Tissue Paper Pom Poms

I'm back everyone! I took a little break from blogging to deal with all the Christmas chaos but I made a resolution to keep up with this blog so here goes. My baby turned one this month and we had a little party at an ice cream shop to celebrate. I made these pom poms for decorations and they were super easy. This would be a great way to use up recycled tissue paper... or am I the only one that keeps tissue paper?? Anyway- The original instructions are from Martha Stewart, go HERE for those.

All you need:
1 package of tissue paper
Floral wire (I used twist ties)
Scissors

 Pull the tissue paper right out of the package and straighten it out, all 8 layers stacked on top of each other. Begin folding it like an accordion, each fold being about an inch and a half.

 It should look like this when finished. Pinch it in the middle and either tie your wire or cut the edges to be rounded or pointy. I rounded my edges with the scissors and then tied my twist ties in the middle.

 After that, begin gently pulling out each layer of the tissue paper one at a time forming a ball.

 That's it! Super easy. They are pretty big too, at least a foot and a half across.

We tied ours to the ceiling with fishing line. In retrospect I would have made more, but they added a little extra fun to the party anyway. Afterward, I hung them above my daughters crib and they look so cute!

Save those Christmas Cards

And recycle them into a Christmas ABC book!

When we were expecting our first daughter, my husband's mom gave us an ABC book that she made out of Christmas cards. She had made one for each of her children when they were young and was passing down my husband's to us. I decided then I wanted to make one for my nephew. I started collecting our Christmas cards. And my parents'. And my husband's parents'.

Five years later, I had enough cards.  I'm telling you...it took forever because so many people send out family picture cards or Christmas emails.  So now it is no longer just my nephew in that family, but 2 nephews and a brand new niece.  I do have some left over cards, but you need a ton to be able to choose for each letter and then the number.

My husband's mom made hers in 1" binders with page protectors and red and green paper.  I made mine in an 8x8 scrapbook with page protectors (had to buy 2 refill packs to add to it) and Christmas scrapbook paper.  Both are super easy.  Hers has more room on a page and is cheaper by far.

The one I made for my nephews and niece

The one made for my husband

Here are some hints I used/realized:

• Group similar cards (i.e. angels, snowmen, etc.)
• Leave letters that have multiple words (S is for Shepards, Star, Snowman, Snow, Snowflake, etc) for last
• Use a business card template for the wording, I only had to cut a few smaller
• Wish I would have used less patterned paper for the backgrounds, some are too busy to read
• Let glue dry for a at least 45 minutes to ensure it doesn't make the page protectors go wavy.  (You can see it in mine on pages "X" & "Y")
• I had to go to the dollar store and pick up a few cards for letters I didn't have, like "Y" (yule log).

The kids loved these books and gazing at each picture.  It does take some effort in collecting and sorting out each letter, but it is pretty simple after that, just cutting and gluing.

Here is the Christmas ABC document I created to help me sort out cards.  It is just what I gathered from here and there so it is rough.  There are repeats, some very closely worded, and some without rhymes.  You can really do whatever you can come up with.  The ones in bold are the ones I ended up using with the cards I had.

Start collecting those Christmas cards now (ask family and neighbors for the fronts of theirs too), or your kids might be graduating from high school by the time you get enough.

Heads up: Also you may be able to score cheap some cards the day after Christmas at the store.  And  I saw a Christmas card at Wal-mart that had children holding hands around a world - perfect for letter "U".  Don't know how much it was though.  Some cards are way too expensive.

Faux Metal Wall Art

I love the look of Metal Wall Art, unfortunately I have a few problems with it the first being the price and second how heavy it can be. A few months ago I had an idea pop into my head to make my own using toilet paper rolls and paper towel rolls. I started saving them and then started to experiment. The glass for this frame had been broken, but I had kept it around (I knew there was something to do with it).

1. choose your frame and cut your toilet paper tubes to be the same width as your frame.

2. Start laying out your design. I just kinda did whatever and the design made itself, but you could easily mimic a pattern you liked. I used a pencil to help me curl the strips of cardboard and then simply hot glued them together. (you could use other glue, but I liked how fast it dried, I am not very patient)

 Here is a side view before I painted it.

 And a close up (sorry so blurry) but you can see the seam were it had been glued.

 Once I had my design created I hot glued it into the frame and then I spray painted it with a black hammered metal spray paint. I AM IN LOVE WITH THIS PAINT! It covered the flaws and the hammered look made it totally look like metal.

And here is the finished product. Luckily, it is light because my 3 year old was trying to put something up on this shelf to hide it from his brother and knocked everything onto his head, but no damage was done to him or to the wall art.

Super Cute, Super Easy Scarfs!!

Isn't that the CUTEST scarf you have ever seen? I saw the tutorial for these on KSL's Studio 5 yesterday and I fell in LOVE! I actually have already made two and I'm cleaning out the closets looking for old shirts and I am definitely going to the D.I. tomorrow!

What I love about these scarfs:

1. EASY and QUICK

2. Light Weight (I will totally be wearing these ALL year long!)

3. What a quick way to make a T and jeans looked girly!

4. INEXPENSIVE, totally FREE if you already have some T's to use or really inexpensive to find from a thrift shop!

LOVE IT! I hope you check it out: http://www.thediydish.com/2011/02/make-an-infinity-scarf-kim-shows-the-how-to-on-studio-5/

Book Page Wall Art....

