Jedi Art

Posted on January 17, 2012 by Jennifer

My boys have a bedroom which is dominated by Star Wars.

When we moved into our new house, my mom bought the boys Star Wars comforters for their bed, so in their eyes, the rest of the room had to follow suit.

I told them I would try.

They turned to me and said, “Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.”

“I’m just worried you won’t like it.”

To which they said, “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”

OK, so maybe they didn’t say it in so many words.

They didn’t have to. They’re Jedis and I read their mind 🙂

For the art work above their bed, I used 6 IKEA frames, a printer, and some material.

Four of the frames are simply Lego Star Wars minifigures printed out.

We goggled their favorite characters and found pictures which would enlarge clearly. Each minifigure had their own space thanks to the picture divider included with the frame.

The other two frames have, “Jedi Alex,” and “Jedi Andrew,” made out of left over material from their window covering.

First, I wrapped the frame in burlap. Next I used the Star Wars font to print out their names on card stock. Next, I cut out the cardstock letters and placed them over some thin denim. I held each letter in place while I cut the denim around the letter. For the space inside the letters I glued different material on top of the denim.

Across from the beds are the chicken wire frames I shared last year.

The Lego minifigure containers sit next to the frames.

Here’s one more look at the art.

May the crafting force be with you!

Singles

Posted on January 6, 2012 by Jennifer

We have a sock monster in our house.

We must, because I don’t understand how we have so many single socks waiting for a partner.

After having a rotating pile of socks on my bedroom floor for a year I decided enough is enough – We gave the socks their very own space in the laundry room.

It’s always amazing to me that five or six of these socks will find a match during the week yet the numbers never dwindle due to new socks being added.

Needed: frame without glass, string or wire, staple gun, clothespins

We simply stapled the string to the frame and called it done.

A little peek at the laundry room art I created.

The artwork matches the complete failure of an ironing board cover I made.

Come back next week when I share all of the downloadable laundry art I’ve been working on.

A Hairy Christmas

Posted on January 2, 2012 by Jennifer

Our family has a history of silly gifts on Christmas day, from my Dad’s t-shirts, to wrapping a present in multiple boxes, to the matching pants my sisters and I received (not an intentional gag gift but one which occurred since apparently JCrew’s sizes run waaaaaay small).

So I figured this Christmas it was my turn to be the ring leader.

Browsing through etsy in September I came across some crocheted beards and I knew this was it.

Laura was wonderful to work with and created 7 beards for me to give as gifts for the family.

Feast your eyes on this awesomeness!

Top row:

My brother the hairy beast (I’m sure this look will be a hit on the college scene)

My dad (gray to match his current stache)

My husband (just what he needs, more hair 🙂

My brother-in-law (Very stylish and practical for shoveling snow in Michigan)

Front row: My sons who are in heaven to be with the big guys

Yes, I said seven but there are only six beards in the picture.

Where’s the 7th beard you ask?

Introducing Princess Grizzly …..

Her hat and beard were created by Laura.

Outside playtime this winter will probably lead the neighbors to think we’ve adopted three middle aged munchkins.

Check out Laura’s site here and have your own hairy fun.

Semi-homemade Gifts

Posted on November 30, 2011 by Jennifer

This was originally posted over at Sunny Vanilla a few weeks ago when Jennifer asked me to be a part of her Homemade for the Holidays week. Enjoy!

When Jennifer asked me to participate in the Homemade for the Holidays series I was honestly a little worried.

You see, I’m more like semi-homemade. In fact, I’m the crafting equivalent of Sandra Lee.

I get mistaken for her all the time.

Notice the resemblance?

No? Huh. Must be a setting off on your computer.

Wait. Let me give it one more try.

See? I told you. We’re practically related. In fact, maybe “Sandra Lee & Me” should be my new blog title.

I love to create homemade gifts but don’t always have the skills to implement my big ideas so I do what I can and learn a little more each time. Hopefully one of these days I’ll move away from my Sandra Lee tendencies.

Today I’m going to share with you two crafts I will use as part of my Christmas gifts.

