Water Bottle Flowers and Window Makeover

I bought this little window frame for $6 on my big garage sale trip 2 months ago. I forgot to take a pic of it before I started priming it, but it was this dingly old red color.

I have been wanting to hang a window frame above Iris’ play kitchen in the playroom forEVER and I was so thrilled when I found this! Another project I have wanted to try was this recycling water bottles into flowers!!! There is a tutorial there, but for some reason Mod Podge just didnt do the job well this time. I ended up using it just since I already got it everywhere, but I hot glued all the fabric down. Im sure it was due to the texture of the fabric I was using.

Anyway, here it is!

I put some tissue paper in the bottom tray, and threw in a few pieces of Easter grass with flowers on it. The can on the left was just a soup can I wrapped with scrapbook paper.

I hot glued those colorful craft sticks I told you about, and used them as the stems. The white beads around the center was leftover from a project a couple of years ago. The pink middle is just fabric wrapped around the water bottle lid. And in case you havent looked at that tutorial yet, I cut the top portion of a water bottle off, made 5 slits in it all the way up to the lid, and curled the petals out. After gluing on the facric, I cut the petals to be more rounded. But definitely go look at the tutorial.

Pretty cool huh?? Here it hangs above Iris’ little kitchen area. I think Im going to create something that will allow her to hang her artwork from the top.

Watermelon Party!

Iris asked me this morning if we could have a “watermelon party” and who wouldnt LOVE to do that?!

I started brainstorming ideas, and I found out that Ausust 3 is “Watermelon Day” so feel free to host your own watermelon party in just a few weeks!

You would think that part of a watermelon party would include eating watermelon, right? Well, thats where I like to keep you on your toes, because no, we didnt eat watermelon. Ours was sour. BOOOO!!!!

But here are the activities we did this morning:
Watermelon tambourine with a paper plate
Potato paint prints in watermelon shapes
Watermelon magnet
Felt watermelon seed game
Sang a watermelon song

First, I had Iris color the outside of a paper plate while I cut a potato and prepared her paints. She filled the inside of the plate with dry elbow noodles and beans, and we hot glued it shut. Then, of course, I drew on the cute little black seeds with a Sharpie.

Here she is trying to take a bite out of it. a “pretend bite”.

She has only done potato prints once, and it wasnt successful, but this one turned out better. She printed the watermelon pieces using the potato and red finger paint. Then she drew a green line underneath for the rind. I havent gotten to draw the seeds on yet because its still pretty wet.

Then I used some red and green craft foam! I cut them in the shape of a watermelon and rind, drew on the seeds, and let Iris put a magnet on the back. She was pretty thrilled.

This was our favorite- the seed game. I had a piece of cardboard that I glued red felt onto. I had to change it up a bit, so theres a huge bit mark at the top. Ha! Then I cut out 10 little black felt seeds for her to count, take off, put on, line up, whatever! I plan on doing more felt pieces like this and turning them into a book for car rides.

*ahem* notice the upside down plate and all the crums. She and Legend shared some banana nut bread in my room apparently…

Then we sung a watermelon song. It goes like this (sing to the toon of “Are You Sleeping?”).
Watermelon, watermelon,
On the vine, on the vine.
Green and ripe and juicy,
Green and ripe and juicy,
Please be mine!
Please be mine!

Enjoy your watermelon party!!

Puppets and Easter Egg Tea Cups

Remember around Easter time, I told you to save those Easter Eggs?! Well I hope you did! I found this blog a few months ago, and this idea is just brilliant. I actually made ours right after Easter, but I just realized I forgot to take pictures and post them. So here are ours! I used buttons for the cup stands, and odds and ends for decorations. Iris plays with these all the time, though I try to just keep them as decorations because the bottoms keep coming off! Grrrr!

Remember our new puppet theater? What good is a puppet theater without puppets!! Well, really, we use it as a bookstore more than anything, but Ive been wanting to make puppets for awhile now. While I figure out how to do the more difficult ones, I made some for Iris today that took all of 10 minutes.

