Whirlpool of Imagination

Crayon Craftiness

Okay, you've seen them all over the internet (or at the very least, all over Pinterest)....it's the melted crayon art. I've seen some really cool and clever ones and definitely have it on my to do list.

The other day the kids were looking for something to do so why not pull out the crayons, the glue gun and the dryer, right?

It's a really easy project but fun. Take a canvas and glue crayons along the top. (I ued a small 8x10 canvas thinking it would be good for a first attempt).

Then have a go at it with the hair dryer and melt those crayons for all their worth.

Conor went with the blow the hot air in all directions process. We've decided it looks like fireworks.

Meg, the more deliberate of the two went with a more traditional look.

Now they want to try bigger, more elaborate projects......I guess it's a good thing I go crazy buying crayons on sale in September!

Have a great night!

Flag Fun

This weekend my kids worked on flags for the Memorial Day holiday. This is a great project for the 4th of July as well.

The full tutorial can be found here on my Running with Lollipops blog.

Have fun!

I want to look pretty......

I left you hanging there on Monday!! Instead of blogging Monday night, I did this......
                                                                                   
Mo just bought himself a fire pit so we got it going and roasted marshmellows and made s'mores with the kids. And once the kids went to bed, we just relaxed by the fire. It was a nice way to wrap up a holiday weekend.

Monday I did get a little bit of crafting in although it was in quick spurts. Meg was marching with the town's girls lacrosse league in the Memorial Day parade so I thought I'd make a quick ponytail holder for her.

These are super easy to make (especially when you have a stash of ribbon - see, THAT'S why I bought all that ribbon!). This ponytail holder uses three ribbons so I cut out seven 6in. strips of each color of ribbon (21 total strips) and then just tied them around the pony O. The 21 strips fit perfectly around the entire length.

I've made these with Meg's friends before - its a great project for kids.

And just to continue with the jazz up your outfit theme, I made a quick pin. I stamped this stamp from River City Rubber Works onto shrink plastic with red Staz On ink. Using my heat gun, I shrunk it down to size. Then using my glue gun, I glued a pin back to the back of the image. Quick and easy project.

I spent a little time coloring at lacrosse practice yesterday so I'm going to get cracking on using those images on some new cards. Have a great day!

Valentine Bouquet

What started as a simple trip to Target ended today with Meg's Valentine's Day party. I was browsing the dollar spot when I saw the cutest red heart buckets. I knew at that moment, that I had to get them (yes them!) and to justify it, Meg could have a party. The girls could do something crafty with them.

Meg and her friends are all between 7 and 8 years old so I wanted the project to be fun but not too involved. From the buckets came the idea of a photo bouquet. They could bring some pictures to the party and we'd make "flowers" using the pictures.

  Because many kids' work best with a visual to refer to, I made an example using the extra bucket I just happened to make sure I bought for myself. The only thing different with mine is that I didn't use pictures.

Let's talk details in case you decide to do a project such as this at your next party....

First of all, have the buckets prepared. This week I cut down and inserted the floral foam into the buckets. That was one mess the girls didn't need to be a part of.

When they got to the party, the table held all sorts and colors of papers and cardstocks, along with circle and heart punches, plain and scallop. 

I showed the girls the example and explained that they could layer the cardstocks with their photos and choose colors that matched their photos or just colors they liked. I have to say how impressed I was with their color sense. They picked colors that really brought out the features in their pictures. They layered in creative and interesting ways. They didn't have the buttons and brads but that didn't matter. They used smaller punches in really cool ways.

 After the tops of their flowers were created, myself and another mom who stayed to help me with the party glue gunned the tops onto skewers. I really like using the glue gun for this part. The glue dries really quickly and stays attached well. I just wouldn't recommend kids at this age using the gun - it gets extremely hot.

Once the girls had all their flowers attached to stems, I  showed them the example again and explained about varying heights for interest. They then had at it. Once again, they all had a great sense of what worked and looked good. Finally, they added the red "grass". Some chose to decorate the buckets with punched shapes, some did not. Some finished faster than others but nobody rushed through the process but rather took the time to make something pretty. I debated on using ribbon tied for "stems" but glad I didn't go there. This was involved enough just as it was.

I would recommend having another adult if you do plan to do this with a group. There were seven 7-8 year olds there and having the extra adult set of hands was invaluable (thanks Leslie!). I would say that this took about 40-45 minutes start to finish.

