Tutorial: Berry Basket Christmas-in-July Tree Ornament

Hi.

How are you doing? Well, I hope.

I've got a quiet little tutorial for you today. My yearly Christmas-in-July offering, hee hee. Here she is now...

And then make a few more...

Easy breezy beautiful?
I say.
Merry Christmas-in-July to you!

♥M

View my other Christmas ornaments right HERE!

Foam Tray Landscape

The foam tray etching and painting experiment continues... I couldn't help myself. HAD to try another one. Gobs and gobs of fun, hee heeeeee...

Find the original instructions HERE.

♥M

Tutorial: Foam Tray Sign

Yes, indeed. It's a sign made from a foam veggie-slash-meat tray! The kids might even like to join in on this one 'cause it's quick, it's easy, it's messy, and fun as pumpkins.

Tutorial: Foam Tray Sign

Step 1: Gather supplies. For this craft you will need: a clean foam tray, pair of scissors, pencil, ruler, ball-point pen, paper, tracing paper, paint, paintbrushes and a toothbrush.

Step 2: Cut off the raised edges of the meat tray.

Step 3: Use your pen and ruler to draw a rectangle on the remaining foam rectangle. Cut along the lines to create a lovely squared-up rectangle.

Step 4: On a piece of paper, draw yourself a sign design. It can be a reminder, a short inspirational message, a name plate, or any crazy word or expression that takes your fancy! Fill the area around the word with a filler design. Anything from cross-hatching (as I've done), wavy lines, zig zags, loops, a pattern of dots... etcetera... will work!

Step 5: Transfer your finished design onto a sheet of tracing paper. Place the tracing paper over the foam rectangle, and then gently re-trace your design so that it is transferred to the foam tray. Once you've transferred the entire design, remove the tracing paper from the foam rectangle. Re-trace your entire design directly on the foam rectangle with the ball-point pen. Firmly re-trace around the main lettering, and gently re-trace the filler design.

Step 6: Now you're ready to paint! Choose a bright, saturated colour for the bottom layer of paint. Fill your brush and apply the paint while holding your brush almost horizontally. This way you'll avoid filling in all the grooves with paint allowing the tray colour to show through. Allow the first layer of paint to dry completely. Apply a lighter second colour of paint in the same exact way. You don't have to completely cover the bottom layer of paint. Let some of it to show through for a nifty contrasting effect. Let this layer dry as well. Now go over your letters only with a third bright paint colour. And finally, age your sign with a little spatter-painting using a toothbrush and some watered-down black paint. 

Well lookee there, you have signage!

Go ahead now... Be bold and try it yourself!

♥M

Prior and future versions of this craft live here and here.

Happy Birthday To Us!

Oooooooooof...  Happy Tuesday! Wow. I'm back. Took an unexpected bloggy break there...

That's because I just said hasta la vista to a jam-packed birthday week and weekend.  Over the last few days, The Boy, Dia and I celebrated our 8th, 20th and um... OLDer birthdays respectively. The week started out with a whirlwind road trip to visit my girls, Elle and Dia, who share living quarters in Toronto. We spent a lovely afternoon with them catching up on life, school and work, and chatting about food and movies over the yummy vegetarian offerings at a small local restaurant. The service was great and the staff let us linger. We had a really really nice time. Despite the fact that they flew the coop a few years ago now, I still think it strange to visit these adults (!!!) that are my children, and see them living independently from us. Working. Learning. All by themselves. They seem to be handling it just fine. How does this happen, I often wonder. How's it even possible?... I guess that's just what kids do, eh?

Here's a pic of my beautiful Dia taken at the aforementioned lunch.

The next few days I spent getting ready for The Boy's Bowling Birthday party which we celebrated this past Sunday afternoon with 12 of his friends (boys only as he stipulated). The pizza meal was held upstairs in the bowling building and we only had a few minutes to spruce up the space so I wanted the decorations to be effective yet super-simple at the same time.

We needed balloons o' course... So I concocted these balloon trees which The Boy dubbed "balloon supernovae". That name rocks my socks so it stuck! I made the trees two days prior, and the day of the party we just plunked the gravel-filled plastic jugs down in the center of the tables and stabbed in the stems. Nice and easy!

The Boy is a huge fan of airplanes so I rummaged through my garland box for the colourful paper airplane garland from last year (he digs it) and divided the lengths into two batches. Then I hung the lengths with bread wrappers onto two wire hangers. When we got to the bowling alley I simply hung the hangers lickety-split on an overhead beam.