For these three, I had the little wooden cut outs from Michaels, just in my craft room. And I bought those decorative craft sticks on clearance for about $1 at Hobby Lobby ages ago. I actually thought they were real wood, and I was going to turn them into bangle bracelets (have you SEEN those?! Oh man, theyre amazing!) but these are more like super thick cardboard. I just glued them on. Easy Peasy.

I had forgotten that I had wooden spoons in one of my craft boxes until Iris dug them out. She wanted a little princess, so we made one!

And just for giggles, we made a pink fish out of a toilet paper roll, 2 pieces of felt, 2 googly eyes and ribbon for the tail. We got a kick out of it.

I also made her a telescope out of a paper towel roll, but Ill have to take pics of it later. She ran off with it and stashed it, so no tellin’ where it is now!

PS, is anyone else ready for fall?!?!

Diaper Box Car!

I am never short of diaper boxes around here, so I have started finding uses for them instead of throwing them in the recycling bin. Iris keeps saying she wishes she had a car to get her from one room to the other- why her feet no longer do the job alone, I dont know. But today, we made her a car, and she is happily cruising from room to room, or house to house as she says.

I had a little bit of pink-ish paint left over from something else, and I dont even remember what it was, but it covered this diaper box well, and she loved it. Then I took a paper plate and used a brad pin to go through the middle. I spraypainted 4 styrofoam cirles left over from her Candy Land birthday party, and put brads in the middle of those too. On the opposide side, where the brads popped through, I secured them by putting packaging tape over them, so no one gets poked.

I had to cut the flaps from the top of the diaper box, but I spray painted them and used them for the rear view mirrors that I hot glued on the side (hard to see in this pic) and taped for extra support. I also used a piece for the license plate here on the back. We covered the sides with butterfly and lady bug stickers. And we Mod Podged strawberry scrapbook paper on the front and back as the lights. Of course this was HER creation!

I hot glued this really pretty thick ribbon I had left over from another project to strap over her shoulders. I originally glued it evenly in the back, but it fell off her shoulders, so I re-glued the ribbon closer together in the back. There’s those rearview mirrors!!

Here she is picking out what toys she is going to take with her on her car ride!

And she’s off!

That was a fun morning project. Let’s hope Baby doesnt destroy it. Its not exactly insured. Hehe!

Flowerpot Thimble Necklace

I signed up for Craftaholics Gift Exchange!

So for the month of June, I was matched up with someone from another part of the world, and we emailed each other back and forth to learn a little about each other. I found out that my partner loved gardening and sewing. Dont we all?? 

I found an idea a couple of months ago on The Wind and the Sail and I thought this would be the perfect chance to make it!

I LOOOOVE the thimble necklace in the example, but I was worried that the pins would be too long and possibly come out while wearing it. And I love the green grass but I didnt want it to come out of the thimble.

So for mine, I cut my pins down to be a bit shorter, and I put the string inside the thimble a little bit. You cant see it unless you are up close, but I think it will last longer around children. I loved it so much I made one for myself!

I hope she doesnt read this before I send it to her!!

Disney Summer Badges!

I got a super good deal on Tanga.com for a year’s worth of Disney Family Fun magazines for $2 last month, and when I got my first issue, my mind was racing with all the fun ideas! It is by far my favorite magazine EVER. Ok, besides Cloth, Paper, Scissors. That one is pretty amazing too. And US Weekly. What?! Leave me alone!!

For their 20th anniversary of their magazine, they are encouraging readers to do activities once a month and receive a badge for it! Well, Iris is too young for Girl Scouts and all that, so this is the next best thing! If you dont receive the magazine, you can still follow the activities here.

This month, we were supposed to do 1 of  3 outdoor activities. We chose to paint rocks- its easy and kept her occupied for a bit. But our rocks are a little small, so instead of leaving them on the ground, I wrapped them in wire and hung them in the yard. Then she got to put her first badge on our poster! Good job, girl!

   

While they dried, we made a peanut butter sandwich face.

And this is how I distracted her from Snow White for the morning.

Mod Podged Theater Revamp!

A few weeks ago, I told you all that I went garage saling and came home with a TRUNK full of goodies that I planned on fixing up. This little theater needed some help, but they gave it to me for FREE. I knew I could fix it up!

