Mother's Day Craft Idea: Decorative Wooden Letters

Are you a mom? Our day of recognition, Mother’s Day, is just a few days away! How do you celebrate? Do you have any family traditions for your special day? In my house, the kids give me a card their dad bought for them to sign. Then I usually relax and enjoy spending time with my family. Sometimes my husband cooks, and sometimes we go out. I must admit, even though the kids are older, I still enjoy getting something cute they made me. Mother's day Coloring pages for Adults

What mom doesn't love a handmade gift for Mother's Day. This year, let dad and the kids made an easy Mother's Day craft, like these cheerful DIY Decorative Scrapbook Covered Wooden Letters! They took less than 30 minutes and less than $10 to make.

In my opinion, on Mother’s Day, there is nothing Moms love more than a handmade gift from the kids. Even if our kids are not a crafting prodigy, we love whatever they make us, right? That’s ok! They don’t have to be the next Martha Stewart to make an amazing custom gift Mom will love. How better to celebrate Mom than by spelling Mom out with beautiful DIY Decorative Scrapbook Covered Wooden Letters?

Wouldn’t these DIY Decorative Scrapbook Covered Wooden Letters look great on her desk or on a shelf in her home? This is a great project for kids over 10 or for Dads to do with the younger kids. It’s easy for anyone to do and doesn’t involve much prep or cleanup! Most moms have a pretty hefty craft supply collection, right? If you don’t already have most of the supplies at home, dad and the kids can make a quick run to the craft store. Ever Free Coloring

Before they head out, A run to your local craft supply store will be in order along with the knowledge of what Mom likes. Does she like flowers? Maybe she’s more of a fan of stripes? Keep this in mind while you’re shopping so you don’t get back home with a bunch of random items that don’t work together. All you need is some lovely scrapbook paper and adorable embellishments. You’ll be able to create a one of a kind masterpiece that Mom will be happy to show off to guests for years to come.

Supplies you need to make your DIY Decorative Scrapbook Covered Wooden Letters:

• Brightly colored scrapbook paper
• Wooden letters of your choice
• Flowers or other embellishments
• Tacky glue or Mod Podge
• Glue gun and glue sticks
• Pencil
• Scissors

Instructions: 

Step One: Lay your wooden letter on your scrapbook paper, which should be facing pattern side up. Using your pencil, trace the letter on the paper. Using your scissors, carefully cut your letter. Using your Tacky glue or Mod Podge, adhere scrapbook paper to your letter. Allow to dry for at least 30 minutes.

Step Two: Using your glue gun or Tacky Glue, attach your embellishment to your wooden letter. Repeat as desired.

Step Three: Give your beautiful DIY Decorative Scrapbook Covered Wooden Letters to your mom for Mother’s Day. She will love them!

Decorating Flip Flops the Easy Way (with Ribbons)

My granddaughters and I spent the week working on a few craft projects for the 4th of July. One of the projects we came up with were these fun DIY Ribbon Flip Flops. I don’t think we spent more than $5 on this project and it really didn’t take us all that much time to make. I had seen some really cute flip flops on Etsy that were made with strips of fabric, but when I saw that Michael’s had patriotic ribbon 40% off I simply couldn’t resist. The flip flops themselves only cost me $1.49 at the same store. summer coloring pages for Adults

The measurements below are approximate and were used on a size adult small flip flop. You’ll be able to get by with less ribbon for smaller size flip flops. I recommend cutting the first strip of ribbon and see how you like the length. We decided to cut ours a bit long, for a real statement.

Here’s What You’ll Need:

• 1 pair of flip flops
• 3/8″ wide ribbon cut into 7″ strips

You’ll need approximately 9 yards of ribbon per pair of shoes. I used (3) 3/8 inch x 3 yard spools that I picked up for $1.19 each on sale. It’s important that each strip of ribbon is cut to the same length, so use your ruler. ever Free coloring

Starting at one end of the flip flop strap, tie on a piece of ribbon. You will need to tie a double knot. The double knots should be on the top side of the strap, so that the smooth part of the ribbon will be against the foot. Tie on the next piece of ribbon, pushing it next to the first ribbon. Repeat this process until you have covered the entire strap. That’s it! You might want to fluff and adjust a few of the ribbons, but seriously that’s it – you’re done!

Go through your ribbon stash, and save yourself some money or take advantage of seasonal sales going on right now! I hope you enjoy this simple project as much as us.

Summer Craft for Kids: Easy Shell Pendant

One of Pip Squeak’s favourite things is to collect SHELLS – LOTS of Shells. Every seaside we go to, she immediately sets off on a sea shell hunt – any size, big shells or small shells. Whole shells. Or broken shells. When we come home, she plays with the shells. Sorts them. Stacks them. Puts them in boxes. Takes them out of boxes… and asks me what we can MAKE with her shells. We alread made a prett sea shell mobile (great for those broken shells) and have a lovely 20 shell crafts round up, showing our shell crab fridge magnets. Today, we share our sea shell pendants – so quick and easy to make using our favourite coloured and EASY salt dough recipe. The coloured salt dough recipe is really quick and easy to make – they key is to try out different food colourings or different paints… we share what we like to use below!! (We have lots of lovely easy salt dough projects for you to explore). summer Coloring Pages

Easy Shell Pendants. These are such easy and sweet and inexpensive shell pendants to make this summer. A wonderful summer craft for preschoolers, that make a great summer keepsake and is inexpensive and fun to make. Great little Mother's Day gift idea too. Love this darling shell craft for kids.

