More Craft Roundups: Butterflies, Pasta, and Rice

As promised, the next craft roundup I made after the previous batch was butterflies. We have over 100 butterfly craft tutorials at Fun Family Crafts, seven of which are mine. I chose my pretzel monarch butterfly cupcake toppers for the graphic. It's one of three edible crafts I featured, along with two that are wearable, and five that are decorative.

The next roundup I made is Pasta Crafts. None of the featured projects are mine; I've never made a craft from pasta. Well, not never. My mom has a few macaroni treasures from my very young years. But I haven't crafted with pasta since starting the blog. Now that I realized that, I'll be sharing a pasta craft soon.  

Finally, rice crafts for kids. Unlike pasta, I've made a lot of rice crafts... and even more Rice Krispie treat crafts! Five of the featured crafts use plain rice, while the other five are made with Rice Krispies. One of the projects is mine.  

Putting these together is so much fun! Not only do I love making the graphics, but seeing such a wide variety of crafts within a certain topic is very inspiring to me. 

Craft Roundups: Earth Day, Birds, Paper Plates, and Clay Pots

Time to share my latest craft roundups! I made all of these as part of my job as Editor of Fun Family Crafts. 

First, Earth Day. This one was tricky. Pretty much any craft that involves recycled items (newspaper, cardboard tubes, cereal boxes, lids....) or natural materials (leaves, rocks, pine cones, flowers...) could be considered an Earth Day craft. We have at least 9,000 crafts that fit into one of those categories, so I decided to narrow that way down and pick crafts that are literally about Earth. I ended up with a good assortment. My favorite is that Earth cake. Can you see what's inside? So clever!

Next, bird crafts. We actually already had a bird craft roundup on the site from many years back, so I didn't choose the featured birds. Instead, I used the previous ones on an updated graphic. 

Doing the paper plate craft roundup was fun because with over 300 tutorials, there were so many good options. As always, I tried to showcase the widest variety of crafts. That's my volcano at the top. You may have noticed that recently I've been putting one of the 10 featured crafts into the title block. That allows me to make a nice grid of 9 beneath it instead of a lop-sided grid of 10. 

Finally, clay pot crafts. A lot of the clay pot crafts we have involve painting or decorating the pots before planting something in them. I wanted to showcase some unexpected ways to use clay pots - the wind chimes, lighthouse, and beehives are perfect examples. 

As always, making these roundups is my favorite part of the job. I think the next roundup on my list is butterflies, so be expecting that in the next batch!

Roundups: Owls, Scarecrows, Fish, Beans, and Halloween

I've finished another batch of roundups for Fun Family Crafts. First, owls. We have 93 owl crafts and recipes on Fun Family Crafts... and 13 of them are mine. I was surprised that I had so many. I chose three of mine for the roundup. Can you spot them?

Scarecrows are another fall favorite. Of the 31 scarecrow projects at Fun Family Crafts, 3 are mine. One is in the roundup. 

Next, Fish Crafts and Recipes. We have 141 fish crafts on Fun Family Crafts and it was really hard narrowing down which to features. One of mine is on the graphic below; you can see all of my fish crafts here. 

Next I did Bean Crafts. This one was tough because a lot of bean crafts don't have visible beans (such as bean bags and noisemakers). I tried to pick the best mix of visible and hidden beans. One item on the graphic is mine. 

Finally, Halloween Crafts. We have over 1000 crafts, recipes, and costume ideas, so no matter what you're looking for, it's probably there. I used two of mine for the graphic. 

I'm constantly going through our crafts to make roundups that I think will appeal to our readers. If you have any ideas for roundups I should add, let me know in the comments!

The Latest Six Craft Roundups

Time to share another batch of craft roundups I've made for Fun Family Crafts! First, Barn Crafts for Kids. One is mine. Can you spot it?  

Cactus crafts are some of my favorites. One of the ones below is mine. As always, I made this graphic using PicMonkey. I've used it long enough that I'm developing some of my own hacks. For example, to make the sand for the title graphic, I started with a sand-colored rectangle, added a glitter texture, then faded the texture until it left just enough texture to mimic sand. Then I used the eraser tool to make an irregular edge. 

Next, Photo Crafts for Kids. Two of the ones below are mine, but neither one has photos of Trevor, Steve, or me. 

Next is Clown Crafts. Two of these are mine. 

Next, Pony Bead Crafts. None are mine. 

This roundup of Shark Crafts for Kids was my favorite to make. Two of the projects are mine. I really wish I'd thought up those socks. 

With the addition of these, we are up to more than 120 Craft Collections at Fun Family Crafts. It's fun seeing them all together. It also lets me see at a glance which graphics need updating (which remains my absolute favorite part of my job). Yea, PicMonkey!

A New Batch of Roundups

When I'm not working on My Creative Life, I'm busy running Fun Family Crafts. Here are the latest batch of kids' craft roundups, starting with Hot Cocoa Crafts and Recipes. I had a lot of fun putting this one together. One of my projects is in the graphic below. Can you spot it? 