For cake, The Boy requested chocolate. I chose to do the chocolate cupcake thing and I'm so glad I did because they were tast-EE! I baked the cupcakes the day before the party and iced them the morning of. I topped them with piped buttercream frosting and finished them off with one upside-down red candy wafer (used as is) and a Smartie. Delicious and do-able (even for a non-cook like me)...

The little personalized handmade goodie bags Lo and I put together (using this template) for each guest went over well too. I made the bags a few at a time over the two weeks prior to the big day. We filled them with candy, notepads, pencils, erasers, hockey cards and one of my all-time favourite origami gizmos.

When we sent out invitations we specified "no gifts" because our little one has more than enough. We were overjoyed by all the lovely handmade cards that each child brought instead. Reading through them at the end of the day was definitely a highlight for me. They were just so sweet!

I can't say the day wasn't without its challenges. Kids playing catch with 10 lb bowling balls, for instance. Kids running down bowling lanes. And there was that one tiny injury too. Small hand caught in swivel chair... Oooooweeeee... But after the obvious pain and the gush of tears, the little guy bucked up and kept playing. Kids are amazing, aren't they?

But on the whole, the party was a success, I think. We're not used to having 13 boy-children in tow, you know? But they had fun and Lo and I managed well in my opinion. We stayed pretty relaxed through it all. And The Boy had a blast which was the ultimate goal!

So the week of birthdays is taken care of for another year, can't believe it. Everyone's happy. I know I am. Happy Birthday to me!

Well, you have a lovely day now. I will be back!

♥M

Plastic Jug to Eggshell Mosaic Vase

You know how it goes. You're sitting there with your legs up, lazily exploring the strange and wonderful world via laptop, clicking hither and thither, wandering pretty much aimlessly when you're suddenly caught by an object of singular beauty. It stops you dead. It wakes you from your stupor. It moves you to action.

This very scenario happened to me just a little while ago, when my path of discovery lead me to Gingerbread Snowflakes, crafty blog of the one and only, Pam Harris. What did I unearth there?  Well, let me tell you. It was this glorious mosaic egg, an egg that Pam had decorated with dyed eggshells. How sweet it was... I pert near swooned.

Naturally, I was inspired by Pam's egg to make a handsome faux-ceramic mosaic vase from eggshells and a plastic maple syrup jug of course. Goodness yes! Here's what I did.

First, I created my vase. I removed the label from the plastic jug and using a handsaw, sawed off the threads at the opening. Then I smoothed the freshly cut mouth of the jug with sandpaper.

I was then ready to decorate. The fun part! For this project I thought long and hard about the glue type I should use to adhere the shells. Glueing onto plastic can be dicey. I ended up gambling on the same glue I used for the cork stamp project: Aleene's FunCraft Foam Glue. Foam is a variety of plastic so I figured it would probably work here too. Happily, my gamble paid off. Those egg shells aren't goin' nowheres.

I dabbed on a little glue directly from glue bottle to jug, covered the gluey area with eggshells, and repeated until the desired area was covered. A pair of tweezers came in very handy here to handle and set in place the wee eggshells. On the edges of the eggshell-covered area, I made sure to completely cover any gluey spots with eggshells to ensure a neat and tidy edge.

Here's a super-short (4 second long) animation experiment showing the application of (most of the) eggshells on the jug. My Lo and I were playing. You may have to view it a couple times to actually see the whole thing. It goes by in the blink of an eye.








You'll notice that I used two colours of shells on my vase. I coloured a few shells with permanent markers (orange and black in my case). Two "lines" of coloured eggshells sandwich the natural brown eggshells.

I let the whole thing dry overnight; the glue will still be tacky even once dry. I then carefully gave the area - egg shells only, mind you - a few coats of satin-finish water-based varnish. You could go glossy here if you prefer. I used what I had.

Soon as spring arrives, throw in a few pebbles or a bit of sand to balance the weight of flowers, place your spring blooms inside, and presto-change-oh, you have yourself a delightful faux-ceramic mosaic center-piece! All thanks to the internet and Pam. Thank you sweet Pam!

Have yourself a fine day now. I'll be back real soon!

♥M

Question: Should Blogging Be Fun?

Have you ever clicked on the "Next Blog" button way up there in the navbar of most Blogger blogs? Try it. It's pretty interesting. You get to see a huge variety of personal type blogs. What really struck me, though, was the number of abandoned blogs. Blogs that hadn't been updated in months, even years.

It just goes to show. Having a blog, and keeping it updated and vibrant, is harder than one might think.

