A simple craft for little hands.

The other day, mini came inside with a bunch of dandelions and asked me to make her a "hat".  Well, I totally took her hat, and raised her one full blown princess crown.  And by her reaction, I totally KILLED that request - you'd think I'd magically called some gold and jewels out of thin air or something - and I was pleasantly surprised at how a 5 minute "project" for me could result in something so fun, endlessly entertaining and cherished (we still can't throw it away) for her.

Once bug saw mini's awesome crown, he had to have one, too.  Hence our "nature crowns" were born.

I realized the potential to make this something super meaningful, though at the time it was just a simple, thrown together, very quick craft for us to do together.  I let both mini and bug "design" their crowns, collect the "ingredients" themselves, and help me pull it together.

 They couldn't stop collecting things, even after their nature crowns were complete!

The tutorial here is specifically for the Dandelion Princess Crown, but it's obviously very easily altered.

You need scissors, dandelions (buckets and buckets of dandelions), skinny elastic, ribbon and matching washi tape.

Also, and most importantly so I'm not sure how it managed to elude the list up there, you need a large piece of poster board.

Now, I can't, unfortunately, give you specific dimensions or anything, mostly since I didn't measure, but also because every kids head is going to be a little different.  So take these general instructions and run with them.

1. Start with your poster board laid out flat and begin your cut near one of the bottom corners.

2. Continue cutting up so that you have a half circle that's a little over 3/4 of the width of the poster board.

3. With the flat side facing you, a) bring the corners of the half circle towards the middle and b) then overlap the one corner and continue pulling it until the point of the crown is well-established and the bottom of the hat is fairly flat around.

4. Let go of the outer corner a bit, put on a lot of hot glue and

5. Curl it back up onto the cone and press down hard.

6. Pull the inner corner down away from the inside of the cone and

7. put on a bunch of hot glue, then

8. Push it back up against the cone and hold it for a few seconds.

9. Now your cone, or crown, is glued together.

10. It may be totally uneven or lopsided.  Just trim around the bottom to make it level.

11. Cut some elastic to fit snuggly but not too tight under your kids chin.

12. Dab some hot glue (which is really hard to see) on the inside of the crown at the side and

13. Press one end of your elastic onto it.

14. Then dab some more hot glue directly across from the first and press the other end of the elastic onto it.  Make sure your elastic isn't twisted before you glue.

Now, we decorate!

1. Wrap washi tape from top to bottom at an angle.

2. Continue wrapping pieces of washi tape bottom to top at angles and overlapping until you like the pattern.

3. Take the stem off of the dandelions.

4. Put hot glue on the back of the dandelion head.

5. Press the dandelions heads all around the bottom of the crown!

Now, I don't have pictures of this, but take your ribbon and cut it in three pieces.  Use your hot glue to glue one end of each piece into the inside of the point of the crown.  Hot glue another large dandelion over the point.

And now, you are The Dandelion Princess!  (make THAT into a movie, Disney...)

 I couldn't stop taking pictures of her smelling dandelions.  She was so funny!

When bug wanted in on the action, I charged him with the task of collecting items he might want on a prince crown.  He chose several long pieces of grass, some dandelion STEMS, some rocks, and a few leaves.  And I looked at the assortment and went, uh... (the dandelion one was pretty straight forward...)

 Ignoring the fact that he plucked leaves off of my hostas... It was kind of fun working with bug to come up with the perfect "plan" for his crown.  I made a cone like mini's and glued on the elastic.  Then I wrapped some green and white washi tape around it.
I started by gluing the 3 rocks in the front, like jewels.  Then I figured the leaves could nicely wrap around the bottom of the crown - and I like how the kind of curl together.  I glued some long grass and some dandelion stems into the inside of the point and then wrapped two dandelions stems around the point.  Voila!  A boy version!

He called it his "Crazy hat" - which I think is a compliment.

 And now, you are the Prince of Pebbles and Leaves!  Or something...

 What I think is great about this project, is how customizable it is.

1. Go for a "nature scavenger hunt" with specific items in mind.  Then use those items to create your Nature Crown!
2. Go on a walk around the park or neighborhood and see what items jump out at you.  There might be some really interesting things you never would have thought of that you find along the way!
3. Collect items when you are on a special trip - when you take a break to stretch your legs on a road trip, when you're picnicking somewhere special, when you take a day trip to a special place, when you go camping or bike riding or to the beach!  Use your natural "souvenirs" to make your crown!

Don't forget to stop and pick some dandelions along the way.

*Be sure to check below for all the fun parties I link to!*

I may be getting TOO confident...

Am I getting overconfident?  The herb garden jars were so nice, and I loved the green and turquoise together so much, and it matched where we're going with decor for the main floor so well, that I couldn't help it.  I got sucked in.  Sucked right in... to succulent mania.

As I've mentioned, I have a black thumb.  As is evidenced by the very brown, very dead, large shrubbery outside my front door - I don't even know HOW that happened.  I was pretty sure that kind of EVERGREEN bush thing was called such because it was EVER GREEN.  I didn't think it COULD die.  But I digress...