We have over 100 Santa crafts at Fun Family Crafts. A few of those are mine, but only one is in the roundup. Do you see it? 

I love this adorable collection of colorful, googly-eyed turkey crafts. 

I didn't think of clocks as being seasonal until I started working at Fun Family Crafts. Clock crafts tend to get a lot of traffic this time of year because of their connection with New Year's Eve.  

Finally, cow crafts. I only used six projects in the graphic, despite the fact that we have way more than that on the site. A lot of the cow crafts on Fun Family Crafts are photographed as part of a group with other farm animals and couldn't easily be cropped to show just the cow. I think the 6-project graphic is still effective. 

As always, I made all the graphics using PicMonkey.   

A New Batch of Kids' Crafts Roundups

I've been busier than ever running Fun Family Crafts. It should come as no surprise that our traffic is way, way up as people have been searching for activities for kids to do during the COVID-19 pandemic. With almost 12,000 kid-friendly craft tutorials for toddlers through teens, it's no exaggeration to say we have something for everyone. 

My focus for the last few weeks has been on crafts that use materials that people likely already have at home. With that in mind, here are the new roundups I've been making. First, Cereal Box Crafts. There are 58 on the site right now. One of mine is in the graphic below. Can you spot it? 

Cereal Box Crafts

Next up, Button Crafts for Kids. We have 340 button crafts ideas, which made it really hard for me to pick which to include in the roundup. As always, I tried to choose the widest variety possible. One of mine is in there.  

Button Crafts for Kids

It took me forever to deal with the Styrofoam Ball Crafts for Kids. I had to delete several dozen of my favorites from someone who recently deleted her blog and thus all her tutorials. (I HATE when that happens.) Then I had to clean up the tags for all the styrofoam projects to pick out the stryfoam ball ones. And then I had to deal with the fact that styrofoam is actually a brand name (the proper generic is polystyrene). Crafters who work for styrofoam competitors tag their project with those brand names, which never get searched. In the end, I found 71 styrofoam ball crafts. One of mine is in the graphic below.

Styrofoam Ball Crafts for Kids

Next was Recycled Can Crafts. We have 84 different projects. Many are variations on classic desk organizers (like R2-D2 below), but there are many other uses as well. As always, I tried to show the greatest possible variety in the graphic. One of them is mine. 

Recycled Can Crafts for Kids

I had the most fun putting together the roundup of Yarn Crafts. Even though there were 434 crafts to choose from, the ones that were bright and colorful jumped right out at me and it wasn't as hard to narrow them down as it usually is with so many options. And I LOVE the way the title block came out. Two of the projects in this roundup are mine. 

Yarn Crafts for Kids

Finally, Garden Crafts. We have so many cute ideas. I think my favorite is using an old garden hose to make a wreath. So cute!

 Garden Crafts for Kids

As always, I made all the graphics using PicMonkey. I've been paying $6/month for their Basic plan for about 2 years and I couldn't be happier with it. 

Fall Roundups

It's been a long time since I've shared any Fun family Crafts roundups. Here are the latest ones I've done. You can click on each graphic to go to the post and find the tutorials. 

First, jack-o-lantern crafts. The graphic came together quickly and easily, but boy did I struggle with the text in the post! Should I use hyphens? An apostrophe? Spaces? Ack! At Fun Family Crafts, we use the tag "jack o lantern" on the back end for consistency, but use a variety of different spellings on the visible portion of the blog. I mixed things up throughout the text, hoping to capture a variety of search terms, but went with jack-o'-lantern for the graphic. One of these is mine. Do you recognize it?

When I made the graphic for the Mummy roundup, I intentionally chose projects with some color in them so that the entire thing wouldn't just be a wall of white with occasional eyeballs. Doesn't that pumpkin cookie mummy look delicious?! I would have chosen it even if it didn't have the bits of orange adding color to the photo. 

I just love fall colors, both in nature and in graphic design. When I made the graphic for the acorn roundup, I stretched one photo across three columns, making it a colorful header below the actual header. Not only do I love the way it looks, but it let me arrange the other nine photos into a perfect grid (and you all know how much I love a grid). 

When I looked through all 75+ ghost crafts we've featured, I was pleased with the variety. I was also impressed with how many were edible! Half of the ones below are edible - can you spot them? And speaking of spots, aren't the Charlie Brown brownies the cutest thing ever?

With 600+ fall-themed projects on the site, I was overwhelmed choosing just ten crafts for a fall roundup. I avoided anything that was more Halloween or Thanksgiving than fall, then tried to get a good assortment of materials, age levels, and subject matter. One project is mine... and I didn't even intend it to be for fall!

This roundup was all about pumpkins, as opposed to the earlier jack-o-lantern roundup. I made this right before lunch and it wasn't until I was pulling the pictures together that I realized practically every pumpkin craft I chose was edible! I made a few substitutions, leaving just four edible crafts. And then I had lunch. 