But this age group can do a project like this and do it well. I gave them minimal instruction and an example but let them run with it. It is really neat how creative these girls got and how much they seemed to enjoy themselves. And I can't tell you how much fun I had just watching and helping them so it was a win win for all of us!

Meg's Notebook

Since I'm still working on the mess, I have a quick project I don't think I've shown before. A couple of months ago, Meg was elected to the Student Council at her school for her class. She attends monthly meetings and takes notes on what they talk about. We decided it would be nice if she had a cute little notebook to bring with her.

This started off as a basic composition notebook. Meg likes pink and she likes sprakle so those were the two considerations.

The flourish and heart around her name are rub ons so this project came together really quickly (which was great because we were making it the morning of her meeting). For a bit of extra sparkle we added Doodlebug jewels around the four corners of the brown layer.

It probably took more time to decide the paper and colors for the stamped letters than it took to create this little notebook. But Meg was thrilled with the outcome and proudly brings this back and forth to school.

Studio update: I can see most of one of the tables (not counting my regular workspace). There is still a lot to do but I feel like I have taken a step in the right direction.

Sparkly Snowflakes

Here's another great project for you and your kids (or grandkids). You can be crafty and decorate for the holidays at the same time.

These sowflakes are basic wooden snowflakes found both at AC Moore and Michael's. I know because I bought some at both places.

The flakes are solid so I used my crop-a-dile to punch a hole in each of them. These are thin wood so the tool punches through like you were punching paper. I did notice some at AC Moore that already had holes but I didn't like the shapes and they cost significantly more than the simple wooden shape.

I then used regular acrylic paint to paint the snowflake. I ended up painting the flakes the same color as the glitter I planned on using so this one was obviously painted light blue.

**As a note, if you want to do this project with younger children and the idea of handing them paint is enough to make you thrown in the towel.....these wooden shapes take marker really well. For Meg's Halloween party, I didn't want to have to deal with all those girls and paint so we used regular old kids (washable) markers and they work fine.

 

After the paint thoroughly dried I pulled out my glue pad (I know there are a couple of types of these pads -mine is the Tsuneiko one). I basically "stamped" my snowflake with the glue pad and then dumped glitter all over.

I have seen not so great reviews regarding the glue pads. I will have to say that I have never tried to use it with paper. For this project, the pad worked fabulously. The pad comes with a reinker and every time I use the pad, I do add more glue as it seems to dry after a few days. The directions also suggest storing it upside down I believe so I do that also.

I used Martha Stewart fine glitter which I picked up from Michael's. This is great glitter and stuck nicely to the glue.

This snowflake was obviously painted with green paint and decorated with green glitter.

And finally, here's a nice red snowflake, painted red with red glitter.

Omce glittered up, I just used a piece of either gold, silver or red cord to make a hanger and just hang these right off the branches of the tree.

You may ask how is the glitter holding up. So far, so good. These flakes have been transported to a fair and hung up. Then stored after the fair and transported back home. I then put the tree back up for our Christmas card picture and rehung them. I then realized the tree was crooked and just took them back off today and they'll be hung again once I fix the tree. In all that back and forth time, I've just piled the flakes on top of one another and none of the glitter has really come off. If you rub your finger against it, a bit of the glitter comes onto your finger but that happens to me whenever I touch anything glittery.

**Another note: I store glitter in little square glad containers. It makes it so much easier to just have the glitter flat in the container and I place my glued object on top of the glitter and adhere that way. It makes much less mess than pouring over and then returning to the bottle.

And now I have glittery snowflakes for my tree. If you are looking for a fun project, I suggest you give these a try!

Spooky Hair

Well, not really spooky, but cute for Halloween. Meg had her Halloween party this weekend and I wanted to come up with some activities for the girls to do. You know I have to do one or two little crafty things. Since Meg is a girlie girl, she is always wearing pony tail holders, so we decided to have the girls make ribbon pony tail holders. This is a super easy activity that can easily be adapted for whatever color scheme you want.

  Not many supplies are needed. This is done with an elastic pony tail holder and ribbon. Here you see enough ribbon cut for all 6 girls.

For ribbon, I suggest sheers mainly. Here I have various types and I used 3/8" and 1/2" ribbon. I do not recommend grograin because it is too bulky and the knot won't stay and I don't recommend satin because it is slippery and the knot won't stay.

