Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Bottle Cap Art (Fish and Flower Scene)

Bottle caps are the material of the month over at our friends Craftprojectideas.com. Since I've been saving up our milk lids I decided it was perfect timing to get crafting with them.
 
 
This fish scene was so simple and fun to create. To make the fish you need a milk cap and a triangle shape cut from cardstock paper.
 

Glue the triangle down on a blue sheet of paper and then glue the milk cap down overlapping the triangle to make the fish shape. To glue on the milk cap, we used a generous amount of school glue along the entire rim of the cap. Next glue on a small wiggly eye.


To make the scales on our fish, we used this fun Rainbow Glitter Glue from Craftprojectideas.com. They come in little tubes that are easily handled by little hands and the glitter dries raised. I LOVE using glitter glue because it gives the same effect as traditional glitter, but without all the mess.


We made scales on the bottle cap and also lines to define the tail fin. The variety of colors made this extra fun for the kids.

 
I forgot to get a picture, but at this point we also used a marker to draw a mouth on our fish. It probably would have been easier for the kids to draw the mouth on before using the glitter glue (just a heads up) that way they don't accidentally smear glitter glue on their fingers or all over their fish.
 
To make the bubbles we used a left over paper straw I had from a party. We dipped the end of the straw in white paint and then pressed it onto our paper. The key to getting this to work properly is to make sure the white paint doesn't bubble over the hole at the end of the straw. Every time we dipped the straw in the paint we had to turn it up and blow into the straw to pop the bubble if there was one. If you don't blow the bubble out, you will just get a solid circle. (You can see what I mean with the solid circle bubble in the picture below)
 

Now you can stop right here and enjoy your fishy scene, but if you are the kind of person who just doesn't know how to stop (Not that I have any experience with that or anything LOL!), you can crunch up little strips of green tissue paper and glue them to the bottom of your paper to make water plants. Doesn't this little fish look so happy to be swimming in the plants?!!  :)

 

Here is another scene I whipped up with more of our caps.
 

I used the milk caps for the flower petals and a large yellow pom-pom for the center of the flower. The sun is made out of a Pringles lid. I cut a yellow circle that would fit inside the lid and glued it inside of it. The sun rays are strips of yellow paper and the flower stem, leaves and grass are cut out of green paper. I cut and frayed the strips of green paper for the grass before gluing them down. The glitter glue gave it some much needed pizazz.

 
Have you created art with bottle caps? I would love to hear your ideas! 
 
rachel


*We received our Rainbow Glitter Glue and small wiggly eyes free from Craftprojectideas.com, but all opinions expressed are my own!

Saturday, May 11, 2013

Antique Drawer turned Craft Supply Organizer

 
I've been working on organizing my craft closet the last couple weeks. It is a very narrow closet intended to be a linen closet and it's pretty much the only extra storage space in my home. (I'm dreaming of a designated craft room in my unfinished basement someday!) With such a limited amount of space I have had to get creative with how to store some of my supplies.
 
I picked up this antique drawer almost a year ago at an Antique Store and it had been sitting in my basement collecting dust waiting for me to find some use for it. One day while drinking a Starbucks Frappuccino it hit me with how to use it.  :) 
 

The drawer was originally painted fire engine red so I decided to repaint it in a lighter blue color. That was the easy part. The hard part was waiting patiently for my husband to finish drinking all of the Frappuccino's over the next couple weeks. Hahaha! Luckily, they were on sale at Costco so that saved me some money.

My husband helped me remove all the labels off of the jars with a blow drier and then I removed the excess sticky residue with acetone and gave them a good wash in the dishwasher. I wanted all of my lids to match so I ended up spray painting them off-white. After filling them with supplies (mostly beads, buttons, sequins, etc.), I cut out a scallop-shaped label for the top of the lids.

 
I also had plenty of room to line up my large paint bottles which makes grabbing them so convenient.
 
 
You used to open up this closet and fear that a mountain would fall down on top of you, so you can imagine how refreshing it feels to finally have some sort of organization in there.
 
