Lego birthday party favors! Only $2.25 per kid!!

Every year I try to think of something fun (and inexpensive!) to do for my kid's birthday party. Last year I did these super labor intensive magnetic poetry kits. It was a very cost effective idea, and I do love a creative challenge, but ideally I would not be spending that much time on stuff like this. The year before I did cute, little notepads. Those were simple to make and came out really great. This year, however, I think I REALLY outdid myself with fun little Lego kits. 

We started out by going to the Lego store with the intent of creating a little creature, or robot or vehicle or something out of the Legos they had available on their wall of single, loose, bulk pieces. In no time Finn whipped up a crazy little duck-like robot. We collected enough pieces to build 10 identical creatures, one for each party guest, and managed to fit all the pieces into the larger sized bulk bucket ($15).

 

Using my "just-enough-to-get-by" Photoshop skills I whipped up an instruction sheet on how to build these guys and we sorted all the pieces into take-out boxes that I got at Michaels.

The take-out boxes were $3.89 (yay for 40% off coupons!) and I had a whopping bill of $3.85 from the local print shop to get the instructions and the sheet of names and eyes printed up. My total cost for these favor boxes was $22.74, divided by ten kids makes it about $2.27 per kid and the best part was that the kids loved them!

Bikini top doily revamp

I had this white bikini top that was always a little too sheer for my liking so I thought of a great and easy way to make it both extra special and to give myself a little more coverage. Happy summer!

 

 The first photo shows the original top. I found two doilies the perfect size (this particular type were meant to go on the arms of fancy chairs, y'know, in the olden days. Vintage doilies are easy to find on ebay and at thrift/antique stores. I the second photo you can see how I carefully pinned the doilies along the edge of the existing top. Next I sewed them on using cotton thread and a zig zag stitch. Summertime sass! Viola!

Super fun DIY magnetic story kits / birthday party favors for under $2 per kid!!

Another year, another birthday party, another brainstorming session about what to give out for party favors. Every year I try to think of something besides the usual bag of plastic toys and candy (not that there's anything wrong with that - and let's face it, kids love it.) I love nothing more than a creative challenge so it's become fun for me to come up with a cool, new idea each year. Last year I made these cute little notepads and also included a bunch of other stuff I got on the cheap at Michaels. This year I had the idea to make some magnetic poetry story making kits (don't sue me Magnetic Poetry!) and I'm SO happy with how they came out!!

Here's what you need to make them:
2 cases of Altoids (12 tins total), about $5/each at BJ's: $10
2 sheets of magnet paper, about $9/each at AC Moore: $13.50 (I used a 50% off coupon for one)
acrylic spray sealer (I also had this on hand)
shipping or address labels (I used half-sheet shipping labels that I had on hand)
random, cute scraps of paper (you might recognize mine from last year's project :)
some basic computer skills
rotary trimmer, or an x-acto and ruler
scissors

The most time consuming part of this for me was coming up with the text. The first draft was insane, but I was able to condense it down to the basics, I allotted half the page (which is also where the labels split) for each kid. The easy part is making it silly, the hard part is making sure your words/story parts work together. the hardest part is making the tense work with the verbs. I didn't go too crazy with it, but I tried to just keep everything past tense and have enough little words (on, it, at, of, etc.) and also add-on endings (ing, ed, s). When brainstorming I thought about it as if I was writing mad-libs and just added in as many variations and embellishments as I could. I did a mix of single words and story parts (like, "there was a" "later that day" "huge bowl of" etc.) Once I printed the text on to the shipping labels I was ready to carefully stick them down on the magnet paper.

be sure to burnish them down well

Once I had them all stuck down I sprayed them with the acrylic sealer (I did this down in the basement because it's stinky). Do this in 3 light coats (allowing it to dry fully between coats). I can't stress enough how important this step is, it takes the magnets from paper that will easily be ruined being on a refrigerator and turns makes it have an almost vinyl-like feel and appearance, so profesh!!

While they were drying/in between coats I got to work emptying the Altoid tins (maybe you're the type of person who eats a lot of Altoids and keep the tins - if so this is the perfect craft for you!) Unfortunately I don't eat that many, but now I have a huge jar of them, fresh breath forever!

When all the sheets were dry I started cutting them out. I used a rotary trimmer, but you could just as easily use an x-acto and a ruler, or even just scissors. I cut them into long strips and then just used scissors to cut the words apart from each other. I also included a few blank strips with each set so kids could add in any words/phrases they thought were missing. The tricky part here was that my rotary trimmer base it metal! Ahh! This made the sheets a little hard to wrangle, but I managed.

I snipped the words directly into each tin so that I wouldn't get the individual sets mixed up since I had personalized each one with the kids' names. This part took kind of a while, but since we had a blizzard today it was the perfect opportunity to get it done, plus I was so psyched with how they came out it was exciting to see it all coming together.

