Book Page/Celery Stamp Art!

What do you get when you use celery, acrylic paint, an old book page, and a simple matted frame?

ART!

These pics really don't do the artworks justice--in person they are delicate, feminine, beautiful roses, and they match my bathroom perfectly.  :)

Clothespin Wreath

This was another fun Pinterest find--special thanks to Craftiness is Not Optional for the inspiration!  You really should check out their tutorial HERE.  Since I made a few modifications to the "how," I'll add a basic step-by-step...but really do take a look at theirs, too, and decide for yourself how you want to go about it!

1. Buy your materials--clothespins (I used 40), an embroidery hoop, hot glue gun and glue, and green paint.  Red ribbon optional.

2. Paint your clothespins green (see the link above for great painting tips!)

3.  This is where I diverged a little from the tute above.  I didn't feel like shaping a hanger or threading clothespins and beads, so I just bought an embroidery hoop for a couple of bucks (a small one, maybe 8 inches?) and hot glued the clothespins right onto it after painting it green, too.  I lined up everything by gluing the metal claspy part of the clothespin onto the hoop.  I also did 8 sets of five, so I tried to line them up across from each other and halfway around the hoop (in halves, then fourths, then eighths, then halfway through that and two on either side) to make sure they were more evenly spaced.  It worked out pretty nicely.

4. Add a pretty bow and you're done!  The nice thing about embroidery hoops is that they have a sort of built-in hole, which I used as the top and it made hanging SO EASY.  I recommend it!

Looks great all by itself, but it looks even better filled with all your Christmas cards from friends and family!

Clothespins: $0.99 for 40.
Embroidery Hoop: $3.59
Paint: $0.47
Hot glue and ribbon: from stash.
TOTAL COST: $5.05

Can't beat that!  It would be even cheaper if you were recycling/repurposing these materials from around the house or other projects!  I love that I now have a fun way to display all those holiday cards every year...and it motivates me to actually send some out in the snail mail, too!

Cereal Box Mosaics :)

I have been saving and cutting up my cereal boxes into little 1/2" squares and sorting them by color into old jars for the last few months JUST so I could try this project out.

I thought my niece would love it, but it turns out you have to have a little more patience and artistic vision than a 7-year-old girl with no sleep really had.  She just wanted to doodle more than glue and put all the pieces together.  :)  But it gave me a chance to try it out on a smaller scale, and now I know that I want to do a much larger version soon!

Gather cardstock, some plain ol' school glue, and a paintbrush (to brush the paint more evenly across your paper, totally optional), and of course a pencil and your mosaic tiles.  :)

1) Just cut a piece of cardstock to the size you want. I recommend a 5x7 for the kiddos, anything bigger is very time-consuming.  Plus you can frame it this way.  :)
2) Draw a decently large image of what you want to make...mine was a moon, Caida's was a castle.  You want to make sure you don't have too many details, larger shapes are better since each mosaic tile is 1/2" square!
3) Paint a layer of glue over the top inch or two.
4) Start laying down your tiles.  Go piece by piece, row by row, and just put the color that MOST belongs there to make your shapes.  Of course the image will be pixelated--the smaller your image/artwork, the MORE pixelated it will be.  And the cereal box pieces are almost NEVER a single color, but that's okay.  That adds to the artsy aspect of the whole thing.  It will still be awesome, I promise.  :)
5) Cover the whole page with tiles as best you can and let dry.  Image will be stiff.

Here's my moon, with blue/purple/black sky:

And here's Caida's unfinished castle...at least you can tell she had a colorful castle, blue sky, and green grass.  :)  She just didn't have the patience to finish.

I think I'm going to add mosaic to my trio hot air balloon art vision I have for my guest bedroom.  More posts on that to follow.  ;)

Quick Lil' Campfire

Is your little corner of the world on a fire ban like us?  Do you have a camp-in date night planned, or just want a safe faux campfire for your littles to play with?  Are you a teacher and want a "campfire" for your morning meetings or writers to share their stories around?  Here is a QUICK lil' campfire you can whip up in half an hour or less, and best of all it's almost FREE!

YOU WILL NEED:

Wrapping paper, paper towel tubes (or toilet paper tubes): 5 or 6 lengths that are half the width of the fire you want to make and several (6 or 7) smaller-cut circles.