 
Thanks for stopping by!
 
rachel

Saturday, May 4, 2013

Sunflower Craft

 
I have felt a need for lots of extra cheery sunshine in my life the last couple days. Something about the color yellow always helps bring a spark of joy to my heart so we decided to make a bright sunflower craft today.
 
So simple and fun to make and they are sure to bring a big smile to your face! Follow the pictures below for instructions.
 

(I made a template of the petal with a scrap piece of cardboard and traced it all over the paper. We ended up using the entire sheet of cardstock for just one sunflower.)
 

 

(*I love these Opaque Pony Beads from Craftprojectideas.com. They are so versatile for crafting and they come in a pack of 1500 so they last forever. You can find them at your local Wal-Mart.)
 

The ends of the petals started to curl up while drying and I liked the effect so we tried to make all of them curl up a bit. 

 
As part of our flower week we used the little Grow Kits from the Target dollar section to plant some sunflowers and daisies. Since the weather is so unpredictable in Utah (it seriously hailed the other day out of the blue), I liked the idea of starting them inside for the kids to watch them grow more closely.


We have also read a couple fun books from the library that are flower related.
 
The Flower Ball by Sigrid Laube and Silke Leffler
I love the message of acceptance this book gives to children. Cauliflower and Carrot decide to go to the Flower Ball, and the other vegetables feel scandalized—since vegetables and flowers don't look and smell alike, they think they should stick to their own kinds. At the ball, the flowers are snooty over the strange vegetables attending their party, but Cauliflower and Carrot are self-confident and don't hesitate to dance a Snap-Bean Rumba, a Cucumber Tango, and a Chili-Pepper Cha-Cha-Cha. The two of them make a beautiful sight, and despite themselves, the flowers applaud. Soon the flowers open up their buds, and a vegetable–flower friendship grows.
 
Huck Runs Amuck! by Sean Taylor, illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds
Huck LOVES flowers and he will do whatever it takes to get a mouthful of them. He can't resist them, even if it means he will have to climb the highest, steepest mountain, walk a tight rope, and be faster than a speedy train. While in the midst of a climbing the church spire to get a hat full of flowers, his efforts are mistaken as heroic and he has to make a decision to follow his conscious or eat the scrumptious flowers. This is a really fun read aloud story!
 
This is the Sunflower by Lola M. Schaefer, illustrated by Donald Crews
This book shows the life cycle of a sunflower and how a whole patch of sunflowers can come from the seeds of just one sunflower plant.
 
You can read more about the Sunflower Patch Craft we made a
couple summers ago to go along with "This is the Sunflower" HERE.
rachel


(*I received my Opaque Pony Beads free from Craftprojectideas.com, but all opinions are my own)

Thursday, May 2, 2013

"-ck" Word Family Practice


I have a simple word family practice activity to share with you today. We are going to be learning about flowers and reading flower related books this coming week so I made this simple flower worksheet with "-ack", "-ick" and "-ock" written on the inside of the flowers.
 
You can download the worksheet HERE.
 

After printing out the worksheet on cardstock paper, I laminated it with contact paper. Then I had Luke use a dry erase marker to write words on all of the flower petals that corresponded with the ending that was inside the flower. I challenged and encouraged him to try to come up with at least one word per flower that used 2 consonant letters before the ending.


I love watching his brain think and hearing him run through all the letters in the alphabet trying to make words. We have also been working on our sh, th and ch sounds lately so I loved that when he was thinking about the 2 consonant words, he automatically thought of those sounds.

 
The best part about this worksheet is that after it's completed, you simply wipe the dry erase marker off with a paper towel and can keep reusing it.
rachel
Looking for more word family and sight word activities?
 
