Snoapballs!

For my little guy's friends Christmas gifts, we are making snoapballs. They are so easy and fun to make. Here's what you do...



Get some bars of Ivory soap, a cheese grater, and a bowl.

Grate the soap into the bowl.

Put about 1 cup of water into a small bowl.

Place a small handfull of grated soap into your hand and add a few sprinkles of water.
Pack the soap into your hand like you would do with a snowball. Continue to add soap shreds and water until the snoapball is the desired size. Be sure to pack as you go. The ball should not crumble in your hand. If it does, add more water and pack again.



Place the finished snoapballs on a cookie sheet to dry. When they are dry, you can place one in a cellophane bag with a cute little tag and ribbon tied around it. WALA! Done.

Jessica's Winter Wonderland Wreath

Here is Jessica's sparkly and fantastic version of the Modern 3D Wreath. I'm in love!

Isn't it absolutely stunning?

Beautiful job Jess!

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Pom Pom Christmas Tree Skirt!

For the past 6 Christmases, my tree skirt has been the skirt we had under our tree growing up. It was a salmonish-red, and featured a charming little Christmas scene with Panda Bears dancing around a Tree wearing dresses. So cute, right? So why would I decide to retire the pandas? Well, it was just time.

I have always been a HUGE fan of pom pom trim, and it seemed so fun and classic Christmas to me! So, I grabbed about 3 yards of it, and one yard of 44" fabric. I traced a friend's tree skirt, and pinned, and sewed right sides together, being super cautious to get the trim straight. Adding batting to the inside and some quilting stitches would be another option, just depending on the look you want.

With the slit down the "back" of the skirt, I just added velcro to three parts for a closure.

I'm so happy with it! It's subtle, as a tree skirt should be, but very rich and fun!

Now, to add more presents...

Merry Christmas!

Complete Quiet Book... Just In Time For Christmas!

We've done it! It's been a 3 month process, and we met together on Tuesday night to exchange and assemble our pages. It was so exciting to see all the beautiful work and to see it all coming together! I recommend this to anyone thinking of doing a quiet book. See the end of this post for any details on our Quiet Book Project, and click here to see a tutorial on the QB cover.

Enjoy!

Button flowers: Amy

Jonah and the Whale (zipper whale mouth): Glori

Noah's Ark (snap ark door with animal slot): Tori

Street Scene (velcro garage): Jessica

Cupcake Decorating: Emily

Mailbox and Letters: Blair

Football Laving: Michelle

Treasure Chest (lock and key to open chest): Shannon

Weaving Strips: Sarah

Colorful Kites (snaps to matching color): Kadee

Shapes (snaps to matching shape outline): Jen

Barn and Finger Puppets: Natalie L.

Tic Tac Toe- Natalie M.

The idea was that we would all have 14 different pages for our children's quiet book, while only having to buy the materials and design one! We all made duplicates of one page. We had matching criterium, such as page size and medium. I set the completion date for 3 months, and I wouldn't recommend doing it in any less time since I actually enjoyed myself doing this-- taking my time, finding materials on sale, etc.

I love having this keepsake from several of my friends, and also that my children can benefit from all these girls' diverse creativity and talents! Thanks ladies-- they turned out even better than I had hoped for (sniff, sniff)!

Modern 3-D Wreath

I fell in love with this wreath when I first saw it on this tutorial from Tatertots and Jello. I had to make it immediately! Her tutorial is great. When I talked to her about it, she gave me some extra tips I'll share with you!

Tips:

1. Wrap your ribbon super tight around the wreath form. This will help the dowels hold the weight of the circles that are glued to them.
2. Use the medium size and small size circles for the highest dowel pieces.
3. Attach circles to dowels with gorilla clue, and dowels to wreath form/ribbon with hot glue.

Good luck, and enjoy!

Quiet Book Cover

Hello! I'm Shannon's sister, Tori. When Shannon invited me to be a contributor on her craft blog, I began to hyperventilate. Then when the euphoria wore off, I came back to solid ground and began sewing! You see, Shannon is my hero and all my life I've been trying to be like her. Annoying, yes, but any of you who know her can understand why I'm obsessed with this gal.

A group of friends and friends-of-friends here in St Louis joined forces to create quiet books for our kids. This post is for the 14 girls working on this project that's due on the 30th of November. Here's my quiet book cover!

It was super easy to make, and here's what I used to make it:

• 1/2 yd. of prequilted fabric (catch this on sale at JoAnn's or use a 40% off coupon)
• scraps of coordinating fabric (for inside spine and handles)
• 3 yards of bias tape (wide single fold)
• thread
• button
• sewing machine

Assume a 1/2" seam allowance...

Step 1: For the book, where it's pages are 10.5" x 14," cut the prequilted fabric 25 3/4" x 14"

Step 2: Cut coordinating fabric 14"x 2". Fold and finish edges. ("spine")

Step 3: Cut coordinating fabric (two times) 12" x 1.5." Fold and finish edges. (handles)

Step 4: Fold prequilted fabric in half lengthwise, and iron crease to find middle of the book for the spine.