I'm not exactly sure what I should call this.... any ideas? I LOVE how it turned out, but I'm not sure what it is...

WHAT YOU NEED:

an old book (or one you don't like, I used a book I had to read in college and I will NEVER read again)

Styrofoam disc (2 pack/$1 from dollar store)

a lot of Hot Glue and Glue Gun

I started out by tearing pages out of the book, (GASP! I know I love books too) and the roll one page starting in the corner to make a skinny cone. One end will be bigger and more open and the other end will be smaller. Use hot glue to hold the edge then hot glue to the sytrofoam disc. The first layer was the longest out and I glued them right to the back of the disc. The next layers I folded the end to make them shorter and started gluing them in front in the side of the disc.

And I just went around and around until it was as full as I could get it.

Then for the Rosette Center. I followed a tutorial I found HERE. (I LOVE this wreath). And I just squashed as many rosettes as tightly as I could together to fill the center, Then I added a ribbon loop to the back of the disc so that I could hang it up.

 I just LOVE how it turned out and it is UNIQUE and AFFORDABLE wall art. Love it!

I linked up:

Crocheted Rag Rug...

I first thought of making my own rug after seeing a really cute rug that my sister had made. She made her rug out of old T-shirts and clothes that were going to be thrown away. I didn't have that many old t-shirts, but I did have a lot of scraps and left over fabric from various projects.

This was my first try and I love how it turned out. I didn't really care how the colors worked out, I wanted to use scraps and I like the look, but if you wanted you could plan out how it would look.

What you need: A LOT of fabric/scraps cut into 2 inch strips

A HUGE crochet hook (the biggest you can find, I found a big blue plastic on at Walmart)

a Pattern (if you are experienced in Crochet you could probably wing it, I started following the pattern I found HERE and then made some up as I went until it laid how I wanted it to.)

Reusable Shopping Bags....

I think most of you can tell that I LOVE TO SAVE MONEY! (who doesn't?) I also really LOVE recycling, upcycling, and using things I already have. This tutorial does both. Did you know that some stores will take money off your order when you use your own shopping bags? Some stores will take 5 cents off per bag or offer other rewards (like Smith's offers points that turn into money quarterly).

I'm sure you all have a huge stash of grocery bags under your kitchen sink or stuffed in your laundry room, right? Well, this tutorial will use A LOT of them!

MATERIALS:

A LOT of plastic grocery bags.

Parchment Paper

Iron

Sewing Machine and Thread

Scissors

FUSING GROCERY BAGS:

Preheat Iron. My first tip is start with a LOW heat on your iron, like the SILK setting. If your iron is TOO HOT it will melt the bags into a crazy lump.

Take your plastic grocery bags and cut off the bottom of the bag and the handles. This will give you a plastic loop, now slide your scissors up one side and make a large rectanlge. If you really wanted to be precise you could cut each bag the exact same so that the print match up exactly, I don't really care that much.

Once you have 8 bags cut into large rectangles, sandwich them between two sheets of parchment paper. Place on your ironing board and begin to iron. ALWAYS KEEP YOUR IRON MOVING! or the sheets will melt. and make sure to get the edges. Once the bags begin to fuse it goes rather quickly. Once you notice that bags fusing (not melting), flip the whole thing over and iron the other side.

Remember it is HOT, so let it cool before you handle it too much. Once it is all fused you can sew it on your sewing machine and make your own reusuable shopping bags. I like to straight stitch and then zig-zag stitch my seams so that they can handle some abuse.

This first one I made I patterned after another fabric shopping bad I already had. I am working on a couple of other designs and when I get them finished I will post them. I hope you enjoy trying this out!

Vinyl Record Bowls

So I saw these cool bowls for sale at a farmer's market a few years ago and wondered how they did that. A quick google search and I found plenty of tutorials on how to make these funky bowls using old records. I used a tutorial from Homemade Mamas. I really like their blog because most of the projects use things found around the house. Check out the tutorial I used HERE... I slightly adapted their instructions below.


Start with:
1 vinyl record (you can buy them way cheap at second hand stores)
2 oven safe bowls (one slightly larger than the first)
1 cookie sheet
A hot pad for handling

Set it up so it looks like the picture above. Place the smaller bowl (9 inch) upside down on the cookie sheet. Put the record on top of that. Place this in a 225 degree oven for about 10 minutes. They advise opening a window because of fumes. I didn't notice any fumes when I did it but err on the side of caution and open a window.

Place your other larger bowl on the table. You will use it later.

When the record comes out of the oven, it should look like this.

Working quickly and using an oven mit, grab the record and place it over the top of the larger bowl. Press it down into the bowl and work with it until it makes the shape you want.

Mine looked like this. The first time I made one, it took me a few tries of putting it back in the oven to warm it up and shape it again. If you get the record warm enough, you can quickly put it in the bowl and shape it the way you want the first time. If it's not warm and pliable enough, it will be harder.

At first, I didn't think these bowls really fit my style but after making them myself, I really like them. You can paint them, store your jewelry or knick knacks, plant little flowers, or hang them on your wall for a funky decoration. On Etsy they sell them painted for over 50$! I am glad I got mine for practically free. :)