I was responding to an email last week and the following thought sprung to mind: sometimes I am just elated by something bloggy like a comment I receive or a good post I've written; yet hours later, I'll find myself struggling to even begin to write the next post. There's a tension between loving what I'm doing and NOT loving what I'm doing. Does this spell the end to my blogging? Am I doomed to become one of those blogospheric casualties? I don't think so. I certainly hope not. I mean, think of any good marriage. Do you know of any happily-married people who smile incessantly and live in a constant bubble of bliss? Neither do I. Sometimes there are moments of doubt and strife. This is common and normal, right?

And so it goes for blogging. It's not 100% ferris wheels and picnics.

Take, for instance, my newly-designed Tutorials-At-A-Glance page. My husband was showing my blog to someone a while ago and noticed that when you clicked on the thumbnails on my old page, you got an error message. He sent me a concerned email telling me my Tutorials page was broken (I guess he cares...)! It wasn't broken... It just wasn't as straightforward as it could be. So he made some suggestions for improvements. Now I knew it would take a ton of work to change. But I heeded his advice and began making those changes. Yeah... And what a nightmarish hell-job that was. It took me days and days to get a grasp on the html, start a fresh page from scratch, re-organize, and get it up and running. And there's still some tweaking to be done. But it's essentially there now.

Did I enjoy this task? NO! Not even one iota. Am I glad I did it? Yes I am. Because now I have a more navigable, better organized, easy-to-update Tutorials page. I learned something. I pushed my boundaries. And that feels good. It was worth it after all.

I think the time has come to be realistic. Blogging can be darn hard. Especially if I care at all about my content and about making my site any good. It takes time. It takes a hell of a lot of creative energy, effort, sweat, maybe even a couple tears now and then. I love it. I don't love it. Welcome to something worth doing, Michele!

So. In answer to the title of this post: Should blogging be fun? Yes. Darn tootin'. Absolutely. No question. But ALL the time? No. NO! And it would be silly to expect it to be.

Note: The above "tiles" are recycled foam meat trays which I have etched with designs originally created by my three children - Elle, Dia and The Boy - when they were little, and painted with layers of liquid acrylic paints.

Juice Cap Ornament & Pendant in the Shop!

Are you thinking about Christmas yet? I am... Can you tell? At the moment, my head is aswirl with visions of tree decorations. In fact, today I added a sweet ornament tutorial to my shop. Let me tell you a little bit about it. The PDF downloadable how-to comprises 9-pages of step-by-step photo instructions to make the above juice cap ornament. You start with a juice bottle cap, some crochet cotton, a handful of seed beads and a few other odds and ends to create a unique double-sided Christmas tree ornament. The piece is finished beautifully back and front. To be a perfect tease I'll keep the back a mystery... This recycled ornament can also double as a pendant. Make the hanger longer, place it around your neck, and you have yourself a one-of-a-kind statement necklace!

I wish you the pleasantest of weekends. Take care and I'll see you again on Monday!

Kid Craft: Monster Baby Finger-Puppets

Um... despite the uncanny resemblance, I am not your mommy...

Oh hi there, happy Friday!

With Halloween on the way, I thought today's super-quick craft was fitting. It was inspired by the teensy monster babies in Microcrafts, the book I reviewed in Wednesday's post. The original monster babies in the photo below are made of embroidered felt.

Monster Babies from Microcrafts designed by Holly Keller

Using Holly Keller's monster baby concept, I cobbled together a little finger-puppet from teeny bits of construction paper and a plastic milk carton seal.

My little one is unusually terrified of any and all odd-looking characters. I thought that maybe these tiny and extremely benign monster finger-puppets might be a good way to re-introduce him to monsters, and ever so gently work away at that fear.

As you can see, this craft is the definition of simple. Make a monster baby the size of the plastic milk carton seal from a few scraps of construction paper. Flip the plastic seal inside out. Glue the little guy onto the seal. You now have a diminutive monster finger-puppet!

Alternatively, if you leave the seal in its original position, you have yourself a monster baby ring.

He's sort of irresistible in an "I'm-desperate-for-love-I'm-a-monster-after-all" kind of way...

And his friends seem to pop up out of nowhere. That's what monsters do I guess. Though, they are extremely polite. Surprisingly!

No... But thank you very much for asking.

Have fun dreaming up all kinds of monster baby finger-puppet play with your kids!

Have a fabulous weekend. And to my fellow Canadians: "Happy Thanksgiving!" I'll see you Monday!

The Rhythm In The Rhymes

This is a guest-post originally published as part of The Crafty Crow's "A Book & A Craft" Event in June. Just in case you missed that post, here it is again!