At the same time as I made the words I also made smaller labels (cut from the bigger, half-sheet shipping labels) in a size to fit the top of the Altoid tin. The final step was wrapping the tins with my paper scraps and sticking on the label.

Viola!

And here's a quick story I forced Finn to make so I could take a photo Finn made. Fun times!!

Super cute birthday goodie bags for under 5 bucks per kid!

I always agonize over goodie bags, wanting them to be cute & fun, but not wanting to break the bank or fill them with junky plastic toys and/or gross candy. Not to say I'm above that, I've definitely hosted birthday parties where I've essentially thrown my hands up and sent the kids home with a bag of junk that I'm sure was tossed into the trash at the first possible opportunity. I vowed that this year would be different. I started scouring the internet for ideas. I came across an article from iVillage that had a few good ideas including this one...

I loved these little travel sketchbooks from Under the Sycamore

There is a full tutorial on her blog, but although a brilliant idea, it seemed a little labor intensive to me (for this project at least) so I simplified it a bit with modifications to avoid using any glue or sewing! Here's what I came up with!

The finished product; an assembled bag and it's contents. Sketch pad with 4 attached markers, pencil and puzzle eraser, mini alphabet stamp and stamp pad. Cute, right? And all for under $5!

I also didn't have a lot of time (I have a LOT to get done in those precious 3 hours that my kid is in half day kindergarten!), so it was really helpful to be able to get all the stuff at 2 stores: Staples & Michaels. Here's what I got with the price breakdown...

From Staples: scratch pads, erasers (on clearance!), pencils. From Michaels: markers, bags, mini stamp sets, stamp pads, cardstock

 Additional tools needed for this project: scissors, stapler, rotary trimmer (you could just use an x-acto and straight edge), a bone folder is helpful, but not necessary.

First I cut the cardstock into strips the same size as the scratch pads. They ended up being like a quarter inch too short, but I wasn't too worried about that, just put that in the back.

I folded the cardstock so that it would fit from the front of the pad, up over the top and down the back so that it serves as a front and back cover. Next I cut and stapled strips of elastic (I forgot to add this into the inventory picture above because I just had this on hand already left over from a Halloween costume). I cut the strips to be about 2 inches longer than the width of the pads to allow room for the loops and interior fold-over. I just eyeballed this part starting with one staple in the very center (staple through the elastic, cardstock and the cardboard backing of the pad. For the next loop hold a little bump up with your finger and pace another staple halfway between the middle one and the edge. For the last loop just hold up a little bump again and fold the elastic inside and staple it all together right along the edge. Then just do the same thing on the other side. That was the most labor intensive part, and really it went very quickly once I got in a rhythm.

And here's the finished product! I just used scraps of the cardstock for the name tags and punched holes in the bags and tied them with baker's twine. I didn't include the baker's twine in the price breakdown because I have a giant spool of it for things like this and really you could just use any string or ribbon that you have on hand.

On creativity...

Sometimes creativity is such a struggle, sometimes it flows so easily, unstoppable, and that's when you know it's true and good and real. When it just pours out of you and it's all you can think about. I think for any creative type that's the moment we're all searching for. I've felt kind of lost for the past few years creatively, burnt out after a couple of pretty successful years of etsy sales, craft shows and a handful of loyal wholesale customers. It was fun, but my heart just wasn't in it any more, but with no idea what to do next I just kept plugging along.

During that time I gathered inspiration in expected and unexpected places, I was inspired by friends and fellow crafters, but at times it was hard not to let jealousy get the best of me. It's hard to feel like you've lost your way and then see people that continually crank out fresh, new ideas. Then the more you try to force yourself to have an idea the worse the ideas are when they finally come. Sometimes, to amuse myself, I would write "have an amazing idea" on my to do lists. 

I never checked that one off. 

Then, suddenly, everything fell into place. Roads that I wouldn't have thought even traveled the same lands started to intersect. My creative vision sharpened and I finally had an idea. A good one. As it started to solidify I could see all the influences that had brought me to that moment so clearly, yet the thing itself is something totally different. I can trace the roots of the inspiration of this new endeavor back to a 1980's bananrama record, a page torn from an early 90s fashion magazine, a tank top I bought at one of the first craft shows I did by a maker that I can't even remember the name of, and other, smaller things, moments in time, brief seconds from a nature documentary. 

So now I'm fully immersed in this, I'm using skills that I learned 15 years ago in college (that feels so good!). My heart has always been in textiles and this feels like a real homecoming. To get started properly I needed to completely revamp the way I had previously been working. The new project involves dying and despite taking extreme care in my kitchen I quickly realized it was no place for mixing dyes and chemicals. Lucky for us we have a huge basement with a great, big work sink so I set up shop down there. I have a ground level view of our backyard and the meadow beyond, a real squirrel's eye view. What I really needed was a padded craft table like the long print tables I remembered from college. Something I could pin textiles to for dying.