Paper (a few shades of yellow and a light orange work best) that is crumpled and gathered at the center of each piece, hot glue gun/gluesticks, scissors (optional)

STEP ONE: Glue the sides of your long tubes together at one end and fan out so that they look like spokes--it's more sturdy if you also glue a smaller circle in the middle of it.

STEP TWO: Glue the small circles in between each long tube at the center.  This not only gives it a little more sturdiness but also will come in handy for step 3.  :)

STEP THREE: Put a little hot glue in the inside of one of the small circle tubes and push the crumpled, gathered corner of a yellow paper inside of it.  Continue around, alternating shades of yellow.  In the center hole, stick at least three crumpled pieces of paper in it to make it a nice, full flame.

STEP FOUR: Cut out 3-4 orange flame shapes (you'll want them to be a little bigger than the rest of the fire, for a pleasing visual dimension) and stick them in between the yellow paper flames.  Depending on your purpose, you can glue them in or not.  (In this sharing time activity, I had stories/honesty case studies written on each orange flame that they could pick out to read, so they were removable.  If I were making this for a child's plaything, I'd glue them in for sure.  In my classroom, I might have review questions, songs, morning meeting prompts, writer/reader response questions, etc. on the flames and have them removeable.)

STEP FIVE: Gather around your lil' campfire and tell stories, sing songs, and share good conversation!

Sharing pioneer stories around the campfire with our senior primary :)
Got the idea and the stories/case studies HERE.

I love this lil' campfire TONS and I can't wait to use it in my someday-classroom as well!  :)  Happy camping!

10 Things Tuesday: Cardboard Boxes!

Big or small, whether from packing and shipping or from merchandise you buy at the store, there are more than a few ways to reuse those cardboard boxes if you don't want to recycle them.  Take a look!

10.  Cars, rockets, fire trucks, etc!  Didn't we ALL do this at least once when we were younger?  It is so fun, yes, and even better, the kids can do all their own decorating!

 9. Make a TV set that your kids can play news anchor in (or is my family the only one that ever did that?).

 8. Make a pretty play kitchen!  Instructions on how to do this HERE!

 7.  What about a nice castle?  I would totally spray paint these to look sandy and have an indoors winter beach party!

 6. Make a cute chair or two!  FamilyFun tells you how.  They are supposedly quite durable, and definitely easy for even the non-crafters among us!  :)

 5.  How about making a locker?  Could be a fun storage space for a tween's room!

 4. Make a dollhouse!  But beware...small pets might like it even better than your dolls!

 3.  I think I've shown this before, but how fun is this fake chimney for your kiddos' playroom?

 2.  For larger boxes, make a playhouse!

1. How about a lampshade?  Use thin white paper or a pre-existing lampshade inside, and cut out your own shapes!

BONUS IDEAS:
* How awesome is this room divider?  I think it's beautiful...and definitely more affordable than the real thing!

* Shape sorting game!  Directions HERE.

 * You can use cardboard to make your own furniture--these shelves are awesome!

Well, what are you waiting for?  :)  Happy crafting!

10 Things Tuesday: Christmas recycled crafts!

I'm going to take a break from searching this week, and instead review some of the crafts we've found that work great for the Holidays!  Maybe in the middle of all your crazy parties and family get-togethers you and your kiddos can sit down and make a few!

10. Fake chimney, from old cardboard boxes!

 9. Snowglobes, from old glass jars!

 8. Ornaments, from just about EVERYTHING--lightbulbs, sticks, and more.

 7. Magazine trees!

 6. Pinecone trees!

OR stick trees!

 5. I know this is a little late, but a cute advent calendar from a cookie sheet and magnetized bottle caps!

 4. For your holiday dinners, how about a fork placeholder?

 3.  Check out this wreath, made from a hanger-circle and strips of plastic shopping bags!

 2.  This isn't *necessarily* a holiday craft, but if you make this soda can lantern with holiday patterns, it could be!

 1.  Seashell angel ornaments!

BONUS IDEAS!
*Again, not exactly a holiday craft, but if you filled this plastic bottle with water and holiday trinkets (tinsel, mini ornaments, or old Christmas earrings), it could be!

 * Christmas candles, made from old tin cans!

 * Christmas gifts for others--use safety can openers to open the BOTTOMS, then fill the cleaned-out cans with goodies and decorate for your friends!

 * Cardboard tube candles!

 * What about this Christmas choir?  Some craft paper, TP tubes, old baby socks, and twine make this little choir the cutest carolers around!

Happy {holiday} {green} crafting!  And Merry Christmas!