Toddler Felt Christmas Tree

I made this felt tree last year, so my two year old would have something to decorate at Christmas. Epic failure. I spent an hour cutting everything out and he couldn't have been less interested in it. However, this year, he had a blast with it. I just put it on the floor. We just painted our walls, so I didn't want to tape it on there. Plus I didn't think the tape would hold the felt very well. We decorated, undecorated "opened" the presents under the tree and then did it again. And again. And again. I was running out of things to "open". This year it was a lot of fun, so I'm glad I didn't get rid of it. I bought the green felt by the yard on sale 50% off and I had some other felt scraps that I used for the ornaments and presents. I figure I can get it out every few days until Christmas for something to do on these cold, winter days.

Sorry for the crappy iphone pics.

Timeless Felt Christmas Ornaments

I made these ornaments years ago. Like about 20. I think they held up really well and were really easy to make. I cut the shapes out of felt, stuffed them with polyfill and blanket stitched them closed. The eyes are peppercorns and I made the noses out of orange Sculpey (which was a new product if I remember correctly). I hot glued most things except for the mouths and buttons. The reindeer mouth is an upside down heart with a circle on top. They are fairly easy to make and cheap to boot.

These are great to give away as ornaments or decorate a package with them.

Merry Christmas!

Argh! Pirate Costume

This year my son wanted to be a pirate for halloween and I was feeling particularly ambitious and thought I could actually make the entire costume myself. Let me put it out there that I am a novice sewer. I've never made a jacket or pants or anything similar, but somehow I thought that I was crafty enough to come up with something half decent that didn't cost an arm and a leg. In the end I got a pirate dress up costume for the hat and sword. I was going to get some dress up things for Christmas, so it worked out. Plus they were 50% off. I tried to make a hat, but it didn't come out so good. 

I started with the pants. I got some fabric from a friend's yard sale. I knew they would be a little short, but it's a halloween costume and I wasn't that worried about it. I followed a tutorial for pj pants and they were super easy and done in less than two hours start to finish. I had some elastic from another project laying around that I was able to use.

The jacket proved to be a bit more complicated and a few times I thought I was in way over my head. I started with one of my son's shirts as a pattern and went from there. I learned some things along the way, such as how to do a collar. When you have no idea what you are doing, it can be daunting. Plus I was using some felt that I got on sale, so I wasn't going to line it. I added some trim that I had lying around and some buttons from last years costume. (I needed gold buttons and it was cheaper to buy a men's jacket from a thrift store than to actually buy gold buttons.) Sorry for the bad iphone pics.

Cheap Bath Toy Storage

The bath toy storage bags seemed to get slimy pretty fast and at $14.99, I wasn't about to buy another one any time soon. even if it were really cute. So I bought a lingerie bag for $1.49, cut two holes in it and hung it on the shower caddy. I guess you could hang it up with suction cups if you don't have a shower caddy.

Wagon Re-do

My sister gave me her daughter's old metal Radio Flyer wagon. It had been sitting outside for some time and rusted quite a bit. Including rusting through in one pin hole spot. I wanted to use it for my son, but I know it will only be used for a couple of years before he outgrows it. so, I wasn't trying to be a perfectionist with this DIY. I started scraping off the metal that was falling off, but didn't have the right tools for the job. In comes my mom's boyfriend and poof, he did all the hard work for me. Thanks Ray! He scraped, then sanded the metal with Emory cloth. Then I got to do the easy part and spray paint the wagon. After painting the wagon red, I realized that maybe I should give the base a cost of black.

A Quick Way to Fix a Cake

From disaster to success.

My sister was make a star cake and had a bit of a problem as you can see. So how were we going to fix it? Easy. We still had some cake that we had used to cut the star out of, so we mixed that with some icing - cake pop style - and molded it around the star points. Voila! Fixed.

Make an Easy Heart Scarf

Valentines was coming up and I thought I would make a scarf with hearts on it. I've seen some fabric painting projects on pinterest and I thought I would try one of my own. I wanted red paint and white scarf. I was lucky and found a plain white scarf on sale at Michaels for $5.00, half price, not to shabby. I got the paint at AC Moore. They only had metallic so I got that. I don't think it made much difference. I didn't have a heart stencil, so I made one from a heart punch and the lid from some nuts. That worked out nicely. I used a cheap foam brush and got to work. I measured every four inches or so and marked it with a pencil. If I did it again, I would do every other row of hearts upside down. It took about 2 and a half hours, a little longer than I thought it would take mostly because I wiped the back of the stencil after every heart. Otherwise, I would have ended up with red paint everywhere. I have another fabric painting project in mind and I think I will start on that in a few weeks. I'll take a picture with it on, so you can see what it looks like.

I Mustache You if You'd Like Some Cake

My son loves mustaches. I have absolutely no idea why, but he does and now everywhere I go, I seem to spot them. I asked him if he wanted a truck cake or a mustache cake for his third birthday and he said a mustache cake. He's quite funny for a toddler. Anyhow, I saw this one on Pinterest and decided to make it. It was super easy.

I only used one 8"round cake pan and then put the rest of the batter in mini loaf pans. No muffin pan at the moment, otherwise I would have done cupcakes. I was on a time crunch and screech...made a box cake. I did however make homemade chocolate buttercream icing, which everyone thought was delicious. I thought some individual mustaches on the mini loaves would be cute. I added a little too much cream to the chocolate chips, but they didn't turn out too bad. I meant to leave some buttercream plain, because I thought the chocolate would show up much better on white icing, but I forgot. O well. Next time. 

Since I'm a bit anal, I used a template to cut out the mustache, so it would be even. Thank god I did, because my first template was lopsided. I traced the cake pan, then folded the circle in half and in half again so the mustache would be even. Although maybe I should have centered it on the tray. My son didn't seem to care and no one but me noticed. 

How to Make an Old Sweater Look New Again

I bought a sweater last year and within a few washes it looked like it was 10 years old. I still wear it, but lately I've been thinking that I see nicer stuff at Goodwill. At least that was the case until I was introduced to the sweater shaver. I did one side and you can see the huge difference it made. I've been doing all my sweaters, wool socks, the lining in my jacket. Maybe slightly obsessed, but it just works so darn good.

DIY Cork Letter

I made this cork letter a while ago and it was so easy. I only needed three things: cardboard, a hot glue gun and of course corks. Technically four, I used a pencil. I traced the letter on the cardboard, cut it out - ok, five things, I used scissors, and started gluing. Okay, okay, I lined the corks up to make sure it was going to look alright. That's it. It was so simple. I gave this to my friend for Christmas with some DIY chalk wine glasses and she loved it. Sorry for the crappy photo. This is a during.