Both projects I’m going to share would be great used as ornaments, wine adornments, or gift tags.

The first ornament involves layering pieces of felt to create a desired shape.

It’s relatively simple and uses only a few materials.

Here are the materials needed: felt, objects to trace circles, scissors, a piece of wire, a Sharpie, and a glue gun.

Trace the circles onto the felt.

You end up with various size circles depending on the jar circumference used. Pardon the different colors shown as I dropped my camera after the picture below was taken and needed to take new pictures).

Stack your circles once they are cut into the desired shape.

Individually fold each circle and cut a small slice in the middle of it. This creates a hole for the wire to pass through.

Bend the bottom of the wired ninety degrees so the felt circle has a place to “sit.”

Take the circle you would like on the bottom of your ornament and slide it down the wire.

Place some glue on the bent wire and attach another felt circle to the glue. This new circle becomes the new bottom and the curved part of the wire should no longer be seen.

Stack the desired number of felt piece by simply sliding each felt circle down your wire.

Continue layering felt pieces into the shape you desire.

Glue on embelllishments in order to complete your ornament.

The shape and color combinations are endless. Adding wooden beads between layers gives the ornament a more rustic look.

**Christmas tree, ornament, snowman, modern design**

Since personalized gifts are always a hit, I created custom ornaments. The one below is for my father-in-law who is a proud Canadian.

Cut out a design using your scissors and felt.

I free handed the letter “a” but cut out the maple leaf using an image I printed out and placed on top of the felt. I then cut around the paper.

Glue all of the front pieces together.

Using the twine, glue a loop onto the back of the ornament. Next, glue a matching piece of fabric to cover the glue.

Add some fun and personalization to a tin of cookies…

… or use them as wine gift tag

This tag is for my sister Amanda and her husband Ben and it includes an image of their home states.

What about….A lively gift tag for the music teacher or the Saints football fan in your life? Really, the possibilities are endless.

In addition to brightening up a gift, they will look great on their Christmas tree.

Hope you’ve seen something that inspires you to create something handmade (or semi-handmade for some of us) for someone you love.

Have you been making any of your Christmas gifts?

Guest Posting over at Sunny Vanilla today

Posted on November 15, 2011 by Jennifer

Jennifer from Sunny Vanilla is hosting a week of homemade holiday gifts and yours truly is guest posting over there today.

I’m sharing this…

and this…

and just a little of this…

Go ahead and hop on over to Sunny Vanilla and check out the great series.

Pet Peeve

Posted on November 9, 2011 by Jennifer

I am a party pooper and I don’t care.

In fact, I wish more moms felt the way I do.

I have a pet peeve which goes against my love for crafting.

I hate gift bags, goody bags, and here’s a bunch of crap bags.

I know it’s expected now at birthday parties and showers but I just struggle with it. The goody bags at my kids’ parties are probably the worst around – a lollipop, stickers, and a tattoo – and the tattoo is only if I really like the kid.

Goodie bags are expected at parties now and I have learned to deal with that.

What I cannot deal with are the expectations for goody bags at school.

Preschool at that.

My daughter’s preschool sent out a message stating that bags would be placed in each students cubby “in case we were going to bring treats to share with our friends.”

They are two. They don’t need any extra goodies. A costume day and fall festival was more than enough to celebrate Halloween.

I refused to prepare any treats. We went to school empty handed.

This is the goody bag my daughter came home with.

Let’s just take a peek at what was inside.

Nice haul for a five hour school day, huh.

This bag was from one kid.

Here are the contents of the bag:

Impressive but ridiculous.

Isn’t anyone else tired of plastic trinkets littering their car and the “I get something” expectation that now comes with going to a party.

Now we are going to have the expectation at school.

I stand firm by my decision to not bring anything.

Plus, some of the goody bag contents were not labeled so no one else knows I didn’t participate. – ha!

Thankful Turkey

Posted on October 30, 2011 by Jennifer

This was originally posted last November when only 3 people read my blog – I will have our turkey ready for this Nov 1st as the kids have come to expect it now that this will be our third year sharing our thanks this way.