Each piece of ribbon here was cut to 8" in length. You could adjust this according to your taste - this is the size that worked for us.

Each girl had 12 pieces of ribbon - 2 each of 6 different designs. To make the pony tail holder, you cross over the ribbon piece like you were starting a knot and tighten. These are all single ties - not double knots. The sheer seems to catch nicely when you tighten it. And if any start to loosen up a bit, just give a quick tug and retighten.

The girls made different patterns according to what they wanted. You don't have to use as many ribbon designs and you could even pretty them up with rhinestones or crystals.

Here is Meg showing off the one she made. What's fun is that she can be involved in the process of deciding on ribbons and colors so this project can truly be individualized for her by her.

You can bet we'll be sporting Christmas ones before too long!

A quick (and fun) earring project

My daughter Meghan is a girly girl. On any given day, at 7 years old, she is much more put together than I am. Her clothes are girly, her hair is just so and now that she has pierced ears, the earrings need to match. I am not good at making jewelry whatsoever but I thought Meg and I could give an easy earring project a try.

There are lots of places online to get beads, jewelry findings, etc. Take a few minutes to do a Google search and you'll come up with lots of choices. We happen to have a bead store in town so Meg and I got the added pleasure of being able to shop together. She picked out exactly what she wanted and the store was helpful in making sure we had everything we needed.

You really only need a few items to have a cute pair of earrings. Here is what we used. We have 2 pumpkin charms to go with our Halloween theme, 4 Swarovski crystals, 2 head pins and 2 sterling silver ear wires.

There are various different types of ways to put the earrings in your ears. Meg just decided that these were the wires she wanted to use.

                           

This was the fun part for Meghan. She was able to construct the earrings all by herself. On the head pin, she strung a crystal, the bead and another crystal. That's all there is to it.

We used the crystals to kind of anchor the bead to the head pin better so it wouldn't slide as much as the hole in the crystals is narrower than the bead. I'm not sure if I explained it properly, but take my word for it, it fits better.

The jack-o-lantern bead was slightly smaller than a couple of other ones we did, so we then cut just a tad off of the head pin wire. Then, using our pliers, we bent the wire to a 90 degree angle to the top crystal.

Somewhere in my crafting area, I know I have the proper tools. For the life of me though, they are in such a safe place, that I cannot find them.

The beauty of being an all around crafter is that if I don't have the exact tool I need, odds are I'll have something that will work.

Remember a few years back when wire was all the rage. All of a sudden everyone was going to put cute little wire "things" all over their scrapbook pages and on their cards. I thought I would too. Have you ever seen a card of mine where I used wire??? I have exactly ONE design where I used wire and that was about 4 years ago.

But this little tool has been sitting in my tool box all that time and voila, I was able to use it for Meg's earrings.

After you bend the wire to 90 degrees you take the end of it and start turning it into a circle. Since I'm am so not a natural at that process, it took me some time and as you'll see with the pumpkin earrings, it's not perfectly pretty. But does Meg care? Nope - the earrings are cute and I made it so they will not come apart. It may not be pretty but it works. And when you're showing off the cute little earrings you and your mom made to all your second grade friends, it really doesn't matter if they are perfect.

And here is the finished project, in Meghan's ears. She had such fun doing these and we enjoyed working on the project together. After doing three different pairs, we're getting better at making the loops.

By the time, we get to cute little earrings for Christmas, I bet we'll have it down pat.

These are the little pink ghosts we made. They have clear crystals above and below them.

And here are my personal favorites, the black cats. As you can see, Meg chose orange crystals for these.

And there is our little mother/daughter jewelry project. It's very basic but a perfect project to try when just starting out. We experienced success without getting frustrated and that success has whet our appetite for more projects.

If you happen to have any tips or suggestions for me, I would love to hear them. I'm hoping to give more projects a try and would welcome any words of wisdom!

Lips that Sparkle

I have one more Meghan birthday post and then I will completely move on from that event. A couple of posts ago I talked about how I made the sparkle glitter gel for the girls at the party. Here's one more cute little project - Lip Gloss.

Once again, I made these ahead of time (thank goodness) but with older girls or even a smaller group than I had you could do this quite easily.

These are the basic supplies that you need. The recipe I used came from Clear Dollar Stamps. There are other recipes but this was the easiest by far and worked well, in my opinion. Clear Dollar also has a really cute stamp set that they used for these. I don't have it yet but its definitely on my wish list.

