Easter Fun

first up: dying Easter Eggs

we dyed the eggs a solid color and then used food coloring to marble them.

I thought this one (below) looked like Earth

Next up: Peep Jousting

We chose our "knights". Jude was purple and Magda was pink, Jude's friend Sam also jousted with the green peeps. (I didn't get too many shots of this competition).

Arrange your peep knight on the plate facing your opponent and insert the "lance". For future jousting I would definitely use a paper plate.

In this bout the pink knight won, purple's lance made contact but pink's lance deflated purple first. Winner.

Then on to Peep Sushi (this was my husband's little project)

first, make rice krispie treats. While they are still warm you'll form them into sushi.

You'll need Peeps, fruit rollups, sushi roll is helpful

Put a blob of krispie treats on the sushi mat (wrap in plastic wrap to protect the mat)

Gab added a strip of fruit roll up (fake seaweed)

Then add some chopped up Peeps (veggies, fish, etc.)

Roll up firmly

Give the logs about 20 minutes to set up and slice. Gab added some sugar sprinkles just for color.

He also made a variety of sushi with the fruit roll-ups chopped up on top

He was having too much fun coming up with ways to interpret the sushi.

Magda loved them and insisted on eating them with her chopsticks. Delish!

Happy Easter!!

Easter Tie Dye Crayons

You can find recycled crayons all over the internet (heck even Crayola sells a machine for kids to make their own). I came up with the idea to use these cookie molds because the round muffin tins just weren't cute enough.

Step by step directions following the images.

step one: gather old broken crayons (bottom of toy chest, ask your preschool, day cares, etc.)

step two: peel and break the crayons into smaller bits (i just toss all mine together because i like the mix and match)

step three: pre heat oven to 350 degrees

step four: fill your cookie mold (or muffin tin) with the broken pieces. don't be stingy because if they are too thin they will break easily

step five: put the crayons in the oven (i put a cookie sheet on the tray below to catch any leaks just in case). set timer for 5 minutes

step 6: after 5 minutes check the status. all the crayons should be melted. If there are any lumps left then leave in the oven for another minute and so on. (mine usually are 6 minutes).

step 7: remove the tray VERY carefully. The crayon wax is super hot and if it drips in your oven it will smoke and stink and be quite difficult to get clean. Set your tray on a towel or trivet to cool down.

step 8: the crayons will set up fairly quickly but will take longer to cool completely. They need to be completely cool to remove from the molds.

step 9: color away!

easiest tee shirt stencil project

I found these lace doilies at the thrift store for ten cents, most of them were very country images (like hearts with ducks) but i found a tiger and an owl and snatched them up. I knew I wanted to use them as stencils on a tee shirt for the judester and mazzy.

i laid out my drop cloth (old sheet also thrifted from a garage sale). stuck some scraps of foam core board inside the tee to keep it from bleeding through.

step one: gather materials. tee shirt, stencil/lace, spray mount, spray paint

step two: lay the lace face down (really doesn't matter with this except if you want the animal to face a certain direction). spray with spray mount.

step three: flip lace over and position on the tee where you want it

step four: we used a little brown

step five: and we used black on top

step six: remove the lace and voila. grrrr. (i was mad at myself for getting lazy and not putting paper down around the stencil to avoid over spray but it was VERY windy and nothing was staying put. See where i got black paint on the side and sleeve? well i disguised it by spelling out JUDE down the side (i used some plastic stencil letters from a sidewalk chalk set we have) and sprayed it in black. We liked the lettering so much we wrote out something special on the back of the shirt.

What The Chicken!?

rorschach shirts

I'm sure you all have done this at some point, even if it was on a piece of paper. Sometimes we just forget. I really dig these Rorschach patterns. I thought it would be hilarious to make several up and then have my 6 year old tell me what he saw in them and title them as such....he normally comes up with the craziest things but when I asked him what these were his reply for every one of them was "butterfly". Not exactly what I had in mind.

step. 1. Lay out your shirt and materials. You will need fabric paint in any color (this demo is in orange and blue because it's homecoming week here and those are our school colors). You will also need a piece of cardboard to fit inside the shirt (I used an old album cover that I had left over from a vinyl project - you could use the cover of a pizza box or some other heavy, clean cardboard)

Step 2. Score your cardboard so that it folds in half and insert it into the shirt, line the fold up with the center of the shirt. Make sure you put the cardboard in so that it folds in half the correct direction.

