Yarn and Felt and Glue and What Was I thinking?

DIY Christmas Ornaments

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The boy and I got busy over the weekend making cookie cutter Christmas ornaments. Super easy! All you need is:

2 cups of baking soda
1 cup of cornstarch
1 1/2 cups of water

Mix the ingredients in a sauce pan and cook over medium heat, stirring frequently. At first it might seem like nothing’s happening, but soon the mixture will thicken up and make a ball of dough. Wait 15-20 minutes or until the clay is cool. Knead the dough until it’s smooth and then roll out and cut your ornaments. Don’t forget to use a toothpick to put a hole in the ornaments so you can hang them later!!!

*Warnings:

  1. Make sure you lay the ornaments FLAT, I forgot and put ours on a plate and the result was curled ornaments and a lot more cracked and broke then normal.
  2. Some will crack and break so make a couple extra of your favorite shapes.

It takes a day or two for the ornaments to air dry. Be sure to flip them over ever few hours so both sides dry. Once dry get out your favorite means of decorating and go to town. To help prevent cracking and breaking modge-podge the ornaments before giving as gifts or hanging on the tree.

 

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And so it begins. . .

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crafting

I have collected the supplies for the child’s Halloween costume endeavour. As per my usual ways I have looked at a million pictures, pinned and printed ideas and bought what I think I need. I will probably not follow a single pattern I have printed (except for ears that I already cut out except they weren’t even a pattern but a cutout of a picture. . .) I will end up hand sewing most of it because my sewing machine and I have an on again off again relationship (aka I am scared of the sewing machine) and it will not look anything like I hoped. . . A few times the thoughts have flown through my head “What the eff are you doing?” and I tell those thoughts, “Back off, I am making my child a costume. I can and will do it and he will be adorable, also I’m crafting and crafting makes me happy.”

Wish me luck. . .

DIY Harvest Wreath

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To celebrate the autumn equinox (the day when the sun passes over the earths equator causing darkness and light to be in alost perfectly equal amounts) the babe and I worked on a harvest wreath. I had found some fall decotative pens while cleaning and decided we needed to do something with them, so I thought the babe and I can put together a Harvest Wreath!

Fall Critters

I made the wreath shape out of all the toilet paper rolls I’ve been saving (although if you know of another way to make the wreath shape go for it or buy one this one took a lot of glue and time and frustration and still wasn’t totally circular). I then wrapped the toilet paper rolls in white tulle I had leftover from my wedding so then it kind of looked life the frame of a wreath. I gathered a few leafs from the yard to use as leaf templates and then went through my scrap felt and cut leaves from autumn colors. I did break down and speand a few dollars on autumn ornaments for the wreath from Hobby Lobby (which was the only cost since everthying else was already lying around the house.)

When we got home from work/school, the babe sat down and helped me decorate. He squuezed some glue (than I squeezed some more) and he squashed things where he wanted them to go. When he lost interest (about 20 minutes later) I continued to glue on some more leaves until he demanded I stop and play with him. We aren’t quite finished, as I still have some more leaves and things to place, and I am hoping the babe might have a renewed interest another evening, but this is what we have so far. . .

Harvest Wreath

Happy Fall! Get outside and enjoy!

DIY Dryer Balls

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Dryer Balls

I’ve been wanting to stop using dryer sheets for a while now. I have read too many articles that make me wonder if they are really toxic to our health, (and our appliance repair friend doesn’t think they are so hot either) so I promised myself that I would not longer buy any dryer sheets, that instead I would actually make the pin from pinterest I bookmarked so long ago. It took about a week of being out of dryer sheets for me to get my act together, but I finally did it.

Materials:
100 % Wool Yarn Machine Washable. I found it at Hobby Lobby. (With coupon less than $5)
Scissors
Thin Old Sock or Pantyhose
A Small Crochet Hook
Optional: Essential Oils for scent

You begin by winding a bit of the yarn around two fingers. About 10 times or so. Then pull the yarn off your fingers and wrap around the yarn in the opposite direction, (so it makes kind of a cross). You then just keep wrapping in different directions to make a ball of yarn. Once your ball is the size you want it, (Mine was almost tennis ball sized) cut the yarn leaving a few inches and use your crochet hook to pull the end of the yarn into the ball. Repeat until you have as many dryer balls as you want or you run out of yarn. My yarn made two almost tennis ball sized balls and one smaller ball. Put your yarn balls in a pair of pantyhose or a thin, old sock. (I used one thin old sock per ball, because I just don’t do pantyhose). Be sure if you use pantyhose to tie string or rubber band in between the yarn balls so they don’t touch. You don’t want them to felt together. Run the yarn balls through the wash on an HOT water load. I through them in with the towels. Then let them get transferred to the dryer. I ran mine through the washer and dryer twice. Then I took them out and started using them straight away. I wanted to scent them with a few drops of lavender essential oil, but I was out so I used two drops of geranium oil on each. Mine don’t look exactly like the picture, but they seem to be working. They are a bit noisy than dryer sheets, but if they are less toxic than dryer sheets I don’t mind so much.

DIY Dinosaur Costume

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Last year I made my little one his very first homemade costume and I hope to keep up the trend this year. There are so many cute DIY costumes out there that it’s hard to choose. My sewing machine and I do not always get along and I actually am better at hand sewing things so last year I picked a dinosaur costume to make. I got a little inspiration off of Pinterest and kind of winged it from there.

I happened upon an army green, dinosaur colored hoodie at Goodwill and then also found some pants that matched. I like working with felt, so I used felt (leftover from making a Christmas tree) for the spikes, tail, and a little bit of embellishment on the pants and hoodie. I stuffed the spikes, tail and spots with cotton balls to give them some dimension. The whole project cost less about $10 and a few hours of evening sewing.

I started by cutting Triangles for the spikes. I cheated and folded the fabric over so I only had to sew two sides of the triangle back together after I stuffed it with cotton balls to give it a bit of dimension. I then attached each spike to the hoodie sewing through the inside of the hoodie to the outside so you can see the stitches inside, but when the child is in the hoodie you can’t see them from the outside.

The Tail was two pieces sewn together. A figured out how to make a cone shape and then sewed the spikes to the cone. Both pieces are stuffed with cotton balls. I added a piece of fabric with some velcro for a belt. I then sewed on some spots stuffed with cotton balls on his pants and hoodie to add a little extra color and voila, a little dinosaur.

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Now I have to figure out what to turn him into this year. Time flies in the fall and before I know it Halloween will be upon us again!