Donut Birthday Banner (Happy Birthday, Trevor!)

Today is Trevor's 15th birthday! 

We're keeping the celebration very low-key this year. Besides the fact that the things Trevor would most like to do to celebrate (ice skating and teppanyaki) aren't open because of COVID, it's a school day. Specifically, he has finals for three of his classes, with the other three finals tomorrow. Tonight he has a Scout meeting. And, while he had his second vaccination on Friday, he doesn't feel comfortable seeing friends or family in person until after the two weeks have passed. 

Since I wanted his day to be special, I surprised him with a theme I knew he'd love: donuts.

Here's how the banner looked strung across his bedroom door this morning. Such a fun surprise! I have other donut-themed surprises planned for him throughout the day.  

Donut Birthday Banner

Materials:

• chipboard
• scissors
• Folk Art paint
• cardstock scraps
• tacky glue
• yarn

Steps:

Cut out five circles from chipboard. Do not go to any effort to make them perfect, as donuts are often irregular. Then cut five circles that are slightly smaller than the first circles. These will be the icing and should be even more irregular than the donuts. 

Paint each of the icing circles. I chose to paint two white, one a chocolate brown, one pink, and one a mint green. 

When the paint is dry, decorate the donuts with toppings of your choice. I tore black cardstock to make Oreo chunks for one of the white donuts, cut brown cardstock to make chocolate chunks for the mint donut, cut brown cardstock fudge ribbons for the pink donut, and snipped a rainbow of cardstock scraps to make sprinkles for the chocolate and the remaining white donuts. 

Glue the toppings in place, then use the scissors to cut out an oval hole in the icing. 

Then cut matching holes in the donut bases. Glue the icing to the bases. When the glue is dry, cut a length of yarn to string the donuts. I taped them to the yarn for this photo... 

... then changed my mind and tied them on the yarn before putting the banner on Trevor's door. To me, they look more realistic this way, since that's the way you'd hang actually donuts along a string. 

In case you're wondering, I made the sign using PicMonkey. (Was there any doubt? I doubt it!) Anyway, happy birthday, Trevor!

Crayola Crayon Coloring: California

I'm a big fan of everything Crayola. I loved my Crayola crayons and markers as a kid, and I still love them as an adult. I love the newer products they've added since my childhood, particularly Model Magic. How much do I love Crayola? I added a day to our time in Pennsylvania in order to detour to Easton, home of the World's Largest Crayon and Crayola Experience. It was awesome. 

Because I'm such a fan, I jumped on the chance to become an affiliate for Crayola. (Affiliate link here, obviously, and throughout the post.) Eager to see if they had any new products of which I wasn't already aware, I poked all around the Crayola site. And that's when I found a treasure trove: Crayola's free coloring pages. There are a bunch of categories, like Disney, Seasons, and Animals, but it was Places that called to me. They have flags, maps, and symbols for most of the countries of the world and all 50 states. These printable pages have instructions for coloring the flags and symbols accurately. 

I printed out this page about my home state of California, then got happily to work using my Crayola crayons to color the Bear Flag, the Golden Poppy, and the California Dogface Butterfly. I cut out my drawing and mounted it on black paper. I love how it turned out.

It's really tempting to drop all my responsibilities and make myself a coloring book of all 50 states. I'm resisting, but barely. 

Drawing Donuts for National Donut Day

National Donut Day is tomorrow. There are many appropriate ways to celebrate beyond what is obviously the most important component of the day: eating donuts. You can dress up, learn donut history, browse through recipes, relieve stress, decorate your room, hand out stickers, take a nap, do a puzzle, and enjoy a silly story. You can also draw some donuts. My inspiration came from the Doodlewash book I shared with you about six weeks ago. Affiliate links here and throughout the post. 

Watercolor Donuts

Materials:

• ultra fine Sharpie
• watercolor / mixed media paper
• Koi travel watercolors

Steps:

Start by drawing a rough oval in the lower middle of the paper. This will be the icing of the donut in the foreground. Donuts are usually fairly irregular, so don't worry about perfectly smooth curves. Add the cake portion of the donut below by extending short lines down from the sides of the donut, then connecting them with a curve. Then draw the small oval hole in the center of the icing. 

Use the same technique to add a donut on either side of Donut #1. No lines from Donut #2 or #3 should cross Donut #1.

Working toward the top of the paper, continue adding donuts. I added a maple bar (one of my favorites) in addition to a fourth round donut. There really is no right or wrong, as long as the lines of the donuts in the background never cross a donut in the foreground. 

When you're happy with the number of donuts, add toppings. I put sprinkles on one, a drizzle on another, and nuts on my maple bar. 

I ended up adding chocolate chips to the mint chip donut. It's ok to add the details later. 

Now start painting! I painted the icing on all of the donuts (in the same order that I drew them) before painting any of the cake portion. To make them as realistic as possible, I decided where my light source would be (around 11:00) and left lighter areas where they would naturally reflect. I darkened the edges and the areas around the holes. 

Next, I painted the cake portion. I used watery yellow and browns to mimic the way donuts are cooked. The darkest color is closest to the icing, with the next darkest near the base, and a lighter section between those. I also painted the holes where the cake portion shows through. 

With the icing dry, I painted in the toppings. The sprinkles were the easiest and most fun to do. I think the drizzle should have been thicker and more irregular in retrospect. 

Finally, I used a very watery grey to add shadows below the donuts, in the holes, and anywhere one donut would shadow another. 

 

Happy National Donut Day tomorrow, however you celebrate!

No-Sew Jeans Pocket Pencil Holder

Remember the jeans I cut apart to make the denim D and the zipper Z? In the spirit of not letting anything go to waste, I turned the pocket into a pencil holder. 

 

It couldn't be easier. I used my left-handed dedicated fabric scissors (righties- try these fabric scissors) to cut out the complete pocket. I also cut out a chunk of the side seam to use as the strap. (Affiliate links here and below.) 

I flipped the pocket over, positioned the strap, and then added some Supertite Multi-Grab to secure the strap. 

Once the glue is dry, it's super strong. Fill the pocket with pencils and anything else you need close at hand and hang it by your desk or anywhere else. It's really easy to grab and go, too. 

Super quick, cute, useful, and a great way to reuse jeans that can't be mended anymore!

Craft Materials Name Art

 More name art! I love name art! 

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Craft Materials Name Art

Materials:

• list of craft materials from A to Z
• materials needed to spell your name (in my case: Crayon, Ink, Newspaper, Denim, Yarn)
• cardstock
• craft glue

Steps:

Use the craft materials list to determine what material to use for each letter in your name. If you have a duplicate letter, you can either do the same thing twice or use a second material that starts with that letter. 

Glue each word to a strip of colorful cardstock. Mount the strips in order on a separate piece of cardstock so that they spell out your name vertically.