Iris and I havent really played “puppet show” or “theater” yet; though I do plan on learning to make some fun puppets in the near future. But she loves to pretend she is at a bookstore or a restaurant or a bakery or a hair salon… So I wanted to make something that would be appropriate for any place she wanted to pretend to be.

The challenge was that this project needed to be done for free with things only found around the house. And I was out of a lot of supplies I planned on using so I improvised. Here is the final product!

Let’s just start at the top. I used my all time favorite product- Mod Podge to glue different shapes of scrapbook paper on the top. I didnt want it to say “theater” anymore, since we would be using it for different things. Then I hot glued clothes pins along the yellow wood strip so that the kids could put different props there. On the left, I hung a star from a string. And I put a gemstone in the middle of the star, just for a little extra bling-bling. The “Welcome” sign was a piece of wood from Hobby Lobby that I had laying around. I spray painted it blue and wrote “Welcome” across it. Its just clipped on there, so it can be removed. I had scrap fabric, and I think it worked well as the new curtain pieces!

On either side, I hot glued more clothes pins, and hung little plastic buckets I got ages ago at the Dollar store. there are little plastic hooks along the back, so I put elastic hair bands in there and glued them in place. Then just hung them up! I put chalk and magnets in each bucket.

Its a little hard to tell in this pic, but I glued little magnetic strips along the yellow strip and put fun magents on there. The background that used to show that creepy clown was painted green, and I hung a chalkboard over it. I REEEEALLY wanted the entire bottom portion to be painted with chalkboard paint but I was out of it. I had already made this chalkboard awhile ago, and it wasnt being used, so I decided to use it here! Then I cut a square out of a rag, glued a piece of velcro on the back and put another piece of velcro on the green backing. Voila! A rag to wipe the chalkboard! Brilliant, I know. Now we can write whatever we want!

Iris wanted to sell a book to her brother. Oh! When I asked her how much her book was, she said, “20 months.” I just happened to have 20 months in my pocket. Silly girl….

Legend loves it too! He gets to eat chalk! YUMM!! (Disclaimer: I took the chalk away. Calm down.)

I think it turned out fabulous! They just love it!!!!

Mod Podge bench from a garage sale!

Saturday, I went garage saling with my friend Kimberly. I kind of had a few ideas of what I was looking for, plus 3 things I absolutely HAD to find! I found all the things I HAD to have, plus way more! The trunk was FULL of fun stuff, so stay tuned to see how I fix up all our fun treasures.

One thing I found was a white bench for $3. The stickers didnt want to come off, and I didnt care for the white, but I knew I could fix it up.

I spray painted it green and then Mod Podged the seat and the arm rests. It was super easy! Its going in the play room that Im redoing, and these are the colors I think I like best- red, orange, green and turquoise. (But I didnt use turquoise here.)

We stinking love it!!!

Thankful

For some reason, Texas thought it would be fitting to be 50 degrees in May, and I would just like to thank it because my children are running (and crawling around) in clothes that are too small since we are all supposed to be playing outside in shorts and t-shirts.

However, in light of the recent world events, I must say, I am beyong grateful that I am safe. That my babies are safe at home with me. And that I can kiss and hold them whenever I want to. My heart breaks deeply for those who dont have that same comfort on a daily basis. I often fall asleep praying for their peace of mind and healing.

The house is clean and laundry is done, so Im also happy to sit in my warm home, with my fuzzy penguin socks, my cup of coffee and some classical music playing while I wrap Iris’ birthday presents. Deeply thankful to our troops and proud of our country when we are able unite.

PS, these bows and wrapping paper were handmade. I got most of the bows from Kiwi and Kiki.

 

Thrift Store Vase

Nathan and I went to my FAVORITE Goodwill last weekend. We dont go too often because its kind of far away, but I found so many great things I cant wait to fix up! This vase was $4. Its huge, super old, and too amazing to leave on a store shelf. The sticks were from my overgrown crape myrtle in the backyard. I just spraypainted them gold. And Iused tissue paper to wind around the sticks at the bottom to hold them in place. It took all of 7 minutes to make. I love it!