I just heard so many great things about succulents... about how easy they are to care for.  How easy they are to plant.  How easy they are to manage.  How easy they are to KEEP ALIVE.  It sounded like my kind of plant.

Because, you know, generally speaking things that can't scream at me to feed them don't fare well around here.

So because these guys are professed to add greenery by being very difficult to kill, I decided to try my hand at them.  But I needed something clever and whimsical to sport these cute little plants.

It just so happened that I had some wooden birdhouses in my craft stash where they sat for about 3 years waiting for the kids and I to paint them and hang them in some darling little decor vignette.  Perfect. 

Want to make some succulent birdhouses??  Here's how!

It's a piece of cake.

1. First, tape off all the areas you want to remain raw wood.  (I am loving the touches of raw wood combined with paint in decor lately, though I don't think I could do it in large furniture pieces.)
2. Break out the spray paint and spray, spray, spray.
3. Do multiple thin coats.  Since it's raw wood it'll soak up the paint, so working with a primer/paint in one is a good idea.

4. Hook your saw bit into your drill. 
I used three different methods, since the birdhouses were all different shapes:
5. For the steep peaked roof, I sawed a large hole into both sides of the roof at the top,
6. so the holes met at the peak and created one large hole that dipped down on the sides.
7. The tiny house was so little, sawing into the roof was too much for it.  I ended up taking the whole roof off with the drill, a pliers and a screw driver.  Even though it wasn't my original plan, it was the best choice, since a hole in a house that small wouldn't have allowed any room for a plant.
8. For the pagoda style house I drilled three holes in the roof, then one hole in the inner "ceiling" - it wasn't QUITE as large as I wanted, so I enlarged it with the help of pliers and sand paper, as you'll see in the following photos.

** Once the holes are all drilled, take some medium grit sand paper and sand all drilled/cut/pried edges to make them nice and smooth.  I think this gives a more organic look instead of "manmade."

9. Cut some parchment paper to approximate size of the birdhouse.
10. Round the edges of the parchment paper to make it easier to work with.
11. Stuff the parchment paper inside the birdhouse, with the edges meeting the top of the hole.  It will overlap and layer, that's ok.  Just make sure you're covering the wood inside the house.
12. Staple around the top edge of the parchment paper.  (My pergola shaped one was such a weird shape I had to staple from the outside in.  I'm ok with that.  It's not super obvious.)

** The parchment paper serves two purposes.  First, it covers the little bird hole in the front so that soil doesn't go spilling out all over.  Second, it keeps the water from soaking into the birdhouse, thus rotting the wood in no time flat.  In a few of the DIY succulent planter tutorials I read, this was the method used, so I'm trusting to the experts.
Succulents don't take much water so usually I just wet the soil with a spray bottle.  Works great.

13. Now put in your potting soil.  Fill 'er up.

14. Place your succulents.  You may need to fill in with a bit more soil, or but some rocks around.

 And that's it!  You're done!

 Ah, what whimsical little planters you have there!

That little one in on the side is planted in a tuna fish can I had painted for something else.  I think the succulent I used may be a bit to big for it, and I'm not sure it'll survive since Zoe picked it out of it's little pot and brushed all of the "gross hairs" off of it, then cleaned it thoroughly and proceeded to give it rides in the tricycle and sing to it before I noticed that anything was amiss.  Soooo, it's basically hanging by a thread.

I do hope I don't kill them immediately.  They now live on my piano.  Which, since none of us actually play right now, currently serves as a birdhouse succulent planter holder.

*Be sure to check below for all the fun parties I link to!*

Oh, hello bandwagon. Again.

Everyone's doing it.  

Oh, you know what I'm talking about.  The "summer bucket list".  And it seems the most popular method is popsicle sticks.  It's funny, I saw one or two posts like this last summer, so a few weeks ago I sat the kids down so we could make ours together.  And then suddenly, everyone and their monkey's uncle is posting popsicle stick bucket lists.  Great minds think alike.

If you haven't seen them, and you want to make them you'll need:

popsicle sticks

sharpies

washi tape

containers to hold them

Get your popsicle sticks.

Write down things you want to do or places you want to go with sharpies.  Write on one end of the stick.

Let your "big kid" help because he can write now.  And read.  Weird.

Take a little washi tape and wrap it around the opposite end of the stick.

Place them in your containers. 

So our popsicle sticks are a little different in that they're our daily "to-do's" and not a bucket list, per se.  I didn't want to give us so many activities and things to do that we didn't accomplish any of them, but I wanted to give us some motivation to do more than run through the sprinkler, which is the majority of our summer time outside.  I thought if I had it written down, in a way that was fun for the kids, we'd be more likely to actually DO some things.  So this is low key.  It's not a "things we must do before summer dies" and rather a "good ideas for things we should do sometime."  There are three categories: 

field trips

activities/crafts

extra chores

 Each category has it's own washi tape design - blue chevron for chores, bikes for field trips and funky triangles for crafts and such.  The idea is that if they want to pick out of field trips or crafts, they first have to pick something from chores.  If they do the extra chores without complaining, they earn allowance for each one. The chores are all extra things - things they aren't EXPECTED to do everyday.  They don't get paid for those.  I know, we're so mean.
They also have to pick a chore if they are mean or rude or disrespectful to other family members.  We'll see how that goes.

