Trevor's First Layout

Trevor made his first scrapbook as a Tiger Cub requirement in October 2012. Despite how much he loved making it and how proud he is of it, he hadn't expressed an interest in scrapbooking since then... until last Sunday at 6:00 am. 

Trevor had so much fun roller skating on Valentine's Day and really wanted to make a page about it. Urgently. Right that very minute. At 6:00 am. I didn't have those prints yet, so I offered him the stack of printed photos to see if there was something else he wanted to document. He spread them all out on the floor and then started making piles. I handed him a stack of patterned papers, the trimmers, and some adhesive to use while I showered and made breakfast. When I checked on him, this is what I found:

He was so incredibly proud of it. He explained that he chose the two papers because the dots reminded him of Easter eggs. He chose the four pictures because two are of him dyeing eggs and two are of him hunting for eggs. He did his journaling on white so that it would be easy to read and in pencil in case he made a mistake and wanted to erase (which he did not).

He asked if I was going to put it in my album. I said that would be fine, or he could have his own album to put pages in if he's planning to make more. He said an enthusiastic, "YES!", so he now has his own album to house his pages. Hopefully I'll have more of his pages to share in the near future.

Styrofoam Koalas

My nephew Timothy recently returned from his Make-a-Wish trip to Australia. They had a fantastic time. I loved the reading the updates, seeing the photos, and hearing all about it. Here's Timothy, holding a koala. 

The real-life koala inspired these styrofoam koalas.

Materials: styrofoam balls, grey paint, grey felt, black felt, googly eyes, scissors, craft glue

Paint the styrofoam balls grey. The easiest way is by pouncing the paint onto the surface of the styrofoam rather than trying to brush it on. I chose to poke a dowel into each ball so that I could paint them in one sitting instead of doing one side and then the other. 

While the paint is drying, cut out grey ears and black noses and mouths. I laid the pieces out to check that I liked the proportions.

Once I was happy with the size of the ears, noses, and mouths, I rounded the inside edge of the ear pieces to match the curve of the styrofoam ball. Here you can see the difference between the rough shape (left) and the one I rounded (right).

Use strong craft glue to attach each of the facial features to the styrofoam ball, saving the ears for last. They will slump under their own weight if you don't hold them in place for a few minutes. After holding them for 2 or 3 minutes, the ears should stick without slumping. Allow them to dry completely without touching them.

When the koalas are dry, you can use them to decorate a favorite framed photo, like I did.

They also make really fun pencil toppers. If you used a dowel while painting them, there is already a perfectly-size hole in the perfect place!

Decoden Princess Scepter

Do you know what decoden is? One of the Make-and-Takes I did at CHA was called a Decoden Cupcake (scroll down to the bottom of the linked post to see it). It turned out to be my absolute favorite of the many, many Make-and-Takes I did. But it wasn't until I came home and looked up the word decoden that I learned why the cupcake project was called what it was. 

Unless you are literally reading my blog for the very first time, you know that I'm not a more-is-more crafter. My style is extremely clean and simple with very little embellishing. Which is why it surprised me to learn just how much I like to do decoden!

When I received my box of goodies from the FaveCrafts Blogger Event and saw the styrofoam balls, I knew I wanted to do a decoden project! I decided to make a princess scepter that would coordinate with the heart tie-dye shirt we gave Allison. Here's the finished scepter:   

Materials: FloraCraft Styrofoam Ball, dowel, Snow-Tex, craft stick, assorted sequins, extra-fine glitter, paint, Oly*Fun, and Aleene's Tacky Glue.

Begin by poking a hole in the styrofoam ball with the dowel. Then poke the other end of the dowel into a spare chunk of styrofoam so that it is supported upright. This will make it possible to apply sequins to all sides of the ball without making a giant mess. 

Use the craft stick to apply Snow-Tex to the surface of the styrofoam ball. Stick assorted sequins into the Snow-Tex so that they are firmly attached, but not buried. Try not to leave large gaps between sequins.

As soon as the ball is covered in sequins, sprinkle it with extra-fine glitter. The glitter will stick to the still-moist Snow-Tex. Let the Snow-Tex dry completely (I left it overnight). When it is completely dry, gently blow off any extra glitter and remove the dowel from the ball.

Paint the dowel pink. While it is drying, cut strips of Oly*Fun that are slightly longer than the dowel. I clipped them together with the amazingly-awesome Wonder Clips by Clover, which were also in the swag box. I don't sew, but I still have found a zillion uses for them in the 6 weeks I've had them. 

Put a generous amount of tacky glue in the hole at the bottom of the styrofoam ball. Remove the Wonder Clip and push the dowel and the Oly*Fun strips into the hole together. Poke the other end of the dowel back into the scrap styrofoam until it is dry. Then it's ready for the special princess in your life.

Heart Ombre Tie-Dye Shirt

Here's the final version of the ombre tie-dye shirt Trevor and I made using the Tulip Mini Tie Dye Kit. 

After setting the dye following the manufacturer's guidelines, we washed and dried the shirt. Then we played with a few ideas of how to embellish the shirt before settling on what you see. The large heart on the pocket is cut from Oly*Fun (one of the other awesome materials I received at the FaveCrafts Blogger Event) and hand-stitched in place with a simple running stitch. We added a pink button on top of that and a trio of heart buttons along the hem on the opposite side. So easy! It was a birthday gift for my niece, Allison. She liked it. Trevor was thrilled.

Moonlit Owl Canvas Bag

Remember the plain canvas bag that I dyed using the Tulip Mini Tie-Dye kit? The tie-dye kit was one of many items I received from the FaveCrafts Blogger Event at CHA. I used three other items from the huge box of goodies (Owl Stencil by Stencil1, Swarovski crystals and Aleene's Tacky Glue) to transform the dyed bag into this: 

What do you think? It's the first of four items that I made (so far) using items donated by the sponsors of the FaveCrafts Blogger Event. More tomorrow!