Easy Toddler Art Project (with common household ingredients)

I have a mostly love-love relationship with Pinterest.  I do have a few techie gripes, sometimes get sick of seeing the same _________ (insert: craft, outfit, photo, recipe, tip), and the materialism can get a little overwhelming, but to have all ___________ (insert: craft, outfit, photo, recipe, tip) information in one, searchable place with photos, is a huge time saver! 

This winter on Pinterest (you can see my pinboards here, if you'd like), I was seeing a lot of posts on making these cute, puffy snowmen, made of equal parts shaving cream and Elmer's glue. 

I set out to do this exact project with my 19-month-old daughter.  Sometimes the crafts marked for 'toddler' are still too advanced for her, but I was hoping this one would be perfect - and it was!  Best of all, it called for small portions of cheap, common household items!

We started mixing equal parts shaving cream and Elmer's glue.  I may have used a little too much shaving cream!  Oops!

We went straight to painting the puffy paint right after that! 

I then decided to add some food coloring to the mix and India loved watching the colors change as I stirred!  First yellow, then I made green, followed by a brown/purple color.

India loved it!

I was amazed this held her attention for as long as it did as painting normally only lasts a few minutes, then she's done! 

India was SO proud of her work!  When Daddy got home from work, we showed him and she beamed the entire time! 

Here is the finished product after drying!  It dried nice and puffy.

The puffy paint dried fully in about 36 hours, but like I said earlier, I used too much shaving cream, so I think that's why it took longer.  I don't think it would normally take that long.   All the colors dried darker as well!   It wasn't too much of a mess, as long as your clean up fairly quickly and don't let it dry.  It all washed off easily with plain ol' warm water. 

I absolutely loved this craft in that it wasn't too messy, it kept India's attention and the dimensional aspect of it was amazing! 

Make your own Christmas Stocking (or for your children)!

Make your own Christmas stocking




My daughter didn't have a Christmas stocking last year but I wasn't bothered by it.  She was young and even now it isn't imperative that she have her own Christmas stocking.  But it would be really cute.

I set out on my BFF, Google, and found this tutorial, which didn't have much explanation, but left you with really cute stockings.  I knew I wanted a few things different on my stocking, but I absolutely loved the general idea!

This is a very cheap Christmas stocking, I spent less than $5 for the felt and a bag of buttons.  I had embroidery floss and sequins on hand, but even if you had to buy them, this whole project would still be less than $10 in supplies.  I started this one night after work and made it pretty quickly!  The longest part of it all was stitching the embroidery floss around the initial, but that's because I did that step last. 

Here's what you need:

Felt for stocking (half a yard was enough for me)Contrasting felt for hanging loop, initial and cuff
Embroidery floss (for edges, initial and buttons)
Buttons
Sequins
Hot glue gun
Scissors (pinking shears, if desired)
Sewing Machine


The first thing I did was use a stocking as my template on some ivory felt and cut it out.  I didn't want to freehand this one.  I wanted this stocking to be the same shape as size as our other stockings. 

If I were to do it again, I would cut three patterns instead of two.  The first one would be the front, with all the embellishments, the second would be to help hide what was in the stocking and cover up all the embroidery stitches and the third would be the backside.

Tracing and cutting out the felt

I then cut the letting 'I' out, as that is my daughter India's first initial, a small bit of felt to use as a hanging loop and the felt to make the stocking cuff.

Next I would arrange the buttons, glue them on, then use some embroidery floss to accent them.  Make sure you leave enough room to sew around the edges.
 
Then put your initial on (put all embellishments on before you sew it on) and put some pretty stitches around it with the embroidery floss.

Sew your two sides (or three) together, opposite sides together.

I wasn't sure if I was going to like the closed sides like this....

...and I didn't so I turned it right side out and used my MIL's pinking shears to cut all the edges.

(Remember, I didn't add my buttons until the end.)

At this point I sewed the cuff on, followed by the hanging loop.  I didn't want the stitch to be visible on the outside of the cuff so I sewed it onto the inside.

Now the fun begins!  Add all sorts of embellishments!  Sequins, buttons and embroidery floss made me happy!

Sit back and marvel at your cute, fun creation!  I promise, your kids will love it too!

I hope you enjoy this cheap and easy Christmas stocking!  :-)

Simple Project: Repurposing an Old Sweater into a Children's Sweater Dress

The final project: my old sweater turned into a sweater dress for my daughter!

I had this sweater.

It was cute, but it made my stomach look poochy.  Not right away, though.  I would put it on and look cute in it for a couple of hours, but then it would make it look like I had a little belly.  Not appreciated.  I sure you may have a sweater or a shirt like that too.

So I put it in a bag for Goodwill. 

As I was bringing the bag to Goodwill, it dawned on me that this sweater was very cute and perhaps I could use it for something else.


Enter: the children's sweater dress!  Dun, dun, dun!


Here is my sweater, which made me look 4 months pregnant approximately 3 hours after putting it on:

The sweater that will soon be repurposed

See, it's pretty cute.


I decided I would just start slicing, taking an inch or two off around the outside.  After all, I just needed a much smaller version of it to fit my daughter.

Cutting away!


 Cutting the right amount off around the neck was quite difficult, but this sweater had buttons, so I knew I had some room to play with it.  I'm also hoping the buttons will come in handy and she can wear this next year as well.  It may be wishful thinking, but whatever.


Then I put the shirt inside out and sewed the opposite sides together. 


(I did use another dress as my template so I didn't have to make my 16 month old daughter put it on over and over again.)


I purposely left the sleeves a little longer so maybe, just maybe, we can get use out of this as she grows.


I then made a denim flower brooch and matching hair clip.  They match her cute, little jeggings.


And here's the final product (after taking laps outside for a bit):



Old sweater turned into a children's sweater dress


I love my daughter's re-purposed sweater dress!  Now I'm on the lookout for more sweaters to make more sweater dresses! 

Escaping Facebook for Pinterest

I'm on Pinterest quite a bit.  You can follow me if you'd like.

When I first started on there, I was addicted.  But after so many newborn baby pictures, desserts, crafts with old clothes and outfits comprised of skinny jeans, a turquoise scarf, with a burnt orange cardigan with a dust-brown purse, you can get kind of sick of it. 

Still, I love to go there and dream and escape.  Mostly about crafts.  I just skip over the overdone crafts and the over-pinned outifts.

The other night, I realized it... 

I go to Pinterest when I'm sick of the bad grammar and drama on Facebook!  

So, I made this:

Yep.  That would about sum it up!