Rings.

Sometimes before Carleton and I go out on our dates, we stop in at Barnes and Noble to look at the books. A lot of times, I hit the craft section. I found a jewelry book with a cool idea for a ring. So I've been inspired to make rings lately. Here's what I came up with the other day (I'll post the one I made from the book another day):

Here's how I did it:

Materials Needed:
6 small round beads
Tiny beads (the ones that are on the inside of the hand and not seen too much)
String (I used a black, stretchy one that I found in the jewelry section of Michaels)

1. Cut 2 pieces of the string and put three beads on each (the beads that will make up the main part of the ring that people see).

2. Put the tiny beads (the ones that will be on the inside of your hand) on one of the strings. You can change the length later if you need more or less tiny beads.


3. Tie a knot on each side of the main beads to make a circle.

4. Bring the small beads around the back and tie a knot (it will be over one of the knots you made for the main bead earlier).

This is how the back of the ring will look. I made a side knot, just so I wouldn't see the knot in the back (the middle inside of my finger) but since nobody really sees that part of the ring, you could knot it there and it would be easier to make overall (not that they're hard).

Here's the finished product:


Here's one I did with turquoise beads:





Every Friday I get together with friends and craft while the kids play with toys at our church nursery. We made some rings together. These are just fun stones and beads I had and we used clear stretchy string. My ring cut into my finger a little so I would suggest using some tiny clear beads to connect on the back and just knot the string in the back (the back being the middle inside of your finger that isn't seen).

Shapes.




I thought this would be a fun project for Apollo and I to work on together. After we made them, we practiced naming them. He did a great job (he probably remembers them from the decorations more than the shape-but it's a great start). This would be a great project for anyone who babysits or a fun gift for or to make with kids. Here's what we did:


1. For most of the shapes, I Googled the shapes (eg. I put triangle outline) I wanted and clicked on "see full image" and copied and pasted it to a word file. There I made it the size I wanted and printed them off. The shapes I did were circle, moon, star, square, parallelogram, triangle, pentagon, hexagon, octagon, nonagon, decagon, and heart. I might have gotten a little carried away. My high school chemistry students had to learn them so I figured might as well teach him while he's young.




2. Cut them out of the paper and trace onto shoe boxes (cereal boxes or anything hard would work). Cutting them out was kind of a bugger.



3. Spray paint. It took a few coats.




4.Decorate. We used the glue to stick the stuff on and I also poured glue all over the top of everything so it would stay on better.



This was a great project because:
-it didn't have to look perfect
-it held the little one's attention because we used so many things to decorate
-he could help out
-we could use odds and ends from stuff we already had

Thanks to everyone who leaves comments, sends me emails, or tells me they follow this blog. It motivates me to post more stuff we do or make.

Magnets. More Cabin Crafts.

I've been wanting to make these for a while. My sister-in-law Kimberly, brought this idea. I think these will make great Christmas gifts. I've been collecting Altoid tins that I'll paint and decorate for a magnet holder (I'll post them when I make them).


Materials needed:
Clear Glass Beads- they're the flat kind people put in the bottom of vases for fake flowers. They come in bags at Michael's or other craft stores.
Mod Podge
Hot Glue-or any other glue to secure the magnet
Paper for picture-I found some cute pictures in a magazine or you can use cute paper
Flat Magnets-These come in a pack. We used smaller ones, but bigger ones work great too.


Directions:

1. Choose a picture to fit under the glass bead. You can do Christmas/Halloween ones, pictures of people, cutouts from magazines, or parts of cute paper. I found some cute retro pictures in a magazine to make some of mine. These flowers were cute.



2. Trace around the glass bead.


3. Cut out the picture and spread Mod Podge over the front of it-it will dry clear. Put the glass bead over the the picture that has Mod Podge on it. Press firmly and push out any bubbles you see. If there is any paper sticking out, just trim it off.


4. Flip it over and Mod Podge the back side of the paper. It will just make the back side look better and you can kind of seal the edges of the paper to the bead. When I cut pictures out of the magazines, sometime the backside didn't look cute so I cut out a cute piece of paper and Mod Podged it to the back (nobody really looks at the back but I did it anyways).


5. Hot glue the magnet to the back.


So fun. These can be addicting. My fav. was the one on the top right of the bird in the tree. Have fun. I would love to see any pics or hear from you if you make them.

Kiddo Crafts at Cabin.


