Butterfly Stained Glass Craft Tutorial

My children love craft projects and recently my little boy was fascinated by all things related to butterflies...so we decided to make stained glass butterflies to put up in the kitchen windows. We made these just like the stained glass crosses we made back in March--which still are up in the windows and looking beautiful!

First I cut out an outline of a butterfly out of black construction paper and adhered it to clear contact paper--I taped that down (sticky side up!) to the kitchen table so that it wouldn't move while my son worked on his project.

He filled the butterfly with squares of tissue paper. When he was done, I put another black butterfly outline over the top (to hide the tissue paper edges) and then covered the top with another layer of contact paper. At this point the butterfly is sandwiched between the contact paper. Then I trimmed the excess contact paper off and the project was done!

His butterfly is a bright and colorful addition to our window--perfect for summer!

Craft shared at: No Time for Flashcards

4th of July Decorations

The 4th of July is just around the corner! I don't go all out decorating for this holiday, but I do like to have a few patriotic touches out in the house. I fill my white pitcher with American flags and, this year, I glued red, white, and blue stars (punched out of scrapbook paper) onto clear thread that I tied onto the light fixture above our table. The thread is sandwiched between two stars.
This "shower of stars" is a simple and inexpensive way to add a touch of patriotic flavor to our summer decor.

Linked to: Hookin Up with HOH

Summer To-Do List

School ended Friday (finally!) so today I made a summer to-do list with my children. After I reigned in their expectations a bit (no out-of-state trips or overnights at Great Wolf Lodge), we had a lot of fun. They came up with a lot of ideas all on their own, but still cheered at some of my simple suggestions. Now that it is hanging on the wall, they like to look at the list and tell each other "Wow, we are going to have a fun summer!"
I'm not original in coming up with this idea, by any means, but here is how I did it. I bought a poster frame at Michaels--with a 40% off coupon it came to around $5. Then I cut five pieces of scrapbook paper into 1.25 inch strips and used scrapbook adhesive to stick the strips directly to the paper that came in the poster frame. Once the entire piece of paper was covered, I trimmed off the excess paper. So simple!

For the "Happy Summer" pennant print that you see at the top of our list, I used this printable that I found at The Rubber Punkin and just cut it down a bit.

I wrote our list directly on the glass/plastic on the front of the frame with a Sharpie. It comes off with Windex and a bit of scrubbing (I tested it).

Here are some other great summer to-do lists:

• whatever ~ this one makes me crave an old-fashioned green chalkboard!
• Laura Winslow ~ this one is done for you--just print it! 101 ideas for summer fun!
  
• eighteen25 ~ these ladies always have something going on, and this is no exception!
• Sunny Side Up ~ Erin's list is on poster board and is cute, colorful, and full of summer fun!

End of Year Teacher Gift

It's that time of year again...the school year is winding down and it is time to let my daughter's teacher know that I appreciate the time and love she has put into teaching my little girl this year. Last year I painted terracotta pots with chalkboard paint and added a little bundle of chalk (tied with twine) plus some packets of herb seeds and a nice little quote. I had my child write a note to the teacher on the back of the note and it made a nice gift that didn't break the bank and that was, I hope, usable for the teacher. Perhaps we'll do the same thing this year since we've changed schools...hmm...my wheels still are turning on this one!

(Idea originally found here.)

Easy Paper Pennant Banner Tutorial

We recently celebrated my daughter's First Holy Communion and I wanted a simple "Congratulations" banner to hang for the occasion. I made this banner out of scrapbook paper and grosgrain ribbon in an afternoon. I opted to make a very simple banner, but it could be embellished to be as fancy as you would like it to be.

Supplies:

• scrapbook paper
  
• ribbon, twine or yarn
• adhesive
• hole punch

Step One:
Cut out your triangles--however many you need for your banner. I needed fifteen to spell out my word.

Step Two:
Cut out your letters. I used my Cricut to cut mine out, but you could use any sort of craft cutter or even use letter stickers (from the scrapbook section of the craft store), a stencil, or just use a marker.

