{crafting for the New Year}

Throwing a New Years party??? Why not trying incorporating clocks and countdown numbers. All instructions found here. They have a huge bucket @ Whole Foods full of corks and I bet they would donate a few to the corkless crafter:-)

Also homemade party blowers would be a nice touch too. Found here.

nautical nonsense in a bottle {erasers & toothpicks}

With school coming to a close this Momma has already had to deal with the whole, "Mom I'm bored, there is nothing to do" thing. We have been scrambling over at our place to keep the girls entertained. I did set a goal to try and find one new craft to do every week so we'll see how that one pans out. So far though our TV has gotten so much usage since schools been out that I think it almost over heated....BAD MOM.

Anyway with our family planning to go to the beach soon I thought it would be cool to get the girls all pumped up for our upcoming trip by incorporating something along those lines. I had once seen somebody who had made Christmas snow globes out of baby food jars so that's when a "beach in a bottle" started to formulate in my brain. The only problem was how were we going to construct it. I first needed to find miniature pieces that could get wet. Once I had settled on sand dollars and starfish, how in the world were we going to get them to stay put in the bottle just right. So one night as I started to drift off the thought came to me "erasers & toothpicks". That is how this craft came to pass.

Supplies needed:

baby food jars

epoxy glue

glycerin

miniature objects to display (I found the mini sand dollars @ Michaels by all of the other sea shells)

eraser

toothpicks

spray paint (optional)

trims (I already had mine from all of my trim hoarding ways, I just knew I would need them sometime)

First spray paint the lids to the jars. Then glue the miniature pieces to the toothpicks and let dry. Next glue the erasure piece to the inside of the jar lid and let dry. Take your miniature pieces on toothpicks and push into the eraser. Then fill the clean baby food jar with water and a few drops of glycerin and glitter (so far my favorite glitters have been carrara marble coarse and crystal coarse,both by Martha Stewart). Lightly glue the inside of the lid and screw it on tight. Now take trim and glue it around the lid. Now play with it before you give it to the kids because you'll never get it back. The girls have already put them by the sides of there bed so that they can dream of their sea-side adventures.

***Pls. send any links or ideas for crafting with kids over my way. I would forever be grateful. I do have the admit the actual part of making the snow globes is not as kid friendly as I would have liked because of all of the heavy duty glue. I think I let the girls push the toothpicks in and that was it. They sure liked the end result though.

crowns for your crown {crown headband tutorial}

Want to make a crown?  Perhaps for a little girls birthday party or just because...

They would make cute cheap party favors too.

Just start out with some lace pieces.  There is a great tutorial here.  I actually switched mine up because I couldn't find the gold leafing powder that it called for and I made some into a headband.  There is a gold leafing liquid located by all of the leafing supplies @ either Micheals or JoAnns.  Really all you will need are paintbrushes, wax paper, modge podge, gold acrylic paint and the gold leafing paint (gold leafing paint really gives the crown a metallic finish).

Place the lace on the wax paper.  Then paint it with the acrylic paint.  After it has dried on both sides, then Modge Podge it.  You will want to apply at least a few coats & fully saturate.  After it  is dry then bust out the gold leafing liquid and apply.  Once dried you can attach some ribbon with heavy duty craft glue and some of the velcro circles to help keep the crown in place.

(the hard side of the velcro, not the soft circles)

Also I didn't use the gold leafing on the back of this crown but in my opinion they look better if you do.

Ta duh, now you've got yourself a crown headband.  Go wild!

If you really want to have control, then may I suggest wearing a crown around the home.  After you put it on act very serious so that everybody knows you mean business.  It works.  I put it on & the kids busted out in song and it went something like, "Clean up, clean up, everybody clean up"  All while I sat on the couch and read a book.  It was magical.  Now just don't try to come over to my home to see if it really did work because I would hate to disappoint.  Ha!

In all reality the girls love their crowns.

Thank you to the bitterbetty blog for the idea.

{pinwheel party}

I'm quite smitten with all of the details and the colors of the party that Sharnel threw for her 

son's 4th birthday.  

For all of the details go here.

For some reason I just got a huge carmel popcorn craving. I'm going to have to look into

that one for sure.

Also great tutorial for the pinwheels here.

Parisian chic

You know the friend that sometimes hears my kids scream really loud...well she is decorating a little girl's bedroom on a budget. She wanted it to have a Parisian flea marketish feel. The below 3 images initially went through my brain as I recalled Molly Sim's SoHo loft featured in In Style Home a few years back. She actually went with the designer on the project to France to hit up some flea markets & then found many of the other items on Ebay.

more inspiration photos...

my friend also mentioned she would like to make some ruffled pillows....

so here's a great tutorial that Mer Mag did over on kelly + olive:

and if that weren't enough go here for another adorable pillow tutorial:

{image 1,2,3 via decor8, image 4,5 via Homes & Gardens , image 6 unknown}