Trash-to-Treasure Strawberry

I wish you could see inside my head. At any given moment, there are dozens of craft ideas swirling around in there. Some of my best ideas come when I'm walking alone to pick up Trevor from school. I don't know if it's a reflection of my age or my status as an over-committed busy mom, but if I don't write my ideas down right away, they're gone within a minute or two. So if you ever see me walking to pick up Trevor, chances are good that you'll see me dig out a scrap of paper from my purse and sketch out an idea as I walk.

Here's one from last week:

I'd just finished making the acorn from a gumball machine container that morning and the thought popped into my head that it would make a cute strawberry as well. As you can see from my sketch, I was planning to paint the container red, add dots of yellow puffy paint, attach a cotton ball to the top to make a more rounded shape, cover that with green felt, then add a pipe cleaner stem. The next morning after dropping Trevor off, I photographed the materials:

It's almost always a mistake for me to photograph the materials first, as the finished product rarely ends up how I thought it would. However, I only had one more gumball machine container, so I had to photograph it before starting the project. Two seconds in, it was apparent that I didn't need the cotton ball to create a more rounded shape. And the felt made a better stem than the pipe cleaner. Since I was able to easily attach the stem to the leaves, I didn't need to drill a hole for the pipe cleaner. But without an unpainted gumball container, I couldn't do a proper materials photo. This will have to do:

Begin by sanding the gumball container so that the paint will stick. (Alternately, you could paint it with gesso first.) When the surface is uniformly rough, paint it red. When it is dry, cut a leaf and a stem from the green felt. Glue to the two together. Add tiny yellow dots to the strawberry. Glue the leaf and stem to the top. 

Here's my finished strawberry.  

It looks a bit like a tomato, but I think it would have been a fun favor at Kylinn and Ellia's strawberry party a few years back. (Click to see the strawberry party baskets and hairclips, strawberry tablecloth holders and strawberry pinata I made for the party.) 

Another fun trash-to-treasure project!

Costume Improvements

In the past, Trevor has always announced what he wants his Halloween costume to be months and months in advance.  This year, he hasn't mentioned it, despite the fact that it's already September and we have costume-required occasions starting in early October.  I haven't asked, because I'm not mentally prepared for it to be fall yet.  I just finished my final layout from last year's Halloween!

 

I've been struggling with this layout for a long time and I kept putting it back into the "deal with later" pile. I knew I wanted to do something with the three pictures of Trevor from his three different costumed events last year.  I was too focused on the three different snakes and missed that the larger story was that we improved his costume each time he wore it (including changing the snake). Once I realized that was the story, everything fell quickly into place.  

Metallic Xtreme Coloring

I found a new-to-me art material recently, the Crayola Metallic Extreme Coloring Kit:  

 

Looks fun, doesn't it?  Here's what is inside:

 

I brought it with me to a friend's house and spent 15 minutes doodling while we chatted.  

 

Right away, I noticed how bright and vivid the colors were.  It was a totally different experience than normal coloring, which was fun.  There was a slight delay between drawing a line and the color showing up, which took a few minutes to get used to, but wasn't a bit deal. 

 

The markers didn't respond well if you tried to go over the same area more than once, but other than that, they performed very well.

 

Overall, I really liked the Metallic Xtreme Coloring kit.  Have any of you tried it?

Trash-to-Treasure Acorn

We did a major purging of stuff in Trevor's play area recently. We passed along several toys to a younger friend, set others aside for Allison, and found dozens of things that will make excellent geocaching trading trinkets. When all those were removed and we'd organized the items we were keeping, we were left with a small pile of recyclables and garbage. One of them items in the pile was an empty toy container from a gumball machine. On a whim, I rescued it from the cast-offs and turned it into this:   

Wouldn't it be absolutely adorable to fill this with nuts?  What a fun treat!

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Trash-to-Treasure Acorn

Supplies: 

• empty toy container from a gumball machine
• sandpaper
• craft drill
• green paint 
• brown paint
• brown pen
• brown pipe cleaner

Steps: 

1. Lightly sand the outside of the container and lid. This will help the paint stick. 
2. Paint the outside of the container green and the lid brown. I did two coats, letting the paint dry completely between coats.
3. When the paint is dry, use the brown marker to draw diagonal lines on the lid to mimic the look of an acorn cap. 
4. Punch a hole in the top of the lid (I used the awesome Fiskars Craft Drill). 
5. Insert the brown pipe cleaner. Bend the inside to secure it in place, then snip the top and fold over the sharp edge.  

*Poof* ... and the Dream is Gone

Yesterday, Creating Keepsakes Magazine and Paper Crafts Magazine announced that they are ceasing production of their print magazines and will be going digital only.  Over the years, I've mourned the death many excellent scrapbooking magazines, including Memory Makers, Simple Scrapbooks, and Scrapbooks Etc.  In July, Northridge Media announced that all of their titles are going digital.  I am incredibly sad to see Creating Keepsakes and Paper Crafts end their print production.  It has long been a goal of mine to have a layout published in a print magazine... and now the dream is over.  It's disappointing.    

Digital magazines just aren't the same as the paper version.  Between three jobs and blogging, I spend plenty of time on the computer already.  I have no interest in digital magazines.  I emailed both magazines to ask for a refund; we'll see what comes of that.

Anyone else really disappointed about this?