to decorate them.

 

Once they had finished painting, attaching hearts and the frames had dried I used a wet cloth to remove excess paint from the hearts, then sprayed an acrylic varnish over the top.

One thing these frames don't come with is glass or perspex to protect the photos.  But honestly, what do you expect for only $1.  With this in mind I headed to Beverly's where you can purchase clear vinyl in a variety of thicknesses - much more child friendly and cost effective than having glass or perspex cut to a heart shape.  The vinyl is on a roll in the fabric department so I had a 1/4 yard cut and still have plenty left over for more projects in the future.

My tip:  Remove the cardboard heart from the center before decorating commences.  I didn't and of course it was decorated too.  Which wasn't a big deal, except I had to cut a new back to put behind the photographs.  you can use a cereal box etc for this, I used a turkish delight container because one side was plain white.

BUNDLED UP IN TAWNY ROSE TWISTS

A scarf, legwarmers and matching headband.

YARN:

Bernat Softee Chunky Twists: Tawny Rose Twist

Bernat Softee Chunky: Soft Taupe

LEGWARMERS:

The pattern for these can be found in Last-Minute Knitted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson.  Such a fantastic book.  It's a basic knit purl in the round pattern using double pointed needles.

SCARF:

I used the same knit purl pattern for the scarf and just kept on knitting until it was long enough to double over and tie around her neck.

I accessorized it with cream felt flowers and pale pink buttons

HEADBAND:

I have a pile of very basic headbands that I've picked up over time in the $1 section at various stores.  I used one of these inside the knitted headband.  Instructions below:

Using size US.5 straight needles cast on 2 stitches. 

Knit 20 rows.

Increase 2 stitches into the next row (1 at each end)

Knit 2 rows.

Increase 2 stitches into the next row (1 at each end)

Use the headband from this point as your guide and knit until you come to the point where you need to start decreasing to match the increased side.

Decrease 1 stitch at each end of row

Knit 2 rows.

Decrease 1 stitch at each end of row.

Knit 20 rows.

I made 2 of these exactly the same.  1 with the Tawny Rose Twist and 1 with the Soft Taupe. 

Stitch all the way along one side joining the two pieces together.  Insert the headband and stitch up the other seam.

Cut out 3 felt flowers in assorted sizes and stitch them together in the center with a button.  Stitch your completed flower on to the headband.

A SIMPLE KEYRING

One of the gifts our teenager received for Christmas in his stocking were the very much coveted keys to the house.   It's not that we had been deliberately not giving him a set, but having moved house 6 months ago, we simply kept forgetting to get another set cut.  So we thought this would be an inexpensive, yet very well received gift.   You may remember that I made him a keyring the year prior for Christmas too.  Of course this one got broken.

I had good intentions of hand-making a cute, I mean very masculine keyring for him (before Christmas) but with the gifts that I made for Marisol & Flynn (a dollhouse and barn) taking up much of my crafting time before the Holidays, I simply ran out of time.

Better late than never though, right.

Clay keyrings are very easy to make.  All you need is a keyring, stamp, pen and Polymer Clay.

 

I started by working the clay with my fingers for a couple of minutes, then used the keyring to form the shape I wanted.

 

Then using my kids play-doh roller I smoothed over the surface.

 

Using the stamp, I imprinted his initial into the surface and with the pen made the hole for the keyring.  Then I baked it in the oven at 275F for 15 minutes (based on the instructions on the Polymer Clay package).

CRAFTS FOR BOYS AND GIRLS

A Christmas gift that came all the way from Australia for Marisol was the Butterfly Hair Clips Kit by Faber-Castell.  I think you all know of my love for craft kits, so this was a fabulous gift and one that I knew Marisol would love to do.

Thankfully I had a project on hand for Flynn to do too.  An unfinished jigsaw puzzle.  If you haven't seen these at Michael's craft stores, they are only a dollar or two (I honestly can't remember exactly how much having bought it a long time ago) but great to have on hand for a rainy day activity.

 

Crafts in progress

 

 

To get rid of the big globs of paint on each of the jigsaw puzzle pieces, I had Flynn turn them upside down and use them as stamps on the paper.  He loved this and I think it created a pretty great color effect on each piece, as you will see below.

The finished projects