#MICHAELSMAKERS: DIY Faux Marble Tray Using Shaving Cream!!

This month's challenge was "Make It Your Own".  So, what did I do?  I took a craft that my mom does with her preschool class and made it my own. But, even though I turned this fun craft into a classy piece of home decor, this is still a GREAT craft to do with your kids. It's the perfect DIY if you want to get a little messy, but it has an easy clean up and the results are SO cool!  I mean, who would have thought to use shaving cream as a medium to make a marble pattern?

Supplies:

1. Wooden Tray (this one is actually considered a plaque, but serves my purpose!)
2. Cardstock
3. Shaving Cream
4. Black Ink (or watercolors)
5. A ruler or a square
6. A paint brush
7. Scissors
8. Paint or stain for your tray
9. Mod Podge (I chose the dishwasher safe gloss)
10. Leather scraps
11. Screws and a drill
12. A dropper
13. Tiny jar or vessel to hold ink / paint

1 - Lay down a piece of parchment paper and cover an area the size of your card stock with shaving cream

2 - Use your dropper to disperse your color on top of the shaving cream

3 - Press your sheet of card stock into the shaving cream, moving it about

4 - Peel up your paper and set it on a fresh sheet of parchment paper

5 - Now you are going to squeegie the shaving cream and color off of the paper with your ruler or square

6 - Now I wanted a little more variation with my layers and shades, so I did this a second time, but used a more diluted mixture of ink and water.  If you are using colors, you can do more than one color at a time and forego the repeat

7 - Once you have your pigment on your page the way you'd like, lay it flat and cover with something heavy to keep the edges from curling while it dries

8 - Next, paint or stain your tray while the page is drying

9 - Take your leather scrap and cut two strips to use as handles and screw into sides with a drill and small screws.

10 - Once your page is dry, cut to size and then Mod Podge the heck out of it!  

An InLinkz Link-up

DIY Lunch Notes with Cricut Explore One

As I'm sure a lot of you already know, Michaels recently released a brand new Cricut - the Cricut Explore One.  I had the opportunity to try out the machine to create these adorable Frozen Lunch Notes!

This Cricut comes with the free Cricut Design Space software that allows you to cut printable images, upload your own images and fonts, and has 25+ free 1-click projects and 50+ free images built in.

I decided to make these little lunch notes for my sisters-in-law to put in my nieces and nephews lunches.  My mom always used to put little Suzy Zoo notes in my lunches for me and I adored it.  I still have some of them!  These are most definitely more extravagant than what we had back in the day, but so worth it if you have the Cricut!


I decided to do the multi-layer images because... well, they're fun.  I cut down on the number of colors in them, though... one feature I love about the Design Space software.  You can sort and group the coloreds pieces for cutting.

I also love that the software is cloud-based.  So you can work on your ipad, then finish up on your computer.  It's SO convenient!

Another thing that I find AMAZING about this machine is that it can cut felt AND leather! Whaaaaat?  I will for sure be utilizing that feature in the future.  I have some very cute leather cuff ideas floating around in my head.

 Now of course, I chose some of the most intricately detailed designs available in the Frozen cartridge... just a word to the wise.. don't use these ones unless you're doing them on a large scale.  I did them WAY too small and had to leave some of the details out.  I'm still happy with the result, fortunately... you can still tell it's Elsa and Anna!  What are your favorite projects to use your Cricut for?

Mother's Day Card with Detachable Flower Brooch

Mother's Day is coming up, and you know what that means - breakfast in bed, massages, no dishes to clean, and an afternoon of sewing all to myself without someone whining for a snack! At least, that's what I want for Mother's Day. That and a cover stitch machine. A girl can dream, right?

This month's Michael's Makers post is all about celebrations, and I chose to celebrate Mothers. Mother's Day is a wonderful time to give special recognition to the women in our lives with love and appreciation for all that they do, and traditionally that involves giving Mother's Day cards, so I wanted to come up with a card that is more than it seems.

I'm actually not at all a card person at all. I never buy them. I appreciate the gesture, but I personally don't like to buy something that I know will get thrown away almost immediately. This card is different though - it has a detachable brooch that Mom can wear! I love that I am able to give a card that says all the wonderful things I want to say to my Mom, but has the bonus of something she can wear to show my love too.

SUPPLIES: cardstock in 2 colors (one for the card and one for the rose), vellum paper, jewelry pin, foam adhesive craft circles, paper trimmer, scissors, hot glue, craft glue.

Making The Rose:

ONE: first, use a bowl or something else circular to trace and cut out a circle from your pink card stock.
TWO: you can draw a swirl on your circle or just freehand it like I did. Start on the outer edge and cut a swirl until you reach the middle.
THREE: leave a little circle in the middle of your rose (we will use this to apply glue to hold your rose in place later.)
FOUR: here's what your rose should look like so far!

FIVE: starting at the outside edge, begin to tightly roll your rose.
SIX: keep rolling...
SEVEN: when you reach the center of your rose, it should look like this.
EIGHT: poke your pin through the center of your rose as shown.
NINE: cut a small circle from your card stock and apply it over the base of your pin. Secure with hot glue over the flat part of your pin.
TEN: allow your rose to uncoil slightly. Put a generous amount of hot glue at the center of your rose to secure in place.

Assembling the Card:

ONE: cut a piece of vellum to size. I made mine as long as my card, but left a couple of inches at the top and bottom.
TWO: secure the vellum to your card using crafting glue (don't go crazy with the glue or you will get lots of wrinkles! Trust me on that one ;) Allow your card to dry.

THREE: poke a hole through the top layer of your card using another pin (or something similar) where your rose will go. 
FOUR: insert your rose through your card and secure on the inside with the back of your pin.