Silent "e" Reading Game
 
 

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Mingle With Us Blog Hop

 
It's Time to Mingle!
 Mingle With Us Thursday Blog Hop
 
This week's guest host is Welcome to Our Wonderland
 
There are no rules to this blog hop.  Just link up your blog's main page.  Then have fun reading new blogs and making new blog friends.  We would love for you to follow the hostesses in the first four spots and our guest host in the fifth spot. 
Co-host Mingle With Us Blog Hop
We are always looking for co-hosts to join the party each week and post the party on their blog. 
 
Sign up HERE if you are interested in Co-Hosting!
 
Grab our button and help us promote our blog hop by sharing it on your blogs, facebook, and twitter.  
 
There will be a new list every Thursday, so be sure to come back every week.
Mingle With Us Thursday Blog Hop
We hope you have fun and thanks for joining us!  We are so excited to find new blogs, share great ideas, and inspire each other!
rachel

Sunday, April 28, 2013

Purple & Green Bridal Shower

 
My Sister and I have been busy planning and preparing for my soon to be Sister-in-Law's Bridal Shower this past weekend. I actually already consider Britney my sister-in-law because she's been a part of our family for quite some time, but it's fun that now it's going to be "official". Her favorite colors are purple, green and blue so I decided to go with a purple and green theme.
 
Since my brother and Britney have been together for awhile and have started a family together, they weren't really in need of any house warming gifts, so we opted to offer a money tree for guests to contribute to. I tried to keep things very cost effective, but my big splurge was the green vase I purchased for the money tree. I saw it at Hobby Lobby and every other vase failed in comparison to it, so I got it. Luckily, it happened to be 50% off (score!) so it wasn't as much of a splurge as normal. I left purple ribbons and mini clothespins for guests to attach their money to the tree.
 
 
One of my cousins turned her money into origami before putting it on the tree...So cute! A shirt, star and an elephant.
 
 
For party favors, I had this big jar of personalized chocolates. I saw the idea at Pizzazzerie and squealed with excitement over how cute they were. I couldn't resist copying the idea with the purple and green theme.
 

To make the labels to cover the chocolates I downloaded and used moroccan tile papers from Mel Stampz and also a free custom shape download from Starsunflower Studio. After cutting all the labels out I stayed up late one night and used a glue stick to attach the labels to the chocolates. Totally worth the late night! They were a big hit at the shower!

 
I also made funfetti cupcakes with purple and green sprinkles (of course!) for our dessert. There's something about taking a bite into a cupcake and seeing all the cool colors that just makes me smile! I used the recipe found at Culinary Couture for both the cupcakes and frosting.
 

For the cupcake toppers I used a scallop cutter to cut out shapes from an opal shimmery sheet of cardstock paper. You can't even see the shimmery in the paper in these pictures though. Then I used some small letter stamps to stamp "I DO" on them. Lastly, I hot glued little purple bows that I made to the top and attached them to a toothpick to insert into the cupcakes. They were simple, yet elegant looking.

 
We used lots of large pom-poms in our decorating. These are so simple to make and are my new FAVORITE thing. You can find easy instructions on how to make them at Our Daily Obsessions.
 

We also had a banner hanging above the money tree table that said "BRIDE TO BE" that I made. I didn't get great pictures of it, but it was super cute. I used a scallop shape for each letter to go along with the cupcake toppers, layered them with coordinating polka-dot paper and hot glued ribbon around each letter. I punched holes in the sides of each scallop shape and connected them with green tulle.

 
One of my favorites that we decorated with was our mason jar decorations. I originally saw this idea on i love this and then loved how One Artsy Mama swapped out the book page for sheet music. I decided to add pictures of the bride and groom inside the jars to show through the hearts. I also used battery operated tea lights instead of candles. For the sheet music, I used scrapbook paper found at Michael's that had an antique finish to it. (It made it soooo easy!)
 

This one was my favorite of the couple kissing inside the heart. Awwwww! So precious, right?!!  :)
 
 
I sure love these girls...
 
(Bride-to-Be, Sister and me)

Especially when we get silly...
 
 
Sisters are the best aren't they?!!
 
 
rachel
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