With the upcoming holidays I find my kids increasingly thinking about what they can get – i.e. video games or enormous toys. Therefore they have not set foot in a toy store since August and I hoard all toy catalogs that come to the house. I’ve been trying to really make it a point in the last year or two to help them think of others and be thankful for what they have.

Last year I made “Tom the Turkey” to help remind us that we are indeed lucky in many ways. I made Tom out of brown bags from the grocery store (yes I know cloth bags are important but sometimes you just need to have the brown bags for projects). Then I cut out feathers from construction paper that we had.

After dinner, everyone gets a feather and writes down what they are thankful for that day. Then we use a glue stick to put the feathers up. The boys seem to really enjoy this activity and won’t let us leave the table without filling out our feathers.

I included a picture of Tom from last year since this year’s turkey has tons of feathers covering his face.

A sampling of feathers from this year:

From the 8 year old:

I am thankful for….our car…having enough food on the table…going to Gramma & Grampa’s house for Thanksgiving….the Saints winning the Super Bowl.

From the 5 year old:

I am thankful for….Jesus & God…..the shepherd watching over me….going to Gramma & Grampa’s…..eating turkey (in reality he won’t touch the turkey or mashed potatoes with a 10 foot pole….Wyoming and Montana.

What can I say… the boy loves geography.

What are some of the ways your family shares what they are thankful for?

Monster Food & Mummy Wraps

Posted on October 25, 2011 by Jennifer

We had our second annual Halloween party over the weekend and for the second time I forgot to take any pictures. I set up these photos after everyone had gone home and right before I crashed on the couch. In addition to the new food below, I also served the same food from last year.

Marshmallow Pops: Place stick through marshmallow, dip in chocolate, add sprinkles, thank husband for wonderful marshmallow holder he created, place in refrigerator for 20 minutes

Marshmallow Holder : spare wood with holes drilled into it

Food on a stick is always popular and these were no exception.

Chocolate Witch Fingers – Use a paint brush and melted chocolate to paint the fingernails. Allow to cool in the refrigerator for ten minutes. Fill up remaining space in the mold with different colored melted chocolate. Lay pretzel sticks into the chocolate and cover with more chocolate. Place in fridge for 20 minutes.

Chocolate Grave Stone: same idea as the fingers minus the pretzels

Halloween Cookies (known in our house as the Christmas cookies despite the shape of the cookie or the time of the year)

Alex and Andrew named and labeled all of the party food. Dracula’s Skin was banana bread slices while the Monster Teeth were Rice Krispie Treats. They had a lot of fun creating these…let’s just say the Marshmallow Pops above were labeled Frankenstein Poop. Yes, we through classy affairs around here.

Along with our party boards, there were games and crafts to keep the kids busy. A big hit with the 3 to 7 crowd was my Halloween Bingo, I gave plastic spiders to the winners.

The fourth grade crowd primarily ignored my games in favor of a football game but did decide to stop to play the “Mummy Wrap.”

Kids got into groups of two with a roll or two of toilet paper and wrapped each other as mummies.

That WRAPS up (Ha!) another edition of our Halloween party. The left over Rice Krispies have been eaten by me (about 20 in 2 days – NOT A JOKE!) and the games put away until next year. Hope your Halloween is filled with lots of sugar and dressing up.

Halloween Party Boards

Posted on October 23, 2011 by Jennifer

Today I am sharing with you Party Boards I made for our Halloween party. These boards make great photo ops and the kids just love them, especially when the adults participate.

Here are the supplies you will need: wooden board, paint, tracer (although you could free hand it), chunky blocks, and a photo of the image you want to create on your board.

Place the image under your tracer and use as much of the space as possible.

I used a red sharpie here to trace my lines but a black one would be even better. You will cover up your lines with paint in the next step.

Paint the sections of the image with your desired colors. For this Super Girl board I used paints I already had in my stash.

Once the entire piece is colored you will question whether the end product will turn out well. Do not worry. Forge ahead with your black paint pen or thick Sharpie. This tool will make all the difference in the world.