 

The first photo shows my old drafting table in it's normal state. I bought enough carpet padding (second photo) to do two layers on top of the table. It cost 25 cents per square foot at Home Depot, a real bargain for only $6 total. I topped that with a layer of quilt batting, because I had some laying around. Next I needed a fabric cover. Initially I planned on going to Jo-Ann and buying some canvas, but I made a bittersweet decision to use the table cloth that I've been using at craft shows for the past 8 years. I've flung this piece of cloth over so many tables, in so many cities and it's been a great backdrop for my products. Now that my business is making such a huge shift it seems fitting that I will need a whole new look for shows so this seemed like a good use for this piece of fabric, even though it was sad to take scissors to it. The last photo shows after I had trimmed it with a few inches of overhang on each side and used a staple gun to secure it tightly to the bottom of the table. It came out so good and will be the perfect work surface.

And look! Those are my T pins from college! Hence why they have my name written on them. I'm so excited to be using so many items and skills from my past to create this new product. I'm still deep in testing and prototypes, but working toward to complete overhaul of my etsy shop and launch of new product on February first. Stay tuned!

 

Robot Paper Dolls!

I have always loved paper dolls and thought it would be fun to change it up a little - with robots!

Supplies needed

Good, sharp scissors

Bone folder (not totally necessary, but good for making nice, sharp folds.

Tiny hole punch (again, not totally necessary, but makes great details like eyes and buttons

An assortment of fun papers (I used some old wrapping paper, kraft paper, graph paper and a bright colored printer paper. (Be sure to trim all the papers to 8.5 x 11 if they're not standard printer size)

First you'll use my handy dandy template to print the guidelines onto the backs of your papers. Next cut along the dashed lines and accordion fold on the vertical guidelines. Carefully snip around the outline of the robot, the mouth and chest piece. Next punch out the eyes and buttons and then carefully unfold and flatten! A little bit of tape behind the hands can string these little buddies together. Hope you like them! 

DIY painted floor

When we bought our house (a former chicken farmer's residence) in the summer of 2012 it needed a LOT of work. While the house it self was structurally in great shape, pretty much every surface needed attention, all walls, floors and ceilings. The most ambitious undertaking was the kitchen floor. The house is a typical 1930s cape, hardwood floors throughout, original unpainted wood trim, cute built in cabinets, etc. We managed to clean up and finish all the floors except the kitchen which was covered in a super gross linoleum. We took down a wall between the tiny kitchen and the dining room which did wonders to open up the space and set to work on that linoleum. We crossed our fingers we would find the same wood floor as the rest of the house when we started ripping that linoleum out, but no such luck. It was a wood floor, more like a sub floor made of planks, but not the same as the rest of the house. We considered all our options; putting in a new wood floor, tile, etc. but ultimately decided on paint. I had always loved a pained wood floor, and with my textile design background I was excited at the prospect of painting a patterned floor. I looked at lots of references online (so many good ones on Houzz!!) and started sketching on graph paper. I LOVE graph paper. We decided on a little geometric pattern of circles and I went to work measuring the floor and laying out the pattern on paper.

Here's a pretty good "before" picture, at this point we had just ripped out all the horrible old cabinets and moved out the appliances. On our side was the fact that it's a pretty small kitchen.

For the paint we used Behr heavy duty porch & patio. I measured out where the edge of the floor would land (since the pattern would stop when it reaches the pretty hardwood floor of the diningroom and laid down the first color, a creamy white.

These photos make the kitchen look ridiculously tiny, but in fact it is about 10' X 11' And man, did that white go down nicely!! Here's a pretty detail of the edge.

Now to keep the cat off of it until the next morning... Next step was the first of the two colors we chose for the pattern, we bought a gallon of a golden caramel color that we thought would compliment the natural hardwoods and then I mixed a bit of that with white to make the third color.

Here's where I ran into a major problem and almost ended up crying and drinking wine all night on the unfinished floor. I laid the pattern out by making a chalk line grid (you know those cool, snappy chalk line string things?) and then penciled in the circles using a template I made out of cardboard. I meticulously drew all those circles starting in the far corner. MISTAKE. When I got to the pretty edge where paint meets hardwood I realized that I was off on the pattern because I had started with a full circle instead of a half circle on the far wall. MATH. DAMN YOU! So, I resisted the urge to drink and cry and got a white eraser (you remember them from art school, right?) and I erased. the. whole. floor. Let me tell you it was an arm workout to be reckoned with. Then I redrew it correctly. then I pained it, freehand with a brush. Then I passed out for the night. Next, the last color!

DONE! Well sort of. After the final paint color we polyurethaned the hell out of it. In the year since this project was completed it's managed to hold up really well, I only wish we would have taken the time to actually do more coats of poly than we did (I think we did two). But I love it and get so many compliments on it. In the last year we've also done a full Ikea kitchen (our second), but that's a story for another time.....

Update!

Here's a photo of the painted floor, one year later + (nearly) finished Ikea kitchen.