(sorry this picture is flipped- I don't know why it kept downloading it this way. This picture shows the green "spine" that the book rings will loop around to anchor the pages.)

Step 5: Attach "spine" binding to the inside of the cover, by stitching at the top and the bottom of the book (see above picture).

Step 6: Sew on binding strip, around the entire edge of the cover.

Step 7: To attach handles, lay bookcover open with with back of cover facing up (inside is facing down). On each 14" side of the book, measure 7" to find the middle. Then, measure 1" from either side of the 7" middle mark, and pin edges of finished 12" x 1.5" strip to cover. These are the handles! The handles should be topstitched to the outside of the book.

Step 8: Sew on remaining binding strip to 7" x 1.5" piece of prequilted fabric piece. (strap)

Step 9: Attach button to book and create button hole on strap.

You're done!

I hope this made sense. If it doesn't, please email me or make a comment...

Good luck!

dtcox04@gmail.com

Creepy Crawly Candy Containers

Halloween is one of my favorite days of the year so I love decorating for it. I needed a candy jar to display the cute and colorful candy corns. Do you like what I came up with?


I bought everything at Walmart. The entire project cost about $3.50.
I love the jars they sell at Wally so I grabbed one. I also bought google eyes, felt, pipe cleaners, ribbon, and of course, the CANDY!

First, I cut a oval out of the black felt.
Next, I hot glued a black pipe cleaner around the oval to make the spider look furry.
Then, I cut 2 pipe cleaners in half and shaped them to be the spider legs. I glued the legs to the back of the felt with hot glue.
After that, I hot glued on the eyes.
Once the spider was ready, I hot glued the entire spider to the jar.
I finished by embellishing the jar with the cute ribbon.
I love it!

Creepy Cookies

I love decorating cookies for the different holidays. Fortunately, I had lots of time today to do just that! Which one is your favorite?

Patriotic Canvas

I got the inspiration for this patriotic subway art here. I did mine a bit different. Side note: Why is everything I type underlined???


I made some fake canvases out of foam board. Next I cut red and white card stock and modged it to the foam board.


While the fake canvas dried, we busted out the CRICUT and cut out some patriotic images and sayings from various cartridges.


Once the modge dried, we started sticking those vinyl images to the foam board.




Ta-Da! Happy 4th!

Patriotic Cookies

They're not perfect, but they will do.... :)

Studly Boys Velcro Ties

For a long time now, I have been wishing that I knew how to make cool ties for my little guy. I am so glad that I stumbled upon this awesome tutorial. It's sew easy. (chuckle, chuckle)

Happy Birthday Dad and Mike!

More Father's Day Crafts

Here are some more things we did today for Father's Day gifts.

I went to Wally the other day and bought a $5 hammer with a wooden handle. I sanded it and let the boy go to town with paint. When he was finished, we sprayed it with clear glaze. It was fun. This is NOT the hammer we painted. I don't have a pic of ours, but it definitely does not look this orderly. It's cute though.


We also had the kids run around in the yard with a blank poster board. We took pictures of them posing. Next, we loaded the pics in Photoshop and added text boxes to make this cute collage for the dads.

I have had these containers laying around for a while. I had Linc paint some paper and I glued it to the container. I am going to make cookies and fill the containers to give the dads on Sunday.

I Love My Dad Shirt

My friend, Becky of randomactsofobsession, and I were talking about Father's Day and what we are going to do for our hubbies. At first, we didn't have any ideas of what the kiddies could give to the dads. Next, we started brainstorming and came up with TONS of ideas. Probably too many ideas to be honest... Anyway, I decided to jump right into it and get going on the first gift.

We thought it would be fun to have the kids wear a shirt on Sunday that expresses their love for their daddy.

I went to the computer and printed on one sheet of paper, the words "I, my" and "dad." I used a big, bolded, blocky font.

Next, I got out the razor and rotary mat and cut out the letters. I didn't worry too much about the lines being perfect and such, cuz I am a little bit of an IMperfectionist. I like a little character to my creations.


Next, I got out a plain white shirt,


and a cake pan cover. It fits inside the shirt to keep the pain from seeping through the fabric onto the back.

Next, I pinned the stencils to the shirt. The word, "dad" had some pieces inside the letters that needed to be included. This is how I did that. Sorry, this is confusing. I am even starting to confuse myself!

Next, I got out my sponge brush and some paint colors and went to town. I softly dabbed the paint onto the cut out of the letters pinned to the fabric. Confusing again... Hopefully the pics provide enough illustration.



After the paint dried a bit, I carefully took off the paper. I am glad I am not patient enough to wait for the paint to completely dry because I think the paper would have stuck to the shirt in some parts.
The DAD word is kinda messy, I like the flaws....
Next, I made this little heart out of felt. I stitched around the top layer to secure it to the back one.
Last, I sewed the back layer to the shirt. Here is the final product.


If I were to do it again, I would place my letters closer to the top of the shirt, but whatev.... Lesson learned. I hope some of you try this one. It's fast and fun!