Paper Plate Faces.
My friend, Eve, told me about familyfun.com. I got this idea from the Family Fun magazine. Here's how we made them:

1. We "shopped" for our materials in nature. We took the kids around the cabin to gather rocks, leaves, flowers, etc.


2. The artists went to work.
3. Then hot glued all of them on. Any glue would work but that's all we had.




Leaf Impressions.

Cameo had the idea to use the leaves we had picked to make these:




Edible Necklaces.

I got this idea from Babycenter.com. I brought some the cheaper version of Fruit Loops with licorice for the kids to string and eat.





Hair clips.

Kimberly brought these and made them for Annie and the other cousins. She took all of the plastic stem and other parts out of the flower and stuck some cute clear jewel looking things in the middle. She glued them all onto a clip. I clipped it onto one of Annie's headbands.





Table Settings.

We all took a night for dinner. I had my niece, Avery, decorate the table so with my sister-in-law Sloane, they picked flowers and put in the middle. We cut limes and put on the plates for the carne asada burritos.

Kids' table.




Activity Page.

My niece, Megan, likes to babysit so I told her about the activity I made for my babysitting kit when I was younger. Different games and activities are under pieces of paper. The kids flip the papers over and that's the activity that will be played. She did a good job. I'll have to make one for my kids.

Milk and Cookies.

My mom did this for one of my brother's friends as a thank you.



She made sugar cookies just small enough to fit in a big glass. She took puff paint to write "thank you" all over it. There is glass paint that will stay on longer that you can use. She found some cookie tins at Hobby Lobby to put the rest of the cookies in. Cute gift idea.

My new favorite thing.

I have to write a little about my nights off. I am loving them. I get Wednesdays and Carleton gets Thursdays (unless things come up and we switch days). We take care of kids, clean up dinner, and cook dinner on the other person's night off. We still eat as a family and do our little bedtime routine. It starts as soon as Carleton gets home from work. Usually Wed. is just another day but now I look forward to it all week.

Why I love my night off:
-It motivates me to get things done, like prepare a craft for the night and get the house clean so I can enjoy the night.
-I feel better and am a better mom.
-I use my time better doing things I love
-I ask for special favors from Carleton (I don't know how to put it another way). Like one night he serenaded Annie and me with the guitar. Another night I made a special request of sugar cereal instead of a meal.

Why I love Carleton's night off:
-I try to make his night special. Apollo and I experiment by making low cal desserts (from the Hungry Girl cook book).
-I get time to play with the kids. We've gone swimming, shopping, or just play.
-I like cooking a meal with Apollo for the family.
-I know he'll be busy that night so I always plan something fun for myself, too.
-Carleton says he loves it and looks forward to it.

Some things I've done on my night off:
-Craft with a friend
-Take a long bath with candles. I found all this cool stuff when we moved that I had not even opened -like this scalp calming aromatherapy stuff.?
-Read by the pool
-Work on my projects
-Eat Carleton's delicious meals he makes
-Blog
-Shop

Land that I Love.

I'm in love with Michaels. I bought a bunch of stuff to decorate the kids' stroller for the fourth. The kids are the main event and throw out candy.




I got these finger paints for a buck. We (I) painted a flag on aluminum foil and painted a mug. Apollo would turn it over and "stamp" the paper.



Fruit Pizza. My Aunt Susan, would make this for us when we got together for swim parties. Making it yesterday brought back good memories-still just as yummy.
Fruit Pizza Directions:
Crust:
1/2 C margarine
1/2 C Crisco
1 1/2 C sugar
2 eggs
2 3/4 C flour
2 t cream of tarter
1 t soda
1/4 t salt

Cream Cheese Frosting:
8-12 oz soft cream cheese
1 1/2 C powdered sugar
3 T pineapple juice

Topping:
Sliced fruits of your choice
I used raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries and dipped them in white chocolate. To make the melted chocolate I added a little water to white choc. chips and put it in the microwave until it melted. I put the left over choc. chips on the pizza.

Mix first 3 crust ingredients, and then mix in the remaining crust ingredients. Spread around a greased cookie sheet and bake at 400 degrees for 10 min. Refrigerate. Top with frosting then fruit.

I threw a shower for Lacey, and her mom brought this:
It's beautiful. She said it was pretty intense to make. I thought it would be good to just buy a cheesecake at Costco and use this picture as inspiration.


Here's a trifle her mom brought. Another beautiful dessert. Lacey sent me the recipe and it calls for fruit, shortbread, and a strawberry mixture. My favorite strawberry mixture is just strawberry yogurt, cream cheese, and cool whip.