Sea Shell Pendant Salt Dough – materials:

• Small shells (whole or broken)
• 2 cups of flour
• 1 cup of salt
• UPTO 1 cup of water
• Food colouring or paint (we added a genrous knife tip of good quality food colouring gel)*
• a tray
• a muslin cloth to keep the saltdough damp if working in the Summer and outdoors

* we love using Sugarflair Food Colouring – get them in US here & in the UK here

Sea Shell Pendants – Coloured Salt Dough How To:

1) Begin by mixing your salt dough. Mix flour and salt and then slowly start adding your water. We added about half to 2/3s of the water to get basic salt dough mixed. Then divided into 7 portions. Add a generous amount of food colouring. Good quality will show up better once dried – we used a food colouring gel – get them in US here & in the UK here (affiliate links). If you use “lower quality”, add more colour and/ or you MAY have to varnished your finished product. When mixing in the food gel – you MAY get purple or red hands… do wash them inbetween mixing colours to avoid cross contamination. Also, if you knead your colour in, work on a surface that can be wiped clean of colour if need be! ever Free Coloring

2) Get your shells ready.

3) Form little balls of salt dough. If it cracks, add a little water. Flatten it a little and press in your shell.

4) Make a hole for hanging with a chopstick or similar. Make sure the hole is not too close to the edge, as it can break later.

5) Let dry – turn a few times. We had a lovely hot Summers days.. so it dried by the end of the day. In Winter, I would put the salt dough in the oven at low heat (80C) and turn every 10-15min. Also be sure to “repoke” your hanging holes. As salt dough can spread and these can shut. The shells should stay securely.. if not, you can always glue them in place afterwards!

6) If you are working on a hot day, keep your salt dough under a damp cloth to avoid it drying out.

7) Once dry, thread up your shells and you are ready to wear your sea shell pendant!

And wear!! (the kids were wearing theirs all day… but wouldn’t let me photograph them). I LOVE these little sea shell pendants. I think they are so simple, so cute and SO EASY to make. Great gifts for an auntie or a friend too!

Funny Paper Plate Craft for Mother's Day: Mom, You're Pear-Fect

This pun-ny Mother’s Day paper plate craft will have your mom in tears, the good kind of course.

To me puns and word play are two of the funniest kind of jokes out there. I will buy the most expensive card for Mother’s day if it has a pun on the front. My favorite card with a pun had a picture of a raisin and a grape and it said “You did a grape job raisin me, Mom.” So for Mother’s Day I thought we would make our own funny crafts in place of cards this year, something homemade is always better, right? Mother's day coloring pages

Although I originally thought this would be great for kids to make for their Moms, I’m still considered my Mom’s kid so I thought, what the heck, I’ll make one for my Mom, too. I’m hoping my Mom will hang hers up at work or the fridge, or someplace where she can share the funny pun but I won’t hold my breath, haha.

How to make our Mother’s Day Paper Plate Craft:

Materials

• Paper plate
• Light green, bright green, and brown craft paint
• Paint brushes
• Elmer’s glue
• Scissors
• Black permanent marker

Directions:

1. Cut out your paper plate in the shape of a pear, similar to a triangle but with rounded edges.
2. Paint your pear shape light green (mix green and white if you don’t have light green) and let dry. ever free coloring
3. Cut a stem and leaf out from you scrap paper plate edges and paint the leaf green and the stem brown then let dry.
4. This pun-ny Mother's Day paper plate craft will have your mom in tears, the good kind of course.Save
5. Use your Elmer’s glue to attach the stem and leaf to the top of the pear.
6. Once your plate is dry, write “Mom, You are Pear-fect!” onto the front of the pear.
7. And have a little “pun” today and make our Mother’s Day Paper Plate Craft for Kids.

DIY Woodland Wool Ornaments Step-by-Step Tutorial

When I came across these adorable fox and deer felt ornaments on Cutesy Crafts, I knew I had to make them in our brand new Penny Rose Wool. I love the look of the felt, but I also love how the wool adds a richness of color and texture that just looks timeless. I will walk you through the basic steps here, but you can find the templates on Cutesy Crafts. Bubble Guppies Coloring Pages

“Making Time”: About 1 Hour

Ingredients:
- Wool
- Embroidery Floss and/or Coordinating Thread
- Fleece Interfacing
- Ribbon

1. Cut out the template pieces. Arrange the white snow piece on the blue sky piece as shown. Because everything in this project is so tiny, you will be using very small stitches, or “pick stitches.” Your stitches don’t have to be perfectly even, especially if you like the very handmade look.