Step Three:
Adhere your letters to the pennants. I used scrapbooking adhesive (a tape runner) for this step, but you could use a glue stick or whatever you have handy.

Step Four:
This step is skippable, but I'm addicted to my corner rounding punch, so I used that on the corners of each pennant. Here you can see that I used it on the "C" but hadn't yet used it on the "O". I think it just gives my simple banner a nice finishing touch. Very skippable though if you don't have this punch.

Step Five:
Punch two holes in the top of each of your triangles and thread your banner! Use ribbon, twine, yarn--whatever looks best!

Step Six:
Hang your banner and admire your creation!

Tap Dance Headpieces

Why is it that all projects in my life seem to happen at the same time? Springtime is SO busy around here! I recently finished up thirteen headpieces for one of my daughter's dance classes.

This year her studio's spring performance is Peter Pan and it is fantastic! Seriously--laugh-out-loud funny in parts. Captain Hook sings (really sings) about being "bad" while channeling Michael Jackson. Hilarious stuff. They intersperse the "real" dancers and singers who have been studying for 10-15 years with the little ones who are just beginning and it becomes a great show to watch rather than an agonizing thing to suffer through.
Her tap class is dancing as clocks (to torment Captain Hook...their feet will make the tick-tock noise that he hates) so I was given the task of making clock headpieces...with zero budget...but I was given two feather boas and asked to make them work for all THIRTEEN girls. Yikes! Anything else was up to me (and up to my wallet). Double yikes! Here is what I came up with...I'm not super thrilled, but it looks decent from a distance and it stays on their heads (a comb is attached to the back of each one). They'll be wearing them at an angle on the sides of their heads, not perched right on top.

They're not as cute as the pumpkin headpieces I made two years ago, but my daughter is happy that we're continuing the tradition of me making part of her costuming. This is the fourth year I've made one of her headpieces, so I'm happy to keep the tradition alive for her.


And, by the way, they will not be wearing the bowlers. Can you imagine this feather creation on top of that hat? That wouldn't be pretty! We couldn't figure out how to make the bowlers work with ballet buns.

Hot glue and feathers everywhere...this accounts for some of my absence!

Free Spring Crafts eBook

Allie from No Time for Flashcards recently invited me to have one of my crafts published in a great eBook full of spring crafts. Needless to say, I enthusiastically accepted her invitation! There are 25 crafts submitted by 15 bloggers in this great free ebook! Download your copy and get crafting!

Click here to download your free copy!

Easter Decorations

Despite a crazy weekend, I was able to get more of my Easter and spring decorating done--I showed you the mantel last week. Now if I could only get my house picked up too! This little vignette was inspired by the mossy vignette I saw over at Thrifty Decor Chick. I made my nest by putting paper lunch sacks through my shredder, my eggs are from JoAnn Fabrics, the mossy "rocks" are from Dollar Tree, and the sheet moss is left over from my bunny topiaries (more on those in a bit). Love this vignette and it looks great in my family room!
This colorful bucket of daffodils was constructed by my children two years ago and I love getting it out each year--it is such a fun pop of spring in the family room! I picked up the bunny at Goodwill last spring and spraypainted it white and he likes to sit right under the daffodils.
This is the art display in the playroom (click here for info on the vinyl and here for info on the display rack)--I finally took down the cute snowmen that my children made. Even though it is only 40 degrees outside, I'm determined to make it feel like spring inside the house!
I started off by making my bunny topiaries using bunnies from Pier One--they are mossy bunnies on a stick that cost about $2.99. Super cute and I've seen lots of versions of topiaries and crafty things done with them. I went for a simple topiary. Floral foam in a small clay pot topped with some sheet moss (cut to size) and then I jabbed my bunny stick (that I cut down just a bit) into the middle of the pot. I tied on a cute little pink bow and that was it! I love them!
In between the bunny topiaries I have one of my grandma's milk glass dishes filled with faux eggs. I have a number of milk glass dishes and containers, but my favorites are the ones that belonged to my grandma. In fact, now that I have a few (not many, but a few!) of her containers, I'm very close to getting rid of the pieces I picked up at thrift stores. The sentimentality of the family pieces means so much to me!
My living room is attached to the playroom (because the playroom really is supposed to be a dining room) so this next room flows right from the room with the piano. The table pictured above is right next to my couch. The subway printable came straight out of my inkjet printer and is from the girls over at eighteen25. I love their seasonal printables!
On the coffee table I have the same tray arrangement I did last year, including the glass pedestal I made out of a glass plate and candlestick. I get a lot of use out of that!
I also have these bunny themed Golden Books out on the coffee table for my little bunnies to read. They love it when I pull together seasonal book arrangements for them. I'm going to be sad when they outgrow this!
Here is most of the living room all decorated for spring. The messy playroom is off to the right...I shoved the excess mess out of the picture just for the picture. Isn't the little air hockey table under the window a nice touch? One of these days I want to build a console table for behind the couch, thus my barn stars are a bit high on the wall to leave space for the decor I'm planning to put on the table that doesn't exist yet. I like to plan ahead.

