DIY No Sew Bunny With Essential Oils

Nothing says spring like a bunny. Whether Easter is your holiday or not, bunnies are a symbol of spring, and you can make an easy DIY no-sew bunny of your own. Not only is this bunny adorable,  but thanks to some essential oils, it smells great too.

I see so many great project and craft ideas on Pinterest. And almost every day, I wish that I had some sewing ability . . .but I don't. None. Even sewing on a button is a challenge for me. So I'm always drawn to no-sew projects that use great fabric to create something awesome.

Thanksgiving Craft Ideas and Inspiration

Thanksgiving is less than two weeks away. I must confess, it's my favorite holiday. There is just something about this time between the hustle of back-to-school and Halloween and the bustle of Christmas, that I love. I keep all my favorite Fall decorations up through the month of November, with pumpkins and gourds on my front porch. I don't decorate for Christmas until after Thanksgiving.

Milk Jug Monsters

I admit that I have a love affair with crafting supplies. I find it hard to resist a new roll of washi tape, a cute ink stamp or pages of beautiful paper.  But it is also very satisfying to be able to craft something from my stash.

I was recently challenged to come up with some fun (and inexpensive) decor for our school book fair. The theme is monsters, and one of the ideas from Scholastic was for Milk Jug Monsters. With two growing boys in the house, we are never short of empty milk jugs, so I set a couple aside.

How To Make Simple Wire Word Art

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We recently purchased some thin, copper-colored wire for a science fair project. Since we finished the project, it's been lying in my craft cart. Calling to me. But I'm no jewelry maker, so I was stumped about what to do with it. Then all of a sudden I had an idea - why not use some to make the word joy? (my one little word for 2015)

All you need is a pair of wire cutters and some wire (this wire came from the beading section at Michael's). The first thing I did was hand write my word on a piece of paper so I could get an idea for how to mold the wire.

Next, I started turning the wire to match the shape of my word. I didn't cut a piece of the wire off, as I wasn't sure of the length of wire I would need. I just kept turning the wire around this way and that, following my template, with the pincers of the wire cutters.

Once my word was close, I used the wire cutters to manipulate part of my letters a little more and made curlicues on each end.

Now I can use this on a card, or an altered canvas or just hand it up at my desk to remind me of my one little word.

Have you made anything crafty with wire?

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Spooky, No-Carve Pumpkin Idea

Sometimes carving pumpkins for Halloween can seem a bit over-whelming. For years now, besides our one carved pumpkin, The kids and I make a rat-infested pumpkin to display Halloween Night as well.

All you need is a great shaped pumpkin - you can make it big, small, oblong, round . . .whatever. You could even nest 2-3 together.

You'll need a tool to punch or drill holes into the pumpkin. A Drill with a wide bit will work,  my carving kit came with a circle puncher, so I use that to punch out circle plugs of pumpkin (it works almost like a corer). I have to widen the holes a little bit so my rubber rats fit. I found rubber rats at the Party store. I wanted ones that looked realistic.

Then you just arrange it. Have some of the rats digging in, some coming out, leaning against it, on top - whatever suits your fancy. Our trick-or-treaters always comment on these no-carve pumpkins, no matter how fancy my carved pumpkin is!

Once Halloween is over, I pull out the rats for next year and leave the pumpkin for the squirrels to enjoy.

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How to Make an Easy DIY Chalkboard Tray

Who doesn't love something with chalkboard? It's all the rage in decor and crafting right now, and I admit to falling victim. A while ago, I came across the most adorable silver tray, painted with chalkboard paint on Pinterest, and I thought "how can I make a chalkboard tray?" Well, that pin sat in my mind for a long time, poking at me to try and re-create it myself.

I scoured local thrift stores for silver trays, never willing to commit, afraid of messing it up. The biggest hindrance to my crafting is my fear of messing it up. Does that ever happen to you?

In a stroke of brilliance - ok totally random and accidentally, I found out the DOLLAR STORE has silver-looking plastic trays. These would be perfect! Here's how you can make one of these darling trays for yourself (for under $3) - perfect for a Menu Planner, Party, or gift.

Things You Need:

Silver Trays - got these at the Dollar Store
Chalkboard Paint - I used Martha Stewart
Painters Tape
Painting Sponges
Ribbon (optional)

What To Do:

Tape off the edges of your tray - the corners were tricky, so take your time.

Paint the flat part of your tray with the chalkboard paint. Pay attention to your strokes and thickness of the paint.

Let it dry the recommended amount of time.

Add a second coat, paying attention to stroke lines and paint thickness again.

Let it dry overnight - or as directions advise.

After it dries, carefully remove the painter's tape.

Cure the chalkboard by lightly rubbing chalk over it and erasing. Go lightly to avoid scratches.