2. Arrange the deer and trees on the background until you have them exactly where you want them. Pin them in place. Ever Free Coloring

3. Stitch the deer and trees in place, again using very small pick stitches. Be very careful around the deer legs, as they are extremely thin and may only be able to handle one row of stitching in some places.

4. Add snowflakes using a french knot. Or, instead of a french knot, you could sew pretty white beads or pearls here.

5. The front of the ornament should now look something like this.

6. Add little tree stumps to your trees.

7. You should now have a front piece, a back piece, and a piece of fleece interfacing (cut about 1/4″ smaller than your front and back pieces). The fleece will be sandwiched in the center.

8. Before sewing the three layers together, you’ll want to stitch a loop of ribbon on the inside of the back piece. *If you want to personalize this by embroidering a name on the back piece, now would be the time to do that as well.

9. Using a simple blanket stitch, sew the three layers together. That’s all there is to it!

I made the deer ornament using embroidery floss. This floss was pretty thick, as I grabbed it from my 12-year-old daughter’s craft stash, so it wasn’t the best quality. I didn’t have floss that matched the trees perfectly, but I have to say, I actually ended up liking how it looked!

For the fox and trees on this ornament, I used regular sewing thread. Notice how the thread really disappeared on the fox, blending nicely. Again, I didn’t have coordinating green thread, so I used the closest match, and again, I did like how it turned out. But you can see what a big difference it makes when you coordinate your thread or floss vs. using something that has contrast. Choose your floss and thread based on your own personal taste.

These were so much fun to make! Thank you to Cutesy Crafts for the fabulous idea!

Vintage Sign Ornaments - Inspired by Hikers

How to make vintage hiking and rustic trail sign ornaments. This is the final post of the vintage hiking and camping ornament series this year. These easy DIY rustic trail signs and vintage-inspired hiking signs are so easy to make you could whip up dozens of them in time for Christmas still. All of these little sign ornaments were made from pre-cut pieces of wood found at Michaels. The rustic trail sign wood came in packs of  six. First I painted these with a gray acrylic paint: Ever Free Coloring

When the gray paint was dry I brushed on a diluted wash of brown acrylic paint to create the aging effect:

The letters were traced onto the wood using regular letter stencils and then carefully painted white:

For the vintage hiking signs I used these small pre-cut wood sign pieces also from Michaels:

I painted the brown base coat first and then used an image of an actual vintage sign to trace my image onto the wood. I kept the image and the chalk tracing paper in place using a rubber band to trace: Lego Ninjago Coloring Pages

Using a small paintbrush I filled in the image. A damp cloth wipes away any of the tracing.

The image and tracing paper can be reused over and over again. These were so easy to make I just kept cranking them out:

The Appalachian Trail signs were made the exact same way just using different colors:

I love how all the signs look together:

Beautiful Christmas Tree Ornaments Made of Origami Paper

Looking for a fun way to decorate the tree this year? Why not try your hand at making this Origami Wrapper Chain Ornament? Hi! It’s Leslie from Pink Stripey Socks. Today I’m sharing a new spin on gum wrapper chains. Instead of candy wrappers, we’re using origami paper to put a modern and colorful twist on this classic craft. So turn up the Christmas carols, grab a pack of Origami paper, and let’s get making some unique Christmas tree ornaments! Ever Free Coloring

Materials Needed:
- Origami Paper in various colors
- Scissors
- String
- Glue

Step 1: Fold a sheet of origami paper in half. Cut it in half.

Step 2: Take one half sheet. Place it color side down. Fold it in half and open it up.

Step 3: Fold up both sides so that they touch in the middle (at the crease made in step 2.)

Step 4: Fold your sheet of paper in half (using the crease made in step 2.)

Step 5: Fold it in half again. Sonic Coloring Pages

Step 6: Now fold your very thin paper in half again and open it up.

Step 7: Fold both left and right sides of the paper to meet in the middle (at the crease made in step 6)

Step 8: Repeat this several times. (My paper was 5.9” x5.9”, so I made about 18 of these to create a full wreath. You may need more or fewer depending on your papers’ size and your preference for ornament size.)

Step 9: Take two of your folded sheets. See how they resemble V’s?

Step 10: Slide the top portion of one V into the top portion of another V. Then slide your folded paper through so that it catches. (The bottom portion of the peach V is inside the top portion of the blue V.)

Step 11: Keep sticking the V’s together in the same way as step 10. They should alternate and look like this chain.

Step 12: When you have enough Vs to complete a wreath, pull out the folded arms of your last V.

Step 13: Stick the two unfolded portions through your first V. (The green one is stuck through the blue one.)

Step 14: Now fold up your two unfolded arms.

Step 15: Stick them under a previous V and glue them to secure them in place. (The green bits are now under the pink V.)

Step 16: Tie on a string and you’re done!

Hope you have a fun time whipping up these colorful Christmas tree ornaments with family or friends!