I used the Ombre Yarn-Wrapped Vases from yesterday for the containers.  Very cheery.

 And put them in plain site on our little kitchen command station thingy that isn't very commanding.  It's more like a kitchen request station.  Or a kitchen soft-spoken station.

Whatever.  We'll put that on the "Things I say I need to do but will likely never get to" list.

You've likely seen a bunch of round-ups of summer activities and things, so I will refrain from adding mine.  But if you want to see what's on our list and get more ideas, go check out my pinterest board: "kid"-ing around (crafts etc.)

*Be sure to check below for all the fun parties I link to!*

Yarn it all interim revival.

Whenever I make something with yarn, I feel like I should save it for the next Yarn It All.  Which makes it seem like I only use yarn once a year and then go completely CRAZY yarning everything... which obviously isn't true since it's one of my favorite crafting materials!
So, here's a fun, summery yarn craft that's super easy to do.

 Is ombre still trendy?  Probably not.  That's SOOO two years ago...
Oh well.  I picked some summery colors and went to town on my vases.  If you want to make some, too, here's what you'll need:
yarn in three colors
vases or jars that you don't mind gluing to (I got mine at the dollar store, but they are actually weighty, not like the cheap glass they normally have)
a hot glue gun

And that's it!
Now, I'm sure there's a way to do this without gluing to the glass, but I was going for super easy and super fast here, and these took like 10 minutes to make.

Basically, wrap your vase with one color.  When you want to switch colors, glue the end of the first color down, then glue the end of the second color on the same side of the case (the back) and about 2-3 inches down into the first color. Wrap it around in between the yarn of the first color, leaving space between each time you wrap.  When you get to the spot where the first color stops, start wrapping normally.  Then glue the end of the second color down and do the same with the third color.  

Tips:
I started at the bottom and worked up.
Using fun, bright colors makes it more summery.  Choose colors accordingly.
Make sure all the ends and glue spots are on the BACK of the vase and cover them as much as possible with wrapped yarn.

So easy.  And much better than a plain old jar sitting on the table.

There's your yarn fix until next yarn it all comes around!

*Be sure to check below for all the fun parties I link to!*

Wishful Thinking.

One of my favorite wreaths that I've made to date is the Farewell to Summer Wreath.  I just can't get over the nod to sunny days and the meticulously crafted roses.

Though I have been trying hard not to complain, this winter has been wretched.  The never-ending winter is hard on the soul and I miss the sun.  Which is likely why I just couldn't get this idea for an updated version out of my head.

Farewell winter - this time, even with all of your frigid beauty and quiet cold mornings, you will NOT be missed.  (The unfortunate and ironic point being that it snowed yesterday, and will likely snow again before winter is TRULY over here.)

You remember the first version?

I made the rosettes in exactly the same manner.  You'll excuse me, then, if I refer to the previous tutorial for the sake of time and non-repititiousness.  The photos are not so awesome, but that's mostly due to being in the dungeon craft room:

First, cut a bunch of tissue paper into strips the long way, about two inches wide or so.

Take your strips, one at a time, and twist them up,

then spread mod podge all along them.

Starting at the end, roll them up while twisting them - rolled rose style, like these.

Basically, you roll the middle, then fold the tail up, turn the rose 1/4, fold the tail up, turn the rose 1/4, fold the tail up again and so on until you run out of strip.  So you are turning and folding, pressing in gently to make it stick, but being careful not to squish the rose because you want it to stay somewhat fluffy.

When you get to the end, just smooth it down, it’ll look seamless with all the podge on there.

Now do this a bazillion more times.

You will probably need to make a few smaller ones, but you will want them to be the same thickness and fluffiness as the big ones, so don’t twist them any tighter or cut them any skinnier.  Just rip a little tissue paper off the ends of some of the strips you’ve already cut - maybe four inches or so - and construct them the same way as the big ones.

Yep, you're going to get mod podge all the heck over everything.  Prepare for that.
I made a few changes this time around - obviously using a normal wreath form instead of a floral foam circle.  I also used two different colors for the roses - or rather, two shades of the same color.  Below are some tips for the new sunny wreath:

I made the bow by simply creating loops of ribbon and hot gluing them around each other.  I then used a piece of skinny ribbon the same color to attach it to the looped ribbon the wreath hangs from.

I have to admit, I love the two-tone better.  The tissue paper rosettes might be a little time consuming to make at first, but after you do a few, they'll start flying by.  It's a great project to do in front of old office episodes or Zoolander.  Or Mean Girls.  Or Pitch Perfect.

Also, I have instructions for another project using these rosettes in my book (on sale on Amazon!).  It's a cute little topiary, you should check it out!

*Be sure to check the right sidebar for all the fun parties I link to!