Now it's ready to use - I turned it vertically and placed it on a small easel I have. You could add a bow to the top with a hot glue gun, or even a small hook on the back to hang it up. The more I thought about it, the more uses I came up - it would make an adorable cheese tray - you could write the names of the cheese right on it!

How would you use one of these chalkboard trays?

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How-To Make Your Own Terrarium

If you've been paying attention lately, you've probably noticed an increase of succulents, air plants and terrarium ideas in advertisements, store displays and magazines. Gardening, both indoors and out is becoming a popular pastime and hobby. After seeing several terrariums, and thinking how cute they were, I got a few friends together to make some of our own and share our results. The February issue of Family Circle Magazine had some really simple instructions to get us started.

Easy Valentine's Day Centerpiece

Each year for Valentine's Day, I set a special table for the kids the night before. I don't put a lot of other decorations up around the house (I do admit to having a heart-filled shower curtain), but I like to surprise them with a festive tablescape on Valentine's Day morning.

This year, while perusing Pinterest for Valentine's Day ideas, I got a flash to combine three of my current favorite things: milk bottles, washi tape and conversation hearts.

I pulled out a plain white serving dish I picked up at Target and set to work to create an easy, fun and festive centerpiece.

What you need:

• Milk Bottles, small glass bottles or vases (I picked these up in the Target Dollar Spot)
• Serving Dish (again, picked up at Target)
• Festive Washi Tape (this was also from Target, but you could use plain pink and red)
• 1 Bag of Conversation  Hearts (yes - Target)

What you do:

Decide on a pattern for your washi tape and adhere it to your bottles. I used scissors to make a rounded edge.

Line up your bottles on your serving tray.

Sprinkle conversation hearts on the tray all around the bottles (don't eat too many).

And that's it. In about a half-hour I had a fun and festive, easy-to-make Valentine's Day Centerpiece. If you didn't want to leave the hearts out, you could just put them out on Valentine's Day. Foil-wrapped chocolate hearts and kisses would look adorable too.

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Project Life - My Process for 2014

Last year, I only made it through about 6 months of Project Life. As with so many things, I think I over-thought it. This year, I am taking a few steps back, making some changes, and hopefully completing all 52 weeks.

If you don't know what Project Life is, it's a memory keeping process created by Becky Higgins. The intent is to make recording your life as easy as possible, with whatever level of "difficulty" or creative genius you want to bring. This will be my third (and hopefully most successful) year.

My first change for 2014, is having my weeks run from Monday through Sunday. The calendar I am using as an Editorial Calendar and to-do list for life and work, records the week numbers (making keeping track easier). I'm contemplating making a consistent week card for all 52 weeks to cut down on my creativity block.

My second change is only using my stash and the Studio Calico Project Life Kits. While I love ALL of the kits that Becky Higgins has for this project, I get easily "overloaded" with too many choices and then I can't move forward. Or I get "stuck" with tunnel vision and can't be creative at all. I still have quite a selection of supplies from last year (thanks to my Studio Calico subscription), so I'll be using them where I can going forward.

Here are some process steps I am planning to take:

• I'm going to try and record notes along the way on 3x4 journaling cards.
• I'm going to try and work on the weekends, completing the previous week's layout.

Since I no longer have a craft room, my dedicated space is my beloved Ikea Raskog cart. I'm planning to set up the Studio Calico cards in the middle tray, since I have outgrown my Project Life boxes with unused items. Perhaps some thin storage boxes will fit in there.

So my Project Life week officially started yesterday. . .and I can already see that taking enough pictures is going to be a stumbling block - I forget. Thinking ahead to my page protectors, I can fit a landscape and a portrait picture for each day - so that's 14 pictures a day for a picture-heavy layout. This has also been a stumbling block in the past, I get a week with no pictures and it stops me cold. This year, I am trying to anticipate that ahead of time.

Are you participating in Project Life? What's your process look like? I'm planning on checking in once a month with a re-cap and update.

catch you soon -

How-To: Handmade Poinsettia Ornament

I happened to catch some of The Chew last week, and saw Clinton Kelly make a poinsettia ornament. He's so adorable, and he made it look so easy, I had to try it at home. What I like about this handmade ornament is that is uses things I already have on-hand in my craft stash.

What You Need

• Paper Towel or Toilet Paper Rolls
• Coffee Filters
• Red Spray Paint or Acrylic Paint
• Glitter (of course!)
• A button, small pinecone or other decoration
• Ribbon, Twine or String
• Glue Gun
• Scissors

What You Do
Flatten out the paper towel roll and cut it into 5 equal pieces, approximately 3/4 - 1 inch pieces.

Flatten out your coffee filter - you can use a rolling pin to make it extra flat.

Paint each "petal" and your coffee filter red. I let my 7 year old do this step with acrylic paint.

Let all the pieces dry.

Run hot glue around the bottom edges of all your "petals" and attach them to your coffee filter, leaving space in between.

