Valentine Topiary Tutorial

As promised (a few posts ago) here is the tutorial on how to make a Valentine Topiary.

Materials You Will Need:

1 Foam Ball

1 Circle Foam Piece (for bottom of pot)

Metal Pail

2 packages Mini Muffin Cups

1 small dowel rod

1 stamp pad pink or red to match your pot OR acrylic paint

Decorative Gift Filler (white)

Hot Glue Gun

Valentine Candy Hearts with sayings

 This is the piece that I used to put into the bottom of the pot. It came with the double stick square tape, just peel it and stick it on the bottom, then push it into the bottom of the pail.

 Like so, I unwrapped the plastic first of course.

Unwrap your mini muffin cup and you can use these 2 ways. You can either put the color facing out or facing in. I did it both ways on mine to add interest.

 Use the end of a new pencil that hasn't been sharpened yet, wrap as shown.

 Then add hot glue to the bottom (DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP!!!!)

Then push it into the foam ball. Keep doing this until you fill up the whole ball, be sure to insert your dowel rod onto the bottom of the ball, it helps to know where your bottom is. :-)

Put some stones in for weight! Stamp or paint your dowel rod. When it drys hot glue it into the bottom part and the ball part, hot glue will make it stronger.

Hot glue on the rod three heart sayings. Add the white decorative filler and sprinkle some hearts on top of it. You could also add ribbon to the dowel too. Happy Valentine's Day!!!

Hot Cocoa In A Bag - Last Minute Gifty- Tutorial

If you need a super EASY gift for teachers, friends, neighbors etc. The Hot Cocoa in a bag is for you. It does require one hardship though, going to the supermarket at a very busy time of year. So here is the tutorial for you...
Materials Needed:

1. Frosting Piping Bags 12in (12 to a package) Wilton found at JoAnn Fabrics
2. Holiday Twist Ties (Found in Candy Making Section)
3. Mini Marshmallows One Bag (makes 12 bags)
4. Mini Chocolate Chips (Bulk Section of your supermarket) 6 large scoops
5. Spice Drops 12 in Green and Red or whatever color you wish (one scoop in bulk section)
6. Large Swiss Miss Hot Cocoa Container in the Hot Cocoa isle of your supermarket
7. To & From Label stickers (optional)

First take the piping bag and fold it over about 3-4 inches. This helps prevent hot cocoa dust to get on your marshmallows.

Put a 1/2 cup of hot cocoa mix in the bag. Plus a bit extra if you wish. I actually did two 1/4 c. plus a little. It doesn't have to be perfect.

Add approximately 1/4 c. of chips. Or more, just for fun.

Add a generous amount of mini marshmallows 1/2 cup.

 Add a green, red, or whatever color gum drop on the top (just for fun and color). Give it a good twist, your marshmallows will smoosh a bit but that is ok. Some of the Internet instructions call for a clear rubber band, I just used twist ties on mine and they were fine. Add your twist tie and you are DONE!!! You can add stickers or To:/From: labels if you like.

Reindeer Girl :-). She will take these to school to give out to the principal, VP, secretaries, special area teachers and so on. I like this whole idea because it helps to teach my 6 year old how to give. I hope to raise a child whom is both a good giver and receiver!

Our final stash looked like this. And yes she did have to take them ALL to school and pass all of them out!

Fabric Card Tutorial

Holiday Cards made with fabric, tutorial:

My crafty chica friend Ramona, whose blog address is on the right side over there...came over to craft with me and we made fabric cards. She saw the idea at a craft show and figured out how to do it. So without further ado, she and I will share with you too...

Materials you will need:
Scissors,
Rotary cutter (optional),
Self healing cutting mat (optional),
Christmas material or any festive material you wish to use,
Heat and Bond fusible paper, (available at JoAnns)
Blank cards, (available at JoAnns)
An Iron

Step One: Cut out cute little pieces of fabric.

Step Two: Cut out the Heat and Bond fusible paper to match the back of the fabric - you want to be precise here, so that the paper doesn't stick to your iron.

Step Three: Take the fabric face up with the Heat and Bond on the bottom and stick your iron on it for TWO seconds (it doesn't take long!). IMPORTANT - In both iron steps you don't move your iron around you just hold it still.

Step Four: Peel off the back of the paper, you have now made what I like to think of as a "fabric sticker" and you are now ready to put it on a card.
Step Five: Then you iron it onto the card for about 10 seconds. Remember to hold the iron still.

Step Six: Go crazy embossing, decorating and embellishing :-)

Ramona made this one, the Snowflake in the middle is embossed.

I was having fun with some curvy fabric that I used my rotary cutter to cut out with. These are not yet finished, I plan to stamp and emboss some sayings on these as well.

Ramona made this one.

Going,Going.....

Gone...Sold on my Etsy Shop for 6.00 plus one dollar shipping.

Bandana Checkers...

Here are the bandana checker boards that the kids made in my JoAnn's class.
One very creative little girl sculpted a little girl.
With pony tail and all!
A set of checkers.
If you'd like to make these the directions are on http://www.crayola.com/

Note: I may be away from my blog for a bit due to the fact that my Alumni Reunion Weekend it coming up. I am taking J and A with me. We will be sleeping in the dorm rooms, with no AC now don't you just envy us??? I am really looking forward to the whole weekend though. It should be a really good time. We will be in the North Country, Potsdam, New York.