FIVE: cut out your M's (I used my Silhouette Cameo for this, but you can buy or cut your letters by hand.) Place your foam adhesive dots on the back of your letter.
SIX: peel off the backing and attach your M's on either side of your rose.

SEVEN: finally, I tied a piece of ribbon in a bow and hot glued it to the front to complete the card.

Now fill your card with lots of love about Mom...

...and on top of your sweet words in your handmade card, Mom will have a detachable brooch that she can wear with pride on Mother's Day! That's my kind of card.

I hope you enjoy! The rose is so easy to make, you could even get the kids into it and make a card for Grandma. Happy Mother's Day!

An InLinkz Link-up

A Grown-Up Paper Plane Birthday Party

Last weekend we celebrated my husband's birthday.  It was a last minute celebration that I threw together.  I wanted something fun, but classy.  Something easy an inexpensive, but that looked like it took me hours and hours to plan.  Isn't that really the goal for any party thrown?  I settled on paper airplanes.  I'm not entirely sure where this idea came from, but once I started working on it, it came together seamlessly!  I bought an old outdated atlas from Half Priced Books to make some planes, threw a globe in the mix and used my vintage film canisters to give the table some dimension.  For the cupcakes, I tried to make the frosting look like clouds that the planes were hovering above.  All in all, I love how it turned out!

We had such a blast with our families and having all the kiddos running around torturing our poor animals.  Needless to say, we all passed out around 9pm after all the craziness subsided.  It was so worth the exhaustion, though!

Check out our Link Party Page to see where we link up each week!

PARTY: Tangled Party Games {Tangled Birthday Party}

--Click HERE to see all Tangled-related posts and DIY's--

This birthday party was so different for me because her past few birthdays have consisted primarily of family and close friends. This year, we allowed Haley to invite her whole preschool class, so I was a little intimidated because I knew I had to entertain a mass of children. I also had the added challenge of making sure the games weren't too "girly" since more than half of her schoolmates are boys. After scouring blogland for inspiration, and coming up with a few ideas myself, I decided on 4 different games/activities that turned out to be a lot of fun (and they're preschool friendly!)

1. Pin the Nose On Flynn Rider
I've seen this one on several blogs before (sorry, but I'm not sure where it originated. If you do, please let me know so I can cite appropriately!)

I had a second engineer print made, just as I had for the "wanted" photo booth HERE, but this time I didn't cut out the middle. The poster was simply taped to the wall with tape.

I found the noses online by googling "nose caricatures." After sorting through a bunch of nonsense, I found this page full of perfect noses on everyonecandraw.net. I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut them out on card stock.



I put double sided tape on the back of the noses, and each child was blindfolded and instructed to try to "pin the nose on Flynn Rider." The kids got clever on me and, as they went to "pin" the noses on, they felt with their fingers where the other kids had taped the noses so they all got the noses right in the middle so everyone got prizes :)

2. Feed Pascal:

For this game, I found the template and tutorial on how to make cute Pascal party blowers on DisneyFamily.com. I then attached some adhesive velcro to the tip of Pascal's "tongue" and adhered the other side of the velcro to some fruit images I printed out. 

The kids were then challenged to use Pascal's tongue to pick up as many pieces of fruit as they could in under a minute. 

3. Tangle a Friend
(No picture because we didn't get to this one.) I partnered the kids up and gave each partner a roll of yellow streamers. The kids were told to tangle their partner up in the streamer as fast as they could. The child who tangled up his partner the fastest won a prize.


4. Make Your Own Lantern
I purchased a stack of colored card stock and adhesive foam shapes and allowed the kids to decorate their own lanterns. I also brought my daughter's supply of stickers, markers and crayons from home. When the kids were done, I used a hole punch to punch 2 holes in the top and attach clear line to hang. Easy and cute!

I will say, after all the preparation I did for the games, the kids were too busy making their own fun (which was great!) so we were only able to do 2 of the games. Next time, I think I'll stick to a craft and 1 game. 

 

    Check out our link party page to see where we link up each week!

PARTY: Wanted Poster Photo Booth {Tangled Birthday Party}

--Click HERE to see all Tangled-related posts and DIY's--

I thought it would be a lot of fun for both the kids and parents to have a photo booth at Haley's Tangled party.  The kids are finally at the age where they like to dress up and pretend, plus I thought it'd be a fun keepsake for the parents to take home with them.

Since Flynn Rider's wanted posters show up several times in Tangled, I immediately pictured the kids posing behind a wanted poster. But how to make one the size I wanted without making it look corny? Mandy of Sugar Bee Crafts posted a great tutorial last year on how to make a giant picture by ordering an engineer print from your local office store, so that's exactly what I did.

I found the Flynn Rider poster HERE and used Photoshop to change it to black and white and remove the "wanted dead or alive part." I wasn't sure how parents would feel about that part ;)
 

From there, I went to my local FedEx Kinkos and had them print the smallest engineer print they had (I believe it was an 18x24) in black and white for only $0.75/foot. They do print engineer prints in color as well, but the cost is $8/ft. and I wasn't feeling like spending that much for something I was about to cut up. I used spray adhesive to mount it to foam board (found at Walmart) and then I used my X-Acto knife to trim the edges and cut out the middle.  Clear line and packing tape was all I needed to hang the poster from the ceiling so the kids could stand behind it for pictures.  

As you can see, Haley loved it:

For the props, the only dress up stuff that I had on hand is princess gear - and  I knew the boys would hate that - so I opted for paper props instead. I found the awesome printables on Oh Happy Day! HERE and HERE. Jordan saved my butt, I was about to try to design my own and they wouldn't have looked near as good as hers! I simply glued them to wooden skewers and let the kids model away.

We simply hung the sign from the ceiling with clear wire and packing tape. As you can see, the kids loved it!

C heck out our link party page to see where we link up each week!