Let those dry.

Trim around the outside edges of the petals.

After you have all your petals cut out, hot glue them together at the inner corner.

Let it dry.

Spray the whole flower with spray glitter. (optional)

Attach a button or tiny pinecone to the center of your flower. (optional)

Cut a length of ribbon, twine or string to make a loop to hang your ornament. Attach it to the back of your poinsettia.

Truth be told, this was a little more difficult than Clinton made it look, but not over the top.  The kids can help depending on your level of perfectionism, and know that it took a little over an hour (including drying time).  I'm super happy with the end result.

catch you soon -

DIY Holiday Memory Album

The Holidays come and go so quickly, in a blur of wrapping paper, lights and cookies, and then it's all over but the clean up. If you're anything like me, you take a bunch of pictures that then sit on your computer, rather than taking time to capture the things you really want to remember.

To remedy that situation, a few years ago I created a simple Holiday Memories Album. It took me only a few hours to put together and covered our entire Holiday Season. There are similar ideas floating around out there if you search for "December Daily", but they can seem overwhelming and involve a lot of time.

For this album, there are only a few steps and you can do it all in one afternoon, or spread it out over the entire season.

First, pick up a festive album. It doesn't have to be fancy. The one I used is a simple 4x6 photo album from Target. I used my craft stash to add embellishments to the cover.

I pre-cut 4x6 pieces of white cardstock and holiday print paper; enough to fill all the pages of the album.

For my set up, I wanted the facing two-page spread to have holiday paper on the left and a picture on the right. Behind the picture, is a piece of white cardstock where I journaled my thoughts about the event, activity or picture. I attached a tab to keep it festive and easy to pull-out. (a ribbon pull would be adorable!)

Once your album is set up, you just take pictures (or use ones from past holidays), print them out and journal.

By the time New Year's Eve rolls around, you can have a little album to commemorate another great family holiday.

Behind on holiday memories? Cover several years in one album - the choice is up to you.

How do you record the holidays for your family?

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DIY Easy Turkey Place Cards for Your Thanksgiving Table

I was flipping through the latest Paper Source catalog, and Owen saw this beautiful Thanksgiving table scape with adorable turkey place cards. He asked if we could make some, so I ripped out the page and said, "probably". Who doesn't love a good craft challenge?

Since Thanksgiving is this week, we sat down on Saturday and got to work on our turkey place cards. I used all materials I had on-hand in my crafting stash, so this was a budget-friendly craft as well.

What you will need:

• Dark Brown Cardstock
• Two Colors of Cardstock (we chose yellow and orange)
• Orange Cardstock (for the beak and feet)
• Google Eyes
• Scissors
• Glue

What you will do:

To make our turkey bodies, I used a scalloped edge paper punch. You can also trace circles on dark brown cardstock and cut them out.

To make tail feathers, I used a chipboard oval that I had in my stash and traced it on yellow and orange cardstock. You can also free-hand these and make them any shape you's like.

To make the beaks, I cut a small rectangle of orange cardstock, then cut small triangles from that.

To make the feet, I used a small heart-shaped paper punch and turned them point-side up. Again, you can free-hand.

Now that you have all your pieces, you can assemble your turkeys. I laid out 4 tail feathers, alternating orange and yellow. I used white school glue on the bottom corner, and fanned them all together then stuck my dark brown turkey body on top.

Attach the eyes, beak and feet with glue and let your turkeys dry.

Once the turkeys are dry, you can attach them to pre-cut place cards, or make some out of white or colored cardstock.  Write your guest's names in silver, gold or black ink - and you're done.

Since it's all paper, it's a great craft for a child to put together - they can use white school glue and have a lot of fun. Owen is very excited to bring these down to Mimi and Pop-pop's for our Thanksgiving feast.

Are you putting anything special on your Thanksgiving table this year?

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How-To Make a Thanksgiving Gratitude Box

I don't know about your family, but the one I belong to is not all that fond of going around the table on Thanksgiving and saying out loud what we are grateful for. We will do it if we "have to", but much of my family is not comfortable with that. In that situation, what is a memory-keeping, lay-it-all-on-the-line girl like me supposed to do?

The Gratitude Box (or Thankful Box if you prefer)

An idea started to form: what if we had a box, and everyone wrote down (in secret) what they were grateful for and we put it in the box? Then everyone is happy right?

Crafty me got to work. First, a run to various craft stores looking for the "right" box. I decided I wanted a cigar-style plain wooden box.

Next step was digging through my scrapbook kits for the perfect fall paper and embellishments to pretty it up. And of course - Mod Podge to make the whole idea work.

Here's how I put mine together:

• I measured and cut paper for all the surfaces I wanted to cover.
• I slathered on modge podge and attached my papers.
• Let it dry.
• I wanted a "stained" look, so I used a craft sponge and dabbed walnut stain on the bare parts of the box and the edges of the paper.
• Once you're finished, add another layer of modge podge to seal it.
• If you want, add ribbons, tags, paper flowers, etc to embellish your box.