Ahh, spring is in the air!

DIY Topiary

Look at this beauty I picked up for $4.99 at Goodwill awhile back! So springy and fresh--perfect for Easter!
Ha, ha! Really I just liked the container--it reminds me of tin ceiling tiles.

I quickly pulled off all the gnarly (never thought I'd use that word in a blog post!) faux flowers and revealed this anemic looking ball underneath. So much for using that for my sleek new topiary. It isn't exactly in scale with the base.

So I wrestled it off--and a few of the extra twig things came off too. At this point I shoved the whole thing in a corner and left it...for over a year. I picked it all up again this weekend and it came together really quickly--and cleared some stuff out of my craft area (which was my goal).

So, after my year+ long break, I took this styrofoam ball that I had in my craft supplies and jammed it onto the pointy stick that I had coming up out of my container. It went on pretty easily. I bought the faux boxwood garland a few weeks ago at Michaels Craft Store using a 40% off coupon and it cut apart very easily using regular scissors.

I dipped each cut end of boxwood into some tacky glue before sticking it into the styrofoam because I didn't want my topiary falling apart and becoming a craft fail after all this time. This was working pretty well for me, except I didn't like the glimpses of white you could see through the boxwood.

A quick an easy cure for the white styrofoam--paint it apple green! I got out my craft paint and one of my daughter's paint brushes and slapped a bunch of paint on my styrofoam ball. And by a bunch of paint I mean a bunch of paint. It went on easily but it sure did take a lot of paint. I probably should have used a green foam ball to begin with, but white was what I had.

I (mostly) let the paint dry and then kept on sticking the boxwood sprigs into my ball. It went pretty smoothly and dipping the sprigs in the tacky glue really made for a firm set for the sprigs. When I was done I checked my supplies to see what I could cover the base of my topiary with and I came up with some moss that I hot glued into place. I added a little bow and I was done!

I love it--and totally wish I hadn't taken a YEAR off midway through the project.
Right now I have it on my fireplace mantle, but I'm not sure where it will end up. I have some other plans for some Easter decor for my mantle, but for now this new topiary will do. Behind it you can see the wall decor I made with scrapbooking paper last spring.

And, since I'm not the first (or the last!) to fall in love with topiaries, here are some more ideas for you:

Miss Mustard Seed (a fluffy version of a boxwood topiary)
Tales and Trials (apparently we even like the same black and white ribbon!)
Scissors and Spatulas (find some premade boxwood balls and go from there!)


Linking to:

• Tutorials and Tips Tuesday at A2Z
• Whatever Goes Wednesday at Someday Crafts
• Hookin' Up with HoH
• Look What I Found Friday at Vintage Revivals
• Weekend Wrapup Party at Tatertots and Jello
• Best DIY Projects of March at Beneath My Heart

St. Patrick's Day Teacher Gifts

Yesterday afternoon my little girl and I took some time and made a few small St. Patrick's Day gifts for her teacher and other key people at her school. I found a great tutorial for this project at Inspiring Creations and was able to find most of the supplies (except for the candy and little pots) in my stash of supplies here at home.
I mostly followed the instructions listed on the original blog, except I used a lollipop stick to hold up the shamrock (because I have lots of them!) and I didn't bother to glue the floral foam into the little clay pots, I just wedged it in there. The shamrocks are hot-glued onto the lollipop sticks and my daughter wrote little messages on a second green shamrock that I hot-glued onto the back of the stick.
Then we packaged everything up with a cellophane bag and tied with a gold ribbon and a cute tag (that I embellished with rub-on letters from my scrapbooking stash) and her little gifts are ready for St. Patrick's Day!

