St. Valentine's Day Crafts + Free Printable Cards

Hi! Long time no see. Thanks for sticking with me through this long absence.

In case you haven't heard, our family moved from the Midwest to the Southeast two days after Christmas and it's been very difficult to get back on any kind of schedule. I'm v.e.r.y. slowly unpacking boxes and getting things put away. The clutter drives me crazy but it's not enough motivation to really get it done. I think I got burned out from the stress of Christmas, trying to squeeze in as much time with family and friends before moving, two birthdays, packing, and the actual move that I have no real desire to unpack. I'll get there though. Soon, I hope :)

Valentine's Day will be here in a few days and if you haven't already decorated, here are a few quick and easy ideas we used last year.

I made the XO banner by printing out the X's and O's in a large, simple font right onto pink and red paper and then cutting them out. I used a hole punch and wove red bakers twine and then taped them to the window.

For the hanging hearts, I cut 1" x 11" strips from the same pink and red sheets of paper and then folded them in half. I curled the ends around a pencil to form the curled middles. I used a sewing needle and fishing line to string several together and then used glue dots to secure the two ends together into the heart shape.

(The other decorations were purchased at The Dollar Tree.)

The other craft I made is this LOVE painting, using the girls feet as the V. I struggled a bit making the letters free-hand, but all in all I think it turned out nicely.

We also had a St. Valentine's Day themed Muffin Tin Lunch. Everything was either pink or red. They had cherry tomatoes, strawberries, cherry yogurt, red M&M's, watermelon, and raspberries. I even gave them pink spoons!

Finally, I crafted up these free St. Valentine's Day printables. I started with a heart maze from Mr. Printables. (His site is awesome. You should definitely check it out.) I changed it a bit to work for a Valentine card and made the maze just a bit harder since [K] is in second grade after all ;) She'll sign her name to the front and we'll tape a pencil to the back. Easy peasy!

To download, click on the image above.

I hope everything is going well with you all (or should I say y'all now that I'm from the South?) We've taken a ton of awesome vacations lately and I haven't made a "Vacation Slideshow" post in a really long time. Be on the lookout for that soon.

Take care,

J

Wine Cork Christmas Ornaments

Howdy! Today I have another great and easy Christmas project that the kids can help make.

I come from a family where we "waste not, want not" and if we can't recycle something, we try to find another way to reuse it. Wine corks is one of those things where we try to find other uses.

My mom has made a wine cork trivet...

and a wine cork serving tray.

My sister-in-law used some to make wine cork reindeer several years back...

and last year it was our turn to use some to make wine cork Christmas Tree ornaments.

There are very few supplies needed. Wine corks (obviously), thin ribbon (we used yellow to match the "star"), green, yellow, and brown acrylic paint, paper plates, hot glue gun, and a serrated knife.

The first step is to enlist two very eager helpers to dip the two ends of the corks in green paint. I poured a small amount of paint in paper plates and let them have at it. Also, if you're having kids do paint projects like this, I highly recommend using an old shower curtain on the floor.

I used two shades of green just to mix things up a bit. At first I thought I would use the two colors per tree but I ended up not liking how that looked and kept each tree one color. (E looks so young here even though it was only last year and K's hair has grown a TON since then!)

After the girls dipped each cork in the green, brown or yellow paint, I decided that whole corks would be too big for an ornament so I used a serrated knife to cut them in half. Unfortunately that meant that I had to re-dip the cut sides but it goes really fast so I wasn't too worried about it.

To assemble the ornaments I used hot glue and started from the bottom. Before gluing the top star on I wrapped a short piece of ribbon around it and then hot glued it to the top before tying it in a knot.
Before giving these to the grandparents and teachers, I wrote the year on the star in permanent marker and the girls' names on the back.

If I have time this year I want to make these tabletop versions. I have enough corks left to make one large and two little ones.

Maybe someday we'll have enough to make this:

That's a lot of wine!

Take it easy
~J

DIY Snowman Kit

Hi! Are you about ready for Christmas? I'm getting there. We're in the process of moving across country as well (moving + Christmas + two birthdays = not my best idea) but I'm still trying to keep as many traditions going as possible.

Each year I try and make a little something for our friends children. Two years ago I made the Indoor Snowball Fight. Last year for Christmas I made Do It Yourself Snowman Kits.

These are fun and inexpensive and you may have many of the supplies already. Ready to see how to make them? Let's go!

Here are the supplies I used: artificial carrot, black river rocks, large buttons, chop sticks, fabric scissors, golf tees, E6000 glue, a black top hat (from the Target dollar section but I've also seen some similar to this at Hobby Lobby), a wire hanger (not picture), and a fleece blanket.

The first step is making the carrot nose. As you can see in the photo above the carrots I used had some fake greenery in the top. I pulled that out and then used the E6000 to glue in a chopstick. The chopsticks work great but are too long so first I scored a grove around the whole thing using strong kitchen shears and then it was much easier to break it along the score line and glue it in.

Next I glued the golf tees to the black river rocks and the backs of the large buttons. I bought the river rocks from the Dollar Tree and I tried using ones that had a flat side for the tee to stick. I used larger rocks for the eyes and five smaller rocks for the smile.

Lastly, I used wire cutters to cut off the two bent ends of a wire hanger (where the red marks are on the photo below.) Then I squeezed them together so they made two very skinny U's. I pushed these through the two long sides of the hat from the outside top of the brim, right near the ribbon. (Sorry! I forgot to take a photo of this part.) This way, when the kids put the hat on their snowman they can use the hangers to dig into the snow so it won't blow away so easily.