You can use scraps of colored cardstock, or print out cards to hand out around your Thanksgiving table. Remember to throw in some pens or markers too.

Need some other ideas?

• Cover your box in Washi Tape
• Decorate a box with paint hand prints from your kids
• Cover a box with stickers, feathers, or paper shapes

How do you and your family express gratitude at this time of the year?

catch you soon -

Easy Thankful Books to Make With Your Kids

A Thanksgiving tradition for many people, is expressing something you are thankful for over the past year. Sometimes it's done silently, sometimes written and sometimes spoken around the Thanksgiving table. I've done many of these with my own family, and a favorite for kids, especially toddlers and pre-schoolers, is a Thankful Book.

If you have older kids (or are a TV junkie), you may remember Blues Clues. . .my boys loved that show, and we spent countless hours drawing "clues" in our pawprint notebook. One year, they did a Thanksgiving episode, and Steve and Blue had a Thankful Book that they wrote what everyone was thankful for in it.

This episode inspired me to make my own Thankful Books for my own kids. But I wanted something they could do on their own to keep them entertained. We created handprint books, and my oldest went around and asked everyone what they were thankful for that year, and my youngest who was probably 2 at the time, just colored in it and carried it around all day. How you use it is up to you, but it's an easy way to get kids thinking about gratitude.

Here's all you need:

• 1 sheet of colored card stock
• Multiple sheets of white cardstock or drawing paper
• An adult sized hand 
• Scissors
• Hole Punch
• Jump Rings and/or Ribbon
• Alphabet Stickers or a Marker

Here's what you do:

• Trace your hand twice on the colored cardstock. (I traced bigger than my hand)
• Trace your hand on the white paper or cardstock as many times as pages that you want for your book.
• Cut out the hands.
• Stack the white hands between the colored cardstock hands and punch 2 holes.
• Attach with jump rings or ribbon.
• Use alphabet stickers or a marker to label your Thankful Book.
• Fill it with gratitudes, doodles, or anything your child's heart desires.

And there you have it - an easy and fun book for your child to have on Thanksgiving. I still keep mine in my gratitude box. (updated post and instructions coming soon)

How do you help your kids express gratitude?

catch you soon -

Spooky S'mores Halloween Treats

I am going to blame Pinterest for an over-load of ideas for a special classroom treat for Halloween this year. I let Owen look at ideas I had pinned, and then we worked our own interpretation of Spooky S'mores to share with his class.

I had a hard time finding Ghost Peeps this year - I think a lot of other moms were inspired too. But I did find these adorable Halloween colored Peeps, so I decided to use them. (You could also use the pumpkin Peeps or even just plain marshmallows)

Here's what you need:

• Sandwich Bags
• Peeps or Marshmallows
• Graham Crackers
• Chocolate Bars (we used small Hershey Bars)

I liked the idea of a decorated "bag-tag" with instructions for making the s'mores, so I used Word and created squares that we could cut out. I also dug into my papercrafting and scrapbook supplies for some material to make Halloween tags to put on each bag.

We used three paper punches I had on hand to make the tags, and Owen punched them all out and glued them together.

What types of spooky treats are you making this year?

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Turning Butternut Squash into Halloween Ghosts

Looking for an easy, inexpensive and fun Halloween craft? Then let me tell you how to turn ordinary butternut squash into adorable spooky Halloween ghosts.

I did this several years ago, and got so many complements on them. That touch of white on my front step really added some fun to the usual fall colors. All you need is white and black paint, paint brushes or sponges, and butternut squash.

This is super easy, and kids as young as 2-3 can do this with some grown up help.



What have you crafted for Halloween this year?

catch you soon -
This post is linked up at A Life in Balance for Motivational Monday.

Rainbow Looms for Sports Fans

I've posted before that the boys are enjoying the latest craft craze, Rainbow Loom. If you follow me on Instagram, you know I have more bracelets than any girl could possibly wear.

But that is not stopping the kids. In fact, with the kick-off of the NFL season, the boys were mapping out team colors to make bracelets. Blue and orange for the Denver Broncos, Green and White for hte Philadelphia Eagles, and so on. The Fishtail and the Double-X seem to be the favored sports fan designs and are suitable for boys or girls.

We've already made a few in our own school colors: blue and steel.

If you're short on colors, check online. Amazon has a wide variety (that's where we found the steel) from several manufacturers. And don't limit your talents . . . your arms are long enough for your favorite NHL, NBA and MLB teams as well.

Like to root for the home team? Make a bracelet to support your neighborhood leagues, school districts and other sports organizations. Team or league bracelets would make great fundraisers too.

What will you make?

catch you soon -