The boy received A.A. Milne's book of poetry "When We Were Very Young" as a gift from his Grandma a few years ago. This book, originally published in 1924, is filled with delightful poems, some of which are nostalgic, some of which are thoughtful, but most of which are silly and funny. These are the ones the boy and I love best. We read them together before bed, often clapping our hands as we do because we just can't help ourselves. He's got rhythm, the boy does. And Mr. Milne's poems are very rhythmic indeed.

This got me thinking about a craft that would go along with our beloved book. Whatever could I make? Well, a shaker springs to mind. And the recyclables are waiting, ready to be transformed... Are you ready? Let's shake a leg then!

Tutorial: Plastic Jug 'n Bread Tag Shaker

What you will need:

• Plastic jug
• 2 wooden skewers
• 2 wine corks
• several bread tags
• a colourful scrap of junkmail
• pair of scissors
• marker
• ruler
• hole punch
• carpenter's glue
• Mod Podge
• paint brush
• drill with small bit
• small hand saw

1. Start with a clean plastic jug. Using a ruler and marker, draw a straight line somewhere near the middle of the jug.

2. At the line, cut off the bottom of the jug. Trim the cut edge of the top.

3. Using your hole punch, punch 2 holes in each side of your jug top.

4. Prepare your corks.

5. Cut each cork in half using the small hand saw. Sand down the cut edges to make them smooth.

6. Drill a hole in the cut side of each cork piece. Go as deep as you can without piercing the other end.

7. Cut 4 small circles out of colourful junk mail. Use Mod Podge to glue a circle to the top of each cork piece.

8. Cut your skewers so that they are 1 inch (25 mm) wider than the width of the opening in the plastic jug. Divide your bread tags into two equal batches. Place each batch on a skewer.

9. Place a skewer through the holes on either side of the jug as shown below.

10. Put some carpenter's glue into the cork holes.

11. Place a piece of cork onto each end of the skewer.

12. Repeat steps 9 through 11 for the other skewer.

13. Let the carpenter's glue dry for a good long time.

And you have shakability!

Enjoy your utterly recycled plastic jug 'n bread tag shaker (with a built-in handle no less). And stand back as your child lets loose banging out the rhythm in the rhymes!

If you've never visited The Crafty Crow and you have children, drop everything and go there now. Cassi, the brains behind that operation, gathers an endless array of kid-crafty goodness from across the craftosphere that will keep your children busy till they fly the coop. Really. I'm not even joking. It is NOT to be missed. Thank you Cassi for creating such an indispensable resource!

You have a lovely day now won't you? I'll be back Wednesday, right here!

Reader Question: "Got a garland for outside?"

The other day, the lovely Caren dropped an email in my inbox. It went something like this:

I was thinking that maybe you could help me. I have a problem. Actually, it's more of a challenge. See, there's this pesky bird (as my son says) outside - it's a juvenile robin - and it keeps attacking its own reflection in our window. I was thinking it might help to hang some garland strips along the window, but I don't want to make it with materials like paper or cardboard that will dissolve in the rain. Got any ideas on what to make it out of?

And here is the assailant caught red-breasted at Caren's window. Well, yes, the poor little thing does seem to be a titch confused, doesn't he?

This pesky bird (photo provided by Caren)

No dear, you can't come in to use the facilities. You're a fowl for goodness sake. Pee on the car windshield like a normal bird, won't you?

I don't think he heard me.

Well, Caren, I've devised this extremely simple garland using an empty plastic shampoo bottle cut up into circles and strung onto some nylon string. It should be darn weather-resistant. If the stats on plastic are anywhere near correct, this garland will be around long after you or I.

Also, I couldn't bring myself to insult your intelligence with a written tutorial, this thing is just beyond simple to make. Instead, here's a wordless tutorial. If you have any questions, anything at all, you know where to find me!

Wordless Tutorial: Plastic Shampoo Bottle Garland

Plastic shampoo bottle garlands! These could work to scare the birdie, no? If nothing else, they're pretty and they smell good. Hope this does the trick, Caren!

I'd like to note that these plastic garlands were inspired by the many many paper circle garlands you've no doubt seen across the net over the last several years. I was trying to find the earliest instance of the ubiquitous paper circle garland (dreamer...) but the furthest I went back was 2007 and So Sage. I'm fairly certain they've been around much much longer. But who knows. If you know of an earlier case, please post the link in the comments.

I will be taking a bloggy break for the next week to enjoy some family time. The school year is over for the boy today, it's Canada Day on Friday, and our little family will be travelling up north over the long weekend to celebrate my youngest brother getting hitched. I will be back here on Wednesday, the 6th of July with more merry-craft-making. Until then, take good care of yourself, Happy Canada Day, and to my American friends, Happy 4th of July! I'll see you on the flipside!

This post is linked to The Shabby Nest's Frugal Friday!