Category: Craftiness

General craft ideas, including sewing projects, kid-friendly ideas and VBS inspiration.

Kid-Friendly Valentine Banner

Posted on January 29, 2015January 30, 2015 by Mama

Last year my son (three years old at the time) and I spent part of a cold snow day creating a cute little Valentine project for aunts and grandmothers (of course I kept one for myself). Although they all might have been a bit biased, these cute little banners were a hit; so today I thought I would re-share our kid-friendly craft with all of you. I came up with this quick banner idea by combining a couple of Pinterest projects with some of my son’s favorite things — paint and glue.

To create your own Valentine banner you will need:

brown paper lunch bags
empty toilet paper/paper towel roll
red washable paint
scissors
glue
string

To begin the project, cut a paper bag right above the bottom fold. Then cute along the two outside edges to give you two rectangular banner pieces. If you want, you can cut a triangle out of each of those pieces or just leave them square on the bottom. Cut as many bags as you desire for your project. If your child is old enough to handle the scissors, great but make sure an adult supervises this task (I let my three year old, cut on some scrap pieces, but he wasn’t up for the first part of this project).

Next, shape the empty toilet paper roll into a heart. I started by creasing the top inward, being carefully not to make creases in the rounded parts of the heart, and then I creased the bottom point of the heart. After you have the shape to your liking, pour some washable paint on a paper plate. Have your child grasp the TP heart roll around the middle to hold its shape, dip an end into the paint and stamp it onto each banner piece. Your child can redip as necessary.

After the paint dries, flip over each banner piece and run a bead of glue along the top of each one. My son loved doing this and it really didn’t matter that he got a little sloppy (you might want to cover your work space before this step). Meanwhile, I cut string long enough to span each banner with a small gap between and extra for tying off at the ends. After the glue was in place, I came along and pushed the string into each bead of glue. We let it dry over night and by the next day we had a truly heart-warming Valentine banner to hang about the house.

If watching your youngest glue paper bags to his fingers, the table and the cat is not your idea of a good time, you might try one of these alternative methods. 1) Punch a hole at the top of each side of your banner pieces and run the string through the holes to create your finished banner. 2) Fold the top of each banner piece over the piece of string and staple the flap in place to create your finished banner. Which ever finishing touch your choose, pick one that works best with your child’s taste and strengths (and your mama mess index).

The Easiest Way to Get Flaky

Posted on January 12, 2015February 2, 2015 by Mama

January is just one of those months that seems to get the short straw when it comes to celebrations and decorations. We just came off three straight months of holidays while wrapping up the old year with the granddaddy of all decorative occasions — Christmas. So if you’re feeling the winter blues and your home needs a quick splash of fun, try making these cute coffee filter snowflakes to decorate your home. Literally, this must be the easiest and quickest way to make flakes, but be warned: it can be a tad bit addictive.

All you need to cut out these cuties, are some regular coffee filters (not the cone variety) and scissors. Flatten a filter and then fold it in half four times, so that you have a wedge shape with the point being at the center of the filter. Now just start cutting. It’s so much fun to experiment with different cuts and shapes to create truly original works of art, but the best part is unfolding your flake. If you want to get rid of the fold lines, heat up your iron and give it a once over. Have fun!

Thankful Thoughts in the Turkey Journal

Posted on November 26, 2014November 17, 2018 by Mama

Last year I created this fun little turkey journal in which all our family members could write words of thanks on Thanksgiving day. I was pleased to see how many folks actually put their thoughts to pen and I had a great time rereading all the entries this evening as I applied the “2014” tab.

To create the journal, I simply covered a cheap composition book with coordinating papers and decorated the cover using a cute Simple Stories 4×6 card, stamps from where I can’t remember, paper dies and a bit of bling. I created the tab by cutting a 1.25 x 2″ piece of cardstock, folding it in half, stamping the year and gluing it to two pieces of paper (just to add a bit of sturdiness). Of course I inked all my edges to give everything some depth.

I just added my 2014 tab this evening using a coordinating piece of paper and can’t wait to see what everyone is thankful for this year. I think I might also add a few fun pictures in a couple of bare spots. Hopefully by the time this thing is full, there will be no way it will ever come close to lying flat.

Click on image to enlarge.

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