To finish the kit I cut the blanket into 6 inch strips for the scarf and then wrapped it in a gold ribbon with a note attached.

We had so much snow last year but it was so cold that it was terrible for packing. This chubby little snowman was actually made by piling snow up on top of a large planter. He was very jolly.

And here is one of the happy recipients of our gift. I love his snowman. The curve of the eyes and the missing carrot nose make him look a bit mischievous :)

Hopefully I'll get the time to post about the gifts I made this year. I've been able to mail them all out except one because I still have to wrap the other gifts that go along with it for the rest of the family.

I hope your holiday preparations are going smoothly and you're keeping those traditions alive!
~J

Cardboard Carton Birdhouses

Wow, I can't believe it's been so long since I've written a blog post. I've thought about it most nights but then I end up either falling asleep or watching something on TV instead. Actually, I rarely turn on my computer most nights. I can check my email and Facebook on my phone so that's all I really use nowadays.

However, that doesn't mean we've stopped doing crafts and projects. I have many to share so I'm going to try and be better about getting on here and sharing them with you.

This first one is a craft we made for Earth Day. I based ours off of an article I found in Kiwi Magazine.

We used recycled and found items to make these carton birdhouses. I love how they turned out!

The first step is to remove the spout using an Exacto Knife. This step should definitely be done by an adult!

I saved the caps to use as stamps for when we decorated them. I also used some additional recycled cardboard cut to size for the roof. It's probably best that an adult do that as well unless you have older children.

Here comes the fun part for the kiddos - Painting! You can decorate your birdhouse anyway you want. [E] used a little of every color we had while [A] painted his to look like the beach. [K] was busy painting the wooden heart you can see on the ground behind [E]'s birdhouse.

Once that had dried overnight we tried using the caps as stamps but they didn't work as well as I had envisioned. Oh well. Live and learn.

[A] did a coat of white before painting his and as you can see that covered the words on the carton way better than little [E]'s. The next step is to make a hole for the birds. I traced a K Cup but you can use any similarly sized circular item.

To add the finishing touches I hot glued the roofs to the birdhouses. (That's best done by an adult as well.) I used binder clips on the top to help hold it in place while the glue dried. It also really helped to pre-score the cardboard around the bends of the carton to make neater folds. I also glued rick rack around the opening and sliced a small slit for a craft stick perch. Lastly, poke a small hole on the top through all of the layers to thread bakers twine or other string for hanging.

Have your kids (or yourself; it's a fun craft for adults too.) spread peanut butter on both sides of the roof.

Then sprinkle bird seed all over the peanut butter. This is fairly messy so it's best done outside or over a cake pan to catch the ones that don't stick. Press the seed down lightly so it sticks.

Great job, Girls!

Find a suitable tree and hang your works of art for all the fine feathered friends in your neighborhood.

I love making crafts from recycled goods. If you've made any others that you really enjoyed, please share them with me in the comments.

St. Patrick's Day Paper Clover Tutorial

Hello! Are you enjoying some glorious spring weather where you live? I know I am! And with that comes one of my favorite holidays, St. Patrick's Day. I love dressing up in crazy green clothes, I love going to the parades, I love clover. How can you not love a plant that's made up of hearts?!?

I found a wonderful tutorial online for making paper clovers and just made a few tweaks to it.

The materials needed are four strips of 9" green paper and five strips of 11" paper (or 10" and 12" if you're using scrapbook paper), bakers twine or clear nylon thread, glue or glue dots (I recommend the glue dots), and scissors.

Fold all of the strips in half except for one of the long ones. To give the stem a more 3-D effect [A] suggested folding it with the flat bottom instead of just in half.

Put two glue dots on the outside top of a longer strip and curve the ends in to make a heart (see below.)

Do this for all four of the long strips.

With the shorter strips, put two glue dots on the outside top just like the longer strips but then stick that end to the inside of the bigger heart.

Place two more glue dots on the other end and curve that around and stick it to the other side of the big heart.

Repeat that for the other three hearts. Congratulations! You now have the semblance of a four-leaf clover.

In order to hang this you'll need to add your string before gluing all of the big hearts together. Take two glue dots and place them on the outside edge of one large heart. Stick your nylon thread or bakers twine to it and then press your other top heart on it.

You can see the nylon thread stuck between my top two hearts here. If you're only hanging one, you don't need to leave as long of a tail as I did. I strung three together on one piece of thread so I needed to keep mine longer for the last clover.

Next, attach one bottom heart to one top heart using two glue dots.

On the free side of the bottom heart attach two glue dots and press on your stem.

This picture looks a bit confusing because I'm pulling the stem away so you can
see where I placed the glue dots. However, the stem should actually be stuck to
that big heart via those glue dots.

 On the last heart place glue dots on both sides and press it in place.

Ta da! You have a beautiful three dimensional paper clover to display.

This next step is optional but I think it looks a lot nicer. Perhaps if I used a stiffer paper it wouldn't be necessary.

Place one glue dot on the side of each of the smaller hearts and press it into the corner of the larger heart. This keeps the bottom edges of the hearts together and gives more structure to your clover.

On mine you can see that I stuck all but the bottom left small heart to to the bigger ones and it just makes the whole thing look a little cleaner.

And here they are hanging in our holiday display window with Lucky the Leprechaun.

I've really been enjoying making paper holiday displays. They're quick, easy, (cheap!), and I can either keep them until next year or recycle them when the holiday is over.

So, whether you're actually Irish or just Irish on St. Patrick's Day, here is my blessing to you:

There are good ships,

And there are wood ships,

The ships that sail the sea.

But the best ships, are friendships,

And may they always be.