Bandana Checkers...

Hello There Blog friends! Sorry it has been so long! I am back to share with you another creative endeavor and very FUN project for KIDS!!!! Or even adults....
Drum roll please.....
Bandana Checkers...

You make the board with fabric markers and the checkers below are made with Crayola's model magic clay.
I will be teaching this class at the Webster JoAnn Fabrics store on Monday June 30th from 1:30-3:30 and again July 15th from 1-3. The checkers roll up in the bandana and tie at the top, the kids have a very easy transportable game for the summer! Here is the link to the tutorial on the crayola website which explains how to make these: http://www.crayola.com/crafts/detail/beach-bandana-checkers-craft/

P.S. I beat DH at a game, the first one anyway, he hadn't played in so long he forgot the rules.

Freezer Paper and T-shirts...

Update more cute pics:

Who knew.... I made freezer paper stencils and then stenciled on these onesies. I have two baptisms within a week so I needed two gifties one for a boy and one for a girl. I LOVE how they came out and sooooo easy. Well maybe except for cutting out the stencil with the exacto knife, a bit tedious and tiring for my wrist. Why didn't I think of my Cricut first!? Whale with freezer paper on it above.
Baby pastel paint I used, special for fabric.

I also got some iron ons that I thought were really cute.
this is how the girly gift turned out. The princess crown was done with freezer paint.

Google freezer paper and t-shirts and directions pop up all over the place.

Gifties...

Remember the placemat purses I did with my MOPS group and the one I made. Well my friend has gone great guns with these. Check out this AWESOMELY super idea....
She made all of these for her kids teachers, she has four kids. Each one has a pair of flip flops, sunscreen and a gift card to Barnes and Noble, plus you can see she put a cute little tag on each one! I think all of those teachers will LOVE their Beach Bag Totes!!!!!! Go WENDY!!!!! She even matched the flip flop colors to the purses!!!!

More Jar Gifties and a Dirty Little Secret

I had some of the MOPS over and we finished up the Jars I had and each person took home three more jars to give away. One is an M&M bar mix and the other is a Dreamsicle Mix.
After staring at these for weeks now. I broke down and made the M&M jar bar mix. It was pretty good, although the reason this is a little secret is because technically they were suppose to be given away. Well I DID give some of the bars away on Saturday at our Lemonade Stand that DD and I did, well they were 25 cents each, so we had help with them. I thought they were good but a bit crumbly, the mix was that way too. Still haven't tried the Dreamsicle one, the jar is just too pretty and MAYBE I can think of someone to give it to as a Thank You gift, just maybe...

Gifts in a Jar and DD....

A. in some of her new digs, this dress is so cool it has a short sleeve sweater top that is attached to the skirt!

Getting ready for MOPS meeting and making Gifts in a Jar...
The jar above was the Dreamsicle Bar Mixture and it has Tang in it, sounds very yummy if you ask me! I'd love to try this one! The other one we made was an M&M bar mixture. We stayed away from nuts for two reasons, those with allergies and the jars only last for three months with nuts, without they can last up to six months.

Since I am the Crafty MOPS chica and it is my charge to come up with the craft for each month. So I've decided that with the end of the school year approaching everyone always needs a thank you gift for one reason or another, a teacher, teacher's aide, pre-school teacher, and so on. So we are each going to make a "Gift in a Jar" 2 to be exact and we will also be making two handmade thank you cards to coordinate. We will have two recipes for your jars, one is and M and M one and the other is a Dreamsicle Bar recipe which include Tang. Yum Yum and soooo fun. I bought jars then found out my mom had a whole bunch so I may be able to take the jars I bought back and use hers for free! Just need to buy the lids.
This is the picture of the book that I am getting the idea from. I'm not sure why it posted sideways.

Cheapy Crafty Fun

This is a cheap, cheap, cheap fun crafty project we did. Ashley is working on painting a pot for Nana's birthday present and mother's day for both grandmothers. If you have acrylic paints handy and a few cheapo paint brushes you can do this, so easy and so fun!!!! We used a metallic green and blue.

Check out my new pics on flickr too, I finally uploaded something different, weren't you getting sick of my same old slide show? I was! There is a technical reason for it, I was having trouble uploading via flickr uploader one that I had downloaded. So tonight I downloaded one that a guy wrote called jUploadr and it is stupendous, easy, accurate fast etc. etc.

Chit, Chat

Last night was my MOPS meeting and we did the placemat purses, how fun!!! People are so funny when you put them around a sewing machine and they haven't had any previous experience. It is really not that hard, I think all of the ladies were happy with their purses! I plan on making more I have left overs and I want to sell some in the Etsy shop. There are three new items in the Etsy shop too, my mom's Mary Jane Baby Booties and her thumbless mittens and one of my polymer clay necklaces too, so be sure to check it out and remember that Mother's Day is coming up too!

I am thinking about going to my Alumni weekend at my college. Now get this they have housing for cheap in the dorms - that will be interesting with DH and DD. They even provide the linens for you - hmmmm, maybe I'll bring my own. Now why don't I stay in a hotel you ask, well were are talking about Potsdam, New York here folks and that doesn't leave a lot of options and I am sure the Clarkson Inn is booked up by now, plus it would be WAY out of my price range anyway! I did get to stay there for work tho. that was pretty nice!!!