As always, I made these graphics with PicMonkey. It is so easy and they're constantly adding to their already-huge collection of fonts, graphics, frames, textures, and special features. I use PicMonkey for all of my photo editing as well. I absolutely love it! 

Announcements, Plans, and Random Tidbits

A lot has been going on at Casa deRosier. Trevor leaves at 3:00 am tomorrow for a school trip to Washington DC  and New York City. The 7th annual Bunny Week starts Monday. I'm prepping our first-ever trip to Europe, an 18-day, 6-country (7 if you count Vatican City, which I totally do) extravaganza. I have new work commitments with deadlines looming. I'm overwhelmed, but (mostly) in a good way. Today's post is a random collection of announcements and other things I've been wanting to share. There are affiliate links throughout the post.

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Bunny Week 2019

If you're a longtime reader of My Creative Life, you'll know that Bunny Week is an annual event in March. Starting on Monday, you'll get a week of bunny-themed crafts, layouts, and interesting tidbits about the Best Pet Ever. I've long explained Bunny Week as "Like shark week, only fuzzier," so you can understand why I laughed so much when I saw this shirt. The only thing that would make it funnier is if the carrot were a banana instead. Rabbits are crazy about bananas.

Plaid Ambassador

I'm very excited to announce that I am now an ambassador for Plaid, the makers of Folk Art paint (my all-time favorite), Mod Podge, and tons of other fabulous products! Expect to be seeing lots of fun tutorials using Plaid specialty paints and more. 

Roundups

It's been awhile since I've shared any roundups. These are the latest ones I've done. 

     

    

Travel Purchases

I've made a few travel-related purchases for my upcoming adventures. I bought a two-piece set of carry-on luggage in a gorgeous purple that is inexplicably $10-20 cheaper than the other five other colors of the exact same luggage, which are already crazy inexpensive. I love how it's simultaneously lightweight and sturdy. It has tons of room and rolls like a dream.

I also got a fabulous anti-theft purse. It has a bunch of bells and whistles - a locking zipper, secured pockets, slash-proof material with a cut-proof strap, RFID blocking, and more.

Finally, I got myself a two-in-one convertible pillow (changes from U-shaped to square-shaped) for the long-haul flights. I brought it with me in the car to Pinners Conference and it was nice and comfy. When it comes to flying, I'll happily do anything to make the trip even a little bit more pleasant. Tranquilizer darts come to mind, though apparently they're not especially safe or practical for humans. Too bad.

Prime Blogger Conference

Prime Publishing is hosting their inaugural blogger conference, taking place in Chicago in May and I'll be there! I'm really excited to return to the Windy City and take part in this event for craft and food bloggers. 

Not coincidentally, I am now an affiliate for FaveCrafts and Recipe Lion. Click the banners below to check out these fabulous free resources.

Giveaway!

I've already had two giveaways during in March and the fun isn't stopping! Return on Monday for another giveaway that you will not want to miss. No image for now so that I don't spoil the surprise!

October Roundups

I made six roundups this month as part of my job as Editor of Fun Family Crafts. As always, I made all of the graphics using PicMonkey (affiliate link).

First up: Kids Crafts for Special Days in October. We have several bazillion awesome Halloween crafts (ok, maybe more like 1200) so the first and most difficult step was narrowing them down to six of the most eye-catching images that screamed October. I didn't want it to be just Halloween, since there are lots of other crafting opportunities in October. I ended up choosing a witchy owl, my Ho Ho bat, Frankenstein cookies, leaf votives, craft stick jack-o-lanterns, and cheese dressed up as candy corn. I think it's a good balance, if a bit heavy on edible crafts.

I put together this roundup of Homemade Mummy Costumes in an effort to capitalize on the huge amount of traffic that one of our mummy costumes was receiving, and to help our readers see various options for mummy costumes in one place. I chose to showcase sewing and no-sew options for boys and girls, as well as a version for babies.

I made this roundup of The Best TMNT Costumes for Kids for the same reasons. One post was ranking very well, so I wanted to draw attention to our other options. I picked these four images for their variety.

I had so much fun putting together the roundup of Monster Crafts and Recipes. What can I say? I love googly eyes.

We had a Spider Crafts and Recipes roundup on the site already, but it was really outdated and needed to be refreshed. I love how it turned out. Two of the spider crafts are mine. Do you recognize them?

When I made the roundup of Kids Crafts for Special Days in November, I ran into the same problems as with October's. There are so many cute turkey and pilgrim crafts, but I didn't want the whole thing to be Thanksgiving. So I added Bert & Ernie (Sesame Street Day), an airplane (Aviation Month), and some bear cookies (Hug-a-Bear Day). 

I saved my favorite for last: Scrabble Crafts. I love Scrabble. I love Scrabble crafts. And, as it turns out, I love graphic design that involves Scrabble fonts. This one is a pin, not a roundup. 

Now I want to do some crafting, stat!