The supplies you need are minimal. You need Vaseline, sugar free Kool Aid and a container for the lip gloss. There are containers you can buy at Clear Dollar. I honestly don't know if that is a good price or if there are better deals out there. I actually had these little containers - what were they, you ask??? They are actually from CTMH and are embellishment holders. I like to use them to store Swarovksi crystals in. I just happened to have a couple of extra orders of these that I hadn't used yet. They are the perfect size and work really well for those of you who may have some already.

Now for some directions:

1) Melt 1 tsp Vaseline. I melted it in the microwave in a styrofoam bowl. I didn't want to use a cooking pot or even an eating bowl with the petroleum jelly. The styrofoam bowl was perfect. I microwaved for 30 second intervals until the vaseline was warm and soft. You do not need to melt it into a total liquid. Some will be liquid like, but I found it better if it still had some substance to it.

2) Add 1/4 tsp Kool Aid to the melted Vaseline. Stir until the kool-aid crystals have dissolved and everything is mixed completely. I happened to use cherry kool-aid because that it all that Target had that day but you can use any flavor. It ended up turning the lip gloss pink which was perfect in the grand scheme of things for me.

3) Add the mixture to the lip gloss container.

Since I didn't have Clear Dollar's cute little set, I had to make do with my own stamps. You can't see it in the picture but I used a circle stamp from Paper Trey. One of the SU circle punches made circles that fit this container perfectly (it's either the 1 1/4 or 1 3/8, I'll have to check). I then stamped some flowers from TAC in the middle of the circle.

 I thought about decorating the sides as well but these girls aren't the most delicate with these and I figured lip gloss would get all the over the sides possibly anyway so it was better to keep them simple.

And there you have it, a quick, easy way to make lip gloss and you know exactly what is in it since you make it yourself.

I hope your Monday has been going well. We are into our last week of summer vacation before the kids start back to school. Both they and I are ready for some apart time so the start of school is a highly anticipated event. Until then, we'll work our way through the week. I made the mistake of heading over to Staples today - what a HUGE mistake. Apparently, I am one of the few people who have already gotten their school supplies for the kids. Are you kidding me?? I love office supplies - I was at the store the day I got the letters! It was so crazy there today, that I didn't even bother buying anything. I figure I'll have the whole store to myself come next week. Have a spectacluar evening and I'll talk to you tomorrow! 

A Sparkling Good Time

I am at the mercy of a machine. My computer has a glitch somewhere inside of it so my computer time is touch and go. My brother, computer man extraordinaire, is planning on taking it apart and testing it. I'm not sure when but I hope to have a little notice so you'll know when I'm completely offline. No email, no message boards, no blogs - it's going to test my fortitude!

But for now, I'm hanging in there. Tonight we have a project that can easily be done with kids. This originally came about when I was planning Meg's birthday party, of which you are going to hear about for most of this week! The theme was Hannah Montana and she's turning seven. Well, what rock star doesn't glitter, hmmmm? I had too much planned for the party so I made these ahead of time for them to use but you could do this with the kids if you were brave.

Making the Glitter Body Gel is extremely easy and you only need a few supplies. Here we have aloe vera gel (I got the Target brand), fine glitter (Martha Stewart here) and I used domestic travel containers with screw caps.

I liked these containers because they were solid but also had enough give to kind of squeeze the gel out when you wanted to use the final product.

Fill the container 1/3 full with the aloe vera.

Pour a small amount of glitter into the container. The amount of glitter is really up to you. I eyeballed it each time. I didn't have a funnel so I just folded a piece of paper, poured the glitter on that and used it like a funnel into the aloe vera.

Using a wooden skewer (the opening of the container was a bit too small for a craft stick but that also can be used), mix the gel around.

Add more gel and more glitter. Finish off a third time. Close lid and shake it A LOT. The kids can have a shaking/dance contest with this one. Just put on a little music and go!

 Here are the bottles when filled. They did need a little bit more shaking after this picture was taken.

What I DID do at the party was give each girl a big label and some Sharpies and she decorated the label any way she wanted. Then the labels just stuck on easily.

And that's it. These created quite a bit of sparkle, smelled good and don't contain any other unwanted chemicals. So if your girlie girl wants a little bit of sparkle in her life, get together and make some gel!