Step 3. Squirt paint on randomly. In this photo I was trying to see if it would come out shaped sort of like an Indian (our mascot). My advice is DO NOT do this, it won't turn out like you want and defeats the purpose of the "test". Okay, try it if you want but mine was a craft fail.  Other tips, add some fabric medium to your craft paint to make it thinner, this paint came out in clumps and blobs. The black and green paint I used was thinner and created better patterns.

Step 4. Hold the shirt in place and fold it over onto itself at the center. Press firmly but be careful not to smudge or slid the shirt.

It only takes a few seconds.

Step 5. Gently unfold the shirt and spread out on a flat surface to dry. If you really don't like your design, you can add more splotches of paint and refold - taking care to align the center up. Do you see an Indian in either of these images? Me neither.

This last photo was from another batch that I did where I let the paint free form, much cooler designs. I love the Halloween green and black paint too. This image looks like a video game character or sad space alien.

Leave your shirts to dry for several hours. I put mine in the laundry room out of reach of the kids and cats overnight then washed to soften the paint.

have fun!!

new hat design

CHALKBOARD HATS!!

I have had this idea floating around in my head since last winter when I was sewing sewing sewing up the monster hats. I have a crazy infatuation with chalkboard paint and was making flexible placemats into chalkboards and wondered if I could cut those and sew them onto a hat base....Then, I discovered there is a thing call Chalkboard FABRIC. Be still my heart.

I tried to keep these a secret until my open house for the holidays but couldn't keep it to myself any longer. I have been playing around with how I want them to look overall, I like the rounded hats better than my usual square ones and I want to add a pocket for a stick of chalk somewhere. I'm having trouble deciding how and where to do this though because it keeps looking like a cigarette on the hat and that is just gross. (apologies to anyone who smokes but...yuck).

thought bubbles...

just noticed the "z" is backwards. i had to spell everything backwards because i used photo booth for the picture. oops.

what am i thinking? "do i love chalk" YES i do.

black lace pumpkin

Inspired by the cover of Better Homes & Gardens (I think), they wrapped real pumpkins in black lace and I loved the spooky but elegant look of it. I knew I didn't want to buy real pumpkins this early in the season so I thought how to create the look using foam pumpkins. Easy tutorial for spooky lace pumpkins:

1. Gather supplies: foam pumpkin(s), lace or stencil (my beautiful lace tablecloth has a huge hole in the center so I felt okay painting it), spray paint, drop cloth, latex gloves

2. cover the pumpkin with the lace or stencil and gather at the bottom. Spray paint (i didn't have an extra hand to take a photo of myself actually painting it but i'm sure you can figure that out).

3. Carefully remove the lace, I would wait a few seconds to give the paint time to dry. I used black paint with a coat of red glitter over it (the red didn't show up very well in the photos but up close you can see it). If you remove the lace hastily you will smear the design.

4. Arrange your beautiful pumpkins indoors or outside. (I picked up the awesome black crows at the Dollar Store - just ONE buck each).

Make a fluffy boa style scarf from scraps

1. gather your scraps and decide what colors and patterns you like together. you will also need a shirt with the bottom hem, this one has a few holes but no matter you only need the bottom.

2. cut off the bottom hem, straight across.

3. measure this piece to the length you want your boa and knot the ends (about 40")

4. lay out your scraps and cut them into strips, about 1 inch by 7 inches. This will take a long time so be prepared for some aching hands after all the cutting. I highly recommend using a rotary cutter for this vs. scissors.

5. once all of your pieces are cut, you should have about 200 give or take. the book where i got the initial tutorial for this (an awesome book called Generation T) said about 50 or 60 strips and i have found that is bullshit. it is best to cut more than you'll need because this way you can be more mindful of using different colors throughout the scarf. (so you don't run out of a certain color in the middle and then the scarf looks lopsided)

6. start at one end and tie a strip in a basic knot. push it down to the end and tighten.

7. keep knotting strips, varying the colors. Expect this process to take about an hour and half of continuous work. Twist the strips as you push them down to meet the previous knot, this keeps the direction of the tassels varied and fluffy.

8. voila. finished scarf.

9. here is the same technique using only one style and color of shirt (Relay For Life shirts), the only color comes from the print on the shirt itself.

10. two more version of this technique (also for Relay For Life benefit). The one on the left is two strips of white then one pink (pattern). The one on the right is two gray, two white, one pink pattern. I love that one, reminds me of  the 1980's.

finally, if you have any scrap pieces left, save them in a box for a future craft or another boa scarf.