Leftover Egg Dye for Pasta Crafts

Because I am A) crafty and B) cheap, I've gotten in the habit of asking myself before I throw something away, "Can I use this for anything?" Now I'm well aware that this is a method that could lead you towards becoming a hoarder, so if the answer to the question is yes, then I set specific limits. When will I be able to use it and is the saving it worth the hassle of storing it. More often than not though, if I save it, I do end up putting it to use. After dyeing eggs I had the thought before tossing all of that dye if there was anything I could use it for, but I wasn't interested in any time consuming hand dyed fabrics. Plus I didn't want this dye sitting around on the counter (an accident waiting to happen) so I chose a quick result : dyeing pasta. This was super easy and came out better than I expected. 

I didn't have any elbow macaroni like I was hoping to use to make necklaces, so I just used what we had. 

I didn't time how long I left it in, since I figured the longer the better, but it was at least 20 minutes. You can see we put in some rice and split peas as well, just to experiment with how different textures absorbed the dye. I thought the rice would be brighter, but it was still pretty pale in color compared to the pasta. 

We did the basic colors and then..

practiced mixing some colors. The color mixing was a fun bonus teaching moment and the paper towels left fun tie dyed patterns that my daughter loved.

They came out so bright and could be used for lots of crafts including gluing onto shapes or letters. I intended to do something like that, but my daughter preferred just free play of making shapes and letters on the table. Definitely would give this a try again next Easter, maybe using some spiral pasta and some cut penne or elbow macaroni for fun jewelry!

Drawer Organizers

I don't know about anyone else, but I have reorganized our main "junk drawer" over and over again. The problem I continue to run into is the drawer is so big and we usually toss so many small things into it, that they are always rolling around. Within a day or two of straightening, it's back to looking like this. I've seen people use boxes from snacks and cereals to make organizers, so I decided to give it a try. You could use lots of cute papers but I'm cheap and hated to waste my nice paper on a junk drawer that no one sees but my husband and me. Another blogger used wrapping paper, which I thought was a good alternative. Since tonight the University of Michigan is in the final four for basketball and my husband bleeds maize and blue, I chose this Michigan themed wrapping paper. He doesn't normally get to have sports stuff in many parts of our decor, so I gave in this one time :).

First I measured the depth of the drawer and cut all of my boxes to be the same height so that the different shapes, still looked uniform. I used some boxes lying around to be recycled including a pop tarts box and some packaging from a toy. Then it was time to wrap and cover in mod podge.

Ok here's where I confess cutting some corners. This box I did "properly by attaching the paper with mod podge, but nap time was running out quickly and so I just wrapped the other three like presents with glue stick on the inside of the paper. 

There were a few wrinkles, but I arranged the boxes to fit together fairly tight so there would be little room for things moving around. I would be more concerned about durability if they were being taken in an out of the drawer instead of just storing things, but I will update if this short cut falls apart (literally) in the near future!

It's a little hard to see how much better the drawer is since the busy pattern still leaves things looking a little hectic online. In person though it's much better and I was happy to have a good solution to a surprising source of irritation almost daily. Sometimes it's the small things that create so much unnecessary stress in our daily lives and I'm hoping to have more organization projects to show soon! All in all this took about an hour including drying time and only cost $1 (wrapping paper from the dollar store), so a pretty good use of nap time! Go  Blue!

Creative Quote Canvas

We moved into our house about 6 months ago and I'm working on both of our kids' rooms first. As you all know, Pinterest is full of things that are great for kids' rooms and I'm so excited to be working on a mixed frame / art wall for my daughter's room. I wanted to do some kind of canvas art with a quote and I love the projects where people mod podge newspaper and then paint over stickers, but I wanted something more colorful for her.

I started with a plain stretched canvas and then picked out paper that match the colors in her room. I modpodged the paper in a random collage and she was able to help me with this, which added to the fun.

This has always been one of my favorite quotes for a little girl and embodies my sassy daughter to a t! I couldn't find stickers that were big enough and in a font I liked, so I went to Staples and got printable sticker paper. It was $13 for a pack of 30 sheets, but I was able to pick the font I wanted and I actually think it's much more cost effective than buying multiple packs of letter stickers. 

After I made sure the stickers were secure, I covered the whole canvas with gray paint and let it dry overnight

The next day I pulled off the stickers and it looked like this. I did find the paint bled slightly in a few places, but I was able to scratch it off with my fingernails with little problem. 

I loved the look of the letters, but thought it was a little hard to see the outlines in some places, so I took a little paint brush and did some dry brushing on the outline of the letters to give it some depth. 

I also did the gray color a little thicker because I didn't want the colors to be showing too much to be distracting. Also she has so many colors in her new room that I wanted this piece to be more neutral. To enhance that weathered feel, I sanded the canvas in spots with a fine grade sandpaper. 

I love the way it came out and I really want to do this technique again. I would like to try doing it with a central color or photo for the background next time, but I like the texture and chaos of these letters. It seems especially fitting with this particular quote!