Stained Glass Cross Craft Tutorial

Last week I was looking for a fun craft for both my children and decided to have them make stained glass crosses. We had all the supplies on hand--tissue paper (that I cut into squares), clear contact paper, and black paper (that I cut into two cross outlines per child).
I taped down a section of contact paper (sticky side up!) for each child and put down a cross outline. Each child also received an individual bowl of tissue paper squares. Taping down the contact paper helped keep their projects from moving.
My preschooler went for the random approach for his stained glass cross.
My second grader aimed to cover every exposed area of her cross.
When your child is done with their masterpiece, put the second cross outline on top of the first (to hide the spots where the tissue paper overlapped the first outline). Then put a second sheet of contact paper down--with the sticky side on top of the artwork to seal everything inside. The final step is to trim around the project.

Beautiful!

Visit Lenten Ideas for Kids at Catholic Icing, Someday Crafts, and Weekend Wrap at Tatertots and Jello!

Teacher Appreciation Door Decorating

Yesterday I talked about the gifts my daughter gave her teachers. Today I want to talk about door decorating. I've seen the idea of decorating classroom doors for teacher appreciation day online, but never in person--still, I was excited to bring this idea to my daughter's school this year. She attends a preschool-grade 8 school, so it was a bit of a challenge to make it work for all the grade levels, but I think we did it. The teachers LOVED it and were totally surprised by the doors.

The door pictured above is the door I decorated for my daughter's classroom. She is in a first/second grade classroom. I sent home flower petals with each child with a sentence starter on each petal for the student to complete. (My teacher is fun because... I like it when my teacher... ) Then the stem of the flower is made up of pictures of the children. The watering can says XXX showers her students with... and the droplets say patience, kindness, love, respect, and wisdom! Then I added a few cute little bugs to the picture (caterpillar, ladybug, dragonfly, butterfly, and a bee) and labeled them with the names of the specialists, the principal, the priest, and the office manager. It was a big hit and I had a lot of fun making it!
This is the preschool door--with the teachers names covered for privacy. The "A+" is on there because we also were celebrating Catholic Schools Week and the theme was "A+ for Catholic Schools". I forgot to take a picture of the kindergarten door, but it was covered with shiny stars and pictures of the children. Really bright and colorful!
This was the 3/4th grade door (with a lot of sunlight shining in on it from the stairwell!). I had to erase the initials of the school and the name of the teacher. What I really love about this door is that the room mother had the students AND the parents get involved. Each of those handprints has writing on it with things the individual (some students and some parents) appreciates about the teacher. I love this idea!
Whoops! This mom forgot to measure the door, so we had to do some cutting and rearranging when we went to hang the door decoration after school. Luckily it all worked out! She had each child do anagrams at home of a word they would use to describe the teacher and she included those words in the definition that is printed at the top of the yellow part of the paper. Perfect for a 5th/6th grade classroom.

I didn't take a picture of the 7th/8th grade door, but it was a simple poster and the room mother gave me a gift bag with some cards for the teacher to be put on the door knob. It is hard to get those almost-high schoolers to want to be crafty!

Here are some other resources for teacher appreciation door decorating that you may find useful:

• Skip to My Lou
• Mommy Blessings
• Sweet Craft Cakes

I'm linking up to Jen's Weekend WrapUp Party at Tatertots and Jello, Show Us Your Best at No Time For Flashcards, and Show and Share Day at Just a Girl! By the way, I'm still trying (desperately!) to win one of those handy-dandy Silhouette machines! The Domestic Diva has one she is giving away!