Shaving Cream Cleaning

I see all kinds of cleaning tips on Pinterest and I tend to be fairly skeptical of them. I think it's because I hate cleaning most of the time and don't want to bother having to do it twice, if this weird tip doesn't work. But after the shaving cream painting, I remembered a tip about cleaning bathroom mirrors with shaving cream and I figured we would give it a try. Plus any way that I could con  encourage the kids into cleaning by presenting it as a fun activity, I am all for that! 

We just squirted out shaving cream in 3 or 4 places and let the kids spread it all over the mirror with their hands. 

It was a complete mess and I was fairly doubtful that this was going to do much of anything other than entertain the kids for a few minutes, but we wiped it off with damp washcloths and it came out sparkling. The real bonus was the mirror doesn't fog when the bathroom and the bathroom smelled great! I don't know how long the defogging effect will last, but either way I will try this again. At the very least, it was a fun activity for the kids and my four year old loved having an important cleaning "job"!

It's tough to see our end result, but I was pretty happy!

Shaving Cream Painting

So yes this one is late too, but if you read the last post, you are well aware why I'm including it anyway! I've seen the posts of beautiful shaving cream painting online but just had a hard time believing that it would actually come out so beautiful in the hands of my 4 year old and 20 month old. I'm happy to say that I stand corrected and was thrilled to be wrong! (Don't tell my husband I admitted that one). The process was simple and not nearly as messy as I thought it would be! I just googled templates for bunny and egg printouts and after printing them out we gathered our supplies:

shaving cream from the dollar store, paper, poster paints and an old squeegee. I think you could use a folded up piece of paper or even cardboard instead of the squeegee, but I just happened to have one. On a side note, the bunnies were too tough for her, but my 4 year old was able to practice cutting out the eggs which was an added learning experience and it's great to sneak those in where ever we can!

We used paper plates and piled on big globs of shaving cream, then just squeezed out paint in random squiggles and blobs on top of the shaving cream. I am realizing I need more step by step photos in the future so I'll work on that!

Then we just pressed down the paper into the paint and shaving cream blog, pulled it out and squeegeed off the cream. Then we had beautiful eggs and bunnies with fun swirly patterns to celebrate Easter! A word of warning though, if you keep using the same mixture after pressing down too many times, the paint and shaving cream will mix and create a muddy effect. 

I thought this was a really cute and fun idea for cheap and one we will definitely do again. I think it would be a great way to make homemade Christmas ornaments, thank you notes or valentines day cards as well! 

Peeps Vase

Ok so I'm a little behind in getting this posting started since yesterday was Easter but I had to include this one for three reasons:

1) It is ridiculously easy. It took all of 5 minutes to put together and for the last few weeks, every time someone comes over to my house, they have a fit when they see it.  I'm a huge fan of anything that looks impressive but takes very little effort and money!

2) It's so stinking cute that I can't help but smile when I see it

3) I'm crazy intimidated by putting out this challenge to the whole population of the internets that I want to get credit for my efforts!

The only supplies I needed were two packages of bunny peeps, an old vase we had laying around and a small juice glass. This craft is particularly easy considering the unnatural nature of the peeps because I didn't even have to separate them or stack them. They came out in one big strip that I just set down in the vase and then repeated by placing the second package on top. Then you drop a small juice glass down in the bottom and add a few fresh flowers - whalah! I worried that the peeps would wilt or shift with time, but nope they are holding steady in their not from this world sugary strength. You may notice the white peeking through where they are pulled apart by the curve of the vase. You don't get this effect if you use a square vase, but I wanted a tall one and wasn't bothered enough by this to go buy a new vase. If you were doing this for a fancier event or are just more of a perfectionist than me, you could always touch them up with a bright yellow sharpie marker. I tried it out and it worked, but I was too lazy to fix them all :) 

Gentlecrafters, start your engines...

As I mentioned in my brief welcome, I have been trying to start this blog for some time now, but the kids keep complaining about being fed, the laundry keeps refusing to clean itself and my pesky job keeps insisting that I show up for all of the 40 hours they pay me for. So I think I'll need a little fire under my tired behind to get things going and keep them going. That's actually the only way I have ever been able to accomplish any crafts at all amongst all of these life demands is just get started. That's deeply philosophical I know, but as a mom, I'm being pulled in a thousand different directions and find that simple approach of just get started is critical. No stopping to assess the guilt over what I could or couldn't be cleaning, no worrying what the end result will be, no judgement about how any of the other millions of amazing crafters out there are doing it. So I'm going to try and set a goal of sharing 100 tips, tricks, crafts and projects that I have found and tried from the crafting mecca that is Pinterest over the next 100 days. Hmm, on second thought let's just say days because I can't be held accountable for the disease and pestilence that my munchkins bring home, but there will be crafts! And fun! And things that will add up to 100 in an approximate set of days :) Some will be simple, some a little more complex, but all an opportunity to get out there and just pick something off those pins and boards I know you all have. Let's do it together and JUST. GET. STARTED.